by Lexi Blake
“You should try the lavender spray. Very relaxing. If you open the second drawer, she’s got eye masks.”
“What the hell are you doing in the women’s bathroom?” Theo had to ask. His friend looked incongruous sitting there in his gym clothes amidst the frilly feminine décor.
“I’m chilling while I wait for my appointment with Kai. And I’m in here because it’s nice and I like it, and if you have a problem with it go to the men’s room. Also, I am not hanging out here to find a girlfriend. I was told not to do that anymore, so now I only come for the granola bars and the fine, fine scent of lavender.”
So he was pissing off everyone today. “Sorry, man. I wasn’t expecting anyone in here.”
“The good news is I’m the last appointment today. Apparently sessions with me take a lot out of Kai, so he schedules me last. In ten minutes I’ll be gone and this will be all yours.” He stood and moved to the small fridge, opening it and grabbing a red can. He offered it to Theo. “Here, you look like you could use the caffeine. It helps with the headaches. Probably precisely why Mother kept us away from it.”
No caffeine. No liquor. No sugar. His body was the doc’s weapon and she wanted him finely calibrated. Daily workouts lasted two hours. Enforced sleep cycles. Always, always take your vitamins.
He took a long swig of the soda, trying to banish the thoughts. “Sorry. I was being a dick.”
“Bad session?” Rob moved over, offering him half the chaise.
Yep, he was hiding in a frilly bathroom, a crazy ex-mercenary his only solace. “It didn’t start out that way.”
“Were you with her? Joint session?” Rob was one of the few people who would never say her name around him. Probably because he was the only one who knew how much it could hurt.
“Yeah, but it was going pretty well. She was cool this time.”
“No more tears?”
That was the problem. She always seemed on the verge of tears when he was around. Or she was pleading with him to come see their son. “No, she was kind of a bitch. I don’t know. I felt closer to her today than I have since I met her. And then I tried to kill her.”
Rob chuckled. “Has anyone told you you’re kind of fucked up?”
Only every single person who met him. “She told me how we met. It wasn’t like the other times. She wasn’t trying to get me to remember. It was a story. That’s all. I think she’s got a skewed view though. I came off the tiniest bit douchey.”
Rob opened his granola bar. “Douchey?”
“Apparently we met during a pretty illegal raid of my brother’s company. She took exception to our invasion. We swooped in via chopper and hit the office. I threw a flashbang her way.”
Rob grinned, as though they were talking about a football game and not real life, but then that had kind of been Kai’s point. “Seriously? Damn, man. This was when you were with the CIA?”
It was only history. Only information written in a file somewhere. He’d been a Navy SEAL and then he’d worked for the Agency under a man named Tennessee Smith. When he looked at it from an academic standpoint, he was okay with it. “Yeah. Ten had his sister embedded with McKay-Taggart and he thought Big Tag was going to murder her or something. It all worked out, but the point is the way she tells the story I got my ass kicked and then hit on her after tackling her. And I had a hard-on.”
“That surprises you?” Rob asked. “You like have a hard-on any time she walks in the room.”
“Yeah, awesome. I also get a blinding headache when I think about her, so it all evens out.” He’d been so close. It killed him. “When she told the story I remembered some things about my life.”
Robert nodded. “Ah, and that’s why you’re in here holding your skull like it’s going to crack open.”
“Pretty much.” Shame washed over him. For a moment he’d been so happy. He’d loved hearing her story, adored the husky tone of her voice as she’d laid it out for him. For a second he’d felt normal. And then he’d felt soft hands on his flesh and he’d shoved her away as fast as he could. He’d seen her eyes as she’d hit the desk. “I think I need to leave.”
Rob nodded. “Awesome. I’ve been wanting to do that, too. We should take off now. We can find a homeless shelter some place where no one knows who we are and no one gives a flying fuck if we live or die, and we can rob banks for a living because it’s all we know how to do.”
Asshole. “I’m not joking. I’m going to hurt her.”
“It’s been six weeks, man.” Rob leaned back with a sigh. “You were tortured for way longer than that. Shouldn’t you at least give yourself some time to heal before you blow everything up?”
“Do I need time?” It was what he thought about constantly.
Rob stared at him. “It’s all we have so yes, we fucking need it. I’ve been quiet this whole time, but I have to say if you want to walk out, please tell your brother that I’ll take your place. You might remember some facts every now and then but I have nothing. No name. No family. No one waiting for me.”
“Just because they haven’t found you yet doesn’t mean they won’t.” Adam was trying to figure out who Robert was in real life. He’d come up with nothing so far.
“I don’t care,” Rob shot back. “That’s the crazy thing. I no longer give a shit. I like this place. I like figuring out the foods I enjoy and playing games, and damn I would do almost anything to be you.”
Did Rob think he had it good? “So you can disappoint everyone around you? You think that’s easy?”
“You’re not disappointing them, man. They give a shit about you. They care. You’ve got a chip on your shoulder about pleasing people or you would see that. It’s what Kai would call an intrinsic part of your personality, but it’s fucking with you right now. You’ve got people who love you but you’re so afraid of hurting them that you’re willing to walk away. That will hurt them.”
“And if I kill her?” He wasn’t thinking through all the ramifications.
“I don’t think she’ll let you. Beyond that, I don’t actually think you would do it. Look, I remember our time with Mother way better than you do.”
There were reasons for that. “Because she tortured me more.”
Rob sat back, his shoulders slumping. When he spoke again there was a weariness to his voice. “Because my mind wasn’t as strong as yours and it soaked the drug in. I didn’t fight the way you did. I didn’t require extra drugs and therapy. She wiped my mind and it didn’t come back. So I know what happened. I have a working knowledge of most of the last two years of my life and a whole lot of that included you, brother.”
Rob had always been the good boy to his problem child. Still, despite the therapy, Theo knew Rob meant well. The minute he’d had a chance to run with Theo, he’d taken it. “So tell me why you think I won’t actually kill her.”
Rob turned, obviously happy with the chance to explain. “Because you refused to hurt the women. It was exactly what got you in trouble. Do you remember the job in Colombia?”
“Vaguely. I know we pulled it off. It was a good day.”
“Victor was running point.”
He’d hated Victor. He’d known he was supposed to show loyalty to his brother, but he’d found the man distasteful. Victor genuinely enjoyed hurting women. Not in a fun, everyone-gets-off way. In a bleeding, pleading, dying way. “So Tony was in charge.”
Tony hadn’t liked him, hadn’t trusted him at all. When Mother was away, Tony would play. Evil games. Games that left Tomas hurt and bleeding, and then he would give out some of the drugs and there would be no talking.
“They tested you,” Rob explained. “You were ordered to kill the teller. You refused. He tried to force you to kill and you refused. Mother attempted to get you to hurt numerous prisoners and you refused. Time and time again.”
He didn’t remember. He couldn’t remember. Sometimes he thought all he could remember was pain. His whole life had been pain.
Except for a second he’d had a flash of Case tos
sing a football his way and he’d known it wasn’t imagination. It had been memory, and he’d smelled the honeysuckle that had grown wild through the trailer park. He’d heard the whooshing sound of the football as it hit his hands and his brother calling a play that no NFL fan would ever remember. He’d felt the last light of sun on his face and known that they were waiting on the bus that would take them to Great Lakes.
He’d known he’d never lived in that trailer again.
“I want to remember my life.”
Rob took a deep breath and sat back again, his eyes turning away. “I know, but I worry you’re going to fuck up the life you could have now by trying to find the one that no longer exists. You spend your every day going over files and reading about the past. You could be going out with her. You could be going to family dinners and having fun.”
“We have fun.”
Robert shook his head sadly. “We play video games and try to forget that we were tortured. I need you to understand that the minute Kai says I’m good to go, I’m asking your brother for a job and I’m getting an apartment and I’m going to figure out who the hell I am now, and I’m going to move on.”
“You don’t understand. I know you don’t remember and there’s no record of how she caught you, but I know how I got fucked. I did it. I made the call. I fucked up so many lives that night because I was an arrogant shit who thought I knew better than everyone else.”
“You can’t know why you did the things you did,” Robert insisted. “You’re not in the moment. You’re looking back on it.”
“I know I should have called it in the minute the leader of the op got kidnapped. I have it on the highest authority that if I’d done that, none of what happened later would have happened.” It hurt knowing how roughly he’d screwed everyone over, but not quite remembering why he’d done it. He found himself the villain of the piece but could ascribe no motivation beyond the fact that he’d been arrogant and foolish and he’d cost an agent her life and a son his father.
“You can’t know that. Perhaps you do call it in and Smith is killed by MSS.”
He’d gone over it a million times. “They wouldn’t have killed him. He was too valuable an asset. Besides, he had a double planted in their organization. She would have gotten him out, so I got Des killed for no reason and by not following his direct order, I got tortured and turned into the good doc’s trained monkey.”
Every time he read the file, he stopped at that page. Ten Smith’s written debrief included all the dark shit. He’d noted that he’d ordered Theo Taggart to murder an unarmed woman because he felt that she was too dangerous to be left alive. Theo Taggart had known better and refused the order.
Fucking idiot. He’d had her in his sights according to the documentation. He’d had a gun on her, pointed at her head, and he’d been too weak to pull the trigger.
The room was quiet for a moment.
“Have you thought about what would have happened if you had killed her?” Rob asked.
Every single day. “I would have saved myself a shit ton of pain.”
“You would be dead. She wouldn’t have been able to save you. I would be dead. I would have been left in a cell to starve to death. So I know you probably will sit here and feel sorry for yourself, but I’m glad you didn’t kill her. Maybe you would rather be in the ground than have to fight to get your life back, but I won’t ever feel that way.” He stood up. “My session is starting soon. I’ll see you at home, brother.”
Rob shoved his uneaten granola bar in his pocket and strode out the door with his water in hand.
Theo looked around. Rob had no trouble accepting the bounty offered to him. Why couldn’t he do the same?
He groaned and laid back. Was Rob right? Was he incapable of truly hurting her? It didn’t feel like it. Somewhere out there she was nursing an aching back because he’d shoved her away so hard. She’d only offered him comfort and he couldn’t take it.
He stared up at the ceiling. Someone had painted a sun and stars up there. It was stupid because even he knew you didn’t get the sun and stars. You got one or the other. No one got both.
He could try to figure out why he felt connected to Erin. He forced himself to think her name even as the pain washed over him. He could try to work things out with her or he could go with Big Tag’s plan and take a sub tonight.
He couldn’t do both. Despite her attitude today, he knew it would hurt her to see him with another woman.
He wanted it so badly. Not to have sex, but to be out of himself for a while, to be the Master and not the dipshit who’d screwed everything up and fucked up everyone’s lives. He wanted one person in the world he could give to without this heavy sense of guilt.
He sat up. He couldn’t run away. That was all talk. Besides, Big Tag had a tracer device embedded under the skin of his left bicep. The better to not lose his puppy again, as his asshole brother had said. Unless he wanted to dig it out, if he ran his brothers would be all over his ass, and they had their own forms of torture.
He was stuck here and he had no idea what to do.
He could sit her down and tell her he couldn’t love her again. He could offer to pay child support and attempt to integrate into her life in a friendly way.
Or he could try. He could go back to session with her tomorrow and try to connect.
He wasn’t sure if it would work. Hell, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t certain he wanted it to work.
What Robert didn’t understand, couldn’t possibly, was that he was free. Yes, he’d been through something horrible and he had no memory of his past, but Robert also didn’t have this crushing sense of letting everyone down because he couldn’t possibly feel for them what they felt for him.
They loved a ghost, a Theo he couldn’t possibly be again.
So what did he fucking choose? The sun or the stars? Comfort or honor?
Was that all he had for her now? He wasn’t sure he was capable of feeling love anymore. He’d been hollowed out, all the good things about Theo Taggart scooped up and tossed in the trash. He walked. He talked. He felt pain and guilt and seemingly nothing else. The minute he started to feel something for her, he was rewarded with an ache and the knowledge that he was empty inside.
Could he find even the smallest place where he could simply be? Where guilt didn’t weigh him down? Did he deserve that place?
He stared up at the picture and wondered what the hell he was going to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
Theo sighed as he tied the laces of his leathers. “This is bullshit. He’s ignored me all day and now he won’t even walk into the damn locker room so I can have a two-minute conversation with him? Are you serious?”
Case leaned against the locker beside his. “You know big brother can be stubborn. And he wasn’t ignoring you. He had a meeting with some clients earlier this afternoon. It wasn’t something he could walk out of so he could solve the problem of your cowardice.”
Theo felt his eyes narrow. “I’m not being a coward.”
“You agreed to try a session with a sub. She’s been informed and a contract written. She’s eager to meet you. Since she’s not the one running away, I would say you’re a coward for not telling her to her face that you’ve changed your mind.”
He wasn’t going to punch his brother. He told himself that a couple of times before reaching for his vest. “I don’t even know the girl. I don’t see how she’s going to be disappointed. And I get that Ian was working. He’s not working now. He could take two seconds to walk in here so I don’t have to put on leathers I have no intention of wearing all night.”
“So you’re going home?” Case asked. “Looking forward to another big night of Xbox and beer?”
It wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening. At least he couldn’t hurt anyone if he was sitting on his brother’s couch. Theo settled the vest over his chest and slammed the locker door shut. “You have a problem with it? Because let me tell you I can move out anytime you like.”
Blue eyes rolled his way. “I wish you wouldn’t take everything with the harshest meaning possible. I’m worried about you. Nothing more.”
But there was something more. Case had to be annoyed with him. He was a damn newlywed. He’d married Mia Lawless a few weeks back and he was sure having two crazed weirdoes with PTSD and blank memories hanging around had done nothing for his marriage.
“Look, I thought about it for a long time today. I know what Ian’s trying to do. I get it. I’m not ready.” He’d tried to envision himself working with some nameless, faceless sub. Every single time that blank face turned into green eyes and freckles and a mouth made to kiss. Her. “I’m supposed to take things slow.”
“Slow, yes. Never moving at all is what you’re doing, Theo.”
Theo turned on his heels. All around him the locker room was starting to fill up with men getting ready to play for the night. They laughed and joked with each other, perfectly comfortable with their roles. He wasn’t sure which were which, but he knew some of the men here were subs. They didn’t submit in the locker room. They flipped off their Dom counterparts and talked about work because in here they were simply friends.
That would all change once they hit the dungeon floor. Once they were on the dungeon floor, they would leave behind their daily roles, their cares and personas. They would become Doms and submissives and they would know their places. They would relax and find pleasure in their partners.
He would go back to an apartment that wasn’t his and play games he didn’t care about.
“Why are you doing this, man? It’s so obvious to me that you want to try,” Case said, his voice low. “Why won’t you let yourself try?”
“I could hurt the sub.”
“I tested you on everything. You passed with flying colors when you let go and simply followed your instincts. You won’t hurt the sub.”
