by Amy Lane
The guy went facedown onto the concrete, and Hunter ran forward, pulling magic zip ties out of a magic pouch at his waist. Grace hadn’t even noticed Hunter had one on when he’d left the car, and he was much impressed.
Grace smiled at him because he was always so prepared, but Hunter ran right past him, turned slightly to the side, and caught the hurt guy moaning against the wall in the chest with his elbow.
The guy whimpered and collapsed to the ground, a knife clattering out of his hand.
Grace looked from the guy to the knife, then back at Hunter, who was only about four feet away, standing where the knife guy had stood.
And everything clicked.
“He was going to get me with that,” he said.
“Yeah, baby,” Hunter told him gently. “He was.”
Anybody else would have kissed then, but there were bad guys at their feet. Hunter was on his knees on knife guy’s back as he trussed him up in zip ties, and Grace stood on top of gun guy’s shoulders, bouncing every so often to hear him whimper.
“Harder, Grace,” Hunter said grimly. “These are the guys that blew up Paulie.”
Grace growled and jumped on the small of the guy’s back.
He groaned. “Paulie was never meant to be a target, Hunter. You guys were supposed to be fucking in your rooms!”
“Well, you killed the gate guy, and that’s worse,” Hunter said shortly. “No bodies. Goddammit, I left the fucking military because collateral damage is so not okay.”
“So goddamned pure,” muttered the guy who’d held the knife. “Now you’re going to kill us all.”
That was not promising. As Hunter moved off of knife guy and started trussing up gun guy, Grace looked to see where Chuck had gone.
He was lying on his stomach in front of the brand-new black tech van.
“Chuck?” Hunter said gruffly into the com.
“Everybody get the fuck off this floor,” Chuck said tensely.
At that moment, Danny and Torrance Grayson rounded the corner ahead of all the people Grace had passed, and Grace stared at them.
“Where the fuck did they come from?” he asked in confusion. “I didn’t even see them!”
“Service stairs,” Torrance panted, leaning forward and resting his hands on his knees because he was obviously out of breath. “God, the service stairs in a parking garage. We were right on your heels until you got here. Jesus.”
Grace looked around and saw the rest of their group coming into the third floor from the slope of the garage. “What if someone tries to drive down?” he asked. The garage, which had been mostly empty when Josh parked, had filled up considerably. None of the cars Hunter and Chuck had used for cover had been there when Chuck parked the van.
“I’ll head them off,” Molly said. “I’m wearing a uniform. People will think I’m with the garage.” With that she trotted down the U-turn a few yards, but not enough to be out of danger.
Danny heard Grace too, and Danny thought bigger. “Soderburgh,” he said into his com, “are you the only one of us still at the gala with the police?”
Soderburgh didn’t sound happy when he replied. “Yes, Danny. Yes, I am.”
“Well, stay there, and send a contingent of police to the entrance of the parking garage since—” Danny glared at Nick Denning, who was standing a few feet away. “—their commander in chief seems to be here.”
Nick looked at him in confusion. “Grace told me Josh was in trouble,” he said, sounding lost. “Josh is a friend.”
The look Danny sent Nick was pure compassion. “Sweet boy, you are going to have to have a reckoning with yourself, but now is not the time.” He straightened up, his fox-shaped jaw hard and determined. “Chuck, how are you doing?”
“Found it,” Chuck said, voice muffled as he lay flat on the ground and wiggled shit around. “It’s rigged to go if we open the doors or start the van. Josh, Stirling, I’d stay put for a bit, okay?”
“No problem,” Josh said over coms. “We’re fine.”
“You’re in a corner in the fetal position,” Grace chided, eyes fixed on Chuck. “Be honest.”
“He threw up,” Stirling said with forced cheerfulness. “But he says he’s got an excuse for that. It’s a good thing he brought bags to back up his story.”
Everybody gave a forced laugh, and Nick and the guy in the suit looked around uneasily.
“What’d we miss?”
It was the first time Grace had heard the guy in the suit—who was pretty dishy, actually, with coiffed dark hair, a square jaw, and dark blue eyes—speak.
His accent was pure London East End.
“He’s throwing up and making us laugh about it,” Grace said. “Who are you, British guy, and why are you here?”
“He’s my friend Liam, from Interpol,” Danny said tensely, his eyes never leaving Chuck on the ground, “and he’s here to arrest Sergei and his buyers.”
“Sergei’s dead,” Grace told him seriously. “You can go home now.”
“I’ll take these two instead,” Liam said mildly. “Just as soon as your friends are safe.”
Nick Denning seemed to shake himself. “These guys are mine,” he said. “They committed a murder in my town. You can have the dead guys, though. And the list of very confused live guys waiting to buy something from the very dead guys.”
“What are you going to do?” Liam asked curiously.
“Apparently I’m calling the bomb squad,” he said definitively, but even as he pulled his radio from his belt, Felix intervened.
“That would be lovely, sir, but if you don’t mind waiting until we’re all gone, we would be much obliged.”
“But….” Nick flailed. “Who even is that guy, and why is he trying to disarm an explosive device?”
“I’m a munitions expert,” Chuck said. “And I’m only trying because I need tools. If I had tools, I’d be succeeding. Anybody got a little screwdriver, a file, a mini wrench, and some clippers on them?”
Grace was there first with his lockpicking kit, but Danny followed up with one of his own. Felix produced a tiny wrench, Julia pulled a stiletto from a sheath at her thigh, Hunter started unloading an entire toolbox from his pockets and dorky little leather fanny pack, and Molly ran up from traffic duty to hand Chuck a thumb-sized power drill with tiny bits in assorted sizes and shapes.
Chuck stared at her in appreciation. “This is great, Molly-girl, but where were you keeping it?”
Molly shrugged and pushed up her cleavage. “The tits have got to be good for something with the lot of you. I’m serious.” She stared at Liam and Nick. “Let me guess. Gay.”
Liam shrugged. “Guilty?”
“Married,” Nick said, holding his hands up.
“No law says you can’t be both,” she told him acidly, “but you see my point. I’m going to go flag down pedestrians and beg for anonymous sex now. If we blow up, I’ll see you then.”
“Got everything you need?” Danny asked anxiously.
“I wasn’t this well-equipped in the army,” Chuck muttered. “Julia, that stiletto is something special.” He wielded it carefully before using Molly’s little electric whizbang to do something complicated afterward.
“Danny gave it to me for my birthday one year,” she said. “The emeralds in the hilt are rather famous.”
“The bomb squad is waiting at the entrance of the parking garage. You all should clear out of here,” Nick said, lowering his radio from his mouth. Molly looked at him behind her shoulder as she searched for pedestrians to warn away.
“My brother is in there, dickweed. If he goes, I go.”
In his ear, Grace heard Stirling’s tense little sob. “You should go,” he rasped.
“Fuck off, little brother,” Molly said gently. “And have some faith. I mean, his name is Good Luck Chuck—gotta stand for something.”
“The rest of you, then!” Nick tried to insist.
“Sure,” Danny said. “You first.”
Nick sent him an anguishe
d look, and in Grace’s ear, Josh said, “Somebody make Nick go. He’s got a wife and a kid at home.”
Grace swallowed and disengaged himself from Hunter’s hand. He hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding it until that moment.
“Nick,” he said, trying for his most grown-up voice. “Josh needs you to go. You’ve got a baby. We’re here….” Grace swallowed and tried to imagine his life without Josh. It would be as meaningless as life without Hunter. “We’re here because he’s our heart. Your heart needs to be somewhere else. Go sit with the bomb squad.”
He looked behind him, where Chuck was humming—he was actually humming—as he got into his work.
“We’ll disappear shortly,” Grace reassured him. “We always do.”
“But what about the murderers!” Nick protested, looking at the two men at Grace and Hunter’s feet.
“Well,” Grace said, kicking one of them in the ribs and wincing. He’d done something to his foot when he’d kicked this same guy in the back of the head. Something not good. “If we’re still alive, they’ll still be here. If we’re not, these assholes set the fucking bomb.”
Nick grunted. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fine.”
Hunter bent down with his waiter’s tie in his hand and rummaged under the red sports car, which had stopped blaring a couple of minutes before. He came up with the Beretta that had skittered under the car next to it, held gingerly by the trigger guard.
“Got an evidence bag?” he asked.
Nick rummaged in his pocket and produced one, taking the gun using a folded poly glove to keep his own fingerprints off it. “Fantastic,” he muttered. “Let me go hold my guys off. Don’t get dead.” He gave Grace a last searching look. “And take care of Josh,” he said helplessly.
Grace—who had been pretty sure he could feel empathy for nobody outside his very tight little circle—was dismayed to find a slight pain in his chest.
“We’ll take care of him,” Grace said softly. “I’m sorry, Nick. It’s not your job.”
Nick nodded. “Well, then,” he said, his voice firming up, “I’ll go do my actual job.” His face softened. “Tell him I was worried.”
“Sure,” Grace lied.
Nick turned and strode purposefully down the parking garage, and Hunter bumped Grace’s shoulder.
“What?” Grace asked.
“Later. When we’re not commed.”
“Whatever. Are we dead yet? Are things blowing up? I need something to happen!”
“If you don’t shut up, you may get your wish,” Chuck almost sang, his voice echoing from the floor. “Okay. All right. Righteous! Josh, how they hanging?”
“Shriveled and pruney at this point,” Josh said through coms. “Stirling is doing a bunch of eShopping, by the way. Molly, if we live through this, I think you may have to redecorate your room with plushies.”
“Aw!” Molly cooed. “See? Best brother in the world.” Then they all heard her talking to someone else. “No! Shoo! No access here. Go away!”
Lucius Broadstone’s voice echoed through the garage. “But my car’s alarm went off! My phone told me it had suffered an impact!”
“Car’s fine, Lucius!” Chuck hollered. “Now go away before… oh, wait. Heh heh. It’s done. Fine. Everybody come get your tools—bomb’s completely disassembled. That last piece there was a bitch!”
“Bomb?” Lucius’s voice held a faint note of incredulity, but none of panic.
“Nope,” Molly said cheerfully. “Not anymore. But there’s scumbags by your car. You may want to go back to the gala until the scumbags are picked up by the police.”
“Can we get out of the van first?” Josh said weakly. “Not to complain, but a little bit of fresh air would be very, very appreciated.”
“Oh! Yeah, course. Here, let me put all the components right here….” Murmuring to himself, Chuck gathered his tuxedo coat—which would never be the same—and the bomb components gingerly into a little ball and took it to the ledge behind the van. Very carefully he extracted each component and stacked it, separately, at least six inches away from its fellow bomb component, lining them all up like little bomb soldiers until his suit coat—now stained from its time on the garage floor—could be shaken out and put back on.
Chuck sighed as he did so. “Shame,” he murmured. “I liked having a bespoke sui—”
Julia rushed into his arms and held him tight, her shoulders shaking. Everyone on coms could hear her whispering, “I’ll buy you a thousand of them. I’ll buy you a million. I’ll buy you a mansion and fill it with tuxedos,” before Felix pulled her away.
“Josh,” Felix said, holding Julia tight and out of the way, “if you and Stirling could come out, I think your mother needs you.”
“Sure, Dad,” Josh murmured. “Stirling, kill coms.”
A moment later, the van door slid open, and Josh stood shakily in the entrance. Felix held his hand up so his son could lean his weight on it, but everybody saw Josh’s knees buckle at the last moment, and he fell.
Right into a waiting Liam Craig’s arms.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and Liam—doing one of the most manly things Grace had ever seen—swept Josh up, like a child or a bride, and held him while Danny and Molly came to make sure Stirling’s legs were still in working order.
“I’m fine,” Josh mumbled. “Who even are you?”
“I’m Liam Craig. Your Uncle Danny called me in to arrest the dead guys.”
“Oops,” Josh said, breaking into a giggle.
At Grace’s feet, gun guy groaned. “Jesus, Hunter, you piece of shit. It’s like you attract gay men like flies.”
Hunter kicked the guy in the ribs.
“I’m not that big of a shit,” he said mildly. “I don’t mind being a fly.”
Grace grinned at him. “You’re my fly. My fly guy. My fly guy spy.”
Hunter groaned, and Grace found himself crushed up against his big chest. “You’re insane,” Hunter said gruffly. “Stop rhyming and just… just stay. Right here.”
Grace found himself melting. “Sure. As long as you appreciate my crazy, it’s all good.”
“It’s all good,” Hunter murmured. “So all good.”
“Hey,” Josh asked from the safety of Liam Craig’s arms. “Whatever happened to the gem?”
Grace had to pull away from Hunter so he could reach into the pocket of his yoga pants. “Cool your jets,” he said, producing the stone. “This asshole—” He took a few steps away from Hunter so he could stand on brown-haired guy’s ass. “—had it in his pocket.”
“I didn’t even see you do that!” Hunter said with admiration.
Grace grinned. “I am a very good thief,” he said, holding the gem up. A perfect, pure rose-colored diamond the size of a walnut sat in the palm of his hand. “Do you think we could keep it? After the information is scrubbed and all?”
“Why?” Danny asked. “And let him stand up, Liam. Felix, Julia, and I need to smother him.” His voice broke. “A lot.”
As Liam complied, Grace said, “I want to give it to my dance teacher in a little glass case. He spent a lot of his life transporting these things back and forth. I figure he deserves to keep one, just this once.”
“Good thought,” Danny said thickly, wrapping his arms around Josh and holding him tight. Felix and Julia gathered round and smothered their son, as promised, and that’s all anyone said for a while.
Except Hunter, who murmured, “You know, they were probably thumb drives until Laslo Hu got co-opted.”
Grace had thought of this also. “Too bad Sergei got himself shot,” he said sadly. “The gem idea—you don’t find bad guys with that much imagination, you know?”
“Truth.” Hunter nodded, getting him, and into the blessed, blessed echoing silence of the parking garage, Lucius Broadstone was heard.
“So I’m just stuck here until the cops come and get my vehicle?”
Chuck laughed out loud. “Sir, if you want to get out of here a
nytime soon, I think you need to hop a ride with one of us.”
And that was how Lucius Broadstone ended up on the couch in the den that night, while the rest of them curled up in their sweats, had appetizers and beverages, and rehashed the job. Except for Josh, who went to sleep immediately upstairs, Julia in attendance. Grace knew that Felix and Danny would take their turns, because Josh was loved.
But they would also all take a turn down with the after-party, because even a criminal family was a family.
And gathering to brag about what they’d done in the night was family tradition, after all.
Bowing Out
HUNTER LOOKED sideways at Grace in the darkened theater as the alternate dancer performed Cinderella with grace and brilliance.
But not, Hunter thought staunchly, with Grace’s puckishness and style.
Grace, it turned out, had broken his toe saving Hunter’s life, and while he’d insisted he could perform—and Hunter was pretty sure he could have—a tearfully grateful Artur had begged for him to, just this once, let someone else have the spotlight.
“You are a beautiful dancer, little lion, and you leave poor Michael in the dust. But I want you to dance for my company for many years. You don’t do that by dancing on your injury now.” The old man’s eyes had watered. “Besides, you and your friends have worked so hard. You deserve some rest, you think?” He’d looked winsomely at Hunter then. “I think your young man would agree.”
Hunter had rubbed the back of his neck, mildly embarrassed. But he did agree. Knowing Grace, he’d be throwing himself into the rest of the ballet’s two-month run with his whole heart. It was good to let his body heal now.
Especially since their hearts were all a bit raw after that terrible moment by the van.
Hunter had never had a boyfriend he would die for before. But now he had a family. Even Chuck. Not once the night before had anybody thought of leaving. Part of it, he was sure, was that Good Luck Chuck was Good Luck Chuck, and he seemed to inspire that sort of confidence. Those moments fighting—and running and hiding—in the garage had been some of the most exhilarating of his career. And some of the most fun as well. That adrenaline rush, that sense of play that he got with the Salinger crew—it was something irreplaceable. Some people might question how long such a thing might last, but nobody knew how long the School of Turin had been in existence, and those had been thieves out for themselves.
