by Lexi Blake
He was doing it for her. For her and Violet and Jax. He was trying so hard to fix the problem, but this wasn’t something he could plow his way through. And being apart wasn’t helping the situation.
He was spiraling and there was no one to catch him. From what she understood, he’d had the support of his brothers through everything. Since the moment he’d been rescued, he’d had those men to surround him and understand him. Then in the last few weeks he’d lost two of his brothers, one to betrayal and the other betrayed, but he had to feel both deaths. And now he felt like he’d abandoned Vi. He had to feel close to losing her, too. In some ways, he wanted to. Sending her away would be the final blow. Sometimes there was a relief that came with knowing you couldn’t lose anything else.
She knew that feeling, but she couldn’t let him push her out because losing her would be freeing.
She’d been in a state of numbness where only her own grief and panic had stirred anything inside her, but it was time to take control. Her mother would have already poked her enough that she would have come out of her shell. Her mother never backed down from either challenge or tragedy. Even when Katie had been killed, her mom was the one who’d realized the threat and acted to protect her daughter and unborn granddaughter. Her mother would do anything to protect Vi and honestly, she would put Sandra Croft up against a CIA team any day of the week.
It was past time to be more like her mother. Her mother would never let a person she loved drown in guilt.
She loved him. She’d loved him when he was Steven Reasor. She loved him as Tucker Jones. She just loved him.
“What’s the plan?” She reached out and grabbed a piece of toast. She might not be hungry, but she didn’t want to get weak, and that meant normalizing. It was time to be strong.
Solo looked up from her eggs. “Are you in now? I was worried you were going to be deadweight.”
“I’m in and I assure you I might not be deadweight, but I will be a pain in your ass if you get Tucker into more trouble. I don’t care what the American government wants. I only care about getting Jax free and finding a way to clear Tucker’s name. Whatever his actual name is.”
Nina’s lips turned up in a grin. “Thank god. He needs someone to take him in hand.”
Solo passed her the butter. “It’s good to have another team member. I’m afraid the guys are super emotional. We need more solid logic. So yes, I have a plan. Now that we’re in a safe location, I’ve called in some favors and I’m bringing in a couple of people I think can help Tucker remember. Rebecca told me she thinks the cure Levi gave Tucker is actually working. At least partially. He’s been remembering more and more.”
“Yes, he has, and before all that crap went down, he was handling it quite well. He was doing everything Ariel and Rebecca had taught him to do. He was letting it flow. He would talk about it, but he wouldn’t try to force the memory,” she explained. “The only times he would be tempted to was when he thought about his brother.”
Solo sat up a little straighter. “His brother? I haven’t heard he thought he had a brother.” She sat back again. “Maybe you should wait to talk about this. You have to understand that I’m here on Beck’s…Ezra’s sufferance. He might not want me to know everything.”
“I trust you.” Solo had done nothing but reunite her family.
Nina nodded her way. “Go on. I’d like to hear about it, too. And Solo’s here. She’s part of this and she didn’t have to be. She could have walked at any moment. Is she doing it to try to get her husband back? Probably, but the good news is her husband would be super-pissed if she betrayed us. Ergo, we can trust her.”
“Your way with logic is spot on,” Solo said before turning back to Roni. “Now what’s this about a brother?”
“He remembers a brother. He said his name was Ace. He can’t see a face, but he knows Ace was older than him. I don’t know if this helps solve the mystery of whether or not he stole that intel, but I know it’s on his mind a lot,” she explained. “Is there any way to find his family?”
“McDonald was excellent at covering her tracks.” Nina crossed to the coffeepot and filled a mug. “We actually know what Robert’s name is and we haven’t been able to find his mother or brother. His wife has a small footprint, but it didn’t lead to Robert.”
“According to Levi, Robert’s family might still be alive,” Solo said. “But he’s not talking about that to me. He got the data Jax found at a highly secret black ops site called The Ranch. I wasn’t allowed to study that data. I suspect it had a ton of information on McDonald’s subjects. It could be how he knew so much about Robert’s family and what Tucker was doing. Or it could be complete bullshit. Levi lies and often.”
“But even the devil knows that the best lie contains a hint of the truth.” Nina offered her the mug.
Roni was more than happy to take it. She needed some caffeine. “So you think these people you’re bringing in might help him remember?”
“That’s what Big Tag thinks,” Solo replied. “It’s a gamble on my end, but it’s one I’ve got to take. I don’t care what Nina says. I don’t think Jax gets hauled in if I hadn’t brought you to The Garden. I owe River a lot. I like Jax. I can’t let this stand. I have to fix this. And honestly, it was my agency that allowed McDonald to work. I want those names. I want to know who sold out Robert and Jax and Tucker. And all the rest. Justice might have been served on Hope McDonald, but there are still people out there who haven’t paid their debt. I’m going to be the bill collector.”
Solo’s voice had gone cold and Roni was happy she was on that woman’s team.
“How do I help Tucker?” There was still a fear in the back of her mind that Tucker remembering who he’d been could have terrible consequences, but she couldn’t let fear rule her. He cared about her now. He’d cared about her then.
She had to have a little faith.
Solo seemed to think about that. “Mostly, you can get him to relax. It’s going to be a rough afternoon and I think if he goes into this with a bad attitude, it might not work.”
Luckily, she knew exactly how to get that man to relax. And maybe it would help her, too.
* * * *
Tucker stood in the bedroom he and Roni had been assigned to. He should have taken his own. It wasn’t fair to ask her to sleep with him, and there were plenty of rooms in this massive place. Ezra wanted them all in one wing, but he could just deal with it. She’d only had sex with him once. She shouldn’t be forced into a relationship she probably didn’t want.
Couldn’t want since he kept fucking up and getting her in trouble. He’d promised her he wouldn’t lie to her again, but how could he know if he was lying now? How could he truly know what he’d been doing that day? What if he’d been using her as cover to do something nefarious? He’d spent hours going over and over everything that he could have been doing the day he’d been taken.
Everyone was optimistic that he’d magically seen the light and realized that what McDonald had been doing was wrong. Or that he’d somehow gotten recruited by Green either before or after he’d gone to work for McDonald.
What if he’d been covering his own ass? Or worse. What if he’d been selling McDonald out for cash? Didn’t that sound more like something a man with the nickname of Razor would do?
“Hey, are you ready for that shower you promised me?”
He turned and there was Veronica standing in the doorway. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. It was one of three changes of clothes she had in the whole world. The only reason she had those was Clive Weston had his assistant drive them out before they arrived. She’d been forced to sleep in one of Tucker’s T-shirts. It hung to her knees and made her look soft and sweet, and he’d wanted to wrap her up and promise her everything would be all right.
Then he’d remembered she’d spent the last two days crying because she missed her baby, and her own future was in question.
Wait. What had she said?
“I’m sorry. Did you need to t
ake a shower? I can leave.”
She gave him a sunny smile, a thing he hadn’t seen out of her in days. “I wasn’t asking you to leave, Tucker. I was asking you to join me. You promised me a lot out of that shower and then the world blew up and it seems to me you forgot.”
She crossed the room, walking to him and going up on her toes. Her head tilted and her lips hovered close to his.
His cock responded, tightening and stretching like the fucker wanted to play. He couldn’t play right now. Could he?
No. He couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to her. “Roni, you don’t have to do this. I’ll take care of you. You don’t have to offer me sex.”
She was suddenly flat footed again and her eyes had gone from soft to hard as emeralds and twice as cold. “Excuse me.”
Fuck. What had he done wrong? Because he’d definitely done something wrong to put that look on her face. Roni was always sweet. She never lost her temper. Well, she hadn’t before. She’d always been patient. “I was trying to explain…”
“Go on,” she said as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I would love to hear this explanation since what I heard was you saying our sexual relationship was based on me giving you my body in exchange for your protection. Like a hooker.”
“No, baby. Not like a hooker. All the hookers I’ve ever met wanted cash. I don’t have any cash. I can’t offer it to you.” He knew the minute the words were out of his mouth that he’d made another mistake.
Her eyes went wide, and that wasn’t wonder in them. “You’ve been self-aware for like two minutes, but you already figured out how to hire a hooker?”
“They all looked like you.”
She turned and her shoulders shook, her hand going to her mouth.
“God, Roni. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to know,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m such a dumbass. Please don’t cry.”
She turned and she was laughing. “Sorry, it’s like when your baby’s first word sounds an awful lot like shit and you don’t want to encourage her. I blame my mom for that, by the way. She’s got a potty mouth and she won’t even try to fix it.”
Was she playing a game with him? He stepped back. “What’s going on, Roni?”
She wiped her eyes because she’d laughed so much she’d cried. “You’re a little crazy, you know. So, hookers? I was raising your daughter and you were running around with hookers?”
That wasn’t the whole story. “I was also getting shot at and trying to remember who I am. I got the shit kicked out of me a couple of times. And I have bad dreams. And sometimes I didn’t actually sleep with the hookers. They can be nice to talk to.”
Her expression softened. “Tucker, you didn’t remember me. I can’t exactly yell at you for cheating on a woman you didn’t know existed. But I can get upset that you seem to think I’m using you for protection. I assure you, I can get protection. I’m not exactly without skills. I grew up with GI Jane as a mom. Do you know the only thing worse than a soldier? A soldier who also happens to be a nurse.”
“You can’t protect yourself from these people.” He knew Sandra was capable, and she would have taught her daughter self-defense, but they were up against highly trained operatives with connections they couldn’t even understand.
“I’m not sleeping with you because I think that’s the only way you’ll protect me. I know I’ve been a mess the last few days. I haven’t been apart from Violet before and I didn’t handle it well,” she said, an unnecessary apology in her tone.
“You shouldn’t handle it well. You shouldn’t have to handle it at all.”
She moved close to him again. “I don’t blame you.”
How could she not? “It’s my fault.”
Her hands found his chest, gently touching him like he was fragile and she didn’t want to break him. “Did you ask for this? Did you ask the universe to take all of your memories and torture you? Because I’m damn straight sure I didn’t ask for the father of my child to be taken away from me. I didn’t ask for my sister to be killed and to have to hide for years. So the way I see it, it’s neither of our faults. But the way we’re acting now is.”
“The way I’m acting?” He took a step back because if he didn’t, he was going to get his hands on her and then they wouldn’t have this very necessary talk. “I assure you I’m not acting. And you can’t possibly know that this isn’t my fault. We don’t know what I was doing.”
She sighed, an exasperated sound. “I don’t care what you were doing.”
“You aren’t listening to me.”
Her head shook. “No, you aren’t listening to me. I don’t care what you did then. If we find out you were leaving me behind, my question to you is going to be what do you want now?”
That was the real heartbreak of the situation. He knew exactly what he wanted. “You. I want you. I want you and Violet and hell, I want your crazy-ass mother as my family. But that can’t happen because I’m going to ruin you. I’m going to ruin all of you. I love you so fucking much but everything I touch turns toxic.”
“I’m not toxic.”
“Your situation is.”
“Only if we let it be,” she insisted. “And I don’t think Robert or Jax or Owen would say they’re toxic, either. I heard you saved Stephanie Carter once.”
That seemed like so long ago. He’d felt worthy that day. Right until the moment he’d learned he’d been called Dr. Razor because he cut so deep. It was then he’d realized how arrogant he’d been, thinking he could be the hero. “I was dumb enough to let myself be taken because I had a microchip. They had to chip me like a dog so they might be able to find me. I was nothing but a homing beacon.”
A frustrated groan came from her mouth. “A homing beacon doesn’t make the choice to save someone. It doesn’t have to think about whether or not they’ll die in the effort. Do you know what I’ve done the last few days?”
“Hidden in a too tight apartment and cried because you didn’t know if your daughter was dead or alive?”
She rolled her eyes. “Before that. Since I came to The Garden, a couple of times a day someone would show up wherever I happened to be and they would plead your case. Oh, they didn’t come out and say that’s what they were doing, but I caught on pretty quickly. Robert talked to me about how loyal you are. Owen told me the story of how you helped him in those first days after he was dosed with McDonald’s drugs. You took care of him and you didn’t even know him. He hadn’t been in the compound with you for more than a day. Ariel and Rebecca tag teamed me with how amazing you are. Jax…well, Jax said he doesn’t survive any of this without you.”
She was forgetting a salient point. Jax was in hell because of him. “He still might not.”
“They love you. Even the big guy and the scary Brit. You’re worried that you’re going to remember and you’ll turn back into the cold, selfish, evil person you used to be. But I’m telling you, you were never that person. You were real with me. I don’t know why you put on that act with everyone else, but you were real with me.”
He wanted to believe her so badly. “How can you know that?”
She moved in again, putting her hands on him and looking up, her eyes intent upon him. “Because when you were at the bottom, when you were in hell and every moment was agony, you weren’t selfish at all. You sacrificed. You gave. You made a family for yourself in the worst conditions, a family that still loves and supports you. Tucker, we’re not defined by how we behave when times are perfect. It’s who we are when we’re half dead on the ground and everything seems hopeless that counts. I’ve been a mess for days, but it’s time to take a cue from my mom and get up and fight. It’s time to follow in the footsteps of the best man I’ve ever met. I’m not going to roll into a ball and forget that there are people who need me. At my worst, I want to be open and kind and strong and compassionate. I want to be like you.”
Emotion welled deep inside him at her words. He wanted to be that man, wanted to know deep inside that he could be the kind of father and
husband Roni could be proud of. He hadn’t even known he wanted to be a dad, but now that he’d met Vi, he knew he couldn’t fail her. He let his head drop to Roni’s, the contact piercing through the veil of self-loathing that had threatened to swallow him whole since that moment he’d realized what he would cost them all. “I want to be good enough for you. I want it more than anything.”
“Then come to the shower with me and let’s take a few hours off. There’s nothing we can do. You trust Ian Taggart?”
He nodded. “None of us would be alive without him. He and Damon…they risked everything to protect us. He won’t let anything happen to our daughter.”
“Then be with me. I’m going to go and get ready for whatever today holds. I would like very much to do that with you. If you can’t, I understand. But you should know I’ll ask you every day. Being together is a choice. I choose you, Tucker. I hope you can do the same for me.”
She turned and strode into the shower.
Brat. She’d just put him in an impossible position. She’d basically said I choose you. Please choose me, too. Like they were kids and it was as simple as checking a box on a note he would pass back to her friend, and they’d giggle about it and everything was easy and innocent.
What wasn’t innocent about the way he felt about her? The easy part was a given. They weren’t kids and honestly, it wouldn’t have been easy if they were. They were human and that meant everything was complicated.
He heard the shower turn on and a wave of longing hit him hard.
Was he treating her the way Tag had accused him? As some prize to be won. Earning her love had more to do with how he treated her, the priority he placed on her, than martyring himself.
Why would it be wrong to take what she was offering? If he gave it all back to her, what was wrong with accepting the comfort that would come from being close to her?
He hadn’t even answered the question in his head before he was standing in the doorway of the magnificent bathroom, watching as she stepped into the shower. Steam was already pouring through the room and she’d swept her hair up. She was naked, her skin luminous in the natural light.
