Or, maybe I’m wrong. I could be wrong.
Stranger things have happened than me being wrong about something.
Except the more I pay close attention, the more certain I am of my guess. Dray and Gregory remain on the periphery of the gathering this morning, handling logistics and keeping the schedule moving along like a couple of alert and capable herding dogs.
I snag Carter during a lull in the festivities. “Hey, bro, I have an ask.”
He claps me on the shoulder. “Sure, what’s up?”
“I need to add the plus-one you said I could bring to list for tonight. Sorry for the short notice.”
He grins. “Finally bringing someone home to meet us?”
Oooh, if only he knew. “Not exactly. Good friend of mine. How can I hook him up and get him in?”
Carter arches an eyebrow. “Him?”
“You said I could add a plus-one.”
He glances around and drops his voice. “What kind of ‘friend’ are we talking about?”
“He was in the Army. He’s just retired and moving back to the States.”
Notice I didn’t say I was in the Army with him, or that he just retired from the Army. Technically, those weren’t lies.
Yeah, I know. Talk about splitting hairs. Hey, Eddie was in the Army with Carter.
And Eddie did just “retire.”
And we are moving back to the States.
Carter relaxes. “Ah. Sure, no problem. Just give his info to Dray and he’ll arrange it for you.” He hugs me again. “Thanks for coming, Jace. It means a lot to me for us to have our family here today.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” I see Owen pick up Petey and hold him like a proud father while Owen’s also giving a comment to a reporter holding a phone in front of him and recording his comments. “Looking forward to taking it easy for a while? How are you going to handle being ‘retired’ and not in the office every day?”
Yes, he glances toward Owen, too, and the smile lighting his face settles my heart that at least my baby brother has love and peace in his life now. “I’m sure I’ll be just fine. Looking forward to being a kept man.”
I bet he is.
So’s Owen, I’m sure.
Carter’s called away to speak to another reporter, so I go have a quick chat with Dray, who also happens to be the brother of the third man Carter saved that day in the desert.
Dray takes down the information. “If there’s any problems tonight, have them get me, and I’ll walk you both in personally,” he says.
“Thanks, it’s appreciated. How’s your brother doing?”
“Samuel? He’s good. You know, good pain days and bad ones, like Carter. Mostly good, though.”
“He coming today?”
“Nah, he and his wife just had twins and they’ve had about five hours’ sleep total in the past month.” He smiles. “Traveling with newborns isn’t easy. He’ll be Skyping in with Carter’s parents.”
“That’s cool.”
“Yeah.”
“How about Trent? Is he coming today?” He was the second of the three men Carter threw his body over to save that day.
“No, he couldn’t get off work. Skype. No response from Eddie, either. I tried calling and mailed an invite to him, but no response.”
Obviously. “Ah. Too bad.”
I have Eddie’s mail directed to a remailer service I’ve used before, not that there’s much he receives anyway. Mostly, I’m using it as a honeypot to learn if anyone else comes sniffing around looking for him. If so, I’ll be notified and can take action.
Especially if they’re someone from my old organization.
After a final round of breakfast pictures, we all load up in SUVs to be ferried over to the historic Old Capitol building where the ceremony will take place. More pictures there, a tedious, obligatory program, and then, a little after noon, Susa’s the new governor of the great state of Florida.
It’s good to see our other brothers and their significant others again, but I’d be lying if I said my mind wasn’t on Eddie and the regret I feel over his absence in this moment of admitted joy.
I want him here with me. Unfortunately, right now, I can’t parade him around in front of my family. This small sacrifice must be made for the greater good, for the mission’s success.
To eliminate Cunningham.
As soon as the event ends, I bid my leave and catch an Uber back to the hotel, where I find Eddie sitting at the table and going over something on his laptop.
Like this, dressed in slacks and a button-down, he looks like a respectable businessman working on a mundane project.
I had fun shopping for clothes for him in Paris. He doesn’t just look like a respectable businessman, he looks like a rich one.
He turns and smiles at me as I walk in and hold up a hand, stopping him from getting up to drop into a bow for me.
“You ready for tonight, Pet?” I ask as I walk over and kiss him hello.
His smile fades. “I will be, Sir. I don’t have a choice.”
I grin. “No, you don’t.” I sit across from him. “How’d it go this morning?”
He nods. “Several properties to look at. I have a lot of ideas for disposal options.” His gaze meets mine and a playful smile appears, the one I’m coming to love so much. “We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”
I lean in and kiss him. “We’re really going to do this.”
I leave the last part of that unspoken:
Or die trying.
Chapter Seventeen
Eddie
To say I’m nervous about tonight is an understatement. It’s closer to the visceral fear I haven’t experienced—other than when I thought Jace was about to kill me—since I was a kid.
Am I really going to do this?
I am.
We are.
Plus, I need to do this.
Part of me—most of me—wants to attend tonight’s event with Jace so Carter can see that I’m all right and moving on with my life. That I’m safe and cared for.
That I’m happy for the first time in…forever.
Part of me, but only a tiny little part, hopes Carter turns green with jealousy when he sees me there with his brother and puts the pieces together.
Obviously, I don’t hate Carter for moving on with his life. I don’t begrudge him his wife or children. Honestly, I don’t even wish I could be the one at his side right now, because I chose not to leave the Army when he was discharged and he wouldn’t have his children had we stayed together.
Plus, I realize I hurt him by pushing him away. Wishing him nothing but happiness and peace and success is a no-brainer, for me.
Everything I’ve learned about Carter from Jace and from Google tells me my old Master made a name for himself through the hard work and fortitude—and stubbornness—that I remember so well from our youth.
Jace told me those are traits all the men in their family share, and their mom ten times so.
I believe it. I wonder if Carter’s children will also grow up to be as determined and dedicated and driven?
Most likely, since their mother had the tenacity and strength to survive a plane crash and weeks being shipwrecked, and still achieved her professional and political dreams.
After Jace returns from the ceremony, we spend the afternoon doing more local research and site visits. When we return to the hotel and prepare for tonight, Jace stands next to me in the bathroom and studies me in the mirror. He took charge shopping for our tuxes for tonight—in Paris—and we do look damned good, I must admit.
He also changed my haircut, and insists I shave every day. Honestly? I barely recognize the man in the mirror now. In just a few short weeks, I’ve ceded control of my life to him in every way and have become a totally different man. I even look younger.
Honestly? I’ve never been happier.
The only item left to check off my bucket list is to take out Cunningham.
We’ve already prepped deep ba
ckground on Bradenton Rexley and know where his house is located. He owns fifty acres just outside Tallahassee and frequently holds private shindigs for lobbyists and other political bigwigs. Fortunately, the area is rural, not some gated enclave. He inherited his money and the property from his family, who were long ago big players in Florida’s lucrative cattle industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
We know he’s hosting an event in two weeks to pair PAC donors with local and state-level politicians and lobbyists. It’s an annual event, and it’s unofficially the most important political event of the year in Florida.
And Cunningham will be in attendance, because he’s good friends with Rexley, who’s invested in helping his friend get elected.
Now, you might ask why can’t two men with the particular skillsets and motivation and experience such as Jace and myself just grab the crotchety old fuck and toss him into the back of a car and haul him off somewhere private to take care of business?
Part of the problem is that he lives in a large, densely populated retirement community with his wife. Just from scoping it out on Google Earth we could see it wouldn’t be practical to go in there and snatch him from his home. For starters, tons of surveillance and doorbell cameras on surrounding homes, no doubt. Traffic cameras, too. And grabbing him in broad daylight off a street somewhere isn’t exactly going to work, either.
We have to make Cunningham come to us, in a way that can’t be traced directly to us, or that can put us in the crosshairs of any potential future investigations into his disappearance.
He’s eager to run for Congress now and is looking for backers. Since he probably has little chance of defeating the Democrat incumbent on his own, he’s really desperate for money and endorsements to help raise his visibility.
He’s also desperate for juice, to latch on to any powerful political arm he thinks can do the heavy lifting and hoist him over the bar.
That’s where we come in.
Jace is going to disguise me for that party and I’ll use a different assumed name for the introduction and discussion with Cunningham. Set up another, private meeting to discuss things, but tell him it’s with a PAC group representative looking to spend some money and who isn’t in attendance because they need secrecy.
Secrecy is the norm rather than the exception in this world, so Cunningham won’t have a second thought about the circumstances.
And then all we have to do is spirit him away and kill him.
Without anyone seeing us do it.
One of my tasks today was renting a large storage unit on the outskirts of Tallahassee and buying an old used SUV that I’ll register in the name of a throwaway LLC Jace had left over from an op years ago. That’s already safely parked in the storage unit now, completely wiped down so my prints aren’t on it.
When we take Cunningham, we’ll be wearing gloves.
We’re both ready to head downstairs to meet the limo Jace hired for us for tonight when he stops me, pulls me in for a kiss, and smiles.
“Feel like I’m going to prom.”
I smirk. “I never went.”
“Neither did I.” He nuzzles my nose with his. “We won’t stay late tonight,” he says. “Just long enough so I can get the introduction.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you.”
“Nervous?”
I nod. Why lie? He apparently can read my mind. I thought I was a damned good liar until I met Jace.
Or, maybe it’s a case of he can read me better than anyone else in the world because he knows me better.
Carter could, too, once upon a time.
Except in many ways, Jace now knows me even better than Carter did.
Not sure how to process or frame that, but I’ve tucked it away in a mental folder for future contemplation.
Don’t have the time for that right now.
In the back of the limo, he holds my hand for the short ride. We’ll be arriving a little after eight thirty, so only fashionably late. But not too early to catch anyone’s notice, or too late, either.
Carter, Susa, and the others are already inside. As the limo nears the drop-off point, Jace squeezes my hand. “Big smiles tonight, baby. Fit in. Happy, happy, happy. Keep eyes and ears open, and stay frosty.”
“I wish we’d met years ago,” I honestly say.
“Why’s that?”
“We would have made a great team.”
He grins. “We make a damned good team now.”
“I meant professionally.”
That earns me a chuckle. “They would have liquidated both of us for becoming a massive pain in their asses had we joined forces back then.”
“This is true.”
I’ve spent most of my adult professional life moving with ease through nearly every situation I’ve been put in, including large crowds. Tonight, however, my stomach clenches and tightly knots to the point I’m not certain I won’t be sick.
Briefly meeting up with Carter on my own quiet home turf is one thing.
Seeing him here, firmly in his element—and with his wife and children on his arm and surrounded by a large, loving family—is another thing entirely, and I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that.
A little over a month ago, I was chained in a bathroom after having narrowly avoided a brush with death.
A little over a month ago, I was still mourning the loss of the man I’m about to see, because I could never forgive myself for being so fucking stupid as to let him go in the first place.
A little over a month ago, I honestly didn’t care if I lived or died.
Now?
New life, new guy, new purpose.
New target.
And yet I know laying eyes on Carter still has the power to take me out at the knees. Back in Germany, even though I expected his arrival after he contacted me, seeing him in the doorway of my flat, it was all I could do not to drop to my knees right there and beg him to take me with him back to the States.
You never forget your first, right?
I’m nervous as hell as we head inside and approach the security checkpoint. Neither of us are carrying guns tonight, which feels…weird. It really does. We can’t even carry knives. Instead, we both carry sharp plastic kubotans in our pockets, because they won’t set off the metal detectors. Being completely unarmed just feels wrong to both of us, though.
“Ready, pet?” Jace whispers to me.
“Ready, Sir.”
In the ballroom doorway we pause and I let Jace take point. He scans the room and I imagine he’s checking out the same things I am—exits, logistics, traffic choke points, and evaluating our fellow attendees.
Noting the placement of law enforcement officers.
Not that we’re starting trouble here tonight, because of course we aren’t. If anything, our goal is to remain as invisible as possible.
Jace catches my elbow and guides me into the room, toward the back and away from the stage.
As if I’m drawn to a flame, my focus finds and locks on Carter.
“There he is,” Jace mutters as he realizes where I’m staring.
I can’t help it.
The man beside me is my Master, but so was Carter. I’d be lying and stupid if I denied Jace manipulated me to get where I am today, but I don’t mind. He’s proven himself to me.
I’m here, not just next to Jace but with him, and I refuse to leave as long as he’s willing to hold me close.
Jace snags us two glasses of water from one of the servers and I’m still watching Carter across the room when Jace speaks. “Ah, Owen.”
My focus switches as I turn and see Jace shaking hands with him.
“Jace, thanks for coming tonight.”
I’m staring at the former governor of Florida, Owen Taylor, Carter’s long-time best friend and, for the last eight years, his boss. Taylor has already shed his tuxedo jacket and rolled his sleeves up his handsome forearms.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Jace says. “Hey, let me introduce you to my friend, Tom Dorsey. He served
in the Army.”
Owen shakes with me. “Nice to meet you, Tom. Owen Taylor.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” I spot the small tattoo of an infinity symbol on the inside of Owen’s right wrist. If his sleeves were rolled down, you would never see it.
That reminds me of the tattoo I spotted on Carter’s left wrist just a few weeks ago…
Suddenly, it all clicks.
I’d be willing to bet if I got close enough to Susa Evans to see her wrist, she’d have a matching tattoo.
Jace leaves me in the back of the room and heads out to work his way toward the front. I’ve lost sight of Carter but my gaze follows Jace and stays with him.
That’s why I don’t have time to react when someone grabs my elbow, hard, applying pressure just above the joint to cause me pain, and whisks me out a nearby side door and into a service corridor behind the ballroom.
“What are you doing here?” Carter hisses. “How did you get in?”
Shit.
“Hello to you, too, Sir.” He looks fucking good in his tux, too.
From the way he’s eye-fucking me, I take some small satisfaction in the knowledge that he’s thinking likewise about me.
Carter always did have a way of making me lose my train of thought around him.
I’m still trying to remember what Jace and I agreed upon when I hear him speak right behind me. “He’s with me, Carter.”
I don’t think Carter could look more shocked if the two of us started French-kissing right there.
Unflappable Carter’s eyes widen and he immediately turns, looking for a more private place to talk, I’m guessing. There’s a small, empty conference room right there, and he grabs both of us by the arms and practically drags us in there.
Belatedly, I realize we’re being trailed by an FHP officer and I tamp down my immediate flare of panic when I see him.
Of course it’s Carter’s security detail, not someone coming to take me and Jace away. My former lover is after all now the First Gentleman of arguably the wackiest goddamned swing state in the country.
Carter shoves us into the conference room ahead of him and closes the door behind us, leaning against it. “What the fuck, Jace?” he whispers while his gaze remains on me.
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