Tiny groaned as he leaned forward and squeezed the back of the chair. Blake walked over and rubbed his back for a moment, “Babe? What is it?”
“I know who I have to call and it’s not going to be pleasant because he fucking hates me, well he did anyways. He just sort of tolerates me now.”
Blake looked over at the list and squinted, “Who is it?”
“Dagger Jones.”
Blake frowned, “I, I don’t see him on your list.”
“That’s because he left the club when he was sixteen when his sister outed him, the sister that I protected and kept him from beating the hell out of.”
“Oh. Wait. Jones, you mean the founder’s son? The one who testified against him?”
“That’s the one. He spent the first sixteen years in the club. He saw fucking everything and everyone. He might remember who I’m forgetting.”
Brent’s phone slid across the table, “Call him.”
Tiny frowned at the phone, “Now? It’s almost midnight.”
“Yeah, and you almost got dead tonight. He can go back to sleep. Call him.”
Tiny stared at Brent for a moment then he dialed the numbers and pressed the speaker button.
“Whoever this fucking is, you better be bleeding out. Cause if you’re not, you will be shortly,” Dagger barked into the phone.
“I need your help, Dag.”
“Tiny? Is that you? Why the fuck do you need my help and who’s number are you calling from?”
Tiny heard a muffled voice in the background and he knew it was Dagger’s boyfriend Jaz, a man who had a much better temper than Dagger and who had befriended Tiny the few times they’d met. Then Dagger’s phone was on speaker.
“Tell us what’s going on, Tiny,” Jaz said.
“And make it quick because you interrupted some very important negotiations,” Dagger said with a growl.
Tiny grinned, “Yeah, yeah, you two can get back to deciding who’s topping in a second.”
Dagger snorted, “Seriously dude, what’s going on?”
“Someone tried to kill me tonight.”
“Sorry they missed.”
“Dagger!” Jaz shouted.
“What? Ouch! Babe, it was a joke!”
“What do you need from us, Tiny,” Jaz said.
“Dag? It was someone from the club. I recognized the voice but I can’t quite place it. And whoever it was knew Garrett too. And they’ve got him, man. He says he’s going to kill him if I don’t go to him.”
“Garrett? Are you fucking kidding me? Why? Why are they doing this?”
“Apparently, it’s someone who has realized that I’m gay and is obsessed with having me or some shit.”
“So, are you?” Dagger said.
“Am I what?”
“Gay”
“Oh, yeah I am, Dag.”
“And are you okay with it?”
Tiny hesitated for a moment because he was reminded of the pain he saw on Blake’s face in that club when his dick had been down that twinks throat. He had done that. And now Garrett was being brutally tortured because of…….
Blake’s hand closed over his on the table, “Don’t,” he whispered into his ear, “whatever you’re thinking, just….stop.”
Tiny’s eyes flicked down to their joined hands and that’s when he knew he could answer Dagger’s question, “Yeah, I’m okay with it, Dag.”
“It’s about fucking time, asshole.”
Tiny’s mouth curved up in a smile.
“So, I’m assuming you’ve made a list already and eliminated everyone on it?” Dagger said.
“Yeah, we did.”
“Take a pic right now and send it to me.”
Tiny picked up the phone, snapped a photo and sent it off to Dagger as he said, “Okay, but I really think I’ve thought of…..”
“Simon Turner,” Dagger said.
“Motherfucker,” Tiny growled.
“Yeah, I hated that perverted prick. He was only with the gang for a few years because of how weird he was around me. I was only fourteen when he got kicked out but for the two years he was in, he always eyed me like I was a juicy fucking steak that he wanted to eat. Found every excuse in the book that he could to get me to see his fucking needle dick – coming out of the head with his pants still open, taking a piss when we were all standing around outside and making sure I was nearby. Hell, he even tried to pass out in my fucking bed when he was drunk once.”
“Yeah, your dad kicked him out because he caught him offering your cousin fifty bucks to take naked pictures of you in the shower.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck is wrong with his asshole?” Dagger shouted.
“It’s worse, Dag,” Tiny whispered as he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Tell me.”
“It’s Garrett. The picture he sent of him? He’s been beaten and raped. He looks bad, Dag.”
“That motherfucker,” Dagger growled.
There was silence on the phone until, “Hey Tiny?”
“Yeah, Dag?”
“Promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t kill him. Promise me you guys will capture him alive.”
“Okay, why?”
“Because I’m going to castrate that motherfucker before he goes to prison. I want him to spend the rest of his life staring at his limp noodle dick and remembering what it used to feel like but never will again.”
Tiny’s mouth twitched in a smile, “You got it, bud.”
“Hey, Tiny?” Jaz said.
“Yeah, Jaz.”
“After you rescue Garrett, you remember my buddy, Luke, right? He’s a really good counselor, especially with PTSD or anything traumatizing like this.”
“Oh, that’s right. And he lives here, yes?”
“Yeah, in cabin eight, with Wyatt. Wyatt’s a doctor so if Garrett’s got injuries he can fix him up.”
“Sounds perfect, thanks, Jaz.”
“I’m going back to playing with my man’s hole now. But Tiny? Don’t get dead, okay?”
Tiny snorted a laugh, “I won’t, Dag. Thanks, man.”
He ended the call and then the big screen TV on the wall at the end of the room flickered on and a face he hadn’t seen in years slid onto one side.
“Okay, let’s get to work on this asshole,” Brent said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Justice looked over his coffee cup at the sea of unfriendly faces with a disinterested eye. He was used to people hating him. In fact, that’s what most everyone did once he crossed paths with someone. What could he say? He was a dick and he knew it. But Kelly was different. For some reason, Kelly was always able to push through his steel walls and remain his….friend? Yeah, that’s what Justice would call him, even though the word felt foreign floating around in his head. But Kelly Braddock was his friend. His only friend.
Yes, he had fuck buddies, a lot of them, all over the world. Kelly was one, or he used to be anyways. But he never spent any time with them other than to scratch a mutual itch. Kelly was different. He liked hanging out with the man. It was weird for Justice but it was what it was. That’s pretty much how he looked at life, especially when the hard shit was thrown at him – it was what it was, nothing he could do to change it, so he sucked it up and pushed on.
Suddenly Cole stepped up to Justice, blocking his view of Kelly. Justice didn’t realize how long he’d been staring at the man.
Cole’s arms were crossed and he was just….glaring.
“What?” Justice finally said.
“Whatever you two had in the past? Let it go. He’s mine now, you got it? So, stop looking at him like that. It’s making me….twitchy and I don’t like to be twitchy.”
Justice had to bite back his smile. He liked this Cole guy, he liked him a lot, because he had balls, huge ones. Justice could literally blow out a breath and this guy would probably hit the wall – not that he was a skinny fucker, not at all. He had some nice muscle definition on his sle
nder body – Justice had seen that first hand back in the bedroom when the guy had been, well, naked except for a sheet. But Justice was, well, not only was he huge compared to this guy, he was also trained – fighting was ingrained in his muscle DNA now. He was deadly, no two ways about it. And yet here Cole was, up in his face, telling him to back the fuck off. So, Justice did something he rarely did – he gave Cole his respect by being honest with the man. “Kelly is my friend, Cole. He happens to be the only friend that I have in the world and I hope you’ll allow that to continue. But we are just friends now, and I am very clear about that, okay?” he said as he stuck out his hand.
Cole looked down at his hand then unwove his arms, gripped Justice’s in a firm grip and said, “Okay, Justice.”
Morgan poured coffee while they all sat around Cole’s dining room table. “What can you tell us?” he said.
“You need to understand something first. Everything I tell you in this room? It will be usable information but it’s all from my head. There are no files, there are no thumb drives, there’s nothing that can tie this to me or really to anybody but they will know who gave you this information because I’m the only one who would know this.”
“Justice,” Kelly said.
His eyes moved over and locked with Kelly’s, “No, Kel. I’m done with those fuckers. The second they put a target on your back? They put one on mine too as far as I’m concerned.”
“But.”
“No, now shut up and let me do this because I’ve got a flight to catch.”
“I want you to stay with my dad’s team after this. You’ll be safe with them.”
Justice barked out a laugh, “I’m a solo act, Braddock, always have been, always will be.”
“Just think about it J, please? For me?” Kelly said.
Justice rolled his eyes, “I’ll talk to him and listen to his pitch, okay? Now, back to you. Here’s what’s been going on with you for the last decade.”
By the time Justice stopped talking almost an hour later, Kelly felt……fileted. “Did you have any idea so many people were pulling your strings and how high up they went?” Cain said as he looked at him.
“No,” Kelly said but the word came out all raspy because his throat felt raw. A glass of water suddenly appeared in front of him and he looked up to see who had put it there only to find Cole’s concerned gaze looking down at him. “You okay?” Cole whispered as he rubbed his hand on the back of Kelly’s neck.
“No,” Kelly said again and now he could feel the shaking in his hands.
Cole’s eyes went wide then he glanced around the room and he dove for something off to his right.
“Oh shit, I’m going to be…” Kelly mumbled just as Cole turned back with a silver trash can and he put it between Kelly’s legs just as he leaned over and began heaving.
While Kelly spit out the nasty taste in his mouth, Cole looked over the table at Justice, “Are there others?”
Justice knew that Cole was asking if there were other operatives out there like Kelly who might have targets on their back too.
Pain washed over Justice’s face for a split-second before he schooled it and whispered, “Not anymore,” as he looked away.
“What?” Kelly sputtered as he wiped his hand over the back of his mouth. He took a sip of his water in his mouth, swished it around and spit into the bin again before he looked over at Justice, “Wharton?”
“Gone, six months ago.”
“Reilly?”
“A year and a half ago.”
“Payne?” Kelly choked out with so much agony in his voice that it was obvious that this man meant a great deal to him.
And from the way that Justice squeezed his eyes shut the instant that his name left Kelly’s lips – he meant a lot to Justice too, “Disappeared eighteen months ago.”
“Disappeared but not dead?”
Justice’s jaw clenched and his adams apple bobbed as he swallowed, the only outward signs that he was fighting emotions as he shook his head once and mumbled, “Not dead that I can find. I think, I think he’s gone completely off grid.”
Cain’s hand shifted on the table, “We can help, let us help, okay?”
Justice’s eyes moved between Cain and Kelly as he wrestled with the decision of accepting or not. Finally, he nodded his head, “Yeah, okay.”
Cain slid a pad of paper over to Justice, “Write down everything you know about him. What’s his first name?”
“Jaden. His name was, is Jaden Payne.”
“Okay, write down everything you know about him and we’ll get started while you’re on your flight, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Kelly pushed his chair back and carried the garbage can down the hall into the bathroom so he could empty it and rinse it out. He saw Cole out of the corner of his eye as the man leaned in the doorway, “You okay?”
“It’s just so surreal, Cole. I thought I was just this tiny cog in a giant machine, this faceless guy that nobody knew other than the few guys around me like Justice and Payne. But come to find out that I was being used like a chess piece on a giant board the entire time but I didn’t even fucking know it? I don’t know what to feel about that.”
“Are you pissed at Justice for not telling you?”
“No. I probably should be but I’m not. I’m sure he couldn’t tell me and if he had we’d both be dead by now. So, him keeping this to himself until we were both out of there probably saved my life. But I can’t imagine what it’s done to him keeping this inside all this time.”
Kelly reached for the mouthwash and rinsed a few times then he pulled Cole into his arms, “Sorry about that,” he whispered into Cole’s hair.
“About what?”
“Puking in front of you, almost barfing on your shoes.”
“You can’t be serious.”
When Kelly didn’t answer, Cole pulled back and glared at him, “Oh, I get it. You’re the guy and I’m the girl in this relationship and you’re not supposed to show any weakness, any vulnerability? Well fuck that, Kelly.”
Kelly’s eyes went wide, “What? No, babe. That’s not what I meant at all. I was just worried about your carpet and this,” he said as he waved his hand at Cole’s silver trash can, “I mean, this is probably tiffany silver or some shit. I’m not used to being around all this….money, Cole. It’s throwing me off.”
Cole smiled at him and placed his hand on Kelly’s cheek, “All this money means nothing to me, Kelly, not a fucking thing. I used it to try to fill up my heart but all it did was left it hollow. The second you stepped back into my life, I finally felt my heart fill up with what I’ve been missing since the day you left – love, Kelly. So, puke away if you need to, cry if you want. Hell, if you want to piss off my balcony, have at it, although I’m not sure the folks walking below will appreciate it.”
Kelly got a gleam in his eye as he grinned at Cole.
“You’re totally going to pee off my balcony, aren’t you?”
Kelly nodded his head, “Yep.”
Cole took a deep breath and sighed, “Well, it was a nice home while it lasted.”
Kelly laughed, “Ah, come on, I’ll check to make sure it’s clear below first, I promise.”
Kelly’s eyes flicked over Cole’s shoulder. Kelly turned to find that Justice had wandered into his room.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt but I need to head out,” he said.
Suddenly a very surprised Justice found himself wrapped tightly in Cole’s arms, “I can’t thank you enough,” he said into the big man’s shoulder.
Justice’s eyes flicked to Kelly, “Thank me by loving him. He deserves that, he’s always deserved that.”
“I will, I promise,” Cole said as he stepped away.
Kelly stepped over to him but before he pulled him into a hug he looked into his eyes and said, “Swear to me you won’t ghost on me, Justice. I won’t survive you and Payne both.”
“I won’t, I swear.”
Now Kelly finally pulled him
into that tight embrace, pressing his lips to the man’s neck as he squeezed his eyes shut and just breathed in the man’s scent. How many times had they just held each other like this for a few minutes just to chase away the dark loneliness that was their constant companion? Sometimes it led to more but sometimes this was enough. “You’re my best friend, you know that, right?” he whispered.
Justice’s arms squeezed just a little tighter and Kelly felt a hitch in the man’s chest, almost like he had to fight a sob. “Yeah, I know. I love you too, Kel,” he whispered, his voice so quiet Kelly wasn’t really sure he’d spoken those words out loud. When Justice stepped back, he quickly swiped his hand at his eyes, but not fast enough for Kelly to see the tears shimmering there. Kelly was glad to see those – it meant the man was human after all.
“Thanks for helping out my dad with this kidnapping case they’ve got,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, no problem. And before you say it, yes, I promise to hear him and his cohorts out about this team they’ve got going. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
“Yep, stay safe, Justice.”
“You too, Kelly.”
And with that, Justice was out of the room and onto his next assignment.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Let’s all try to get some sleep for a few hours, yeah?” JD said as he pushed up from the table.
“Sure, where do you want us?” Logan said.
“Not here, because of the babies, but I don’t want you as far as one of the cabins, even though they aren’t that far I’m still worried about you guys. Let’s have the four of you stay in the apartment above the garage. It’s technically Caleb and Dean’s place right now but since they’re in Denver it’s fine for you to stay there.”
“Understood,” Blake said as he pushed to his feet. Tiny frowned as he looked over to him because he sounded so……detached and that worried him.
“Layout of the place?” Blake said.
Brent pulled a yellow legal pad from the middle of the table and drew a rectangle on it, “Standard two-bedroom layout, open floor plan, one bathroom. It’s above the garage.”
“Just the one entrance?”
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