In the Shadows (The Club, #10)

by M. A. Grant

  He’d inherited his father’s jaw, his shoulders, the slope of his nose. But the curve of his lips and his piercing eyes came solely from his mother. Vivian noted the awkwardness frozen in the image. Zeke’s father held his wife delicately with a stiff arm around the shoulder. She, in turn, may have given the camera a bright smile, but it looked strained, and her fingers were tight around a younger Zeke’s shoulders.

  “Do you still see them?” Vivian asked, hoping she’d worded the inquiry right.

  Zeke pursed his lips. “I see my father every few months.”

  “And your mother?” Vivian pushed.

  “I see her too.”

  God, this was painful. “They’re still married?”

  His shoulders stiffened and some emotion she couldn’t fully understand flitted across his face. “She’s dead.”

  Her gut pitched. “Zeke...I’m so sorry.”

  “You can change if you want,” he said, handing her some clothes and gesturing to the hallway behind him. “Bathroom’s down there.”

  She padded silently to the bathroom. It wasn’t like she’d be embarrassed to change in front of him; he’d seen everything several times over. But the fact that he suggested she change out of the room was probably the closest he’d ever get to asking her for some space.

  She managed to tie off the drawstring of his gym shorts so they didn’t slide down her hips, but there wasn’t much hope for the t-shirt. She tucked a bit of it into the shorts, enough to keep it from tangling around her thighs, and peered out of the bathroom. He was still standing by the bookcase, looking at the pictures when she returned to him.

  “I shouldn’t have asked,” she apologized.

  His brow furrowed with confusion. At least he looked away from the picture though. “Why wouldn’t you have asked? Isn’t that something normal people do? Ask questions?”

  “I...Well...I mean...”

  “You want some coffee?”

  His awkward offer jarred her from her poorly attempted explanation. “Sure.”

  There was only one stool at the kitchen’s island. He pulled it out for her as he headed toward the coffee maker. She perched on the edge of the stool and watched him go about the work. As with everything he did, short, efficient movements completed the task and it wasn’t long before the hot water bubbled through the basket of grounds. He moved a box of sugar cubes to the island and pulled a half-empty jug of cream from the fridge. It took him a minute to find two cups. He gave her the nice one, keeping the chipped, stained mug for himself. Even after they each had a cup of coffee in hand, she kept silent.

  What could she possibly say?

  “A few years ago, do you remember a news story about Quinn O’Neill?” Zeke suddenly asked.

  She frowned and thought about it. “The name sounds familiar.” He waited while she scoured her brain, trying to figure out where she’d heard it before. Then it clicked. “Isn’t that the name of the war hero?”

  Zeke nodded.

  “He rescued a hostage or something, I think.”

  The low rush of air leaving Zeke wasn’t quite a sound of pain, but it made her chest hurt all the same.

  “You probably saw the video of the escape,” he said. “The terrorists were filming the execution and instead filmed him killing everyone and rescuing the other hostage.” As he spoke, memories of the newscasts she’d seen rose vaguely.

  “He won some awards when he got back stateside,” she said, relieved when Zeke’s nod confirmed that she was remembering the right story. “Because of him, the other hostage survived.”

  “There were two other hostages,” he said shortly.

  “How would you–?” She trailed off as she watched his stoic expression. “You knew him?”

  His lips twisted into a grim smile. “Am him, darlin’.”

  ***

  He kept waiting for Viv to react to that bombshell. Shit, he felt a little wobbly after the admission. Instead, she dropped her eyes to the island counter, took a sip of coffee, and looked back up at him.

  “O’Neill?” she asked.

  “My mother’s maiden name,” he explained, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He really wished he had another stool right about now.

  “So why Harding now?”

  “My father’s name. After the news broke, I...I needed that change.”

  Her full lips pursed, but she didn’t drop eye contact with him. Instead, she tilted her head a little and asked, “Family issues?”

  The idea of explaining the level of fucked-upedness in his family surprised a bark of laughter from him. “You have no idea.”

  She gave a slow nod. “Probably not. My family’s pretty close. But if you want to talk about it, I wouldn’t mind listening.”

  The tension in his shoulders almost vanished from that simple statement. She wasn’t pushing him to spill his guts like all those reporters had years ago. Her straightened spine told him she was more interested in hearing this than she was willing to let on. Still, her readiness to let him take the reins burned away a little of the cold that always rose when he thought of his past.

  “I don’t know where to start,” he admitted, tightening his grip on his coffee mug.

  “Your parents?” she suggested. “After all, they made you, so it seems as good a place as any.”

  His parents, huh? Okay, fine, he could do that. “They met in Dublin. My father was there on business and my mother was working at the pub he visited. One thing led to another and she got pregnant. So he married her and brought her back to the States.”

  “Then they had you?”

  He took a quick swig of coffee. “No. She had a miscarriage. So they tried again.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy for her,” Vivian said.

  “It wasn’t. I was lucky number four,” he said. “By that point, things between them were...strained, at best. My father’s work kept him away from home and my mother didn’t have anyone but me.”

  “They wouldn’t divorce?”

  “She was a staunch Catholic and, even if he was crappy at showing it, my father did love her. He was always faithful to her, despite everything, and I’m finally old enough to know that a marriage goes both ways.”

  He couldn’t go deeper than that. He only knew that he would never settle for the same nightmare his parents had allowed themselves to be trapped in. The endless fights, two lives spent in complete separation despite being under the same roof, the desperate search both his parents made to find anything that would give their lives meaning again.

  “It must have been hard on you. Is that why you joined the military?” Vivian’s soft voice pulled him from that dark place, but the compassion in her eyes is what gave him the strength to continue.

  He tried to take another sip of coffee, but only a trickle remained. Stymied, he set down the mug and noticed his hands were starting to shake. Dammit.

  “I got into a fight in high school and got suspended. The other kid deserved it. He’d been running his mouth off about an exchange student from Lebanon. He was just another racist dickhead who never had anyone stand up to him before. So I reminded him to be polite.” Zeke grinned. “I’d been boxing for a while. Guess my uncle back in Ireland was pretty good and my mother thought I might be good too. So it wasn’t much of a fight. There was a recruiter on campus that day. He saw the whole thing happen and spoke up for me to the principal. Kept me from getting expelled.”

  “That was good of him,” Vivian agreed with a hint of a smile on her lips.

  “I enlisted right after graduation. The only thing both my parents ever agreed on was that I’d made a horrible mistake.” He took a breath and leaned down to rest his arms on the counter. As he continued, he centered his weight on them, trying to get himself to relax. “Did well in training. Did well in Afghanistan. Got recruited to a commando unit. Did well there. When the international team was started, I was recruited for that too.”

  “The men in the photo?”

  “Yeah. America, England,
Ireland, Spain, Australia, and even Turkey. We were effective together.”

  “So what happened?”

  The shaking in his hands intensified, so he clasped them together. “We were sent into Syria. We were sold out by an informant and ambushed. Part of the team escaped. Five of us were captured and taken to the cell’s safe house. Two died there from their injuries.”

  “What about you and the other two?”

  “Tortured.”

  Her face blanched. “For how long?”

  “Seventy-two days.”

  “Seventy-two days. Who let it go on that long?” He loved the way her horror gave way to fury and he wished someone like her could have fought to find him. Any man going toe to toe with her like that—eyes flashing, body taut with rage—would have thought twice about calling bureaucratic bullshit like they had.

  “Our team made things complicated. We weren’t exactly what the paperwork said we were. So it took longer.”

  “Clearly you escaped,” she said. She was also shaking now, but with a different emotion. “So why did you say they were filming an execution?”

  “Because they were. They’d tortured us and still hadn’t gotten anything.”

  She made a noise in the back of her throat. “John’s hands–?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her eyes slid up and down his body and he knew what she was thinking. He straightened up from the island and turned away from her. It took every ounce of courage he had, but he managed to pull off his shirt, exposing his back to her for the first time.

  He appreciated that she tried to stifle her gasp, but he’d known it was coming. It always did when someone saw the extent of the damage.

  “What did they do to you?” The shock and pain in her voice hurt, but not the way he was used to. This was different...This was shared outrage at his injuries, not terrified pity or, worse, untoward fascination.

  “A lot of things,” he said, refusing to let her get those images trapped in her head. “They used salt to make sure it didn’t get too infected. Made for some nasty scars though.”

  That was an understatement. He turned back to her, letting his shirt fall back down to cover him, a little afraid of whether he should continue. She’d abandoned her coffee cup and he noticed that her hands were trembling. He returned to the island and reached out. He took her hands in his, running his fingers over her skin, focusing on how smooth she felt.

  “I won’t lie, Viv, when they said they were going to kill us, it was a fucking relief.”

  “So why’d you fight them?”

  ***

  Up until she asked him that, Zeke had been sharing his story steadily. But for some reason, her question made him pause. Draw away from her. Pace the kitchen. Lift his arms above his head, sending his abs and chest flexing, before swinging them back down in a gesture of frustration.

  “I fought because I was a coward,” he finally said.

  That, more than any of the other shocking details he’d voiced, made her brain grind to a halt. “What?”

  “I didn’t want to die. That’s why I fought.”

  She blinked. “I fail to see how that makes you cowardly. Someone who follows basic biological imperatives, maybe, but not a coward.”

  His fists clenched. “The news never talked about what happened during the escape, did they? There were three of us there, Viv. Me, John, and Aengus. While I was busy trying to save myself, Aengus got shot. The bullet went in through his eye and blew out the back of his skull. He died because I didn’t want to.”

  “All three of you would have died if you didn’t fight back,” she said cautiously.

  Either he didn’t hear her, or he was too caught up to understand what she’d said. “Someone leaked the news to the media while John and I were in the hospital. You know how they get about speculating all sorts of insane shit. So when my mother heard the news report that an Irish boy had been killed, she assumed it was me because I hadn’t been able to tell her I was on an international squad.”

  So much pain in that steady gaze. His voice broke a little when he added, “She slit her wrists in the bathtub and left my father to find her body when he got back from a business trip. I didn’t get the news until I got stateside.”

  “Zeke–”

  “Everyone wanted to tell my story. But that meant they’d have to learn about her and what she did...” His voice trailed off. “I couldn’t do that to her. It was my fault.”

  He seemed so lost, so defiantly hurt, that she rose, moving around the island to stand at his side. He shuddered when she reached up and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “It was her choice, not yours,” she whispered, stroking his skin and wishing she could soothe him.

  “They wouldn’t leave me alone,” he said. “They were going to find out. So I left.”

  “That’s how you ended up in Karim?”

  He took a ragged breath, but nodded. “I didn’t mean to stay here. But I was at a bar and a fight broke out, so I defended one of the workers. Preston, my boss at The Club, was there and offered me a position.” He shrugged. “Good money, worked with my skill set, and Mr. Mak promised he’d buy me some anonymity.”

  “And he did?”

  “Yeah. So I don’t mind working for him.”

  She couldn’t overlook the faint twist of his lips. “You don’t mind working for him, but you don’t like it either.”

  Zeke ran a hand over his hair, a nervous smoothing of the cut. “I like Mr. Mak. He’s a good guy. Loves his wife, is loyal to his friends. Doesn’t take shit. I respect that. But–”

  “But?” She waited and a moment later her patience was paid off with a deep sigh.

  “I’m tired,” he admitted, voice low, defeated.

  “So quit. Do something else.”

  “I was going to.”

  “Was? What happened–?” She trailed off when his eyebrow rose and he tilted his head the tiniest bit.

  “Me?” she squeaked.

  The barest hint of a nod.

  Dammit. Her throat tightened and tears rose, prickling her eyes. How many years had he spent looking over his shoulder, trying to put the violence of his past behind him? And now she’d dragged him into her hell when he was so close to getting away...

  “Stop,” he ordered.

  “No,” she retorted, swiping at her eyes with the back of a hand.

  Zeke cupped her face in his hands, leaning down so his forehead pressed against hers. “No crying over me, Viv. Save those tears for a better man.”

  “You’re a good man,” she sniffled, pressing her hands to his, willing him to understand how much she believed that.

  “My one job as a soldier was to protect the men at my side. I failed in that. My job as a son was to keep my mother happy. I failed in that too. Both times I failed, someone I cared about died.” His chest heaved and a muscle in his jaw flexed. “I care about you, Viv. And what if I can’t protect you?”

  His question festered there, a nightmare too frightening to be brought from the silence. So she ignored it.

  He groaned when she pressed her lips to his, a low, guttural noise of need and longing. Tilting her face up, he kissed her with the desperation of a damned man. She clutched the hem of his shirt, peeling it up his torso, making him hiss against her mouth as her fingertips grazed over his ribs. He drew away from her mouth only to rip the shirt off over his head.

  She fumbled with his belt buckle. Her fingers shook as she pulled down the tab of his zipper and even when he sprang free into her eager grip, she wanted more. He snarled something foul when she untangled her lips from his, but his oath was cut short when she knelt and wrapped her lips around the crown of his penis.

  The harsh intake of his breath spurred her on. He was thick, forcing her to relax her jaw so she could slide her lips down his shaft. His legs shook when she drew back, her teeth lightly scouring his skin, and she reveled in the knowledge that she was in complete control of the moment.

  She worked him to the brink o
f orgasm, until he clung to the edge of the table, grunting and swaying with every flutter of her tongue, every slick thrust toward the back of her throat. Without warning she let him slip from her mouth and smiled when his knees almost went out from under him.

  “Floor,” she ordered and he obeyed without question.

  She skinned off her shirt and shorts, giving him the briefest moment to view her sheer underwear before that too joined the pile of clothes. The heat of his hands on her hips when she straddled him made up for the cold, hard floor of the apartment and his hips shifted up to meet hers, his cock sliding into place.

  She moaned as he filled her, roiling emotions boiling down to the simple relief only found in the vulnerability of bare skin. She forgot the way her knees protested with each rocking undulation she made, ignored the sound of late night traffic through the open windows in favor his harsh breathing, and selfishly claimed whatever bare flesh she could.

  Her rhythm was broken for a moment, when he forced her hips to a halt. Sweat glistened on his brow and he panted as she strained against him.

  “No condom,” he protested.

  “Women have birth control too.”

  So much control in his taut body. So much stubbornness. The feverish heat of his skin gave away his desire. But he still held her above him.

  Frustrated, she leaned down and nipped his lower lip before nuzzling against his temple. He shivered when her lips brushed her ear and she swore he stopped breathing when she whispered, “I want you to come inside.”

  Emboldened by his reaction, she pressed on, voice husky as she imagined it. “I want my thighs slick with your come. I want bruises on my hips from your fingers. And I want you to shout my name–”

  He growled and bucked under her, pelvis slamming into hers, driving his cock deep enough to make her gasp. She may have been on top, but it was all she could do to balance herself atop him as he fucked her. Every frantic stroke spun her closer to the edge and when he arched under her, neck cording, rough roar of satisfaction echoing in the loft around them, did she fall over the edge with him.