by Angel Payne
Mom had missed her normal check-in call last night. Then again this morning.
“Yo, Ghid.” Maybe a redirect was the best plan here. “It’s nearly ninety out here. That black shirt has to feel like a wool blanket. If you keep to the back of the tent, just shuck it and nobody will be the wiser.”
Ghid sat in the chair next to Tait. The wicker creaked, not used to supporting over two hundred pounds of solid muscle. “Kid, half my blood once roamed across Africa. What makes you think this isn’t my idea of heaven?”
Tait threw over a scowl. “Could’ve fooled the rest of us.”
Shay didn’t hide the kick he dealt the dork this time. “Can you just zip it the hell up now?”
“Sorry.” T took a sheepish drag of his drink before raising a sincere stare at Ghid. “She’ll call soon, dude. I know it.”
The guy grunted and shrugged. “Meh. I’m just being a paranoid pussy. She’s got a lot to deal with right now, with everyone but Oliver, Nika, and Damian now at the compound.”
Shay straightened. “Those are the three guys we couldn’t bust out of A-fifty-one with us?” Ghid held his gaze and nodded tightly. The guy’s eyes were touched with teal today because of his stress, but Shay also observed a warmer shade of understanding. He knew what it was like to feel almost a brother to a guy because your screams hit the same roofs.
Shay nodded in return, giving Ghid his thanks even as he joined the guy in a silent promise to those three men. We’ll go back for you. We swear.
“Right.” Tait submitted the assertion with empathy drawn on his face for Ghid. “I feel you, G. I want to talk to her again, too.” He exhaled. “Fuck. I can’t wait to see her again.” He tossed his stare at Shay. “You think she’ll recognize me? I mean, I’m taller now. And cuter…”
Shay joined Ghid and Dan in a round of disgusted groans. After that, silence took over the cabana. It seemed T’s humor had instigated deep thoughts for all four of them.
After a couple of minutes, Ghid cocked his head. Shay could almost predict the question he’d pose but waited for the discomfort of it, anyway.
“You have any ideas about the beasties lurking in your CBC test, kid?”
The man hadn’t let down his expectation. Shit.
Shay started his response with a shrug. “Nothing’s ever turned a weird color, howled at the moon, or grown to abnormal proportions.”
Tait chuckled. “Except for that thing between your legs.”
Shay’s pulse froze for a second. He pinned his brother with a stare. “You mean yours isn’t—”
“What?”
“The same…uhhh…”
“You mean am I hung like a goddamn race horse? Apparently not. But I heard all about you from Sylvia Cooper. In excruciating, inch-by-inch detail.” Tait set down his drink, shaking with laughter. “Christ wept, brother. Are you blushing?”
“Damn. I think he is,” Dan drawled.
Ghid folded his arms and glowered. “Well, fuck. I get the backside of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and he gets to be Babar the Elephant?”
Shay whipped a glare of his own to Colton, who fully enjoyed the shared snicker with Tait. “Guess you’re happy now with ‘teabaggin’ Tex’.”
Though Ghid looked tempted to jump on that dig, he kept his regard fixed on Shay. “So that narrows things down to a list of critters on the—errrm—well-endowed side. Stop looking soggy as a Jane Austen novel, kid; I know you’ve been curious.”
Shay pushed out a rebellious snort. So what if the guy was right? So what if ‘curious’ only chipped the tip of the mental chaos he’d been dealing with in all this? So what if he felt like he’d been in a turbulent ocean already, only to be whammed by a goddamn tsunami? And so what if the only anchor he kept swimming to was a five-foot-three beauty he’d only met a week ago? Wilder shit had been known to happen to people, right?
People.
Yeah. And wasn’t that the bitch of things?
He couldn’t validate even being a ‘person’ anymore…even if he’d never felt more ecstatically, uniquely, a man.
A cell phone started ringing. The look on Ghid’s face conveyed that the call wasn’t just a prayer answered for Shay. After Ghid frantically pulled the device from his pocket, his lips quirked in his version of jubilation. “It’s her.”
“Thank fuck,” Tait said.
“No shit.” As Ghid rose and walked away, he added over his shoulder, “You can blab at her once I’m done, T.”
“Mahalo.” Tait swiveled back toward Shay with a chuckle tempting his lips. He shook his head as he gave into the mirth. “Wow.”
Shay inclined his head. “Wow what?”
“What do you mean, wow what? In the last seventy-two hours, I’ve learned my little bro pulled off arguably the slickest secret mission since Neptune’s Spear, and brought our mom back to us in the process. Not only that, but you’re now some kind of badass super hybrid something, and you found a woman who digs the hell out of you—who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. I sure as hell know where Kell and I are taking our dreamgirl on our next vacation.”
Shay couldn’t help indulging his own laugh. “What happened to my sibling who always made things dark as a Brontë novel?”
Tait flaunted a lopsided grin. “He moved to Kauaˈi. Swims in the ocean before breakfast. And has the love of his life to come home to every day.”
He studied the guy for a long moment, hardly believing his brother was the same man. A year ago, the only thing that got Tait out of bed was a bottle of Grey Goose and a semi-clean glass. A soft smile replaced his chuckle. “It’s really that simple, isn’t it?”
Tait gestured toward the pool with one hand. “Sometimes you just have to believe it’s the best day of your life, brother.”
Like a bizarre magic spell, T’s words seemed to set everything into slow motion. The bad B movie kind, like rocks in Jell-O—which was exactly what Ghid looked like as he fell to his knees on the deck. The phone popped out of his hand and plunked into the pool between Zoe and Ryder, who joined Brynn and Ellie in gaping at him with confused horror in their eyes.
“What the hell?” Dan bounded to his feet.
Shay rose with him. “Not. Good.”
He might as well have said holy shit.
Zoe. She had to get out of the water. He had to have her back here, next to him. Now. Now.
But the second her name started to buzz off his lips, his phone rang. Also listing a northern Nevada number.
Shay jammed the line open as fast as he could. “Mom? What the hell’s going on? Ghid just collapsed like a deck of cards, and—”
“Sergeant Shay Bommer. My, my, my. Hello there.”
It wasn’t Mom. The voice was low. Calm. Cultured. Male.
Sometimes you just have to believe it’s the best day of your life…
Until it became the worst.
“Where the hell’s my mother, Homer?”
Chapter Twenty
Despite the heat of the day, Zoe shivered as if she’d been dunked in a vat of ice.
She’d been trembling since the moment Ghid’s proud stance had given way to a collapse of defeat. If that hadn’t turned the day into a giant blast of surreal, Shay’s snarl worked out the finale for the job.
Homer Adler. Like the captain of the Titanic, he was all too happy to guide a ship of dreams, right up until the iceberg. Then he’d abandoned it, but found time to leave a “parting gift” for Shay—an adder in a shiny box called Mom.
Before even hearing his sickening professor voice, Zoe hated the man.
Where the hell had he come from? Why was he calling? And how did he know both Ghid and Shay’s numbers?
Caramba. If the answer was a snake, she would’ve been bitten and killed by now.
After one look at Shay’s face, she wondered if she was going to wish for that, anyway.
There was only one person on earth with both Ghid’s and Shay’s numbers stored in their phone. She knew that because she’d personally programmed Shay�
�s number into the device.
Right before saying her good-byes to Melody Bommer.
Shay paced to the cabana’s table, his steps erratic. Half a dozen drinks and a plate of nachos occupied the space until he cleared them in one sweep. After slamming down the phone in their place, he stabbed the speaker button and leaned over the device, hands planted like he’d reach in and grab Adler through the phone if he could.
“I asked you a question, maggot. Start talking, or I’ll track you to within an inch of your puckered little ass hole then implant it with enough bullets, you’ll shit lead for the rest of your sorry days.”
“Really? Hmmm. You and what army?” The man sounded like Shay was a boy again and he’d simply asked if Shay wanted his ice cream in a cone or a cup. “The big green machine who’s officially listed you AWOL after you slipped away from the facility at A-fifty-one? Or the CIA spooks who have joined in on the manhunt, since Mr. Colton is on that same outlaw list with you?”
“Surprise, surprise,” Colton whispered.
“You think they locked you out just because you had bad breath or something?” Ry retorted, also beneath his breath.
“He doesn’t have bad breath,” Brynn snapped. Colton’s light smack on her ass ended any extension of that debate.
Besides that, Adler was just getting started. “Hmmm,” the man repeated. “Perhaps you’re enlisting the Las Vegas Police Department, who are getting ready to break the news that three young dancers from the Sunset four-oh-three drama were recaptured by one of their hijackers three nights ago, along with their handsome model friend, and are believed alive…for now.”
This bastard was starting to piss Zoe off. “Nice try, cabrón.” She closed the towel around her waist with a harsh jab. “You’re too late. We’ve all called our families already. They know we’re safe, happy, and protected.”
“Do they, Miss Chestain?” His voice, a combination of Hannibal Lecter and Agent Smith from The Matrix, sent a hundred more ice cubes down her spine—with spikes in them. “I am speaking with Miss Chestain, yes? How pleasant it is to hear your voice. It’s as lovely as your face. Your friend at the police department, Captain Donner, was generous in sharing so many—interesting—images of you in his urgent concern for your safe recovery.”
The ice blended into her stomach. The spikes, too. “Captain Donner,” she stammered. “Bryce Donner?”
Adler hummed again, a creepy confirmation. Shay’s posture curled into a tension she’d never seen before.
“As I said, the man’s been very helpful in our efforts. He’s still very fond of you.”
“But he’s not a captain.”
“He is now.”
Forget the ice. Zoe’s skin crawled with cockroaches of disgust. “You’re vile.”
Ghid, who’d managed to stumble back to the cabana with Ry and El’s help, shoved back up with his stampeding rhino face on. “No more happy tea party, asshole, until you put Mel on.”
Adler’s huff distorted the line for a moment. “Now, Gabriel,” he chided. “That’s not the way it works and you know it.”
Shay rotated the phone so the speaker was closest to him. “His name’s Ghid. Call him ‘Gabriel’ again and you won’t have an anus to speak of. Secondly, that’s exactly the way it’s going to work, Adler.”
The man’s chuckle made her think of fava beans, Chianti, and having the stomach flu. “Oh my, little Shay, how magnificently you have grown up. Having to watch you from afar was never as interesting as this.”
Zoe’s heart clenched to watch Shay take in that confession. She’d had a weirdo fan of the show try to stalk her for a few months, who was eventually thwarted when she started dating Bryce. It was a nightmare that ended after a few weeks—nothing compared to what Shay now had to comprehend. The clench of his fist and the tension in his back confirmed that harrowing fact.
“Glad to know it was so fucking fascinating for you,” he finally snarled at the phone. “Can we move on now?”
“Oh, fascinating doesn’t even scratch the surface, boy. I have to know, which part did you feel the most, do you think? Was it Hercules or Scout? Or maybe it changed as you got older…” He interrupted himself with a soft grunt. “Good lord, I’m digressing.”
“No shit.” Shay didn’t relax an inch of his rigidity though he visibly battled to stay focused on the conversation now. “My mother, you dickwad. Put her on the phone, or you don’t get one more tight hair of cooperation from me.”
The bastard released a heavy sigh. Zoe tucked her arms to her sides to avoid throwing the phone—or anything else—out of furious frustration.
During the same interim, Tait stared over at his brother. “Hercules and Scout? The horse and the family dog. That’s poetic, in a fucked-up kind of way.”
“Shut up,” Shay growled.
“Shay?”
Ghid joined Shay and Tait in lunging over the phone. “Mel?” His voice wavered. “God—Mellie—are you okay? If he’s touched a hair on your head, I swear I’ll—”
“I’m fine. We’re all fine. Shay…are you there?”
“Right here, Mom. And Tait, too.”
A determined growl vibrated over the line. It was so impressive, Zoe forgot her trepidation for a moment. One musing, crossed off the list. Shay got the talent straight from Mama Bommer, not the family dog.
“Listen to me, Shay. I’m still your mother. If you give in to this douche, I’ll rain hell on you like you’ve never—ahhhh! Noooo!”
“Adler!” Ghid bellowed it as Melody’s shrieks exploded through the line. The sound ripped horrified tears out of Zoe, while her empty stomach churned on its own bile. Brynn and El hugged her from other side, their faces bearing the same grief.
As Melody’s screams diminished into sobs, an incoming image flashed on the phone’s screen.
A newly severed human finger. Slender. Female.
Ghid’s back heaved and dropped in time with his tormented breathing. His arms curled up and back, his hands like paws of quaking fury. Zoe didn’t doubt he’d choke the life from the first creature that crossed his path. No sound spilled from him except those lurching breaths. Shay and Tait’s faces were grim, conveying the stark understanding of soldiers who’d experienced this kind of brutality before—though it had never been their mother.
Nobody said a word except Ryder, who often had obnoxiously accurate ways of expressing things. “I’ve met gobs of testicle sweat with more class than that.”
Adler added his smug chuckle on top of Melody’s steady weeping. “Oh, aren’t you a clever bunch? That’s such a sweet sentiment, but I’m not in the mood for sweetness today.”
“You don’t say,” Tait snarled.
Shay straightened. His arms coiled at his sides at similar angles to Ghid’s, fierce and tense, only his hands were slack, as if he prepared to render his damage by grabbing a rifle instead of ripping someone to shreds. “He’s in the mood for business,” he intoned. “And about to tell us that if we’re not, Mom has nine where that came from.” He stared at the phone as if tempted to spit on it. “Am I warm, asshole?”
“You forgot the part about letting my men arm wrestle for who gets to use her cunt first, but sure…that’s warm enough.”
Ghid still didn’t say a word. Instead, as they all watched, he departed the cabana on steps that threatened to crack the deck with their intensity. He didn’t stop his incensed prowl until he got to one of the palms that bordered the pool—and rammed the top of his head into the thing’s trunk. With a roar, he shoved. And shoved. And shoved. The palm gave way, Ghid’s force hauling it out by its roots. It crashed into the pool, soaking the deck, though Zoe was certain the surface of Ghid’s face was wetter.
More sobs erupted up her own throat in empathy for his pain. As little as a week ago, his act would’ve had her urging the hotel to skip the call to security and dial the local mental hospital. Now, she understood every drop of his grief. It was exactly how she’d feel if Shay were in captivity under Adler’s filthy
thumb.
“You’ve made your point, Adler,” Shay finally stated. “Now let’s talk logistics and terms.”
Colton angled in, making sure his glare was acknowledged. “Dammit, I-Man. No!”
Zoe shoved away the ice cubes. Barely. As for the iceberg that waited behind them? Adler made sure nobody forgot it today, didn’t he?
“Shut up, Dan.” But Shay locked his gaze with Tait’s as he issued it. “This is my decision. And I decide it’s going down.”
“Wh-what’s going down?” Zoe stammered. She reached and grabbed Tait’s elbow. “What the hell is he talking about?” Then shifted her hold back to Shay. “What the hell are you—”
“It’ll be okay, dancer.” He pressed his fingers over hers. “Everybody gets what they want. Mom will finally have her compound in the hills, and she’ll be safe.”
The iceberg flowed on top of her chest before she could rasp her reply. Before she could bear to know what Shay would render as his answer.
“And what does that bastardo want?”
“Me.”
* * * * *
There was such a thing as life moving fast. Then there was the speed of light. Then there was the acceleration taking place as she watched, blinking and speechless, from the corner of Roklan Reed’s palace-sized living room in the city’s luxurious Southern Highlands neighborhood.
Rok, arguably the world’s most recognized male model in the world for the last two years, wasn’t just Ryder’s mentor. He’d become a good friend to Ry—probably with benefits from time to time—which was a damn good thing, since they’d all shot out of the Vdara as soon as Shay hung up with Adler, and Ryder called Rok beseeching this huge favor.
That was all after the conversation that had Zoe losing her lunch on top of the tree Ghid had uprooted. The little chat in which Shay agreed to turn himself over to Adler in exchange for his mother—tomorrow at dawn.
