Rule of Thirds (A Mirror Novel Book 1)

by Stephanie Tyler

  Like his sister starting a cult of women who took the law into their own hands. It was a dangerous precedent, since Jessica’s motives weren’t all noble. Jacoby believed she was still killing other men who’d never raped anyone. She set them up and then killed them, for practice and for sport.

  She was having other women cover for her, doing her dirty work, and he bore the scars of her anger…and would, for the rest of his life.

  It didn’t matter that they limited him from intimacy—when he’d left Ward, he’d never looked for that from another guy again. That didn’t mean he didn’t get laid, but he didn’t give men a chance to check his scars out. Quick bangs in the back of a club, a quick fuck against the wall and he didn’t have to worry about any questions at all.

  But with Ward, it was different, and not just because Ward knew the scars written in blood all over his body. Ward knew they were etched on his soul, knew the burdens Jacoby dragged behind him and always would, and even though he would tell Jacoby he didn’t need to feel guilty, he understood that Jacoby always would and accepted that.

  What Jacoby couldn’t accept was the way he’d had a hand in hurting Ward.

  “Jessica might not know any other way, but you did—you do,” Ward said fiercely. “Goddammit, J—don’t let her pull you down. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  “Tough shit,” Jacoby mumbled.

  “Fine. Feel sorry for yourself.” Ward stood.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to get your head into the game,” Ward shouted. “I need you.”

  Jacoby stared at him, openmouthed. For Ward to admit that… “Thanks. Even if you don’t mean it—”

  “I mean everything I say to you, dammit. I’ve never lied to you—not once.”

  “You’ve omitted things,” Jacoby challenged.

  “Maybe there are things you’ve never asked,” Ward shot back. “Things you weren’t ready to hear. And that’s okay. You need to forgive yourself.”

  “Right back at you.”

  “Fine. So here we are—arguing when we should be working together.”

  Ward was right. He was always fucking right.

  “What if I go back to her and she stops?” Jacoby asked now.

  “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.” Ward paused, rubbed his palms together before saying, “Okay, fine—let’s say your theory is true.”

  Which we both know it can’t be because serial killers can’t completely stop.

  “Okay,” Jacoby said cautiously, obviously wary of the trap he knew Ward was setting for him.

  “You go back with her and what? Scam people? Hook?”

  Jacoby winced like Ward had slapped him. “Maybe. Maybe me just being with her would be enough.”

  Ward looked at him, trying hard to keep his expression neutral and fully realizing he was failing miserably. “If you go with her, you’re forcing me to hunt both of you down. And suppose you got in between me and Jessica? Suppose it comes down to my life or hers?” The way it already almost had.

  “Ward—”

  “Fuck you if you’re thinking about saying that I can’t ask that. Because I just did.” Ward stood to leave, but Jacoby’s shuddered word stopped him.

  “You.”

  Ward turned. Stared.

  Jacoby swallowed. “I’d save you. It wouldn’t be a choice.”

  Ward believed him. “I’m never going to let you have to make that decision. I’m going to be the one to put her down, so you need to make peace with that, and quickly…or end things between us now.”

  “I can’t,” Jacoby admitted.

  “Which one can’t you?”

  “Neither.” He shook his head. “So many times I wanted to come here.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “We made the break. You were safe.”

  “I was never safe. I’ll never be safe again,” Ward roared, and then said firmly, “I don’t care. I’ll take you over safety.”

  They could go on this merry-go-round forever. Truth was, they were both equally guilty, and both completely innocent all at once. “You won’t get rid of me again.”

  Ward’s expression gentled. “I won’t try again.”

  Progress, slow and painful, but they could at least move forward…together.

  Jacoby stood, pushed the papers aside. “We’ll work again in a little while. But first…” He left that thought in midair as he climbed onto Ward’s lap and pushed the recliner back, stretching out like a cat on top of Ward.

  “First what?” Ward asked, his voice husky.

  “You gonna make me beg?”

  “Yes.”

  Jacoby smiled. Licked the side of Ward’s neck. It was all so goddamned natural fucking Ward—there wasn’t any need to rely on his old ways, the numb, fake shit. With Ward, it was all real.

  *

  “When did Bren buy his house?” Jacoby asked suddenly, several minutes post-orgasm. Post-several orgasms, to be more precise.

  “You’re lucky I’m not easily insulted.” Ward rolled off him and headed for the bathroom and Jacoby followed him to take a piss.

  “I’m just taking your advice—get your mind off the case and the case will start chasing you.”

  “Fuck you for listening to me now,” Ward grunted as Jacoby washed his hands. “I never looked at the deed—you can pull it off the server. Use my code—it’s—”

  “I know it, Ward. I’ve always known it,” Jacoby called over his shoulder, chuckling a little as Ward cursed that too. Post-sex Ward was grumpy if he didn’t have time to cuddle, although that wasn’t something the premier agent would ever willingly admit.

  “What did you find?” Ward asked a few minutes later, looking over Jacoby’s shoulder at the computer screen.

  “Sales information’s as far as I’ve gotten.” Jacoby punched a few buttons. “Huh, that’s interesting.”

  “Looks like an agent cold-called Ward with the perfect house,” Ward finished.

  “Because that always happens,” Jacoby muttered. It was looking more and more likely that Bren was led here in order to be close to Ward…and maybe the FBI’s main HQ too.

  Because being close to Ward would most likely put Bren in Jacoby’s path.

  “Do you think…” Jacoby shook his head. “Christ, this was well thought out.”

  “Very. Then again, Bren does write about serial killers. It’s not a huge stretch for him to work on a non-fic, especially with the help of a supposed firsthand account,” Ward reasoned.

  “I don’t know what’s more dangerous—if Jasper’s being manipulated by my sister to do this, or if Jasper’s doing this to lure Jessica to him.”

  “The latter,” Ward told him. “I wouldn’t set a trap for a monster without some serious backup. And I don’t think all the backup in the world’s enough for her once he’s gotten her angry.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jacoby was on the couch, Ward in his chair when he asked, “How’d you get these again?” as he flipped through the pages of photocopied notes from Bren’s talks with Jasper. “Because when his lawyer calls…”

  Jacoby waved him off. “It’s on the up and up. I told you, he’s freaked. I promised I wouldn’t interfere with his work and in return, he’d show me his notes. I told him that us capturing Jessica wouldn’t impact his book in a bad way at all. Either way, a win-win for him.”

  “So you lied,” Ward said flatly.

  “Lied is such an ugly word. I prefer ‘embellished the truth.’” Jacoby sighed as he stared at the pile of papers.

  “I can do this,” Ward said quickly.

  “It’s easier—faster—if we both give it a read,” Jacoby pointed out, and Ward didn’t—couldn’t—disagree with him.

  Jacoby paged through Bren’s notes from Jasper. He tried to concentrate on the fact that even though these were supposed to be notes and drafts of scenes, Bren was a good writer. If this wasn’t his own life, Jacoby could easily get lost in it—and s
everal times, he actually did.

  Jasper definitely didn’t know everything, but he knew a lot. There was no way Jacoby told him any of this—it had to have come from Jessica.

  Maybe the missing parts were things that she didn’t know about. They’d been close when they were younger, but as they got older, Jacoby instinctively shied away from confiding in her. That, in turn, made her more angry and needy. Or hell, maybe she would’ve been like that anyway.

  Goddamn, he’d done a lot of shitty things in his life. A lot of it was for survival—at least that’s what he told himself, and actually believed it sometimes. But a lot of it was just because—because it was part of the game his mother wanted him to play, because when he was younger, it was easy to float through Europe, scamming his way through life. He met a lot of socialites and criminals—sometimes they were one in the same—and he made a shitload of connections. He’d also burned bridges, but not nearly as many as he should’ve.

  Jasper talked about who Jacoby had slept with, the men and women. The threesomes. In truth, he was often hired to be the third for some very rich people who wanted to spice up their marriages, and he’d also been kept for a while, most notably by an older guy as his dirty little secret.

  It wasn’t right, exposing his life to the public, but what his family had done, what Jessica continued to do was so wrong on so many levels that the exposure seemed a paltry way to give back. And Jasper was definitely angry as fuck at Jessica, in a way that Jacoby himself actually wasn’t.

  “He hates her,” he told Ward, hours later when Ward joined him at the kitchen table. “She didn’t ask him to contact Bren. If she did, she way miscalculated.”

  “Jessica doesn’t miscalculate,” Ward said grimly, passing Jacoby a glass of iced tea from the pitcher his housekeeper had made. Ward had ‘staff’ and although Jacoby saw them occasionally, they were truly unobtrusive, trained to be like ghosts who swept the place for killers, left the place clean, arranged for new towels and fruit plates in a minimal timeframe. It was like goddamned magic. It made Jacoby feel spoiled, and he liked that, even though he’d be loathe to admit it to Ward.

  “Do you tell them to do this?” Jacoby asked.

  “What?”

  “Make my favorite things? Or buy them.”

  Ward took a sip of his tea. “Maybe they’re my favorite things too.”

  “You didn’t even know what Frosted Flakes were before you met me.”

  Ward at least had the good grace to look abashed. “Guilty as charged. I hope it doesn’t make you—”

  “I love it,” Jacoby said quickly.

  Ward nodded and Jacoby marveled at how simple this kind of exchange could be. Having been raised by a she-wolf, he wasn’t used to the kind of niceties that were done just because, that were genuine.

  “You know what, J? I wouldn’t have fallen for you if you weren’t you. You can’t hate your past, because that’s part of what made me love you,” Ward reasoned. That hit Jacoby like a physical blow. He managed a nod and Ward said, “You own your past. You’ve never tried to hide it.” When Jacoby opened his mouth to argue and Ward pointed out, “No—you hid yourself to stop the danger. You’ve always owned who you are and what you did to me. And I’m the only fucking one who counts.”

  God, Jacoby loved it when Ward took charge like that—he was probably the only one Jacoby could stand to let his guard down with. And everyone needed someone like that in their lives.

  He let that thought sink in as he yanked himself back into the task at hand, which was reading about his life as though it wasn’t his life.

  But no matter how hard he tried to distance himself…what he read next? There wasn’t enough distance in the goddamned world.

  At first, the words swam in front of his face, like his brain was refusing to process what it was seeing. His throat tightened. It was probably the closest to a panic attack he’d ever come. He was vaguely aware of Ward’s hand on the back of his neck.

  “Jacoby, whatever’s in those papers doesn’t matter,” Ward said quietly, and that’s when Jacoby’s fog lifted.

  “Yeah, it does.” He felt dazed. Ward sat back on his heels, watching him carefully, like a live bomb that still needed detonating. He steeled himself, like that would make the lie, “Sorry—it’s just the same old shit,” easier to feed Ward.

  It didn’t.

  Ward frowned and Jacoby continued. “Seeing the fact that I fucked for money plastered everywhere’s just a bit more jarring than I thought it would be. How close I came so many times to being raped, just like she’d been…”

  Ward narrowed his eyes. “That’s in the pages?”

  If he closed his eyes now, he’d be able to see the hazy scene in front of him—the men, lined up to fuck him…Jessica telling him, “And you loved it—begged for more.”

  She hadn’t been lying. The fact that he’d been drugged to the gills? That could never quite excuse his guilt.

  But instead of answering yes, because all of that shit was in the pages, and was something he’d never told Ward, Jacoby shook his head quickly. “It’s implied. I mean, it all fits. It’s what she’s obsessed with doing to men, so it’s no surprise she’d bring it into focus.”

  “True,” Ward agreed. “But you’re too damned good at punishing yourself.”

  “Lotta practice.”

  Ward leaned in and nuzzled his cheek, his neck. His lips brushed Jacoby’s jawline, suckled softly after a quick nip. “Fuck it, J. Book’s not out yet. It doesn’t matter what the goddamned source says.”

  *

  Ward noted that there was still a weird energy emanating from Jacoby, even though he’d seemed to let Ward’s words soothe him. He didn’t pick up the papers again, just sat there, like he was planning what—and how—to say his next words.

  Finally, he started. “We never talked about what happened with you and my sister.”

  “No. And now’s not—”

  “I know,” Jacoby interrupted. “It’s just…I need to know…did she..?” He let the question and the unspoken word—rape—hang in the air. Ward shook his head quickly. “Are you sure? Would you remember?”

  In a weird, hazy, Alice in Wonderland trippy fashion, Ward remembered everything Jessica had done to him. That was all part of her plan.

  She’d screwed him all right, but it was definitely confined to a mindfuck. “I would.”

  “Good.” Jacoby stared into the distance, his mind someplace far away, like he was trying to recall something…or trying to forget it.

  Ward’s gut clenched. Had he and Leo missed something on Jacoby’s first night? Jacoby had sex—consensual sex—before Jessica grabbed him, and he’d admitted to that but…

  He leaned over casually and glanced at the papers next to Jacoby.

  Jacoby reached over—without looking—and placed his hand in the middle of the paper to cover it. Ward stared at the hand, big and calloused, the strong forearm, and dragged his eyes up to meet Jacoby’s. “J—”

  “Don’t.” One word. In that one word was everything—all the times Jacoby willingly opened himself up for Ward, letting Ward take him any way Ward had wanted to.

  Of all the things Ward thought Jacoby needed to heal from, it hadn’t been that. “Is it true?” Ward pushed, because he couldn’t not. “Tell me.”

  Jacoby broke his gaze and did that staring thing again. Then he got up and started to walk out of the house, until Ward grabbed his shoulder with enough force to turn an unwilling Jacoby around. This time, he was met with a palpable blaze of defiance, a blast that made Ward want to never let Jacoby out of the house again, wanted to make the rest of his life immune to anything bad.

  But he couldn’t, so he did the only thing he could think of. “Marry me.”

  Jacoby blinked. “Ward—”

  “Marry. Me.”

  “You don’t—”

  “If that’s what it takes to show you I don’t give a shit about that—except how it affects your well-being—then I want the world to
know I’m with you.”

  Jacoby nodded woodenly. “Out of all the things that’ll be revealed when the book comes out, this is something I pushed away, pushed down. Justified. Because I sold myself for sex more times than I can count—”

  “You agreed to that. It was consensual.”

  “I said yes to those men Jessica brought. I fucking enjoyed it!” Jacoby yelled, then looked startled at his own reaction.

  “Because you were drugged. Because you were in psychological warfare for your life. Because she made sure it was pleasurable so you would have moments of doubt like this. But I’m going to make sure they’re just moments…that they are few and far between until they’re gone.” Ward cupped the back of his neck. “You survived, and thank God for that, because I couldn’t have…not without you.”

  Jacoby stared at him. “If this didn’t happen—”

  “Would I still ask you to marry me?”

  “Stop being a fucking mind reader,” Jacoby muttered as Ward stalked a few steps away and opened a drawer in the hallway. He returned to present the box to Jacoby, and a receipt dated the day Jacoby had returned. And then, he showed Jacoby the second receipt, dated years earlier. “Why?”

  “Why didn’t I give it then? Or why did I return it for a different one?” Ward sighed, then answered his own questions. “Because I thought I was transitional for you. I knew how I felt, but you were young—had so much ahead of you. I wasn’t going to tie you down. And then…”

  “Jessica.”

  “Yes.” Ward’s expression tightened. “When you came back, I returned it, because it was the past. We can’t leave it behind but fuck all if I’m going to let you wear it.”

  “Let me?” Jacoby repeated with a frown.

  “Damn straight.” Ward ripped the box out of his hands, opened it and demanded, “Fucking marry me.”

  Jacoby smirked. “Since you asked so nicely…” And then Ward shut him up with a hard kiss that Jacoby let himself sink into.