Face Value
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He never saw who it was. Never had a chance to duck. A fist caught the side of his head and when the pain drove him to his knees he knew he was fucked.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Alastair's voice. He clearly hadn't gone with Gregory. It had been a lie that he was going, or a last minute change. Whatever. Alastair had a gun and he was pointing it at Beckett.
Beckett scrambled back and rolled into the
bathroom shutting the door and holding it closed with his body. There was no lock. Fuck. Who didn't have a lock on their bathroom door? The solid wood door may hold off a bullet but even so he debated scrambling away from it just in case.
Shit. What the hell was he doing? Why hadn't he
tried to talk himself out of this? He could have just said he was… fuck. He didn't have a ready excuse.
"Stop being stupid, Robert, and come out of the bathroom." Alastair's voice was harsh and impatient.
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"Beckett. My name is Beckett Jamieson." Beckett shouted and leaned harder on the door as he pulled his cell from his pocket. There was no way out of this bathroom.
No external window. The call connected quickly and he blurted out as much as he could. "I'm trapped in a bathroom. I fucked up and I'm scared. I can't get out—" He never finished the call. The door was forced open; his own slight figure nothing to hold back his bear of an uncle and the phone went flying. It smashed into the porcelain of the tub and as suddenly as it had flown from his hand it lay in pieces on the floor.
The door pushed him inward and he grabbed for
something to prevent his fall only to be stopped by Alastair grabbing at his neck and hair. Alastair had a choke hold on him and pulled Beckett up off of the ground so hard that Beckett saw spots before his eyes.
"I fucking knew it," Alastair bit the words out angrily and with a shake of his hand Beckett felt
consciousness slip away from him.
* * * *
Something was biting into his wrists and it hurt.
Rope? Twine? Something hard and unforgiving. Awareness was coming back to him a second at a time and blood
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coated his tongue. His hands were tied and he was slumped in the same chair he had used to reach the ceiling. His throat hurt. Really. Hurt.
"…computer. The cameras showed us."
"That doesn't mean—"
"Greg, this is why I said I would stay here and why I called you back from the city. I've been at him for nearly twenty-four hours and he's given me shit. The prodigal son returns and you aren't the least bit suspicious? Have you learned nothing? Shit. You always were the loose end in this family. First all-innocence-Emma, then Thomas and that bitch Elisabeth and now your freak of a son. Both my brothers are idiots—"
"Don't talk to me like that—"
"Wait. Pretty boy is all woken up."
Beckett blinked up at his uncle; Alastair's face
twisted in a sneer. He was up close and personal in
Beckett's face and he could smell the cloying cologne that Alastair must pour over himself. Suddenly he wished he was unconscious again. Alastair had been asking questions, punching him, and leaving him tied up in the bitterly cold room with the windows wide open. He had reached his
limit. And now Gregory was here.
"Wha—" Beckett began. He could try and play innocent. Surely it wasn't too late to retrieve some measure
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of control in this situation? "What happened? What is Uncle Alastair doing to me? Get him to untie me."
Alastair stepped backward with a laugh and
Gregory simply shrugged. Okay. Appealing to Gregory
about his uncle wasn't going to work.
"Dad?" There. Focus on the man who was
responsible for his existence. Pain crossed Gregory's face.
"Alastair?" Beckett watched Gregory appeal to his brother but Alastair shook his head. For a moment Beckett had felt like he'd actually connected with his father but it didn't last.
"No, Greg. I don't know what the fuck this is."
Alastair handed the open envelope to Gregory who pulled out a single sheet of paper and a key. "Maybe you'll tell my brother what this is?" Alastair snapped and Beckett flinched as his uncle leaned closer.
"Something I remembered from when I was four,"
Beckett lied.
"Bull. Shit." The slap that accompanied the two succinct words snapped Beckett 's head sideways and his neck protested with sharp pain. "Read it out loud, Greg.
What does it say?"
"You'll need the other one but you know where it is.
Texas has it," Gregory read. "Then some shit in letters and numbers." He crumpled the note and threw it on the floor.
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He turned the key in his hand. It was small and silver; nothing fancy. Beckett watched as Gregory pocketed it.
"The other what?" Alastair shouted into Beckett's ear. "Another key? Where in Texas? Who do you know in Texas? What is the key for?"
"No one—" Beckett started but Alastair hit him again, and again. Always with the same questions. Where.
Who. Why. His head snapped from side to side and bile clawed his throat. This seemed like the end of things; after a day of questions and dealing out pain Alastair was finally at the edge.
"Fuck, Alastair; what is wrong with you? You'll kill him." Even Gregory seemed shocked by the level of anger in Alastair and Beckett felt a glimmer of hope that Gregory would step in and stop this.
"You wanna know? You really want to know what
this little shit has been doing?"
"What?" Gregory sounded lost.
"I had him followed. He was cozy with Elisabeth, you know that, but I dealt with that. Then he had a meeting yesterday with a PI, some guy in a shopping center and fuck knows what he handed over. Security cameras have him using your computer in your office, Greg. Taking copies of files." Another hit and Beckett felt bile rise in him. He was going to be sick. Alastair pulled him to his
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feet. "Tell him what you were doing you little shit—"
"Studying—" Beckett blurted out the single word.
Alastair's expression held derision.
"In your private files, Greg."
"Dad?" Beckett pasted his best pleading expression on his face. May as well use the possible connection. There was nothing in Gregory's eyes. No compassion or fatherly affection. Just ice.
"You never came here to find me, did you Robert."
Gregory's voice was flat. There was no question in what he said. "Did she tell you to come here? What did you come here to do? Kill me? Avenge what happened to her?"
"No—" All the breath left his body as Gregory ended what Alastair had started even as Alastair held him.
The barrier had broken and the hate and violence Gregory had been hiding behind his mask of civility was out in force. The punches he threw connected with Beckett 's chest, the pain quick and sharp.
"Have you shown anyone? What did you do with
the files?"
"I didn't—I was studying—" Beckett felt
consciousness slip away from him. Step by step his vision was blurring and the only thing keeping him standing was the tight grip Alastair had on his arm. The next hit wrenched the socket hard and he felt something tear and
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snap in his arm.
"I told you he was talking to Elisabeth. Fuck, Greg.
I told you we should have shut him down as soon as he
arrived here." Alastair released his arm and Beckett dropped to the chair. It scooted backward until the wooden back hit the bed and only sheer willpower kept Beckett upright. "He'll need to die. Like Elisabeth."
"Okay. I don't have the stomach for this—" Greg didn't sound sad or grieved. His words were bitter and staccato. "You find out what he knows. What he's done."
"I got it, brother. Leave it to me." There was an unholy glee in Alastair's voice. This was a man who
enjoyed hurting and killing.
"I want names and numbers and when you're
finished put his body on the mountain." Greg said dispassionately. Beckett heard the words and fear chased up his spine. Mind numbing and utterly all-consuming terror. He lifted his head, barely able to see through the slits of his swollen eyes. Greg was staring at him. "You could have had it all Robert. All of it."
Then everything went to hell.
Shouting. Demands. A gun. A shot. Then strong
arms pulling him upright and a muttered. "Got you, kid."
Beckett allowed himself to be pulled up, his only
conscious thought getting to the key and the letter. He fell
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to his knees, the curse of whoever held him ripe in the air, and scrambled to where Gregory lay in a widening pool of blood. Beckett snatched at the letter and then dug through blood and gore to find the key. He couldn't see anything in the blur of pain and was feeling his way around pushing aside material and sticky blood.
"Fuck. Kid—"
"Wait—" he screamed the words in his head but all that left his cracked, bloodied lips was a near whimper.
"We gotta go. Dale, for fuck's sake—"
Beckett's fingers closed around the small key and
with a thrill of triumph he clambered to stand.
"You're not taking him—" Alastair's voice, the sound of a scuffle and Beckett was pushed violently from behind. As he fell his head connected with the edge of the dresser and his last conscious thought was that he was alive and he had the letter and the key. The rest would sort itself out.
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CHAPTER 2
"It's been three days. Shouldn't he at least be conscious?" The words filtered into Beckett's thoughts. His dreams. Experimentally he attempted to turn his head, anything but nothing happened. His brain told him he could move but his body wasn't helping.
"Today." Another voice replied simply.
"He still looks like shit." The first voice was familiar. Beckett wanted to ask who it was. Where was he?
Why couldn't he move?
"He'll be back to being a pretty boy in days." The second man was talking with very little emotion in his voice, not like the first who seemed anxious. Was this second guy a doctor? Was it two doctors? "Talking of pretty boys, I am assuming Joseph has gone now?"
"Ten minutes ago." That sounded like Dale. So he was with Dale? Inch by inch the tension seeped from his brain. If Dale had him then he wasn't near Gregory and Alastair Bullen.
"That was some intense shit you had going with
super-SEAL." The second guy's tone was pure sarcasm.
"Yeah." A loud laugh framed the response "He's an intense guy."
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"You're good together—"
"Jeez, Kayden, that sounds almost poetic coming from you."
"Fuck poetic. Just, the ass on that man, hell, not to mention you. That is one SEAL sandwich I would die to get in the middle of."
There was laughter and the other guy left, leaving
the one called Kayden with Beckett. He knew that because Kayden was talking to him. Soft and low, his voice was like honey and Beckett desperately tried to move to
acknowledge he could hear. The voice was reassuring, comforting and he was clinging to every syllable.
"Hell," Kayden was saying, "damn idiot operative falls in love with a SEAL. Can't see that lasting past the next mission. If you're gonna be gay you need to choose the ones who don't go off getting themselves shot at." There was a pause and Beckett felt hands on him pressing and pushing over his body. Kayden continued conversationally,
"But, shit kid, the chemistry those two had going was intense. Wish you coulda woken up in time to see Joseph.
Hell, he was a sight for sore eyes. Tall and dark, with the sweetest ass you ever laid your eyes on. Not that this would interest you normal types. But jeez. To tap that… hmmmm.
"Now Robert… how about you open your eyes for
me?"
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Beckett, I'm Beckett. Please don't call me Robert.
The words just wouldn't form. Trapped in his head they buzzed and clung to his brain.
"I know you're in there, kid." Kayden continued.
"Your vitals are good, your responses are mostly there but you won't let yourself wake up. So how about opening your eyes for me? I could use the company."
Beckett tried damn hard. He wanted to see the man
whose voice was a balm to his pain. He forced himself to relax as tension and pain knifed through his head.
Unbearable pain. It had to stop. He wanted to open his eyes. Open your eyes. Open.
I want to open my eyes.
"Okay. I get it. You think I'm going to be boring."
No. Please help me with the pain.
"So. You're not waking up this morning then. Shit. I bet Dale a twenty you'd be awake today. Don't you go making a liar out of me, kid. I want you up and at 'em by evening." Kayden, his doctor it seemed, had a voice that wrapped its way around his thoughts. It made Beckett want to wake up for the Doc. "I'm pushing your meds 'cause you look like shit."
Meds? Meds were good. But what kind of doctor
spoke like that? And Dale was here? Dale whom he'd
spoken to in the coffee shop? Dale who had promised he
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would be okay? Wait. Was it Dale at the mansion? Was it Dale who had spoken to him and held him together in the stumbling half-conscious walk from mansion to car? A trickle inside him and the pain in his head began to ease.
"So, I'll be outside if you need me, Robert, yeah?
Usual place, kid."
Stop calling me Robert.
Stop calling me kid.
* * * *
Doctor Kayden Summers wasn't feeling this case at all. Not only was it a non-official off-record-but-really-Sanctuary case, which made the whole thing a pain in the ass, but the kid remained unconscious. He prided himself on knowing what a patient needed. Hell, he was a fully-fledged doctor at twenty-six with four years ER training under his belt and a raft of experience in blunt trauma that went years back.
Given his experience of patient care, the kid should be awake by now. As much as he'd joked with Dale, the part where the kid wasn't waking up formed a worry that niggled at him. He made coffee and slumped in the plush sofa of the main lounge. The room was closest to the medical area and if he didn't have the TV on he could hear
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if he was needed. Television was a necessary evil and he only watched it to catch up on news. It wasn't as if he were a sports fan, or that much into reality TV, to bother with it.
Given he hadn't seen a television until the age of around thirteen meant his formative years had shaped him into someone that really couldn't be bothered with the shit forced on most kids.
His cell vibrated and danced on the wooden table
that he had his feet up on and he glanced at the caller ID.
For some reason Jake had a stick up his ass ab
out where Kayden's head was at. He didn't answer. He may well owe Jake Callahan his life but that didn't mean he had to put up with the shit that Jake kept throwing at him. The phone vibrated again. It moved closer to the edge of the table.
Next time it would fall off into the deep pile rug. That would solve the problem.
"I'm packing up," Dale announced from the
doorway.
"Thought you were here for two more days?"
"Nik's picking me up and Jake called." As he spoke Dale checked his gun and then he slid it into his shoulder holster. "He had a message for you."
"Yeah?" Kayden could well imagine what Jake wanted to say to him.
"He says, and I quote, 'get that fucker to answer his
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phone'." A grin broke across Dale's face. Smiling was something Dale had been doing a lot of in the past few days and it unnerved Kayden. A fuck was a fuck. Sex had never made Kayden freaking smile like some hormonal girl. He ignored the feeling of envy that pricked inside him at what Dale seemed to have found with Joseph. They didn't know he'd been listening, but he couldn't help it. Hearing exchanged promises of more for both of them was wrong in Kayden's head. Man or woman, nothing lasted long enough in this world for enduring attachments. Dale may well fancy himself in love with Joseph but love was like having a perpetual Achilles heel.
Attachments? Love? Just makes you weak, boy.
His dad's words were indelibly etched into his soul.
That and ten years of military-based training. He had stopped listening to his dad's warped view of the world a long time before the old man died. He smirked inwardly and some of that humor must have shown on his face.
"What's funny?" Dale asked as he rolled his neck and stretched.