Rule of Thirds (A Mirror Novel Book 1)

by Stephanie Tyler

  When Ward pulled back, his hand moved to stroke Jacoby’s throat, his chest, although he remained on him. “Let’s go get your stuff from the hotel—”

  “I—”

  “Shut up. It’s something I should’ve had you do when you first got here. We both know it’s inevitable. Dangerous too, but I’m not giving this up because of that.” Ward looked serious, concerned…and happy. “You’re moving in here. You’re not going around the country hiding anymore.”

  Both had been what Jacoby had wanted for years, and what he’d been sure Ward hadn’t wanted.

  Until now.

  All Jacoby could do was nod, because his throat was tight. Ward leaned in and kissed him lightly, as if that wouldn’t make the heat flare between them. Jacoby’s whole body burned for Ward, surged up to him like Ward was his master.

  He groaned into Ward’s mouth as Ward began to manhandle him, tugging his shirt off and his pants down, and Jacoby didn’t care that the chair was digging into him. But Ward did, rolled Jacoby onto him. “Want you to ride me, J. Right now.”

  Jacoby didn’t hesitate, helping Ward off with his pants and ignoring Ward’s command to find lube. Jacoby refused to wait, began to lower himself onto Ward’s dick, letting the burn, the stretch take him over. Sometimes the pain was so fucking good he couldn’t stand it.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two hours later they were burning the pages of Bren’s notes in a fire pit in Ward’s backyard.

  “You know they’re saved on Bren’s computer.”

  “It’s symbolic,” Ward told him. Jacoby rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to see it.” Ward ran a finger over the ring Jacoby now wore. “Looks good on you.”

  Because Jacoby told him the ceremony didn’t matter.

  But it did. Which was why Leo’s friend—a judge—came over earlier and married them in front of Leo and Jude. Leo had provided the blood tests, so the judge had been able to give them a marriage license and waive any waiting period.

  It helped to have favors to call in, and this was worth every single one of them.

  “We’ll have a party after this is done,” Ward told him as the flames started to die down.

  “You don’t even like people,” Jacoby pointed out.

  “We’re having a party,” Ward practically yelled.

  “Fuck, you’ve gotten bossy.”

  Ward nodded with satisfaction. “Get used to it.”

  “Now that that’s settled…”

  “Back to it,” Ward said grimly.

  Jacoby touched the ring with his thumb like a worry stone. It was a simple band, the gold burnished to a such point that it gave the ring an almost bronze coloring. It was so goddamned perfect that Jacoby’s throat tightened every time he looked at it. “There’s one thing we need to figure out—how did she know about us? Did she follow me here? I don’t get it.”

  It was Ward’s turn for true confessions. “She took me because I was getting close. Obviously, too close.”

  Jacoby’s eyes narrowed. “How close?”

  Ward shook his head tightly, like he didn’t want to tell Jacoby or revisit any of this. “Let’s not do this—”

  “Now?” Jacoby finished. “When, then? When we’re both dead?”

  “Maybe when she is,” Ward said, the emotion in his voice hitting Jacoby like a physical slap. “And yeah, that’s how goddamned close I got. And then she got closer, because I wavered.”

  “Because of me,” Jacoby said dully. “Well, she played us both, then, because she left me a note.”

  “I never saw a note.”

  “Cullers gave it to me. I asked him not to tell you about it. You’d already pushed me away. It made it that much easier to pretend it was all on you,” Jacoby confessed.

  Ward swallowed hard. “What did the note say?”

  “Ward—”

  “Don’t. It matters. It all matters.”

  Jacoby let out a harsh breath, closed his eyes and repeated from memory, “Brother, let this be an important lesson to you. Make sure Ward leaves you alone, and I’ll leave him alone. I left him alive in good faith.”

  Ward stood like stone. “Is that all?”

  Jacoby wanted to say yes, to let it all go, to keep the past in the past. But he didn’t. “No. There was also a key. To a safe deposit box.”

  Ward swallowed hard.

  Jacoby steeled himself and continued, “There was a recording—it’s supposedly of her and you.”

  “Supposedly?”

  “I never…I couldn’t bring myself to check it, Ward. I fucking couldn’t. I moved it into another safe deposit box and I stayed away from you.”

  Ward nodded woodenly. “I need you to bring it to me.”

  Jacoby hesitated, then pulled his wallet out and handed Ward the key before rattling off the name of the bank branch.

  Ward slung an arm around him. “She played us both.”

  “She had to have help.”

  “She did—she had us. She used us against each other.”

  Jacoby turned to look out the window, fully expecting to see her there. “So what now?”

  “Full-court press. Because we have nothing to lose that she didn’t already try to take from us.”

  *

  One minute, Bren was mainlining his coffee and the next, Jacoby was in his office, behind him…holding a knife to his throat. Bren could barely swallow without hearing the scrape of his three-day-old scruff against the stainless blade. He remained as still as possible, wondering if Jacoby had just simply gone over the edge—because he’d never seemed all that stable to begin with.

  “This is what’s going to happen,” Jacoby began, his tone slow and deliberate-sounding. “You’re going to put the phone on speaker. You’ll dial the number—carefully, so I don’t draw blood—and I want you to tell your source that I’m going to kill you if he doesn’t get in touch with you immediately. Tell him that I know Jasper isn’t Jessica’s brother.”

  “Why would I do that? How do you know that?” Bren asked, and moved slightly. He felt the thin trickle of blood run down his neck. “You’re going to kill me.”

  “I’m not the one moving,” Jacoby pointed out. “Call Jasper.”

  “It’s just a message system,” Bren said carefully. “Usually he gets in touch with me.”

  “But you can get a message to him if necessary, correct?” Jacoby asked.

  Bren had lied to him before about that. With a knife held to his throat, it didn’t seem like the time to try to bullshit this agent again. “You’ll ruin everything.”

  “Like your career? If you’re dead, it’s not going to matter anyway, so your choices suck on both ends,” Jacoby reasoned, then yanked the house phone to him, put it on speaker and growled, “Dial the damned number. Leave the message.”

  Bren wondered if he’d be able to choke out words at this point, because he’d realized just how serious Jacoby actually was—he smelled the fear coming from his body. He reached up carefully and dialed, slowly, the number he’d memorized almost a year ago after the first conversation with Jessica’s brother. Jasper had been articulate enough, but Bren had thought all of it was going to turn out to be a scam. When the FBI got in touch with his agent after Bren had done the briefest bit of research online, Bren knew nothing about this was a scam.

  “Jasper, it’s me—Bren. I’m here with…” He paused, because Jacoby didn’t say how he’d wanted himself mentioned. The knife pressed deeper, the rasp echoing in Bren’s ears and he continued quickly. “I’m here with an FBI agent who’s got a knife to my throat—he says he’s going to kill me unless you call back here and speak with him. And I’m not fucking kidding, Jasper.”

  Jacoby’s reached out and pressed the speaker button, cutting off the connection.

  “Now what?” Bren asked.

  “Now we wait,” Jacoby said, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. He didn’t move the knife at all, and Bren wondered if they’d wait there like that for hours. “I don’t know
how long he’ll take to get back to me.”

  “I have all the time in the world,” Jacoby said casually. “But I don’t think it’s going to take all that long.”

  Almost immediately after he’d spoken, the phone line began to ring. “Get ready to say hello,” Jacoby told him, then pressed the speaker button.

  “Hello,” Bren said, his voice cracking a little.

  “Bren, it’s Jasper,” the now-familiar voice boomed over the line. “What’s going on over there—is this some kind of joke?”

  “No, it’s not,” Bren said. “Agent Razwell has a knife to my throat—he made me call you. He said that you’re not Jessica’s brother.”

  Jasper snorted. “He’s got proof? Why would you believe anything the FBI says? We’ve talked about this, Bren—we both know they’re just jealous that you’ll have information they won’t.”

  “He’s here. Listening.” Bren wondered when—if—Jacoby was going to speak.

  “Well, Agent Razwell, why don’t you talk to me?” Jasper challenged. “Because I’ll tell you that I have no reason to lie about being Jessica’s brother. And there’s no way you can have proof otherwise.”

  “I can think of one way,” Jacoby said finally, his voice taut, but not with fear or anger…it was an emotion Bren couldn’t quite place.

  There was silence for a long moment, and Bren wasn’t sure if Jasper had hung up or not. “Go for it, Mr. FBI,” Jasper goaded. “Tell me how you’ll prove to Bren that I’m not Jessica’s biological brother—her only brother.”

  “Because you can’t be.”

  “That’s your argument?” Jasper asked. “Why can’t I be?”

  Jacoby took the knife from Bren’s throat, moved in to growl into the speakerphone. “You can’t be, because I am.”

  Without another word, Jacoby pressed the button and hung up on Jasper as Ward came into Bren’s office unhurriedly and sat in the chair across from him.

  After the line cut out, Bren gaped between them. “There’s no way.”

  “This isn’t for public consumption, you dumbfuck. Do you understand that if you tell any of this you’ll be convicted federally?” Jacoby demanded, lying as convincingly as he possibly could.

  “Yes,” Bren managed. He still remained unmoving, as if the knife was still pressed to his throat where the trickle of blood had dried. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re caught up in something that’s dangerous. You think, because she shared it with you, that you’re safe?” Jacoby asked. “You’re not that fucking stupid, are you?”

  “Jasper said that she doesn’t kill the people who help her.”

  That smile again. It tore right through him, through the bone and down to the marrow as Jacoby dropped his leather jacket and began to pull his T-shirt over his head and, finally, unveiled his scars to Bren.

  Bren’s only reaction was an open-mouthed gasp as Jacoby said, “Right. She doesn’t kill us. She just toys with us. Personally, I think the ones she kills get the better end of the deal.”

  *

  Bren figured he must’ve passed out for a few minutes—the stress of being held still with a knife to his throat, coupled with Jacoby’s announcement and the planned nature of what had taken place all took its toll. He woke with a start, blinked and saw Ward, still sitting in the chair across from his desk.

  He cleared his throat. “Any chance I might’ve dreamed all that?” Ward frowned, shook his head. “Shit,” he muttered. Ran a hand through his hair, felt his throat, ran his fingertips over some dried, sticky blood mixed in with the stubble. Jacoby wasn’t in the office with them—and the knife was gone. “What the hell was that all about?”

  Ward stared at him steadily. “You heard what Jacoby said.”

  “You knew?”

  “Yes, I knew.”

  “And you let me keep talking with Jasper.” It made sense, Bren supposed. This way, Ward and Jacoby could check the information Bren was receiving to see if it matched what Jacoby knew to be true.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve done what Jacoby asked—I gave him the notes I had. I didn’t have to do any of that.”

  “Thanks for being so kind.” Sarcasm dripped from Ward’s words even though his expression was as placid as ever. Nothing ruffled him.

  Bren was sure he could never, ever be like that. Nor would he want to be. “What happens now?”

  Ward shrugged, and it was then that Bren got that sinking feeling that somehow, Ward—or Jacoby—had already gotten to his pages. Hurriedly, he logged onto the computer, checked his documents and his Dropbox. It was all there, just as he’d left it.

  He supposed it could’ve been much worse, that they could’ve destroyed the first quarter of his manuscript and all his accompanying notes.

  “Why not make it fiction?” Ward suggested.

  “That’s not what the contract’s for.”

  “So change the contract.”

  Bren sat back, crossed his arms. “So the FBI’s okay with Jacoby breaking in here, holding a knife to my throat and threatening me in order to discover my source?”

  “Since I’m basically representing the FBI at this point, and since I’m Jacoby’s supervisor, yes, I’m okay with it.”

  “I want a new handler.”

  “Pipe dream, Bren.” Ward stood. “I hope you realize you can’t trust anything that the man posing as Jessica’s brother told you. And before you even think it, no, Jacoby’s not going to do a sit-down with you on this. Consider yourself under a gag order where he’s concerned. Off limits.”

  Bren held up his hands and nodded. He was going to find a way to write this book, and telling Jacoby that was an exercise in stupidity. But there was too much at stake for Bren—his money, his reputation, his entire damned career. He already had the nightmares—why stop now?

  *

  They’d pulled out all the stops. The good agent/bad agent routine was one they utilized often and well, because most of the time Jacoby was hard to control. Sometimes the result was well worth it.

  Tonight, Ward would characterize as one of those times. Except it was a toss-up as to how Ward’s supervisor would react when Bren’s lawyers called.

  “Maybe they won’t call,” Jacoby reasoned.

  “Right. And I’ve crowned you the new king of wishful thinking.”

  “Bren has as much to lose as we do,” Jacoby reminded him.

  “When you’re the optimistic one in this relationship, we’re all in big trouble,” Ward muttered.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bren was alone, the house locked and alarmed, and he was back in his chair with a glass of wine and the blank page of his computer staring back at him. He’d been doing this since Ward left him, hours earlier, because he wasn’t ready to call his agent and admit defeat. Because why would the man pretending to be Jasper do what he did? It wasn’t going to make him rich or famous.

  And now it’s not going to make you either, he noted grimly. There was always fiction, but his team knew this had been his big break. Authors didn’t always get them. He’d been one of the lucky few, and now he had to wrap his mind around being able to hold the brass ring and then have it ripped from him. And he’d fucking suffered for it, more than most. Because his nightmares wouldn’t end with the end of the deal—he knew that as sure as he knew he’d never erase the image of Jacoby’s scars from his brain.

  He downed the glass of wine and nearly choked from surprise when the landline rang. The only one who’d ever called him on it, besides telemarketers, was Jasper. Bren wasn’t supposed to pick up the phone, but then again, how worried could Ward and Jacoby be, since they left him here alone?

  He picked it up, said, “Hello,” tentatively.

  “Are you alone?” It was Jasper. Or, rather, not Jasper.

  “I am. And who are you?” Bren asked brusquely.

  “Ah, Bren, don’t be like that,” Jasper told him, sounding unconcerned about what transpired that afternoon. “I thought you had more faith
in the story.”

  “I do—I did,” he muttered. “Are you trying to humiliate me? Because the FBI did a good enough job already. I don’t think we have more to say to each other.”

  “But it’s all true, Bren. Every single thing I told you.”

  Bren bit his tongue to hold in his anger at Jasper’s consistent insistence and continued. “I was about to call my agent and break the news to her.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me you believe the asshole FBI agent.”

  “He has the scars you’ve talked about.”

  “All that proves is that I know what I’m talking about, Bren,” Jasper insisted. “The FBI can work magic with makeup.”

  Bren had never considered that. He’d also never thought an FBI agent would hold a knife to his throat and force his hand on his source, either. But Jacoby had seemed so haunted…it all seemed so real…and yet, the FBI had done cartwheels to get him to not write this book.

  Would they have gone so far as to cut him off from his source? “I don’t know what to believe,” Bren confessed, because he was safe across a phone line with who knew how many miles between them.

  “Then let’s keep going,” Jasper urged. “You need to become the star you’re meant to be. Stop hiding.”

  Bren rolled his eyes at the typical dramatics. “Do you have the scars?”

  “Do you want to see them for yourself?”

  “Yes,” Bren said without thinking…because he wanted to see them, indeed needed to see this in order to continue this book. His future, his reputation, all of it was on the line. He didn’t like the idea of the continuous nightmares he was having, or how deeply he was getting dragged into a serial killer’s world. But he didn’t like being manipulated either, and so far, the FBI hadn’t exactly made him feel warm and fuzzy.

  “Good. Now, let me give you a piece of information that can make up for what happened to you today…and that can help facilitate our meeting,” Jasper told him. “You’re going to want to write this down.”

  Jasper was either the real thing or a phony, simple as that. Bren slid the gun out of the fake bottom of a drawer, a necessary element because of what he wrote. Up until now, just having it had made him feel safer against the crazy letters and emails he received on a regular basis.