by Victoria Sue
IT TOOK two days.
Two days of sitting in more white chairs, sometimes by Deacon’s bedside, sometimes in the corridor while the nurses saw to Deacon and the doctors examined him. He didn’t know what he would have done without Phan, who brought him a change of clothes and kept feeding him. Then yesterday, he had driven Molly home with Jamie, and Loretta had even volunteered to stay for a few days to make sure they were okay.
He’d seen Jamie a few times when Molly had been asleep, but he hadn’t been able to face seeing the little girl himself.
He wanted a drink.
He desperately wanted to feel the smooth liquid bathe his scratchy throat.
Just one. He wouldn’t do anything to risk his license now he had his freedom.
Just one.
But even as he was saying it, he knew it was a lie.
Then the slight squeeze of his hand took away any thought except the man lying in front of him.
And he opened his eyes. Deacon couldn’t talk because of the tube, but they soon dispensed with that, but then what seemed like every fucking doctor in the hospital wanted to see him, and Maverick was back outside. He wasn’t Deacon’s next of kin, he was told very gently like he was five when he made a fuss.
But then another hour and everyone had left, and the nurse came for him. Deacon looked better. All the tubes were out, just the one IV. He had his eyes closed. “He’s sleeping, but he’s going to be fine,” the nurse said and smiled. “We’re moving him to a general ward in an hour.”
Maverick nodded. Relief flooding him and making him giddy. He was going to be fine. They were going to be fine.
“He’s been very lucky,” the nurse said.
Maverick stilled and turned to look at her. He’d seen her a few times, but not yesterday. “Yes,” he said agreeing. Hoping she would elaborate.
She looked at him, probably realizing she shouldn’t have said anything. “Well, he’s okay now,” she murmured and left.
Mav slid down in the chair and took Deacon’s hand. He wasn’t Deacon, though. He was Daniel, and he wondered what he would want Mav to call him—if anything. Because he’d nearly fucking died, and Mav hadn’t been able to do shit about it. He gazed at the limp hand in his larger one, and he suddenly felt big and ugly and so fucking useless.
“Mav?” Maverick turned to see Keith, Jamie’s old partner, by the door of Deacon’s room. “Is everything okay?” He took in Mav’s expression and glanced at Deacon.
Mav nodded, not able to say the lie out loud. “What is it?”
Keith winced, which drew Maverick’s attention, and Keith glanced back to the bed. “Out here?”
Maverick caught the nurse’s eye to indicate he was just stepping out. She smiled cheerfully, and he knew Deacon would be watched.
“I know you’ve been a little busy, so you probably haven’t heard, but Chaplin was up before the judge, and he’s locked up awaiting trial.”
Maverick expected nothing less. Keith sighed. “This morning he was shanked on his way back from the shower. He’s alive,” Keith tacked on hurriedly.
Maverick swallowed and tried to feel a little remorse. But he didn’t want him to die.
“He’s here guarded.”
“He is?”
Keith scrubbed his jaw. “It was too serious for their medics. He had to be operated on. I’ve kept Jamie up to date, and I’m arranging extra security. I’ve just come from there—”
“And why are you telling me?” Maverick interrupted, but he had an awful feeling he knew.
“I said I would ask.”
“He wants to see me?”
“Some idiot of a nursing assistant told him you were here.”
“Why the fuck should I see him?”
“No reason whatsoever,” Phan said, joining them and shooting a glare at the sergeant. “And to be honest, I’d rather you didn’t.”
Mav clasped Keith’s arm as he took a step away. “I’ll give him five minutes.” He didn’t owe him squat, but maybe if he listened for five minutes, it would help the guilt. The unrelenting feeling that this was his fault. That he should have known. He had to get rid of it, or they would have no future. He’d even spent the last few hours looking at Realtors’ sites while he sat in those chairs. There was a house in the same community as Jamie with a big yard and a tree that was just begging for a tree house.
He would do this and be done. Put it behind him.
“Then I go with you,” Phan said. Maverick followed Phan past the three guards into a separate room that was a short five-minute walk away from ICU, which didn’t thrill Mav at all, but Phan told him he would be going back to prison tomorrow. He stopped outside the room door while Phan showed his ID to the officer on duty and explained who Maverick was. Chaplin must have heard because he opened his eyes and fixed them on the door. Maverick stared at him for a long moment. If he had looked smug or satisfied, Mav would have turned back around and gone back to Deacon, knowing the only other time he would ever have to see him was when he was tried for murder.
And convicted.
He pushed the door open and took three steps toward the bed. The nurse asked Phan something, and Phan paused at the door. Chaplin was handcuffed to the rails. “I didn’t think you would come.” He frowned. “Do you need to sit—”
“No,” Mav bit out. “I won’t be staying that long.”
Chaplin nodded. “I just wanted to say something.” He took a long breath and glanced at the detective, who was nodding at something the nurse was telling him.
“I’m listening.” Knowing what Chaplin had done. Knowing what he had nearly done was making Mav’s skin crawl.
“I have money.”
Maverick frowned. What had that got to do—
“And I’m going to be in prison for either a long time or the rest of my life.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Whichever comes first.”
Maverick didn’t respond.
“So, I’m never going to spend any of it.”
“I don’t want it, and neither does Deacon, if that’s where this is going.”
And Chaplin smiled. He smiled so wide, it made Mav feel nauseous. “Oh no, I didn’t mean that. But you do have a choice. I’m told by my attorney I could live for years even on death row. It’s very common. What I mean is as soon as I get back there, I will put feelers out—shouldn’t take long—to see who knows someone who can do a task for me.”
Maverick knew he should walk away, but the dread in his belly seemed to cement his feet to the floor.
“Back to the choice. You walk away from Daniels. You stay away from Daniels, or not only do I make sure he dies, but the child will go too.” He closed his eyes. “I’m reliably informed I can get it done for five thousand dollars.”
“Get what done?” Phan came up to the bed.
But Maverick couldn’t reply. He would be lucky not to vomit what little he had eaten. He simply turned away from the bed and walked away and kept walking. Phan caught up with him by the entrance doors. “Mav, what did he say? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Maverick clipped out and hailed the nearest cab. He opened the door and looked at Phan. “It’s just been a shit day, and I need a drink.”
Fuck, did he ever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A week later
“IS THIS seat taken?”
Maverick looked up, ready to belittle the cheesy line, and stiffened in shock. “You can’t be here.”
Deacon smiled. “My doctor would probably agree,” he said, and he beamed at the bartender and ordered a caffeine-free Diet Coke with extra ice and no lemon. “Not that you would know what my postoperative instructions are.”
Mav stared back at his drink. At the Jack and Coke. The same one he had been ordering on the hour every hour and leaving untouched for the past fuck knew how many days. He didn’t care. “I mean it,” Mav ground out. “Please go.” His hand shook with the desperate need to touch the one next to him.
“Says who?” Deacon reto
rted and took a sip.
“It isn’t safe,” Mav burst out and glared again when he noticed Deacon rubbing his chest. “Shit, Deacon,” Maverick moaned in despair. “You can’t be seen with me.” He’d picked the first place he had seen to rent nearest a bar, and as far from Deacon, Molly, and Jamie as he could get until the trial was over. Then he was going for good, and none of them would see him again. He swiped a tired hand over his face and wasn’t surprised when it came back a little wet. He was pathetic. “You should probably still be in the hospital.”
Deacon shook his head. “No, I got discharged.” He looked at the clock on the wall above the bar. “An hour ago.”
Mav’s jaw dropped. “Then what the hell are you doing here?” He glanced at the door. “Please, Deacon, just go home. To Jamie’s,” he added. “You two can stay there as long as you like. You won’t see me; I moved out.”
“Yeah, I understand, into that rat-infested hovel you call an apartment.”
Mav scowled again. It wasn’t that bad, and he’d needed all his money to transfer into the account he’d opened for Deacon and Molly. It was never too early to start thinking about college. And how did he know about the apartment? “Phan.” Who was now dating his sister. She had finally decided her ex could see his daughter whenever possible but had firmly relegated him to the ex pile.
Harvey Richards seemed to have been relegated to the friend or the “not in this lifetime” pile. And Mav had never been back since the day he left Chaplin and eventually confided in Jamie why. And he’d also pointed out someone couldn’t be with them every second of every one of Chaplin’s miserable days, and she had understood. But in all the days after, when she had called him, she had never mentioned Deacon once, and it had killed Maverick not to ask.
Which she was probably counting on.
Maverick threw a fifty on the bar and stood up. “Then if you’re not going, I will.”
Maverick walked out of the bar, closely followed—he knew—by Deacon. He stopped at the sight of Kim Phan leaning on the truck outside. “This your ride?”
Deacon nodded. “I asked him to explain because you might not believe me.” And he winced and rubbed his chest.
Fuck. “Get inside the damn car.”
“If you promise to listen.” Deacon took his hand, and for a second, Maverick wanted him to never let go. He eyed Phan.
“This isn’t safe. You know it isn’t.” Because he knew Jamie would have told Phan.
Phan lowered his voice. “Get in the car.”
Mav sighed and did as he was asked, but only because he didn’t want Deacon either standing up or visible, and turned to Phan. He hadn’t followed Deacon into the back seat. He didn’t trust himself to.
“At seven forty-five this morning, guards found Hunter Chaplin bleeding out on the floor of the showers. He didn’t make it to the hospital this time. He was pronounced dead on the scene.” For a second, Maverick didn’t breathe.
“But?”
Phan held up his hand. “And before you ask, my contacts have spoken to Larry ‘the King’ Ricshon, and in return for certain privileges—a conjugal visit—he has confided that yes, Chaplin did make inquiries about the threat to Molly, Deacon, and Jamie. Unfortunately he picked the wrong person. When Jamie was a beat cop over twenty years ago, she got called to a domestic about a guy who was trying to beat up his wife. Apparently the cop she was riding with said the call from that address came weekly, and they were wasting their time because the wife would never give evidence. Jamie refused to comply and got there just in time to save her life. Larry—seven at the time—was hidden in the wardrobe where his mom had shoved him when Daddy got nasty. Larry has never forgotten it and now considers the debt paid,” Phan said. “Of course, all this is off the record. We have no witnesses, and this is pure hearsay.”
“So, it’s over?” Maverick trembled.
“Yes.” Phan had the car moving a moment later.
“Stop,” he croaked out.
Phan blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s dead. He can’t hurt anyone. He didn’t put out a contract.”
“I know.” And Maverick smiled for the first time in over a week.
“Then why am I pulling up?” Phan asked.
Maverick turned to meet Deacon’s hopeful gaze. “Because I want to get in the back.”
IT TOOK another four weeks before Deacon was well enough to go house hunting. The apartment idea had gone out the window when Mav had shown him the Realtor’s listing on the house five minutes away from Jamie with a yard and a tree and—Molly insisted—somewhere for a dog.
“You’re going to get her a puppy, aren’t you?” Deacon asked in resignation when she was bathed and finally asleep on the pull-out bed in Melanie’s room. Jamie and Kim were out on a date, and Mav and Deacon had enjoyed a lazy evening and some quiet time for just the two of them.
“It’s a good way of teaching her responsibility,” Maverick murmured and nibbled across the bottom of Deacon’s jaw.
And they had talked endlessly for the four weeks. Talked about how difficult—how new—their relationship was. Maverick had said he would stay in his apartment because he didn’t want Deacon to think his safety ever came with conditions. Leaving the night he had found out they were finally free of Chaplin’s threat had nearly killed them both, and it had lasted a week until Molly had burst into tears at bedtime, stamped her foot, and wanted to know why Uncle Mav didn’t love them anymore.
Deacon had folded his arms and stared at him with the same challenge in his eyes, and Mav hadn’t left either of them again.
Deacon dropped a kiss on Maverick’s bare chest. “There was something I wanted to ask you when we were in the cellar with Chaplin.”
Maverick’s eyebrows rose.
“What was it about Balcad he didn’t want you to say?”
“I saved his ass. We were picking up some troops, and he’d gotten drunk the night before. Made a rookie mistake that could have gone badly wrong, but I caught it in time. He could quite easily have been on his way home that time.” Maverick smoothed a blond hair away from Deacon’s eyes. “Did you hear from your mom?”
“If you count the letter from her lawyer confirming they wouldn’t be contesting any custody and she understands that. Apparently the business is sold, and it’s likely Percy may even do some time.”
“I don’t know how she can stay with him after the others came forward.” Percy had apparently sexually assaulted two other employees. Phan had shared that tidbit last week.
Deacon shrugged. “She’s buried her head in a bottle for years. Why should now be any different?” He slapped a hand over his mouth, and Mav chuckled at his horrified expression. No alcohol ever again for him. What he had now was way better. Deacon blinked up at him. “Did I ever tell you I had no filter?”
“Uh-huh,” Mav chuckled and slid farther down in the bed, taking Deacon with him. “I have my last fitting appointment tomorrow and a job interview at three with Delta.”
Deacon huffed. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you in that sexy pilot’s outfit with all those flight attendants rushing to obey your every whim.”
Mav grinned. “Says the man who’s just got a narration contract for a romantic suspense novel. Think of all your adoring fans.”
Deacon smirked. “I’ll be thinking of you when I read it.”
“Why,” Mav said suspiciously. “What’s it called?”
Deacon threaded his fingers through Maverick’s. “In Safe Hands.”
Mav smiled and bent down to kiss him. “And you always will be.”
More from Victoria Sue
Enhanced World: Book One
Talon Valdez knew when he transformed into an enhanced human, his life and his dreams were finished. Reviled, mistrusted, and often locked away, the enhanced were viewed as monsters, despised by the public, and never trusted to serve in the military or any law enforcement agency.
Years later he gets a chance to set up a task force of enhanced to serve in the FBI
, but with one proviso: each enhanced must partner with a regular human.
Finn Mayer dreamed of joining the FBI from the time he was fourteen and made every possible sacrifice to make it happen, including living with his selfish mother and bullying, homophobic brother and never having a boyfriend. But his undiagnosed dyslexia stopped his aspirations dead in their tracks. His last chance is to partner with Talon, an enhanced with deadly abilities who doesn’t trust regular humans with their secrets and wants Finn to fail.
Four weeks to prove himself to the team. Four weeks for the team to prove itself to the public. And when another group threatens their success—and their lives—four weeks for them to survive.
Enhanced World: Book Two
Talon’s deadly abilities are spiraling out of control. Desperate to keep Finn safe, Talon struggles to protect the man he loves with all his heart and not become the greatest risk to Finn’s life.
Finn has no choice but to offer himself as bait for the evil forces kidnapping enhanced children, facing danger he is untrained and unprepared for, and he will have to do it alone.
Does Talon have one last fight in him? Will he slay everyone who wants to destroy Finn and the team, or will he finally discover that to defeat their enemy and the ultimate threat, the biggest battle he has to face is one with himself?
Enhanced World: Book Three
Gael Peterson has spent years hiding behind the enhanced abilities he wears like a mask, even though he is an important, confident member of the FBI’s exclusive H.E.R.O. team. The hurt and betrayal of his mom’s abandonment and his father’s fists are secrets buried deep beneath the ugly scars on his face, and he doesn’t trust Jake, his new regular human partner, with any of them. In a world where those with special abilities like Gael’s are regarded as freaks and monsters, it won’t be easy for him to rely on Jake to have his back, especially when the abilities of a vulnerable nonspeaking enhanced child make that child a murder suspect.
