by AJ Wyatt
Magnus opened his mouth and closed it again. He was still staring at me like I was an alien.
He didn’t have a chance to answer Yuri’s question.
The door opened, and a tall man with gaunt features stepped in. He was so long and lean that he towered over Yuri. His build wasn't as muscular, but it spoke of a lanky power. From his tattoos, I would guess he was a graduate of the Black prisons in Russia, the brutal work camps that were run not by prison officials but by inmates. The sixteen-hour days of hard labor made those men and women incredibly strong and brutally efficient.
Yuri’s expression of amusement vanished the moment this man walked in, replaced by the flinty glare of a statue. I instinctively moved the gun I was holding behind my back.
“Sokolov,” Yuri said, “What is this interruption?”
Sokolov looked at me, taking some time to look hard at my tits and ass in a way that made me want to put a bullet in him.
“The man you spoke to before has called again,” he said in Russian. “He is asking about Section 7.”
Yuri's gaze darted to me and back to Sokolov. If he tried to leave with Sokolov, I would have no choice but to stop them, and that could get ugly. Yuri could not afford to appear weak before this man.
“I’ll speak to you about it later. Now go.”
I let the breath come out of my lungs as Sokolov left.
“Trouble?” I asked in Russian. I don't know why. It's none of my damn business, and I had enough to worry about. And my mind was still reeling from hearing 'Section 7' coming from that man's mouth.
So who was Yuri's contact and what were they doing with Osborne Energy? It couldn't be a coincidence.
Why would Blair and Yuri both be wrapped up in Section 7?
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Yuri said. “You can take him for now. I’ll find him again if I need him.”
“You’re coming too,” I said.
Yuri sighed. “There is nothing I want more. But this man… I must speak to him. He is the one who told me that Magnus wanted to take my life, and I suspected that he lied to me. Now that you are here, I am sure of it, and I know his intent.”
“Who is he?” I didn’t figure Yuri would tell me, but like they say: You don’t get what you don’t ask for. Sometimes the motivational quotes are right.
“He is your friend Shane, from the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Fuck me. Shane was a rival assassin. He was good, and I would know because I gave him some of his best training. If he was in the field, the Agency was serious about taking me out. Yuri must have suspected why Shane would lie to him about Magnus, but I figured I’d better make it clear.
“He wanted us to kill each other.”
“Yes, I too believe that now,” Yuri said. “He relies on your beautiful temper to make you kill me, and perhaps then you will die as well trying to escape.”
"If I wanted to kill you and everyone in this building, I could do it right now."
"I believe it, your highness," Yuri smiled, and again I was caught by the intensity of it. Whether he truly loved me or not, he believed it. And his body called me to come closer. If he'd told me to submit to his will, as I once had, I don't know that I would have resisted. Or maybe I'd have shot him. It felt like 50/50.
I could see him thinking about it, the smile playing across his perfect lips. His body radiating that power that he had, the strength that coursed through him. But there was also the promise of pleasure that I craved. My knees felt weak at the thought of it, and he could see it, the bastard.
“I cannot go with you,” he said at last, “But I will join you later. I give you my word.”
Yuri might have been a lot of unsavory things, but his word was law. He always kept it.
“Tonight. I’ll tell you where.”
He gave me a phone number to text and led Magnus and me outside.
The Texas heat was baking the asphalt as we walked away from that place. I kept Anatoly's gun. It was a nice gun, and why not? That sloppy bastard lost it in the first place. Trib would be happy if I sold it to recoup some cash.
“If you don’t want to tell me why you were there,” Magnus said softly, “You don’t have to.”
“Cool, works for me. Trib? Can you get us a rideshare? I need to get out of the heat.”
“Where are you headed?” She said.
“We need a safer place than those dorms. You heard about Shane?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Fuck me.”
"I know, right? See if you can find us something. Maybe a derelict building or abandoned warehouse. The boys won't like it, but they'll have to deal with it. We need someplace we can secure."
“I think we’ve found a place,” Vice said, a laugh muffled in his voice.
“The fuck?” I heard Trib’s headset crash down on her desk and the sounds of footsteps leaving. I knew she was running for their dorms.
They were smart boys, after all. How they commandeered our signal would be interesting to learn. Trib was probably browbeating it out of them right at that moment. She'd never forgive them for it. And Vice, at least, would likely never let her forget it.
“Do you have your wallet?”
“I do,” Magnus said.
“Come on.”
It was a short walk, but we were both sweating profusely by the time we reached the parkway. I flagged a cab, and we rode back to Faulkner College.
"I have classes," Magnus said as we rode.
“You’ll have to ditch them for a few days. This is life or death. It’s probably not what you’re used to, and I’m sorry, but that can’t be helped.”
As I watched him casually, I wondered how used to it he was. He was just captured by the Bratva and held captive, got rescued by a girl he'd painted nude in class a day before, and he seemed… pretty okay, actually. Which set off a lot of alarms in my head. His ice-blue eyes just scanned the horizon and returned to me, and when he looked at me, I had a hard time meeting his gaze.
Some men look at you like they can read you, and Magnus was that kind of man. I didn't crave him the way I craved Yuri, and he didn't make me think of pleasure the way Vice and Talon did, but something in him spoke to my soul, and I wanted more of that. I found myself wishing I could tell him the truth.
Always a dangerous impulse.
“Whatever has brought you to this place in your life, Rayne, it doesn’t matter to me. But I can see that you’re hurt. A wound that has not healed. You don’t have to tell me, but you can if you like. I’m the kind of man who keeps a secret well.”
I’m a woman who does too. Maybe too well. He must have sensed my reticence to share because he smiled and waved it off. Instead, his vast hand went to the back of my head and pulled out my hairband.
I smiled, confused.
“What are you…?”
He gently guided me down to his lap, and his big fingers massaged my scalp. It was rough at first, but it felt good, and the sensations carried all the way down my neck. He must have noticed the goosebumps because he began to rub my neck, firm enough that the vertebrae cried out a little. I groaned as the tension eased out.
It was impossible not to think about his cock with my face using his lap as a massage table. I kept thinking his touch must be leading somewhere, and maybe hoping it was. Was there time to disappear for a while, just the two of us? Time to let his hands roam across my body? I hadn't realized I'd wanted that, but now I did. I wanted him. The way he touched me was slow and sensual, and he traced all the sensitive places where my skin wanted to be touched as if he knew them intimately.
We could find someplace quiet and make love the same way. It would take a long time, and it would be worth it. And good god his hands were huge. It was like being massaged by a giant.
But Shane was loose. Probably leading the Wolfpack that was after us.
“You’re making me work harder,” he said, but he was laughing.
“Sorry. Stressful thoughts.”
He kept going, kneading my shoulde
rs between my shoulder blades. He radiated calm and trust. If it was a trap, it was a perfect one.
"I lost someone," I said. Just saying that much, the tears came. They spilled out onto his lap, and my breath caught.
I am not going to cry in this cab.
But I did.
He reached down and brushed the tears from my cheek. I sniffled, and my nose made a gross sound. Jesus Christ, I was coming apart.
"Here," he said. And from his back pocket, he took a clean handkerchief and gave it to me.
I sat up and blew my nose, then dabbed at my eyes. When I looked at him, I was shocked to see that he was crying too.
“I also have lost someone very special,” he said.
I offered him the hanky back, but he waved it off and used the sleeve of his jacket instead. Just a few tears down his grizzled face, they wiped away easily. My eyes, on the other hand, kept leaking for a while. Finally, he pulled me close and threw an arm around me to crush me into his chest. It felt so good.
For so many years, I'd made myself safe through the skills I learned and the paranoia I was taught by my trainers. But now, I felt truly safe in his arms.
“If you’re good at keeping secrets,” I said when we arrived, “Don’t tell anyone I cried.”
"You have my word," he said. "Though your eyes may tell the secret."
“Red, huh?”
“A little,” he said. “I don’t think it makes you weak to cry. But then I cry a lot, so maybe I’m not very strong.”
I had to laugh. He was crammed into the cab about as well as a bear would be. No one would accuse Magnus Nilsson of being weak. And seeing him cry, I didn’t think he was weak either.
One of those big orange moving trucks was parked outside our dorms. And Vice, of all people, was behind the wheel. His eyes widened a little when he saw who was walking up with me.
“You know Magnus?” He said, looking bewildered.
“People keep saying that to me. He’s an art teacher here,” I said, raising an eyebrow in mock interest. “How do you know Magnus?”
“I—um, we made a purchase of his art for one of our buildings. I didn’t realize you taught here, old friend,” Vice said.
Magnus looked the most confused of all, seeing a billionaire behind the wheel of a rented moving truck.
“Yes,” he said finally, “I’ve been teaching here two years.”
“Lovely,” Vice tipped him a nod, clearly glad the conversation was over. “We’re moving, Rayne, in case you couldn’t tell. Your Trib made war with us, but we’ve managed, between us two, to make peace again. And we have a perfect safe house. Or… shouldn’t I say in front of Magnus?”
“He’s coming too,” I said.
“I at least need my supplies to paint,” Magnus said. “And my dog. It’s only been a night, but she must be terrified.”
“We’ve got her,” Vice said, grinning. “She’s a delight. I think you’ll have to fight Talon to get her back.”
Talon came out, wearing a t-shirt and some new jeans. They must have gone shopping without me, the jerks. I made a mental note to drag them to the mall when I got the chance. One of them still owed me eighty bucks for that sex club I had to buy my way into. Was it Talon, who didn't want to rescue Vice in the first place, or Vice who got rescued? I decided, in fairness, it should be Vice.
"You owe me eighty dollars and a trip to the mall," I told him.
“Well, I’m good for it,” he said with a wink.
Talon carried down one of the huge computers Trib had built custom for this mission. I glanced in the back of the truck, and most of our stuff was already in there, including a couple of wooden trunks I didn't remember buying.
"You're quite the collector," Talon said as he walked up. "We needed someplace to hide all those guns. You really are a Texas girl, aren't you?" He put down the computer, making sure it was organized well with the other items, and caught me up in his arms for a kiss. It was dizzying and intense like he always was, but he also seemed…lighter. Happier than I'd seen him before.
Something told me that Talon liked an adventure.
His brow clouded briefly when he saw Magnus, his eyes widening as if he’d seen a ghost.
Bought some of his art, my ass. These men knew each other from ten years ago when they were all barely men, and they were very careful not to give anything away. What were they all up to all those years ago?
Vice said something to Talon in their strange language, and Talon smiled.
“Magnus, good to see you!” He said. The two men shook hands.
They looked like bad actors on a community college stage, but I kept watching long enough to make them feel it before I left to find Trib.
She was upstairs, looking frazzled, grabbing the last of her things before Sadie ran through the room and took off outside. I watched through the window as she dashed up to Magnus and leaped into his arms. If she trusts him…
Trib must have read my mind because she said, "She licks her own butthole too." She pointed to something for me to carry and we went down. It didn't take long for Magnus to get in on it, and we were empty in no time. The moving truck stopped once at his studio, which I went in to make sure was clear, and once at his home. When we had everything, it was time to go.
I booted Vice from the driver's seat and left him sulking in the back. Trib and Magnus opted to ride in the truck itself, looking snug on the blankets we'd brought. Trib had turned on a small reading light and was already absorbed in her book, while Magnus was laid back with Sadie curled up next to him, snuggling and snoring on his chest. After the cab ride, I totally understood where she was coming from.
His huge hands pet her neck just about the same way they had mine.
Talon rode shotgun with the window down, letting the wind blow through his hair. I got the feeling it’d been a while since he’d had a day or two off. He looked like a kid on summer vacation. Vice leaned forward and propped himself between us and spent most of the ride messing with the radio to find music he liked.
It felt good, all of us being together. It felt weirdly…natural. Like we were meant to be together. Of course, that was ridiculous. We weren't a happy family on vacation. We were a pair of former CIA agents on the run, and three men, each of whom might have betrayed or even murdered my father themselves.
This whole thing was off the rails. And I had one big nagging worry. It was about to get so much crazier. At a rest stop, where we all desperately needed to pee, I texted the location we were headed to over to Yuri. When Yuri got there, things would probably get ugly between him and these men I’d already gotten too involved with.
And once all four of them were together, it would take a fool not to know exactly what they had in common.
I didn’t know what we were heading to. Everyone, even Trib, insisted on it being a surprise. I just got the coordinates to put in my phone for the GPS to guide me. I fixed Vice's face in the rearview.
“You ever heard of Section 7?” I asked.
He nodded, and my heart began to race. "Yeah. They're that German group, right? Post-Soviet punk? Something like that? They never come to Dallas. I've seen them in Austin, I think. ACL, a few years back? I was high off my tits, but I think that was them."
“Are you ever not high off your tits?” Talon mused.
I’d seen Vice lie before, and he was good at it, but he had a tell. He always blinked too much. A common tell to have. I’d seen it when he was bullshitting me about buying art from Magnus.
Talon had heard me say Section 7 before, and he didn't react this time either. Instead, he had his hand out the window like an airplane wing, flying up and down.
I hadn’t tested Magnus yet. That meant Yuri was the only one who knew.
“So,” I said, “What’s that language you guys speak? I’ve heard a lot of languages, and I haven’t heard that one before.”
10
“Twin speak,” Talon said.
"As children, we were left to ourselves most of the time,"
Vice said. "Our nanny spoke mostly Spanish, and our father forbade her to speak in our presence, so she was silent until we were old enough to know something was weird. A bit like being raised by a mime.”
“He was busy.”
“Oh, here we go… Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”
Talon glared at him, and Vice slipped back into the back seat and lay down. He didn't sit back up until we reached the driveway of the place we were going. It was a fenced area of land, though only the front fence was visible. It went on into the distance both ways, so far you couldn't see the end of it. Where the drive was, a massive wrought iron gate was put up, with an archway and big name on top, all of it forged in black iron. Two horses reared at either side of the arch.
The sign read: Bar T Ranch.
Running through the gate was a dirt road that also stretched into the distance. And somewhere out there, beyond the live oaks and the pond, must have been a ranch house. It was breathtaking how beautiful it was. Land so big the sky seemed to meet it at each edge. Lush grass as tall as my waist, and all those green trees. It'd had been raining the past few weeks, so the pond was full.
“I’ll get the gate!” Vice said.
“Not if I get it first!” Talon shouted.
Both of them leapt out and chased each other. Talon won, but they both opened one side to be expedient.
As we drove down the dirt road, cattle lounged in the shade beneath the oaks. Longhorns grazed in the tall grass. The first thing I saw was the stables. Enough room for twenty horses. I had to stop the truck because I was crying.
“What is it?” Talon said.
Vice hit him on the arm. “She loves it stupid.”
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered.
“We bought it,” Talon said. “Paid cash. The paperwork is coming today, but that’s just a formality.”
Vice slipped his arms around me.
“Wait until you see the house.”
Talon looked jealous of the embrace, but he only shrugged.
“We asked Trib where you’d be happiest, and she said something like this,” he said.
