by AJ Wyatt
Roger that. One more day in paradise.
It had to be Shane responding to someone. Whoever it was had plans for tomorrow. Was it Vice and Talon they were trying to eliminate? Or was I missing something else?
“How did you get this?”
“I spoofed a cell tower,” she said. “Time I should have spent on more sensors, obviously.”
I hugged her.
“We’ll get all the sensors you need. Get some rest.”
“What about tomorrow?”
I groaned. A sharp pain was beginning to throb behind my eyes.
“There’s not much we can do about tomorrow. We have to keep as many eyes open as we can.”
She went upstairs, tiptoeing over the bullet holes and jumping past the blood puddles. I heard the door of her room close a moment later and slumped back on the couch. Yuri dragged the bodies out, and Magnus joined in.
Vice, woken from his drunken slumber, stumbled out of the pantry and said, "What the fuck happened?"
After the explanations were given, he tried to help Yuri and Magnus but got sick trying to carry one of the bodies. After that, he kept his distance, one hand over his mouth.
He looked suddenly very sober.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was a sliver, itching for me to pick at it.
Magnus isn’t bothered by the bodies?
I let it drop. I was too tired for the paranoia. Too tired to think. At some point, I fell asleep because I woke in the dark, and I was covered in a down blanket. Someone had given me a pillow. By the scent of it, I'd guess Yuri. His cologne had a masculine scent that was inescapably sexy.
Sunrise came too early, but I enjoyed it anyways. I crawled off the couch and dragged my big blanket outside with me. A nice lounger down by the pool had my name on it. I did a meditation until the rays of the sun heated my face, and I opened my eyes to the sky. It was beautiful.
The sunshine tickled my skin, and the air smelled fresh and musty. A bit of cow, a bit of fresh grain on the wind. The sound of birds singing in the trees. Even with everything that happened, people coming to kill us, shooting the house full of holes, it still felt amazing being there.
It felt like home. I didn’t want to let it go.
Something shattered inside, and I was moving.
My pistol was right where I left it on the counter.
Upstairs, I heard raised voices.
“I’m not fucking going!” Vice shouted.
“For once in your life, you owe him this,” Talon shouted back.
“I don’t owe him a damn thing!”
“I’ll drag you out there in handcuffs if I need to.”
"Oh? The plush leather ones with the fur lining? Please do. The paparazzi would love it. Maybe you could lead me by a leash as well. You know what? I think I might like to go after all if that's what I get to wear. But I'm not wearing a suit."
“Boys,” I said.
Talon spun around in Vice’s doorway and ran a hand through his hair, his eyes burning with frustration.
“I can’t,” he said to me. “I just can’t with him right now.”
I put my hand on his chest, and he calmed.
“Then don’t. Relax. Get dressed. I’ll talk to him.”
Talon nodded his thanks and kissed me. The taste of his lips still made my knees weak. If it wasn’t the day of their father’s funeral… Ah, but it was.
“Vice?” I said.
“Don’t try to talk me into it.”
I closed the door behind me. Someone had nailed a blanket over the broken window. Vice had managed to curl up and sleep on one side of his bed. The other side had a half dozen spots where the stuffing had busted out in long, cottony curls. The remnants of bullets flying through. When I'd smoked Shane out, I'd done a real number on his room. In a few places, I saw sunlight coming in through the walls. The heavy metal rounds had punched holes in the stone.
Those guys are fucking sweet.
I sat down on the bed next to him. He was naked except for his blanket curled around his waist. His body was perfect, the mirror image of Talon's, and it differed only in the scars across his chest and shoulders and down his back. I reached out and touched his chest.
“I hated him,” Vice said. “I’ll always hate him.”
"I won't try to talk you into it," I said. "I'll just say this: I never got to go to my father's funeral. He was buried in the church cemetery near our farm. The same church he'd been going to since he was a boy. He'd been baptized there, and they buried him right outside. It's a nice spot. Beautiful trees and all that. I've never been, but I've seen pictures."
“Did you hate him?” Vice asked. “Is that why?”
"No. He was, in many ways, my best friend. My closest confidant. Things had gotten a little rough between us that last year. I was growing up and filling out, and he was an old school farmer. Salt of the earth. He didn't exactly know what to do with a teenage daughter. He sure did his best."
“Then why?”
Because I had to run for my life. Because someone murdered him, and I needed a new life and a new name. But was that really true? In ten years, I could have gone back. I’ve worn a hundred disguises to infiltrate enemy nations, military installations, yacht parties. I could have done the same for him. I could have at least left some flowers and said hello.
“Maybe I loved him too much,” I said. “Maybe I’m too ashamed of the woman I’ve become for him to see me this way.”
Damn it. My eyes went fuzzy as tears dripped out. I wiped them away. I was surprised to see Vice's eyes brim with tears.
“Talon was always the good one,” he said. “No surprise there. He never met a rule he didn’t love to follow. Always in control, never emotional. I had…outbursts. I was angry and messy and wanted things my own way. When we were kids, it was finger painting on the walls. Then it was stealing cigars, whisky. Then I discovered girls, boys, drugs. You would think he was too old to punish me by then. But he wasn’t.”
He took my hand in his and traced my fingers over one of the long scars on his chest.
“Most of these were done with a birch rod. The same kind English schoolmaster had used on him.”
He looked absolutely stricken by the memory. I could see the boy in his eyes, being beaten so severely that it cut his flesh.
“Oh, Vice, I’m so sorry.”
"He did this when I was eighteen," he said, pointing to the scar above his left eye. It split his eyebrow in half and ran all the way to his hairline. "I remember how red his face was. How shrill his voice when he screamed. His humanity left him, and all that was left was an animal. It was the first time he caught me in bed with a boy."
“He sounds like a real piece of work.”
Vice grinned his wicked grin.
"Oh, he was. The worst of it, though, was that I would tell Talon that father enjoyed it, and Talon never believed me. There was something in the old man that enjoyed causing the pain. There was something in him that needed it. So after he cut my face, I left and never looked back. And I wonder, who was it that he took it out on after me?"
“Miss Blair, maybe? After they were married?”
"No," Vice said. "She doesn't have any scars."
“That might have changed since the last time you saw her body. She was with your father a long time.”
"Rayne, darling, I saw her body a month ago, and it was pristine, aside from a few cosmetic additions. Very tasteful, of course. Talon despised her after leaving him for our father, and Blair didn't seem to miss Talon much. It wasn't long, though, before she started calling on me again. Asking me to see her.”
“And you did?”
He grinned. "I certainly did. I reveled in debauchery with her. I fulfilled all her worst fantasies and darkest dreams. And I'd always leave a little something behind so the old man would know I'd come for a visit."
His smile turned grim as he spoke of his final revenge. Cuckolding his own father. Hearing him tell it, I felt a surge of jealousy. Just imaging what those nights
had been, the way he gave pleasure, the way he enjoyed her body. Part of me wanted to console him, and part of me wanted to punch him in the face. Just a little.
I settled for a kiss.
He pulled me down on top of him and wrapped his arms around me. The heat between us flared, and his cock poked out of the blanket, hard and thick. His fingers were wrapped in my hair, and our kisses turned hungry. Wetness spread down my thighs under my sweatpants. His hand slid down between my legs, and his fingers found my wetness and slid inside me easily.
I almost cried out. It felt so good.
It felt so wrong being with him the day after I was with his brother. Not that I thought Talon would mind. The two of them seemed…oddly okay sharing partners with each other. But I’d never had brothers before, let alone twins and barely a day apart. Just thinking about it send wetness spraying across Vice’s hand, and I began to spasm around his fingers as release tore through me.
He found my g-spot and worked it with his fingers rapidly as he pulled my loose-fitting tee over my head. He didn't take it all the way off. He left the sleeves looped over my wrists so he could hold them both in place, tying me down with his grip. He took one of my nipples in his mouth and sucked and nibbled at it until it was so hard it hurt — in a good way. He did the other next, and his other hand kept rubbing over my g-spot until I felt like I was going to burst.
When I came again, it rolled over me, head to toe, every inch of my body shaking and shuddering with the release. All the tension went out of me, and I lay there like a rag doll, loose and relaxed.
He took his fingers out and looked down at the wetness between my legs. I arched my back and opened my legs wider, beckoning him inside me. His hard cock was right there, the head swollen and throbbing, ready to slide in.
“I want you,” he said.
In answer, I hooked my legs behind him and pulled him in. Vice smiled and guided his cock into my opening. The heat between us was so intense I thought he would thrust into me and ride me hard, but he didn't.
He took his time, sliding in slow and pulling back. Giving me an inch and taking it away. He filled me so perfectly that I almost came just from half his cock inside me. After last night, I was so swollen and tight that my pussy gripped him on the way in. He stretched me, and it was agony and heaven at the same time.
“I can barely get it in,” he said.
“Go harder,” I told him. “Give it to me.”
He leaned into it, stroking himself deeper and deeper until my pussy let him in, and then he began to slap against my body as he rode me. Finally, he growled and held my hands down and bit at my neck, and I moaned and gasped with sweet release building inside me.
When I came, his voice came out deep and resonant as he cried, "You're so fucking tight! I can't hold it anymore. You're going to make me fucking come!"
I came again right away, and Vice shook with it as he spasmed inside me. He never stopped thrusting until it was all done, and his lips found mine as he gently kissed me.
"Normally, I last a lot longer," he said, frowning.
“I’m sorry I made you cum so fast,” I teased.
“You’re not sorry at all,” he said. “But you will be, little mouse.”
“Oh, yeah?”
"Next time, I will do you properly, and you will beg me for forgiveness. I swear it."
"Mmmm. I look forward to it."
I held him a little longer, and we kissed as he softened inside me. When he tried to get up, I pulled him in for a firm hug, and his breath caught in his throat as the tears came again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry this is so hard. I’m sorry this is all I can do for you.”
Vice kissed me gently and whispered, “You’re wonderful.”
16
We got cleaned up, and Vice showered and slipped into his best suit.
“I can’t let you go with Talon alone, can I?” He said.
“Thank you. I don’t have a leash, but I’m pretty sure Daisy and the ranch hands would lend me a bit for you to chomp on.”
“Don’t tempt me, little mouse,” he said.
I changed too, into a lovely little black dress I'd bought from a secondhand store. The kind of dress you can wear to anything. It was a little tighter on my ass than was maybe appropriate for the occasion. Still, I reminded myself that Blair would be there, and I wanted to give her something to cry about since I doubted she'd been shedding tears for her dead hubby. Especially if he was anything near as bad as Vice said. The scars on his body told me that the old man wasn't good to live with, and even if he never hit Blair, there were plenty of other ways to leave scars.
Bastards always left a mark somehow.
I found Magnus and Yuri sitting at the table downstairs. Someone had made Bloody Marys, but Magnus was having a coffee. Yuri was having one…and I spotted Trib sipping one out on the porch. She still looked a little sullen, but her eyes were glued to the screen in a way that she did when she was working on something really intense. I’d learned to give her space when she was like that.
“I don’t want to go to the funeral either,” Yuri said, eyeing me in my little dress.
“Yes,” Magnus agreed. “I also do not want to go.”
"Nice try, you two. Actually, I need you both if you're willing to help. We're going to have a lot of screens and a lot of drone footage to watch. Big crowds, lots of chances for something to go wrong. We need as many eyes as we can get."
Yuri frowned. “It’s this afternoon, yes? I can probably…but I need a ride back to Dallas. Sokolov, my second, he cannot be left alone too long. He is close with the Pakhan in Moscow. Their fathers are good friends. If he is left alone too long, Sokolov thinks he is the Boss, and I cannot allow it.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll see if Vice can give you a ride. Trib will be managing the drones in a control van near the funeral, so we can pick you up when we’re ready.”
“Thank you.”
I rested my hand on his shoulder for a moment.
“You never used to say thank you,” I said.
“I never used to say nearly enough,” he replied. “Trishia is telling me to always be more open. I am too closed. She says I have walls up.”
“Trishia?” I said. My voice came out a little more growly than I intended. Yuri definitely wasn't mine to claim, and I didn't want to, did I? I was having enough trouble with the twins. Three guys were way too many.
"My therapist," Yuri replied. "She is telling me I'm doing much better now. I can talk about fear and insecurity. I am teaching the boys too. So we can be strong men and also have our feelings. It's making a big difference."
“Oh?”
"The quit smoking club alone is saving many lives. For Bratva to die in battle is one thing, but to die of cigarettes? Is a waste."
I recalled Oleg being beaten black and blue. I wasn't sure Trishia's therapy was being translated correctly into Bratva language, but hey, he was trying. I had to admit, this new Yuri was intriguing. I tried not to think about the big silver ring I'd seen in his cock the other night. That was new too.
Vice had been so good, but I still wanted more. Yuri could sense it too. I saw his smirk growing as he watched me squirm. The bastard. But there was still so much baggage from the old days. He’d been a real asshole back then, and I wasn’t ready to let him in again just yet.
His progress was promising though…
“Magnus? Can you ride with Trib? I don’t want her alone. Not even for a minute.”
“If anyone tries to hurt Miss Trib, they will be very sorry,” he said, nodding.
I didn't doubt it. He'd almost snapped a guy in half last night with his bare hands. So I took up my 9mm and showed it to him.
“Can you shoot?”
He looked at it and shook his head.
“Rabbits,” he said. “When I was young. But that was a child’s rifle, and I never liked it much.”
"There'll be a couple guns in the car. We have an old-school rifle in the
study, actually. I think we have rounds for it. I'll make sure it's in the surveillance van just in case. Hopefully, you won't need it, but your fists may not be enough."
He looked nervous, but he nodded.
"Where'd you get that coffee, by the way?"
Magnus furnished me with a fresh cup, and I went out to sit with Trib. The intensity of her gaze had diminished enough that I figured we could talk.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“I know.”
“Trib…”
“I know. I really do. It just sucks. And I’m freaking out about today.”
"Yeah. I'm tempted to pull the boys out and just not attend, but Talon would have a fit, and I suspect Vice needs to go too. When you hate someone like that…it's a different kind of closure, but I think he needs it. And besides, I want to see Blair again and anyone else at the funeral who might know about Section 7. Anyone else who might have had a hand in trying to lock us in there that night and let us die slowly. If we could get their cell, even for a few minutes… it might blow this thing wide open."
"I've got the spoofed SIM cards ready to go. All you have to do is switch them, and we'll have their communications. Blair would be a great one to have. My money's on her."
"Mine too, but I don't think she's in this alone. The recording we got of her before the CIA wiped all our bugs at Osborne Energy… she sounded scared. I think someone is manipulating her. Promising her control of the company, making sure the judges side with her, but in exchange for what?”
The time of the funeral rolled around fast. Behind the scenes, there was a lot of rushing around. Trib got her drones programmed and ready. She checked and double-checked the equipment. I went over the positions I expected everyone to be in. Before I knew it, Vice told me it was time to load up in the chopper and head out. The ground team, consisting of Magnus and Trib, had left an hour before to arrive on time. Yuri was joining them as soon as he got Sokolov in line.
A driver waited for us at the Osborne helipad.
The wrought iron gates of Oakland Cemetery in Dallas are surrounded by copper-plated pillars that have grown a deep green patina over the last hundred and fifty years. We walked in side by side, Vice on one arm and Talon on the other. I shied away from the flashes of the paparazzi, the one thing I didn't need any more of was publicity, but there was no avoiding those flashbulbs. We had to go in the front like everyone else.
