Unbreakable s8-2

by Stephanie Tyler

  But none of that was in the cards.

  Your whole life is a lie.

  He ripped his mouth away. She looked stunned. Stepped back, touched her swollen lips with her fingers. Stared at him like she didn’t recognize him.

  Had she sensed something? Did she know?

  He hoped not. There was so much more to his past than Avery or the others knew. Finding out he was Richard Powell’s son had only scratched the surface of a very tarnished past, one he’d wanted to stay buried.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, backed away and he didn’t go after her, not even when she turned and ran. He stood like stone, steeling himself for what was coming next.

  When he heard her race up the stairs and lock her door, he knew what he had to do. The rest of the crew would leave in a few hours. He lay on his bed for most of that time, listening. Waiting. When he heard the last of them leave, watched the cabs pull away for the airport, he knew he was nearly ready.

  It was only then that he used the blade to lightly go over the tattoo already embedded in his skin. Recut and press the herbs into the welling blood to keep the charm active. Most would tell him he only had to rub the herbs, not do the cuts. But Josephine—his Josie—had made him promise to do it like this. Said it was more effective.

  He’d keep that promise to her until the day he died. Could hear her chiding in his ear, “That’s it, chère . . . perfect.”

  Perfect.

  She would hate that he’d mourned her for so long that he’d left a string of broken hearts in his wake, trying to forget.

  She’d be angry, but she’d understand, and that was the bitch of it all.

  He muttered her name like a prayer. Remembered the most important words he’d ever learned.

  “From this moment on, all your lies are your life.”

  He’d been lying for as long as he could remember.

  The first thing he remembered was being woken in the middle of the night. He’s twelve. He should be asking what’s wrong, should be scared, but it had happened so many times before, he’s just moving. Sleeping on his feet. By the time he wakes, he’s in a moving car with the bag he’d carefully packed hidden, shoes shoved on, and they’ll be in a car heading toward a train or a plane that’s also going somewhere.

  Doesn’t matter, because he won’t have a choice. That somewhere won’t matter. At least it never had before.

  But this time, as the helo hovers over the landing strip on the small island, his stomach’s tight, muscles tense.

  This time, everything’s different.

  The bag he always kept packed was bigger now, held more sophisticated things, but a go bag was always the same, made the same feelings surface. There was a silence that wouldn’t go away. No matter what he did, no matter how many good things he accomplished, it would always be there.

  His voice mail still blinked, the message from the private number as yet unplayed. He knew what it would say, who it was from. He’d already gotten a call the day after they’d returned from the island, the day after he’d killed his father.

  The threat was so fucking real, and what was worse, he’d been waiting for it every single minute of every single day for more than ten years. Once he’d been on his father’s island again, he knew there was no going back.

  He’d been caught on surveillance tape while there. His life would never be the same.

  Now he picked up the phone and redialed the number he still knew by heart. All the messages that had been left for him daily had said exactly the same thing.

  Welcome back from the dead.

  Drew Landon picked up on the second ring. “Cutting it close, James.”

  “Under the wire’s always been my specialty.”

  “You disappeared after you fucked up my job a second time,” Landon told him. “Imagine my disappointment.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Work off your debt. If you’re as good as you used to be, you’ll work maybe five years.”

  So fucking reasonable. “And if I don’t?”

  “I can send every criminal you ever helped after you. Ever family member of every trafficker you ever took down will have your picture. And pictures of your team members. The deal I’m proposing isn’t so bad now, is it?”

  “Haven’t you done enough?”

  “I haven’t even started. But I’m a man of my word. Your friends will be safe. I trust you’ve been making arrangements while you’ve been ignoring my messages. The next step would’ve been a visit to your shop.”

  Your friends will be safe.

  Why should he trust Landon now? Just because he didn’t have a choice was the only answer he could come up with. “You didn’t keep Josie safe.”

  “I never promised that. But I had nothing to do with Josie’s death, James. If I did, don’t you think I’d admit it? I’m outright threatening your team—obviously, I’m far from terrified of you.”

  Maybe Landon had never been, but now he should be. Gunner would make damned well and sure of that.

  Not that it had ever been the same. Not for long, anyway.

  He slung the go bag over his shoulder and grabbed the file folder that held the contracts for the sale of the tattoo shop and the other properties. Dare and company had a month to vacate, and he had a job to do. One he never should’ve tried to get away from.

  He promised himself he’d never try to again.

  * * *

  Avery hadn’t wanted to leave her room, not after Gunner’s rejection hours before. He’d just pulled away and stared at her. She’d never forget the look on his face, although she couldn’t quite place it.

  Could she have misjudged this so badly? Or was he that freaked out by what had happened?

  God, she felt stupid. Humiliated. And maybe she’d ruined any chance of him working for S8.

  Would you really want to work with him if you couldn’t have him?

  She wasn’t exactly in the headspace to answer that question. Maybe after coffee, which she smelled brewing. Maybe it was a peace offering.

  It was just after seven in the morning. Sleeping in—or much at all—wasn’t happening these days. She was about to cut around the corner to the kitchen when she saw the note propped up on his favorite tattooing chair, her name written on it.

  She went over to it, noting how quiet the shop seemed. She ripped the envelope open and found a note in his handwriting telling her that the shop and the surrounding building and garage had been sold. And that she needed to vacate within a month’s time.

  She wavered between hurt and anger. The anger won out at first. She slammed one of his tattoo guns against the wall, watching it break in half.

  You have a month to vacate.

  Well, thanks for that. She’d take about a minute.

  Although it didn’t work like that, because after the initial anger wore off, she realized that leaving Gunner would be like wrenching her heart from her body. Was it that easy for him?

  She couldn’t bear to think that it was.

  He had to have been planning this. His rejection of her last night made sense in light of that. She read through the note again, focusing on his last lines.

  I can’t be a part of S8. I can’t be who you want me to be. Key’s a good guy. He’s good for you.

  “He’s kidding me, right?” she asked out loud. He’d left her, the shop. The team. He’d waited until it had been just her here. The lease, the note, it was all for her.

  And that’s why he rejected you last night. That’s why he’d been acting so oddly. This had been in the works for weeks. Maybe from the second they’d stepped foot back in Louisiana.

  She wondered if it was because there had been blowback she didn’t know about, stemming from the murder of Richard Powell, an ex-CIA spy who nearly ruined all of their lives. But she knew Jem was still monitoring the situation. They all were. If something big had come up, vacation or no vacation, they would have gotten in touch.

  Which meant Gunner chose to walk out of her life, wanted to
get away from Section 8, and from her. This was a major statement and one she wasn’t taking too well.

  And then she went into every single nook and cranny of the place, looking for clues. He’d left a lot of his stuff behind, presumably for the new owner to simply throw out.

  She knew she’d neatly pack up his clothes. His books. The framed pictures of his tattoos. She’d put them all in storage for when he came back. But for right now, she sat in the quiet of Gunner’s shop, unable to stop thinking on the strange, sometimes miraculous and equally heartbreaking turns her life had taken in under a year’s time.

  It started out with Avery and Dare trying to save themselves from a man named Richard Powell and ended up with them finding a new group who felt like family.

  Section 8 had been assembled in the eighties, comprised of seven men and one woman who’d gotten dishonorably discharged from the military for many different reasons. Typically, for not being leadable enough, and one of those men was Avery and Dare’s father, Darius O’Rourke. S8 was charged with doing black ops missions for a handler they’d never met, and after one mission gone wrong, the original S8 was disbanded. But when their handler called them back together, disaster stuck and the original team, save for Darius and Adele, were killed.

  After Darius and Adele discovered their mysterious handler was Richard Powell, they helped his stepdaughter, Grace, escape from his island. Powell in turn hunted down anyone and everyone who was ever associated with S8 and tried to kill them.

  Unfortunately for Powell, he’d underestimated Darius’s children and Grace herself. Together with Dare, Grace, Jem, Key and Gunner, they’d taken down Powell.

  Or rather, Gunner had. The fact that Gunner’s father was Richard Powell, who was also Grace’s stepfather and the man behind Section 8, was a twist none of them had seen coming. So Avery and Dare were legacies. The rest were guilty, as it were, by association with S8. And so the new Section 8 was born. At least until Avery took the practical measure of reminding them what they’d all been through, and how a future in such a group would not be easy. She was telling military men this, and Grace, a survivor in her own right, but it needed to be said. Coming off the high of a completed mission, coupled with the low of Darius’s death and learning Gunner’s secret, things were complicated, to say the least.

  Six months, Avery told all of them when they’d gotten back to Gunner’s shop after burying her and Dare’s father, Darius. Six months to decide if they were truly in or out of the new S8.

  She’d thought more than once about asking Dare what really had happened on the island when Powell was killed by his own men, but she’d stopped herself. It was more Gunner’s story than Dare’s, and she would wait for him to make the reveal.

  She had a feeling she’d be waiting a long time, at this rate, anyway. She was haunted that she missed Gunner’s leaving, possibly by mere minutes. Gunner had been pulling away faster than any of them had been able to reel him in. And now he was running.

  When Avery first met Gunner, she’d been running too, first from the police and then from the men Richard Powell sent to kill her.

  Richard Powell, who’d been responsible for the deaths of both her mother and her father.

  Richard Powell, the biological father of the man she’d fallen in love with.

  Trying to reconcile Gunner to that monster who’d made sure she’d only met her father long enough to hold his hand while he died . . . it was impossible.

  Grace was adopted by Richard Powell, but Gunner was his blood.

  God, what a complicated mess, hampered by the fact that she was more worried about Gunner and what all of this had done to him. She knew he was nothing like Powell. She had a feeling he wasn’t as sure, and it was breaking her heart.

  They’d grown close in a very short period of time. Danger and proximity often did that to people, but what happened between them was more than that. She’d never felt this way about any man before him. And she felt closer to understanding many of her mother’s decisions because of that.

  Everything was in limbo, with all of them deciding whether they were ready to take this on. And they all needed time to tie up loose ends, get their heads together. Because once they started working, downtime wasn’t going to be as free.

  If they decided to be a part of the new Section 8. She’d known there might be hesitancy, but she hadn’t figured any of them would quit outright. Not like this.

  Dare had taken Grace to the Seychelles. Key hadn’t mentioned where he was going, but knew he’d stay in touch with his brother, Jem, who was spending time in Texas.

  She didn’t bother to ask why. With Jem, it wasn’t so much why, but rather why not?

  Jem, who’d been the most reluctant to leave her behind. “Worried about you, kid,” he’d told her a couple of nights ago.

  “Who’re you calling kid?”

  He’d laughed, then handed her a phone.

  “What’s this?”

  “A phone.”

  “Jem, I have a phone.”

  “Not like this, you don’t. You call me, any fucking time. Got it?”

  “You’re worried.”

  “Very.” He’d glanced toward Gunner, who’d been on the computer, not talking to any of them, not joining in their conversation. There, but not there, the way he’d been the entire month. “Something’s up.”

  “Well, yeah, after what he’s been through . . .”

  “Something’s. Up.” He’d stared at her. “You call me. Dig?”

  “Dig,” she’d said, although barely able to with a straight face. Now she was never so grateful for what she’d dubbed the bat phone in her entire life. She’d hold on to it like a lifeline and pray that Gunner would come to his senses. Because it was never too late.

  Chapter Two

  For the past three weeks, Avery had walked around in a daze. Every time she saw a tall, blond man from the back, she fought the urge to run up and hug him. Or punch him.

  It was never him, anyway. And while she hadn’t called any of the others about Gunner’s disappearance, she’d finally worked up the courage to visit someone who might be able to give her insight.

  Being able and being willing were two very different things and she’d been bracing for a rejection on the entire walk over, which was why she hesitated outside the restaurant. It was quiet—the dinner rush hadn’t started yet, and she knew she had to take advantage of that.

  The first time Gunner brought her here, she’d been a fugitive, sent by Dare to secure Gunner’s help. She hadn’t been back since, because there hadn’t been time for restaurants when she’d been fighting for her life.

  Now she saw the waitress she was looking for. Billie Jean was one of Gunner’s three ex-wives, although Avery didn’t know where in the lineup she fell. Billie Jean spotted her and ambled over, cracking her gum.

  She was pretty. Loud, from what Avery remembered. And she’d looked at Gunner that night as though she still loved him.

  Avery could finally relate to her.

  “We’re not serving for another half hour,” Billie Jean told her. The tight black shirt across her chest spelled the name of the restaurant in bold white letters. Her hair was piled onto her head, some of the loose curls falling down. She was maybe a couple of years older than Avery.

  “I’ll wait,” Avery said.

  “Suit yourself.” Billie Jean turned to walk away and Avery couldn’t make her voice work to stop her. But then Billie Jean couldn’t resist asking, “Where’s Gunner? You chase him away?”

  Billie Jean tried to look tough and unconcerned as she spoke, and failed miserably on both counts.

  “I don’t know,” Avery said, slumped into the booth and waited for the woman she’d once threatened to laugh, to say she’d gotten what was coming to her.

  Instead, she slid in across from Avery. “He got to you.”

  “I guess you know the feeling.”

  “Chère, you have no idea.” She called over her shoulder, “Lenny, bring us two beers.”


  “Whatta I look like, a waitress?” Lenny asked.

  “You will when I rip your balls off,” she said in a falsely sweet tone before turning her attention back to Avery. “He was into you.”

  “Nice of you to say, Billie Jean.”

  “Call me Billie. And he drew you,” she said, as if Avery was supposed to know what that meant. “That night you were here, he drew your picture on the menu.”

  Avery recalled that. She’d been wearing a cap pulled low, because she hadn’t wanted to be recognized. Hours later, Gunner had helped cut and dye her hair.

  And hours after that, you were kissing Key. “He drew my picture a lot.”

  But he’d never let her keep any. She’d see them drawn among various tattoos he was sketching, or mixed into other scratches of pictures on the paper he always had with him. She figured drawing was his nervous habit, although he never seemed nervous to her at all.

  Billie shook her head. “You really don’t know a lot about him, do you?”

  “No.”

  The woman had been expecting a challenge, not the deflated answer she’d received. It softened her features for the moment. When Lenny put the beers down, still grumbling, Billie clinked the neck of her bottle against Avery’s, like a fragile peace offering before both women took healthy swigs.

  Finally, Billie said, “Look, Gunner never drew me. Not his other two ex-wives either. Never gave an explanation, but hey, he’s not with any of us.”

  “And he’s not with me either.”

  “You sure?”

  “He never even kissed me.” She left out the part about her humiliating attempt.

  The look on Billie’s face told the story. “He loves you, chère. Make no mistake of that.”

  “Where would he go?”

  Billie’s face twisted. “When Gunner goes, he just goes. I think he had a secret life I didn’t know about—one that was always more important than me.”

  “Are all his exes here?”

  “Three of us are. Well, the first is too, but she’s passed on.”

  “The first?”

  The ghost of a smile twisted Billie’s lips. “You didn’t know. We’re not supposed to. He never talked about her. It’s one of those stories that starts as a rumor and gets passed around, although the details are really sketchy and change depending on who’s doing the telling. But the common thread was that she was the one true love of his life. We all thought we’d be the next, but . . .” She spread her fingers on the table in front of her and stared down at the wedding band. “I still wear it. I think it brings me good luck, as crazy as that sounds.”