by Layla Reyne
He sucked in a fleeting breath and time rewound further. To headlights shining through the window of his Tesla, to his ghostly white partner bracing for impact beside him, to his beloved husband in the backseat, black eyes wide and as terror-filled as the blue ones he’d just glimpsed. Aidan had been too shocked, in the face of imminent danger, to even manage an “I love you.”
Then. Or now.
Regret hurtling Aidan back to the present, his arrival was heralded by the crash of metal on metal and a slight slowing of momentum. Then Jamie’s hand lifted off his head and they were accelerating again. With Jamie driving flat out, they were through the fence and charging up the gravel drive toward the inferno. Aidan twisted to check on Danny and was nearly thrown from the car when Jamie suddenly swerved right. Another car, lights flashing on, passed narrowly to their left, headed for the road.
“That could be Renaud,” Jamie said.
“Keep going!” Aidan and Danny shouted together, and Jamie didn’t slow.
Two fence posts later an explosion blew the roof off one of the buildings ahead, the blast rocking the Jeep. Debris—rocks, splintered wood, metal casings—rained over them.
“Head down,” Aidan called back to Danny, as Jamie ran the gauntlet to get to the house. Aidan pointed at the burning building, a barnlike structure with sparks and flames shooting out the top. “Ammunition,” he said. “Fire must have started there.”
“By the sound of it,” Jamie said. Another explosion rocked the barn’s deteriorating frame as he swung the Wrangler to a skidding halt in front of the Spanish-style main house. “I’d venture a guess there’s more.”
Hand shielding his eyes from the glare, Aidan followed the trail of fire from the barn to the house’s roofline. Smoke and flames gathered in the eaves, creeping along the roof’s edge and working their way down. “Burning debris from the barn must have hit the roof.”
Gunfire from inside the house pierced the roaring blaze.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Answered by tat-tat-tat-tat-tat.
Bypassing the door, Danny leaped out over the Jeep’s side.
Aidan reached for the back of his jacket and whiffed. “Danny, no!”
Ignoring him, his brother sprinted toward the open front door.
“Perimeter,” Aidan ordered Jamie as they hustled out of the car.
“You’re fucking crazy if you think I’m gonna let you go in there alone.”
Fucking hell.
Aidan didn’t have time to argue, and if their roles were reversed, he’d respond the same. He closed the distance between them and sealed their lips in a hard kiss. “I love you,” he said, not leaving any words or regrets on the table.
“I love you too.”
They broke for the door, running. Two steps inside, Aidan opened his mouth to holler for Danny and choked on an inhale of smoke. Eyes stinging, he squinted over at Jamie. His partner had his shirt collar over his nose and mouth, and above the makeshift mask his blue eyes were wide with more than vigilance. They grew wider still when a giant wooden beam from the vaulted ceiling crashed to the floor beside them.
Jamie scrambled sideways into him, and that terror Aidan had glimpsed in the car was magnified tenfold. Normally fearless Jamie was scared out of his mind. Flames reflected in his eyes, and Aidan got it, history and reaction falling into place. Jamie’s father had died in a factory fire when he was a child. And here in this burning building, Jamie fully understood what his father must have gone through.
Aidan palmed the side of his face. “Stay with me, Whiskey.”
Gunshots rent the air again, and Jamie blinked away the haze. “Gotta move.” He seemed to be ordering himself as much as Aidan. Wrenching his arm free, Jamie spun and charged inside, despite his fear, running after Aidan’s brother and best friend.
God, Aidan loved this man.
He sprinted behind Jamie, skidding to a halt outside the great room.
“Lo dejó ir!” Mel shouted from around the corner. Let him go!
There was only one person she could be referring to. Aidan lunged forward and Jamie grabbed him around the chest, hauling him back. That one second forward was enough to glimpse Robert’s gun arm raised, a shining Desert Eagle aimed at Mel, while his other forearm was rammed under Danny’s chin, choking him.
Aidan struggled in Jamie’s hold. “We need to get in there.”
“They’ll both get dead if you go storming in,” Jamie whispered in his ear, then tugged both their shirts back over their mouths.
Mel continued shouting in anger-filled Spanish. “Haven’t you torn this family apart enough?”
“This family?” Robert’s laugh was menacing, and Aidan shivered in Jamie’s arms. “First Gabriel and now you. Both so eager to be a member of their family.” He practically spat the last two words. There was no doubt whose family Robert referred to. Danny’s strangled “Please” only confirmed it. “Our family not good enough?”
“Is that why you set your own nephew up?” Mel said.
“Gabriel made that bed when he decided he liked the almighty dollar more than service to his country.”
“So you sent Renaud to him as what, punishment? A giant fuck-you?”
Wait, what?
Robert sent Renaud to Gabe? Renaud was connected...to Gabe?
And Mel knew about it?
Breaking free, Aidan whirled around, expecting to see similar surprise on Jamie’s face. Instead, his partner’s face was resigned.
Knowing.
What the fuck is going on?
Aidan’s stomach tossed, his chest tightened, and his mind catapulted from one awful scenario to the next, each one ending in only one conclusion... Betrayal.
By Gabe.
By Mel.
By Jamie.
He stumbled back until Jamie caught his wrist and yanked him to his side.
Robert was ranting again, and Aidan reeled in his inner chaos to listen, desperate for any explanation. The one he got made him furious.
“Renaud needed someone to handle his funds,” Robert said.
“Launder,” Mel bit back.
“Didn’t see how Renaud was any different than those Silicon Valley thieves Gabriel worked for.”
“He’s a fucking terrorist, and you harbored him.”
“He’s not a terrorist. He’s fighting greed, fighting the power-hungry establishment.”
“You’re a fool if you think that’s all Renaud’s doing.”
“He was a comrade. That’s all I needed to know.”
Aidan glanced again at Jamie. Head leaned against the wall, his shoulders were slumped and his eyes closed, defeated. Robert’s and Mel’s words, together with Jamie’s posture, were all the confirmation Aidan needed. He wanted to rail. He wanted to beat the rest of the truth out of Jamie, out of this man who was supposed to have his back, who had his fucking heart in his hands. A heart that was shredding to pieces where he stood because of his lover’s, his partner’s, silence. But as smoke thickened and flames encroached, as sweat from the heat ran down his back and face, Aidan had bigger problems. They were out of time.
Fuck it.
He tore around the corner, ignoring Jamie’s “Irish!” Flanking Mel’s side, he aimed his weapon at Robert. “Let him go. And tell us where Renaud is.”
“Well, well, well, el maricon decided to join the party.”
Aidan ignored the pejorative slur. “Sacrificed Gabe to the cause, did you?”
“Didn’t much seem worth saving. Just like this one.” He tightened his arm around Danny’s neck, causing him to choke. “Another gringo capitalist.” Robert turned the gun on Danny, whose frightened gaze darted between Aidan and Mel.
Aidan’s trigger finger curled, stopping at the last possible second when Jamie appeared on Mel�
�s other side.
“Oh, another gringo,” Robert said. “This one el maricon too?”
Jamie’s response was cut off by a loud crack, then a groan, as the wall they’d stood behind tumbled down. Jamie jerked, Roberto was distracted, and Aidan and Mel advanced.
“Where’s Renaud?” Aidan demanded, as Mel repeated, “Let him go!”
Robert’s gun arm swung wildly, then abruptly dropped. The oomph of a silenced shot echoed a second later, and Danny stumbled into Mel’s arms as Robert fell forward, hitting the ground behind him. Above, a shadowed figure retreated from the second floor loft that opened to the great room where they stood.
Renaud.
“You got Danny?” he shouted at Mel.
She nodded, and Aidan took off for the stairs, Jamie thundering behind him. Arms overhead, they batted away falling debris and hopped over charred and missing steps. Clearing the top, Aidan paused on the slanted landing. “Which way did he go?”
As if in answer, glass shattered to their right. They bolted down the hall and burst into the last room on the floor. A gust of smoke preceded a blast of cool air, and when it cleared, dead ahead, Aidan spotted the shooter halfway out an open window. Jamie launched himself across the room, landing on his stomach and extending his long arms, catching their fleeing blond assassin by the ankle.
Renaud. Finally.
Jamie yanked the man back into the room and wrestled him to the ground. Aidan knelt beside them, a knee to the struggling captive’s back, and clasped a pair of cuffs around his heat-slick wrists. He roughly flipped him over.
Disappointment cut like a knife.
Not Renaud.
“Where’s your boss?” Jamie shouted between racking coughs.
The assassin remained stone-faced and silent.
Aidan leaned over, sweat dripping off his forehead, and hollered right in the other man’s face. “Where’s Renaud?”
Smoke billowed around them and the floor beneath Aidan’s knees grew hot. Time kept running out. Aidan grabbed his gun out of its holster and aimed it at their captive. “Answer me!”
The man’s eyes widened, the flames overhead reflecting in his pupils. “He left with the staff, after the fire started.”
“Shit,” Jamie cursed. “He was in the other Jeep we passed.”
“Where’s he going?” Aidan asked the assassin.
Back to silence.
Ceiling tiles rained down, and the floor beneath them shook and groaned.
No time.
Aidan pressed the gun to the assassin’s forehead.
“Aidan!” Jamie shouted.
Aidan clicked off the safety and bellowed, “Where’s he going?”
A sinister smile stretched across the man’s face. “Home.”
And then the floor gave out below them.
Cracking in two, the concave pieces rammed together and crashed down...
Down...
Down...
Losing his hold on the assassin, Aidan threw out an arm for Jamie. “Whiskey!” Jamie’s nails scraped across his palm, tried to hold on, but hands damp from the heat and sweat, they skidded over each other. Apart. “Jamie!”
Aidan slid with a piece of the falling floor, fingers and nails scrabbling for purchase, the tumbling disorientation worse than either car crash he’d lived through. The descent ended with a deafening crash as ceiling tiles pelted Aidan’s spine and the backs of his hands over his head. Staggering to his feet, he sucked in a choked breath, dizzy and in pain, but one thought, one instinct, pierced the haze.
“Jamie!” He sifted through rubble as more continued to fall around him. “Baby, where are you?”
“Ai!” Danny hobbled toward him with Mel on his heels, gun and gaze sweeping for more assailants.
Aidan continued frantically searching for his world. “Whiskey! Where are you?”
A cough, a gurgle, a weak call of “Irish.”
Aidan’s legs gave out and he clambered on hands and knees to where Jamie lay pinned beneath a ceiling beam. Their shooter was crushed under the other end. Mel put two fingers to his neck, feeling for a pulse, then shook her head. Dead. Aidan crawled to Jamie’s side and brushed the ash and plaster dust off his face.
Jamie’s eyes fluttered open, filled with terror and tears. He tried to push free of the beam and Aidan tried to help, pulling him by the underarms, but there was no give. “I’m stuck.”
“Danny!” Aidan shouted, as he got to his feet. “Grab that end.”
Even with their combined efforts, the beam didn’t budge.
Jamie’s hand circled his calf, squeezing. “You gotta go, baby.” A coughing fit racked his body and his eyes slipped closed again. “You gotta get out of here.”
“Again,” Aidan directed Danny, and they pushed once more at the beam. Shoulders, sides, everything they had.
It moved.
Then fell right back into place, drawing a strangled cry from Jamie.
Aidan dropped to his knees, lifted Jamie’s head into his lap and bent over him, lips to his damp forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Hazy blues stared up at him. “I love you. Go, please. Don’t die here with me.”
“I love you too.” Aidan brushed his lips over Jamie’s, tasting ash and hopelessness. He battled against the latter, cradling Jamie’s face. “You’re not going to die here. Not like this.” Trapped in smoke and fire, just like his father. No way was Aidan going to let his lover suffer the same fate. “You promised me. You promised you wouldn’t get killed. And neither will I. Partners, always.”
Weakly lolling his head, Jamie reached a hand up, brushing away Aidan’s tears. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. About Gabe. About Tom.”
Tom too?
Pain cascaded through him. A knife in his back. A hole in his chest.
One that would tear even wider and suck what was left of his soul into it if he didn’t get Jamie out of here alive, regardless of his betrayal.
Jamie’s arm fell limply to the floor. “Love you, baby. Please, go.” His cough was watery and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Between the lost sleep this past week and the lost energy on the boat, he was too weak when he needed his strength most.
Aidan patted Jamie’s face, fighting to keep him conscious.
Alive.
With him.
“Jamie, hold on!”
Mel reappeared at his side with a tire jack. “From the Jeep.” She wedged it under the beam as Aidan, after giving Jamie a last kiss, stood. “Get ready to push,” she said, and he and Danny put their shoulders to the beam again. She cranked the jack, the beam began to give, and it took all of Aidan’s and Danny’s combined strength to keep it from falling back into place.
“Jamie!” Mel shouted.
No response.
“Agent Walker,” she tried again in her SAC voice. “Agent Walker, wake up!” A demand, a tone they’d been trained to obey. One that would probably wake the dead.
Jamie’s eyelids fluttered open again, the wavering gaze underneath focusing on her.
“On the count of three,” she said, “You will scoot back. Do you hear me?”
He dipped his chin down.
“You two,” she said to Danny and Aidan, “hold up the beam on one and two, and then push it on three. Got it?”
They nodded.
Crank. “One.”
Aidan and Danny braced the beam as Jamie struggled to bend his arms behind him. To lever himself up and back. “You can do it, J,” Danny urged.
Crank. “Two.”
Aidan and Jamie locked eyes.
Crank. “Three.”
Aidan pushed with all his might, Danny grunted with matched effort at his side, and the beam finally rolled over and off Jamie.
Bending, Aidan pulled him into his arms.
“Can’t feel my legs,” Jamie gasped.
“Danny,” Aidan said, “get under his other arm.”
Together, they lifted Jamie between them, covered their heads, and followed Mel through the blistering heat as she cleared a path through the debris.
A loud explosion shook the walls around them. “Everything’s gonna blow!” Aidan yelled. “We have to get out of here. Now!”
They picked up the pace, dragging Jamie toward the exit. The first rays of morning light cast the open door in an eerie light, dark smoke wafting in the golden rays, flames licking the sunlight’s edges.
The lack of oxygen was getting to Aidan’s head. He stumbled.
Were they headed toward their escape or their deaths?
Aidan hauled Jamie across the threshold, just as another explosion rocked the house. Rattled his bones. Hurtled them forward.
Into the light.
Into the black.
Jamie’s hand clasped in his.
Chapter Two
“How can I trust a word out of your mouth?”
Aidan’s angry words, bit out in a hushed voice, were the first thing Jamie registered.
The next were his tingling legs.
He could feel his legs.
Could feel the sheet lying atop them, the compression bandages around his right knee and ankle, the brace around his leg in between.
And the pain that shot up his limb when he wriggled his toes.
Thank God.
And fuck, that hurt! As did his pounding head.
But he’d take both. Better than dying beneath a fallen beam, suffocated by smoke and burned alive. Like his dad. He’d been a kindergartner when his father died, mortality abstract and difficult to understand. Even more so the circumstances of his father’s death.
Not anymore. Bile surged up his throat, a wave of nausea propelled by commiserate fear and profound sadness. He tamped it down, the rest of his body too drained to move. No second wave followed. Because he wasn’t seasick. There was no saltwater spray, no choppy waves, no roaring engines.
Only a soft mattress beneath him, warm, humid air filling his lungs, and the urgent, hushed words traded over him.
