“Paul, please let go of the young man,” someone warned, the voice of the second man before. I saw him clearly now. Fit, dark-haired, copper-skinned, and somewhere in his mid-thirties, although the exhausted black eyes made him look older.
A woman in a long white coat pushed past him, a doctor of some sort. Jameson let go of my arm. The doctor muttered something under her breath, rudely asked Jameson to give us some space, and placed down the kit.
I felt the weight of Jameson’s gaze on me, as the woman, Dr. Sanders, began to bandage my wrists.
“Which route will you choose, making sure young men like you don’t end up being victims of the Reaper Brotherhood or clinging to the illusion of love Kade created?” Jameson said, before finally leaving the room.
“Don’t hate him too much. There’s enough of it spreading around. Most of the guys, with the exception of Preston, no longer think Paul can be trusted. They say he spent too much time undercover,” Dr. Sanders said quietly. “Paul had a son about your age.”
“What happened?”
“He lost him to another cartel. On a different case he was working on.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel guilty?”
She shook her head, not saying another word.
Dr. Sanders probably thought the same thing as the other professionals who took me aside to talk the next few weeks. I was too damaged, too lost. Just another victim claimed by the Brotherhood.
They assumed I was broken and needed to be fixed, but my gears worked just fine. Kade might have altered and adjusted bits and pieces of me, but I came out better for it. Jameson had been wrong. He didn’t understand. Kade might have taken me out of his own selfish desires, but he also saved me from myself. If it weren’t for him, my body would be rotting in some random grave after Marco got sick of me.
Kade taught me even though I was lost and couldn’t go back home, I could take another path. He gave me back what I thought I had lost, what I thought I could never have. Jameson might call what I felt towards Kade a symptom manufactured by Stockholm, but what did it matter when I could never ever find out?
Chapter Twelve
Kade
Something about the last few hours didn’t make any sense. Holes and information needed filling. Puzzles needed piecing, but I had never been a thinker. Then again, what use was it trying to make sense of chaos? I had one job. I chose my brother and the Reaper Brotherhood over the one person in the world I cared about. So, fuck, I’d stand my ground. Let myself be gunned down during our last stance if that was what I needed to do.
Tension spilled over the tiny panic room like a thick blanket. Most of the men had stopped talking and began to panic. The nervous ones clutched at their weapons with shaking hands. No use separating them from my men—all of them hard, grim-faced, and battle-scarred bastards who’d seen their fair share of wars. To them, this was just another kind of battlefield, good enough to die in.
“Henderson should be back by now,” Keith managed to grit out. He paced the edge of the room restlessly.
For once, his suit didn’t look impeccable, and every strand of his hair stuck out. Crumpled, miserable, and terrified like the rest of us— it was strange, a good feeling. Keith had always been cunning, sharp-tongued, and perfect. He left the dirty work and the scars to me, but at least scars don’t lie.
“Maybe he got cut down.” The truth left acid in my mouth. Henderson was probably the only man I could really trust in my crew, but the chances of him getting gunned down remained high.
The creak of the heavy metal door made my head snap. Hand fastened on my trigger, I angled my revolver at the intruder. Only a few individuals knew the password to the panic room.
“Identify yourself.”
“Only me.”
I frowned at the voice, lowering my gun. Heart thumping against my chest, I almost thought she was a ghost. “You.”
Blood splattered and battered, Cel stumbled in. Her left arm dangled loosely from one torn sleeve, apparently broken, while the other clutched at a familiar piece. A mini-Uzi with a custom made grip.
Grayson’s favorite.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I barked. Where the hell is Chase? I nearly asked, but thankfully kept my lips pressed together. I almost abandoned all reason. All logic. My body moved of its own accord. My hands shook with barely surpassed anger. Shooting the bitch hadn’t been an option because I wanted to hear her neck snap when I strangled all the life out of her.
“Where the hell have you been? Where’s Grayson?” Keith demanded, pushing me aside.
I growled, but he ignored me. A hand touched my shoulder in warning. Rover, one of my men, shook his head in warning. None of them knew, I reminded myself. Leashing my temper, I halted beside Keith’s shoulder, gaze fastened on Cel.
“Master’s dead. I had to empty an entire clip on him.”
“Jesus Christ, the bitch’s gone insane,” Rover murmured. “Boss, get away from her so we can get a clear shot.”
“You killed Grayson?” Keith demanded, not moving an inch. He must trust her a good deal more than any of us did because he kept his gaze on her. “Why?”
“Found him in storage room seven, working with Marco.”
I didn’t miss the careful phrasing words of her words.
Storage room seven. The one with the secret escape hatch leading to sewers. One of our viable escape routes cut off when our security footage showed the agents found it first. My breathing grew shallow. It also answered my question. Only one reason Cel would return. Chase was here. Alone. By some miracle, he must have managed to convince Cel to return here. Then they were forced to split up because of Grayson. Shit.
The men tensed, but Cel only put her gun aside to take something inside her jacket. Not a weapon, but a crumpled sheaf of bloodstained papers. “Also found your spy, boss. But guess it’s too late.”
I leaned over Keith’s shoulder as he wet his lips, quickly looking through the papers. Phone records, I realized.
“Agent Paul Jameson?” I asked, frowning. She flipped another page with a blurry picture of a vaguely familiar man. A cop in uniform.
This time, Cel looked at me. “Henderson.”
“That fucker.” Keith hissed through his teeth, eyes narrowing when I pushed past him and Cel. “Kade, where the hell are you going?”
“I’m going to gun Henderson down even if it kills me.”
Keith grabbed my shoulder, but he must have caught sight of the blind rage in my gaze because he let me go. Keith hung his head in defeat. “Kade, if you go out there, they’ll shoot you down. Is this want you want?”
“I want to kill the fucker who ate with me, fought with me, fucked whores with me,” I hissed. “Cel and the others will stay with you. Let yourself be arrested, get your lawyer, and then find some loophole. You can afford it.”
Keith shook his head. For a second, I suspected he knew I wasn’t merely going after Henderson, but he accepted it anyway. Keith clasped my arm.
“It’s been a good ride, brother.”
I nodded curtly, warily accepted the mini-Uzi Cel held out to me, and ran out the panic room. Chaos everywhere. The smell of gunshot and screams, and somewhere my pup diligently searched for me. I closed my eyes for a second, then thought of possible places Chase would head to. My thoughts centered on one—my room, our own private sanctuary. Nearby gunshots made me open my eyes. I caught sight of an officer rounding the corner, yelling at me, gun pointed at me. I didn’t hesitate. I pointed the mini-Uzi, saw his shocked expression, and then gunned him down.
God. If Chase saw me now, in my element, would he come to his senses and finally realize the man he loved wasn’t a decent man?
I doubted it. Chase knew, I realized. He looked at me, with all my flawed parts, with eyes wide open, and accepted all my faults. It didn’t matter how many men I shot down, as long as it brought me closer to my pup.
“Fuck,” I whispered. My arm ached. The clip had run out. I dropped the Uzi, plucked a r
evolver from a nearby corpse, and then saw the closed door of my room up ahead. Only a couple of steps to Chase, but the sudden scream startled me and yanked all of my protective animalistic instincts to the surface.
“Kade!”
I didn’t imagine Chase’s jarring scream. Red tinted my vision. Adrenaline sung in my veins. The fucker who hurt Chase better be ready for my retribution because I intended to take my time wrangling every scream I could jerk out of him.
“Better say your prayers, fucker.” I surged forward, revolver in hand.
“Stand down, Kade!” A familiar voice shouted.
I turned my head for a second, lost sight of my goal when I caught sight of Henderson, dressed to the nines in black. Three words flashed in my head. Traitor. Mole. Deadman. I pointed the revolver at his head, didn’t realize another man came up behind me until I felt the sudden flare of pain up my left calf.
The bullet dug into my skin, making me cry out and lose my balance. I tasted the floor. The shooter kicked my revolver away. Henderson shouted something, warning the other guy not to shoot. I glimpsed the door that led to Chase. I let out a wounded howl as someone twisted my arms behind my back and slapped cuffs over them. I barely felt the steady pain in my leg.
“Chase!” I roared, mad with rage. “Chase!”
Would Chase hear my voice in the din?
“Don’t make this any harder, Kade,” Henderson, Agent Jameson, warned against my ear. He dropped his voice, so only I heard. “How would Chase react if he heard you let yourself get stupidly killed because of stubbornness?”
Chase, the magic word, and I stopped fighting them. Jameson shouted orders to two more agents who dragged me up. I knew how Chase would react, and I didn’t want to steal any part the life and future he rightly deserved. Me alive and behind bars was a lot better than me in the ground. Chase could move forward this way. He had to. My pup was strong.
“Someone is hurting Chase,” I gritted out.
“We’ll save him. Any last words?” Jameson asked. The dead smile he wore told me the last thing Jameson would do was grant me one last glimpse of Chase.
“Fuck you.”
“Take him away.”
The two agents had to drag me away from the scene.
Seeing Jameson creep inside the room with his gun ready together with his partner and hearing the single gunshot and Chase’s cry of surprise, I sagged against the two men. Chase was saved. Safe and sound, and that was all that mattered. I saw and heard nothing. Let the wave take me where it willed. I overheard some of the agents talking. It looked like Keith had taken my advice and let himself be captured. I breathed out a sigh of relief.
Maybe this was better. This way, without me in the picture to chain him down, Chase had a promising future ahead of him. It would be hard, but Chase was strong. He’d realize the harm I did to him and learn to move on. Maybe find a nice man or woman to love.
Epilogue
Ten Years Later
Kade
I promised myself not to look back, but I did. I saw barbwire ringing gray concrete walls, watchtowers, and uniformed guards toting serious equipment. Beyond the guardhouse stood the fenced yard where clumped groups of inmates traded crude jokes and cigarettes, while secretly stealing glances at the sky above them. Wondering and dreaming of freedom, fantasizing about the life they left behind—one without bars. Once they got the fuck out, they’d wish they were back in.
“Michaels, you need a cab or something?” one of the guards, Sawyer, called out.
“Nah. I’m just thinking about life and all that shit.” That got a laugh out of them.
Doing time hadn’t been new to me. Unlike the majority, I had lived in cages all my life even without knowing it. Cages felt familiar. Comfortable. Reality and what awaited me outside, though, and real life was harder to deal with. Messy.
Slinging the battered knapsack containing my pathetic belongings over my shoulder, I took a deep breath and walked onward. Past the security checkpoint and out the gate I once thought I’d never come out of again. I expected the supermax prison to be the place where I’d die. Anticipated it, hell, even looked forward to it, but the fates decided they had other plans.
Most inmates who did serious time forgot how to live again. All that waited for them was a bleak future. They saw ghosts of their wives and kids, who had moved on with the world while they remained stuck in the past.
My heart beat in trepidation. Sweat coated my back. A part of me wanted to see dirt road, a cluster of trees, and nothing else, but I heard the steady hum of an engine before I saw the beat-up Chevy that had seen better days.
I almost didn’t recognize the man leaning against it. Dressed in crumpled trousers, his work shirt with sleeves rolled up, Chase no longer looked like the young man I remembered. He had bulked up, cut his hair short, and more lines and shadows crossed his face. Chase looked up from his phone. I swallowed, unsure of his reaction, but a grin split the corners of his lips.
“Kade. Hey. You ready?”
My feet refused to move. Chase respected my decision for him not to visit me in prison. Over the years, we had traded letters. Emotional ones from him at first, that meandered to cordial and friendly. I expected him to stop writing, but the stupid pup kept at it.
Chase paused from opening the door. “Kade, something wrong?”
“Nothing. I didn’t expect you to come.”
For a moment, we stared at each other. I used to be able to read Chase, but the man who stood across from me had become a stranger. Yet it felt like I had known him all my life.
Through pen and paper, he told about the new friends he made in college. The day he received his diploma and found a job with social services. He talked about his first apartment hunt, his first case, the time he met his wife, and how she died in childbirth years later.
The story of his life in a nutshell, delivered to me twice a month by snail mail. I began to look forward to his letters. Hungered and yearned for them. They became my only reason for living, although I never told Chase that.
My own life turned to dust during my arrest. I kept my mouth shut, didn’t rat out Keith, who somehow escaped arrest. Whatever he was now, I hoped he was happy. The old me, bitter and prone to anger, would have raged. Concocted plans for revenge, but the new me no longer gave a fuck about the past and the empire of dirt my brother and I left behind.
“Honestly, I was tempted not to,” Chase confessed.
Curiosity got the better of me. “Why did you?”
“Because I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t. Are you coming with me, or should I leave you behind?” Chase asked in a teasing voice, although the tension between us remained thick. Seemingly impenetrable.
“Yeah, I’m coming with you.” I took a step forward, dropped my knapsack, grabbed his broad shoulders, and shoved him against the car, breathing hard. Stillness and silence, although I knew the guards behind me were watching.
I didn’t miss the sigh Chase expelled or misread his desperation as he wrapped his own large hands around my biceps. I wondered what thoughts crossed his mind when he looked at me. Prison hardly changed me physically. I only grew harder, leaner, and rougher, but I’d like to think my insides had changed.
I didn’t bother asking for permission because this side of Chase I knew. Certain now, I leaned in close and took his lips. Plundered and bit without finesse, I pushed my tongue between his lips. He opened them for me, enveloping me with velvet heat. Chase tasted a little different now. A bit of mint, cigarette smoke, and the beer he drank, doubtless to give him some courage, but underneath it all was the same defiant young man.
I gave Chase a preview of the kind of fucking I would be giving him later. Chase drew back, breathing hard.
“Missed me, pup?” I couldn’t help but ask. If he hated the old nickname, he didn’t say.
Entire worlds existed between us. Distances I couldn’t imagine crossing. What I had done to him had been unforgivable, yet here we both were, ten years later. Chas
e once confessed to me why he refused testifying against me. How he knew he had Stockholm’s Syndrome, and no matter how hard he tried, he knew he couldn’t be cured. Refused to be cured, although God knew he tried. His wife, Maria, had been kind and understanding, a soul he didn’t deserve, but Chase said he could never really tell her about what happened to him. All she knew were the bare-bones facts.
Chase curled his fingers into my shirt and rested his head against my chest. With tentative fingers, I sank my fingers into his hair and began to stroke him.
“Fuck. I miss how you smell like. How screwed up is that?”
I tipped his chin. “You don’t miss the rest of me?”
Chase’s gaze shifted downwards to my erection pressing against his trousers. I laughed and detached myself from him.
“I had this whole reunion planned, you know? Spent the last couple of weeks imagining how it would go, despite the fact a large part of me wished you wouldn’t come.”
“Does it involve you tying me up and fucking me against my car for the whole prison to see?”
“Pup, have you become an exhibitionist?” I had to smile at the slight flush creeping up his neck. “Nah, I imagined it this way.”
I held out a hand. Chase frowned, looking at my hand dubiously. For a second, I thought Chase would suddenly change his mind. Slap away my hand, fling curses at me, before driving away, but he grasped my fingers with his. I shook his hand. His eyes widened.
“Let’s start over. I’m Kade Micheals. Nice to meet you, pup. I’d like to take you out for dinner, but I don’t have any cash on me.”
“My name’s not pup. It’s Chase. That’s fine. I’m cooking dinner for us. Now get the fuck in the car before I change my mind.”
I got in, and then growled. “You’ve gotten mouthy.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Chase quipped, starting the ignition. He understood, I realized. Knew we couldn’t erase or simply ignore the past, but at least he understood I was willing to write a better future.
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