by Evelyn Drake
Travis backed away, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at Michael with a dipped chin, his eyes arrogant and cold .
Why did I ever hook up with this guy? ... And how can I break up with him without making a stink of things in the Family ?
Every question ended with the Family. How would it affect the Family—it was the underlying thought of every one of its members’ decisions. Those who did not make it their last thought before every action didn’t survive long .
The Family had outworn its appeal for Michael, and he was ready to move on. He’d let slip that tidbit to Travis, and now Travis had him by the short hairs, although Michael wasn’t sure the entitled young man had figured it out yet .
“We’d better get inside,” Michael said, not bothering to voice a response to Travis’s petulant look. I’ve really got to date a grown man next time instead of someone who just looks like a grown man .
To his surprise, Travis’s look of petulance transformed into a mischievous grin. In the next heart beat, the younger man had Michael’s face in his hands, giving him a kiss so intense that it left Michael’s lips tingling when they pulled apart .
“What was that for?” Michael laughed, giving his bottom lip the brush of a finger to wipe away any residual dampness .
“You’re my first,” Travis said with a shrug as he played with Michael’s midnight black dinner jacket. “You’ll always be special to me .”
“Your first?” Michael guffawed .
“Not like that, silly,” Travis said, giving Michael’s chest a light slap .
“Then like what ?”
Travis shrugged before giving him another kiss, lighter this time and sweeter. “Never mind. Let’s get in there .”
Michael nodded his silent agreement and watched as the younger man strutted confidently ahead of him, pushing through the double doors into a deserted warehouse that could have sheltered three Boeing 747’s .
“Michael!” Boss Chandler Hurgot, a man in his mid-fifties and the Family’s father, lifted both his arms high above his head as if in celebration. He was dressed in a tailored, Brioni Vanquish suit that cost as much as many families made in a year, yet the man still managed to look cheap, with his slicked back hair and his failed attempt to hide an ever-growing bald spot. A virtual chorus line of men flanked him to either side, including a bored looking twink who was the Boss’s latest obsession .
Michael smiled broadly, making sure his smile reached his eyes, even though he didn’t feel it. He lifted his arms high, mirroring the man before him. “Boss! We have returned .”
The two men embraced in a full-bodied hug that held nothing back. When the Boss pulled away, his hand lingered as it cupped Michael’s cheek. There was a look of longing in his eyes that Michael had never seen before. He’d seen a burning lust in the older man’s gaze an uncountable number of times before—but never a longing. And, the older man looked sad, as if he were about to lose a favorite toy .
Words heavy with question almost left Michael’s mouth, but he held them back. The Boss didn’t like it when people presumed to know what was going on in his head. To say that he looked sad would probably evoke a rant ten minutes long, during which someone would end up with a black eye. Not Michael, of course, it was never Michael. It was always someone else who caught the lashes of the Boss’s rage .
Michael clasped the Boss’s hand with a warm and familiar squeeze, to overshadow any perceived sting that might come from him detaching himself from the older man. He braved putting a foot’s distance between them .
“Ah, my sweet boy. Always the pretty one,” the Boss said, giving Michael’s hand a return squeeze before letting go. “Tell me, do we make you happy? Do I make you happy ?”
Warning bells went off in Michael’s head and his eyes turned to find Travis. He had made his way to stand with the other side .
Michael felt his body relax . It was the relaxation that came with being at ease. It was the relaxation he found at the center of a storm. It calmed his heartbeat and put all of his faculties completely under his control without the hindrance of fear .
The situation was wrong. Deadly wrong .
Michael turned his eyes back toward the Boss, this time flashing a brilliant smile. “Of course I’m happy, Father.” To emphasize his words, he bent as he lifted the Boss’s hand to his lips and was rewarded with a reassuring hand atop his bowed head. When he stood, his eyes stole a glance toward Travis again to find the younger man’s expression one of arrogant contempt. A step behind Travis was the Boss’s personal cleaner, Sigmund, and Sigmund was donning a pair of snug fitting, worn leather gloves .
No! Michael tried to hide his involuntary swallow, and his breathing became shallow as fear prickled his spine .
When he returned his gaze to the Boss, he did his best to hide his fear, in hopes that it would aid in containing a situation on its way to unravelling. But the Boss’s own gaze altered, and Michael knew that his fear had been spotted. The Boss now knew that Michael understood what was on the line .
“Possibly we could talk,” Michael offered, hoping to derail the unfolding direction of events .
The Boss’s shallow smile added the barest of curve to his lips as he stepped away. There was no shift of thought in his eyes. Nothing had changed .
Michael turned to look at Travis, all pretenses gone. “Run,” he said, the word weak in the face of evil .
Travis’ expression of contemptuous disdain shifted to shocked fear as Sigmund’s hand came to rest on his forehead from behind, tilting the younger man’s head back. A knife appeared as if it had materialized from air. Lifting it to Travis’s throat, Sigmund pushed its tip in as if he were sliding it into butter. In an easy, unhurried movement, he pulled it back out .
Blood spurted in a large arch. Travis’ artery was cut but not severed, and the hole into his esophagus was visible from where Michael stood, over ten feet away .
Travis whimpered, still ruled by shock .
Sigmund’s hand moved down Travis’s face until his leather-encased hand covered Travis’s mouth and his fingers pinched Travis’s nose shut. Yet Travis’s gurgled breath could still be heard through the hole cut into his neck. Blood flew like spittle with each breath, and Travis’s body began to rack with the attempt to cough as blood made it down into his lungs .
“Don’t,” Michael pleaded, turning his attention back to the Boss. “We can save him. Let me save him. He can still be saved .”
“But can you, my boy? Can you be saved from yourself? Travis has told me of your discontent—that you want to leave the Family .”
“No, no. It’s not true. This isn’t his fault.” Michael stole a glance at Travis to see the younger man’s hands claw ineffectively at Sigmund’s hold .
“Isn’t it? Travis created this moment. He has lived his life with loyalty to no one but himself. He thought that you would be where he is now, and that made him happy. He was willing to betray his lover. But that’s not what the Family is about, is it, Michael ?”
“No, Father,” Michael whispered, doing his best to keep his eyes on the Boss, even though his vision was focused on what he saw out of the corner of his eye. Travis’s struggles were weakening and Sigmund was having to support more of the younger man’s weight .
“No,” the Boss parroted Michael, lifting a hand to stroke Michael’s cheek with the presumed familiarity of a lover. It was everything Michael could do to keep himself from shrinking away from a touch that revolted him. “He’s not good enough for you, Michael. You need someone who can really love you .”
The older man’s voice had grown tender and encouraging, yet Michael could still hear the faint gurgle of Travis’s dying breath. His own skin grew cold and he felt as if a part of himself was dying. It wasn’t the part that Travis had inhabited within him. It was the part of himself that had him standing in front of the Boss as a member of the Family .
Out of the corner of his eyes, Michael saw Travis’ body slump and the gurgle of his breat
h was gone .
I can’t stay. Michael’s body twitched. Ready. The change in him was registered by the Boss, Michael could see it. An awareness was there in the older man’s yellowed eyes, and when the Boss smiled wide, Michael recognized it as the diversionary tactic it was .
“Do you come bearing gifts?” the Boss said, flashing perfectly uniform teeth that gleamed too white. They were teeth that had been made in some lab and shoved into his mouth as an improvement over the rot that had been there before—a reflection of the rot that lived inside the man .
Michael could feel the large stone nested against his chest. He was sure that the Boss felt it during their embrace .
“No,” Michael said, “the mission was a failure.” His eyes glanced over to Travis’s lifeless body before returning to stare down the Boss. The older man’s entire body had not seemed to change positions, yet now it looked stiff and ready for battle .
“Possibly you are mistaken.” It was an olive branch, an offer to step back into the right so that they could move forward without any further course corrections from the adept Sigmund .
“No,” Michael said again, shaking his head. “It was a failure. A complete and absolute failure .”
The Boss’s face turned stony. “Sigmund.” It was a one word command .
Before Sigmund had time to flinch his little finger, Michael was running. A bullet whizzed by his head .
“Stop! Stop! Stop firing!” The Boss’s voice was frantic .
The bullets stopped but Michael did not. He ran low to the ground in an almost cat-like position until he vaulted a stack of discarded wooden pallets. He climbed up the side of the enormous warehouse, aware that he would be dead before he reached the line of windows at the top if the Boss gave the word .
“Michael! Michael! Look!” The Boss’s voice called .
Michael stopped in his climb, aware that he was losing nothing by doing so. Hanging from his fingertips with one toe on a rivet protruding from the metal wall, Michael craned his head to look at the people more than thirty feet below. The Boss had a gun pointed at the head of one of his own men .
“Turn around and come back, Michael. Turn around or you will kill this man.” The poor guy with the gun at his head looked uncertain as the gun in his own hand twitched. Yet he did not fight when Sigmund’s easy and slow movements took it from him as if he were taking away a cell phone .
Michael hesitated. It will always be like this. There will always be someone he’s willing to threaten in order to keep me. He closed his eyes against the young man’s silent face pleading with him, and then Michael turned his back and continued to climb .
“Michael!” The Boss screamed .
Michael continued to climb .
“Michael!”
Michael climbed .
The sound of a gunshot echoed off the walls, and Michael stopped climbing .
I’m sorry. It was a silent prayer, a request for forgiveness, but then he climbed. Reaching the small line of windows at the top, the Boss’s next words stilled him .
“Your family will be next, Michael! Three days! You have three days to return to the Family or else we will be the only family you have left .”
“Sara!” Michael whispered, his sister’s angelic, smiling face flashing in his mind’s eye. The rest of his family had wanted nothing to do with him for years—not since they realized he liked the company of men in the carnal sense. His father, a man with a fierce Russian heritage, had announced Michael as dead when he found out. But Sara. Michael could not bear the thought of any of the harshness the world had to offer ever reaching her .
Yet his hand moved. It gripped the window sill and it pulled. Michael was gone a minute later. Three minutes after that, he was on the roof of the hangar and running .
I’ll get there before them, he vowed. They won’t get the chance to touch you .
4
Steve
S teve lay cocooned in Michael’s arms, a heavy blanket of sleep weighing him down. In the distance, a persistent ringing broke through the peaceful solitude shared between the two men .
“Go away.” The words were garbled and unintelligible to anyone other than the man who spoke them. Steve’s head rolled, and he was amazed at the unforgiving hardness of Michael’s chest. Yet he desperately wanted to stay within the moment and within Michael’s embrace. It was the only way he could sleep, the only way he could get rest .
Steve clawed his way up to consciousness, instantly aware of the chill of his sweat-dried skin. Lifting a hand to brush his hair from his forehead, he hit himself in the face with a gloved hand. His heavy bag hung lifelessly in front of him, no longer dancing from his pummeling fists. At his back and sides were the cold, hard walls of his apartment—not the protective embrace of Michael’s arms .
The phone stopped ringing .
“Fuck,” Steve swore as the realization sank in that he’d slept through the call. No one called him. Ever. No one but Charlize and work .
Hooking a hand between his arm and ribs, he pulled at the glove. His efforts shifted to a scramble for the phone when its chiming started up again. He punched at the phone’s flat face to answer it without any success. Finally, biting the knuckles of the glove, he ripped his hand free and swiped his phone’s face to answer the call .
“I’ve been benched.” It was Charlize .
“What happened?” Steve’s newly woken voice was like gravel .
“Michael’s in the wind, and the exchange didn’t happen. He’s still got the rock. Our contact inside said there was an execution and Michael ran for it .”
“They tried to kill Michael?” Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and his heart lost its beat. He was well aware of the irony of his concern for a man he was destined to kill .
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think so. The intel is still coming in. I just know that two men are down. One of them is Travis .”
Michael’s lover... A jumble of feelings stumbled over each other as they marched through Steve’s brain. He didn’t know how he felt—but that he felt anything at all was a problem. Clearing his throat, he picked his next words carefully, determined to give the appearance of neutrality. “Do I have orders ?”
“Monica’s not talking to me. I thought she was going to pull her gun on me when I relayed the news. I mean it, Steve. I thought she was going to pull on me .”
Shit. Steve was stunned. Operations was a place of cold calculation, not cowboy theatrics. Monica losing control of herself was tantamount to a general falling apart on the battlefield .
“But you’re okay,” he asked .
“Yeah. She slapped me on desk duty and for once I’m glad of it. She’s unhinged, Steve. She’s losing it. She’s going to kill someone, I know it .”
Steve phone beeped, alerting him of another incoming call .
“That’s her calling. Gotta go .”
“Be careful .”
“You too.” He clicked over to the new call. “Yes ?”
“Turney, Michael’s whereabouts are unknown. Find him, retrieve the stone, and terminate with extreme prejudice.” Monica all but spit the words as her voice radiated barely concealed rage .
“Should I come in to be briefed?” A kill order given over the phone in this manner was so far out of protocol that Steve actually wondered if it was really Monica giving the order .
“Turney, do you value your position at Operations?” The question was so loaded that Steve felt like he’d just parachuted into a minefield .
“Yes, ma’am.” Keep it short, son. That had been the advice of his first staff sergeant during his time in the Marines .
“And do you or do you not have the most surveillance hours tracking Michael Gammot ?”
“I do, ma’am .”
“Then find him, retrieve the stone, and terminate with extreme prejudice,” Monica repeated, and Steve could hear the unspoken threat that the same orders would be given about him if he failed to comply .
“Yes, ma’am .”
The connection severed .
“What the fuck.” Steve stared at the phone. He closed his eyes as the room started to spin. Losing his balance, he fell back against the wall and slid into a squatting position on the floor .
Kill Michael. He didn’t know if he could do it. He thought of the moments before, as he slept, when he thought he was being held in Michael’s arms. He’d never been with a man. But in the last five years, the thought of Michael was the only thing he’d found that gave him a moment’s peace .
“This will kill me.” He wondered if Operations would allow him to take a hospitalized leave of absence. There, maybe a drug induced rest would help him exorcise the waking nightmares that plagued him. But he knew the truth. If he became a liability—or even a potential liability—the kill order would come for him next. He wondered who would pull the trigger, and he hoped it would be Charlize .
“I wouldn’t mind if it were Charlize.” It wasn’t her specialty, but he trusted her the most. That made her the deadliest person to use against him. And in truth, he’d gladly die from her bullet over making her take one of his .
Kill Michael. Be dead yourself in under a year. A smile pulled at his lips. “At least I’ll have good company,” he murmured, again feeling Michael’s arms wrap around him .
5
Michael
T he gurgle of Travis’s life ebbing out of him echoed in Michael’s ears as he paced the floor of a lavish and bright home on the twenty-ninth floor of one of the most sought-after apartment buildings in town. It was a safe house Michael had set up three years earlier, and this was the first time he’d ever set foot in it. While seemingly exposed, in the middle of everything in town, Michael knew from experience the security that could be provided by a simple doorman .
