Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

by Unknown

  “Jesus,” Aaron said from the backseat. “Will you please just pull over and kiss the shit out of each other? Get it over with already. You’ll both feel much better.”

  Phoebe turned to aim some of her outraged disbelief in Ian’s brother’s direction, even as Ian lifted his towel to shoot D.A. a pointed WTF look in the rearview. Which of course Aaron didn’t see, thanks to the towel over his own head.

  “I’m sorry,” Phoebe said icily, echoing Agent Goth’s earlier words. “What?”

  “My brother has a thing for you, and obviously it’s mutual,” Aaron said, slowly and clearly as if he were talking—obnoxiously—to someone who was mentally challenged.

  Ian glared at his brother. “Cut it out. Don’t take this out on her. I know you’re mad at me, and I know you’re scared for Shel, but don’t be a dick.” He didn’t dare do more than glance at Phoebe, who was still carefully heading west on Clark, her eyes on the road.

  “Rescue,” Agent Goth said again, louder this time. “Who?”

  Aaron pulled back his towel and turned to her. “My husband, Sheldon, has just been kidnapped by a minion of his crazy father, who hates me and wants me dead. Perhaps you’ve heard of my douchebag father-in-law? His name is Davio Dellarosa.”

  Agent Goth started to laugh. She tried to stop herself. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s not funny. It’s really not funny, but oh my God, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ian said. “We know.” He pulled the towel off his head because enough was freaking enough.

  Phoebe still had her eyes glued to the road, her knuckles almost white as she gripped the steering wheel. “There’s no thing here,” she said, as Ian shot his brother another disgusted look. “There’s really not. If I’ve done anything at all to make anyone think—”

  Aaron rolled his eyes at Ian in an insincere apology, as if he were fourteen again. “I’m sorry, no, you’re fine. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m sure it’s just my imagination. But I’m going crazy here. I have no idea where Shel is, or what that son of a bitch Berto is doing to him.” His voice broke.

  Shit. “He’s gonna be okay,” Ian told him.

  “You keep saying that,” Aaron shot back. “If you know something that you haven’t told me …”

  “You’re going to have to trust me. I’m going to get him back.” Ian didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that as long as Sheldon was with Berto, he’d be safe. Safer than he might otherwise be, that is.

  “Trust you.” Aaron sat back and shook his head in disgust. “Because you know best. You always have. Always will. And if you think I didn’t catch that I when you were talking about breaking Shelly out—I, as in without me—your head is so far up your own ass you don’t even know what planet you’re on anymore.”

  “Here in Head-Up-My-Ass-Landia,” Ian shot back, “we use common logic to solve problems. We pay attention to details like, oh, look, Rory’s already got one parent in danger. Let’s not make it two.”

  “Like you give a shit about Rory,” Aaron said hotly. “You’ve never even met him. I know working for Manny must’ve been a bitch, but surely you had at least a few days off to come and meet my son.”

  “All right,” Phoebe said, lacing her voice with a whole lot of angry librarian, which was disturbingly hot, as she looked at Aaron in the rearview mirror. “Stop.” She then aimed her incinerating glare back at Ian. “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “Tell me what?” Aaron demanded.

  * * *

  Francine got to the Starbucks first.

  She parked Aaron’s car as far in the back of the lot as she could, license-plate-free front facing out.

  She kept Rory in his car seat, lugging him, along with his diaper bag and her go-bag, into the coffee shop. She ordered a small whatever, paying in cash—rental for a table in the corner.

  Rory was doing his best-baby-in-the-world imitation, looking around in wide-eyed wonder and smiling his goofy baby smile at anyone and everyone who caught his eye.

  And that was problematic when it came to blending in anonymously. A too-cute baby would be noticed. Remembered.

  Francie unfastened him from his parachute-worthy system of halter plus restraints, hoping if she held him on her lap and sang softly to him, he’d close his eyes and be more average.

  At the very least, he’d present the far less adorable back of his head to the other people in the shop and …

  Martell Griffin had come in while she was leaning over.

  Ian had sent her a screenshot of the man she was meeting—the man who was going to bring her and the baby to some FBI safe house, where she’d connect with Ian, Aaron, and Shel, and finally get some answers to her current question, WTF is going on?

  Griffin was tall, dark, and handsome, and at some point between the screenshot and right now, he’d managed to find a shirt with sleeves.

  As Francie watched, he edged closer to one of the other women with babies in the place—a woman who tried not to appear frightened by the big black man looming over her.

  The woman shook her head emphatically, and Griffin immediately eased back a few steps, his hands up in an easy there gesture. Somehow, he kept a smile on his face.

  Francie could read his lips. Sorry to bother you, ma’am. Have a good one.

  Of course, she knew what that was like, to be looked at with mistrust—in her case, by every other woman on the planet. As for the men? They looked at her …

  Kind of exactly the way Martell was looking at her right now.

  He’d turned to find her watching him, and his relief at not having to scare any of the other suburban ladies morphed into a flash of found Jesus surprise, and then something contained and careful.

  France had seen that expression before, too. It was the classic male Maybe if I play my cards right I’ll get to tap that face.

  She flattened her own eyes into an appropriately bored Not in this lifetime or the next as he approached, as she packed Rory back into his seat.

  This was why she’d stopped wearing makeup, stopped wearing her hair in anything other than a messy ponytail. And still, the objectification raged on and on.

  Her hope at finding someone who would love her for her, and not her pretty face and slamming body, had died years ago.

  “Francine? I’m Martell.” He held out his hand.

  She ignored it. Gestured with her head. “Grab my coffee, will you? I’ve already been here much too long.”

  “I got here as quickly as I could.” He picked up the diaper bag, too, and would’ve taken Rory if she’d let him.

  But she didn’t. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

  “We’re all under a lot of stress,” he said easily as he led the way out to his car.

  And wasn’t that crafty of him? Use the word we, which put them into the same subset in his personal Venn diagram of life. We who are under stress. It was the first step toward getting her into a much smaller, more exclusive personal subset: we who are having sex.

  Francie didn’t respond. She just focused on buckling Rory’s car seat into the back of his crappy car.

  He pretended he hadn’t been checking out her ass as she straightened up.

  “Mind if I drive?” she asked.

  Martell blinked. “No,” he said. “You want to drive? You can drive. Sure.” He handed her the keys, went around to the passenger side.

  Francie got in. Adjusted the seat and mirrors. Glanced at him. “You FBI?”

  He laughed. “Nooooo.” He said it as if the idea was really funny as she pulled out of the lot. “How about you? I’m not really sure where you fit in. I got the sense that you were watching Dunn’s brother’s baby.” He glanced into the back. “Cute kid.” Said with the absolute insincerity of a man with no desire to have children for at least another decade. Back to her. “But other than that … it was more important that I get you to the safe house than understand … But I’m guessing, from the way Dunn was talking, that you’re part of his merry
band …?”

  France looked at him, but he was serious. This was not bullshit. He wasn’t just saying what he thought she’d want to hear. Although even if that were the case, that type of perception would already be a huge step above the assumption she usually got. Which was You must be Dunn’s girlfriend.

  Still, as much as Francine would’ve liked to acknowledge the truth—I’m his partner in an extremely dangerous long con. It’s a job where he’s in jail for eighteen months, a job that even his own brother doesn’t know about—she hadn’t survived this long by flapping her mouth.

  So instead, she said, “I’m Ian’s sister-in-law. Sort of. My brother Sheldon is married to his brother Aaron. So Aaron’s really my brother-in-law. I’m not sure what that makes me and Ian, officially, anyway.”

  Martell ingested that info, then said, “So the baby is Aaron and Sheldon’s kid?”

  It was time for her to start asking the questions. “What, exactly, is going on? Why is Ian out of prison?”

  Martell didn’t answer for such a long time that she glanced at him again. He was watching her steadily. “I’ma let Dunn answer that for you when we get to the safe house,” he replied. “Interesting, though, that you know about him being in prison, because Phoebe texted me to say that Dunn’s own brother—Aaron—didn’t know he was serving time. I’m supposed to be careful not to spill those beans when we show up, and I’m guessing you should do the same.”

  Shit.

  Francie wasn’t the only one who’d just let information slip. She glanced at Griffin again. “Is Phoebe the FBI agent?”

  “No, that’s Deb,” he said. “Phoebe is Dunn’s lawyer.”

  Francie frowned. “No, she’s not.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “His lawyer is some creepy old rich guy who drinks too much and hits on me,” she told him, “every two weeks when I do a face-to-face. I’ve learned to start each meeting with No, I won’t blow you for five thousand dollars.”

  Martell shook his head. “Men like that think they own the world. That there’s a price tag on everything and everyone. For the record, I’m not for sale, either.”

  And there he went again, putting them both in the same subset.

  “FYI,” he added, “the creepy old rich guy is up on manslaughter charges for driving drunk and killing his own daughter in a car accident.”

  “Oh, shit,” Francine said. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy.

  “Yeah,” Martell agreed. “Phoebe’s filling in for him. Last name Kruger. Dunn’s in good hands. She’s good at the game.”

  Francine glanced over at him before returning her attention to the road. She suspected that Martell Griffin, as enlightened as he might seem to be, had no idea that when Ian played games, he never—ever—followed the rules.

  “Tell me what?” Aaron leaned forward from the backseat to ask Ian again.

  Phoebe was driving the getaway car to the FBI safe house—although she supposed it wasn’t precisely a getaway car, since no one was chasing them.

  Ian sat beside her in the front, and Aaron in the back, next to the FBI agent, who was quietly feeding Phoebe directions. Apparently, making sure they weren’t being followed was a lengthy, tedious process of turns and turns and turns again.

  “What does Phoebe know that I don’t know?” Aaron petulantly asked his brother.

  And Phoebe glanced up from the road to shoot another look at Ian, who was as close to unsettled as she’d ever seen him. Tell him, she wanted to say. Tell your brother why you haven’t met your nephew yet. Tell him where you’ve been for all this time. And don’t forget to make sure he understands the reason why you were in a maximum-security prison—because you were protecting him and his family.

  The look Ian shot back at her was a wry mix of exasperation and amusement, with the briefest glimpse of a flash of something that seemed sweetly vulnerable and …

  Oh, crap, what was that?

  Sweetly vulnerable, her well-educated ass. Seriously. If she was going to fantasize about the former SEAL, she should keep it purely physical.

  There was plenty of daydream-worthy material in her memory of his pulling her out of the pool. The sensation of his athletic body, solid against her; the way her hands had slipped along the smooth, cool expanse of his broad shoulders; the way he’d unselfconsciously stripped naked afterward—proving that there was a God, because divine intervention had to have played a part in the creation of such anatomical perfection.

  But no. Instead of fantasizing about the basic facts, Phoebe had added fiction. She’d seen what she’d wanted to see—that allegedly sweet vulnerability—in his eyes, even though it hadn’t actually been there.

  Ian’s brother was at least partly right—she was way too attracted to this man. And Ian knew it, too, and was taking advantage. Any flash of anything even remotely sweet or vulnerable was part of his carefully calculated attempt to manipulate her.

  She glanced at Ian again, this time forcing herself to be objective about what she saw. An intelligent, dangerously attractive man. “Tell him. Just do it,” she said, proud of herself for sounding so matter-of-fact. “Band-Aid pull. Nice and fast.”

  “Ouch.” He smiled at her. Ruefully, with extended eye contact that acknowledged a connection between them.

  Phoebe shut down any and all feelings of warmth or—God help her—tingle while simultaneously forgiving herself for being human as she gave the road her full attention.

  “Sorry, little brother,” Ian said, managing to sound sincerely apologetic. “You’re gonna have to wait. This is not a conversation I’m having with a federal agent in the car.”

  “You’ll have immunity,” Phoebe pointed out.

  “But I don’t have it yet, so I’m not going to risk it,” he countered. “Pull over. Up here.”

  “What?” Deb said from the backseat.

  When Phoebe gave him a Do you think I’m crazy look, Ian reached over and pulled the steering wheel to the right, so she had to brake to a jerking stop at the side of the road. “Oh my God!”

  “Wait, what are you doing?” Deb asked, as Aaron chimed in, “I’m coming, too.”

  Ian answered his brother. “No, you’re not—unless you want to get us both killed. Besides, I need you to be at the safe house when Francine arrives or she’s gonna take Rory and bolt.” He was already out of the car before he turned back to say to Deb, “I need to make a stop. I’ll be two hours, tops.”

  The FBI agent was adamant. “No way in hell am I—”

  He cut her off. “It’s nonnegotiable, so save your breath. I’ll meet you at the safe house.”

  “But you don’t know where that is,” Deb protested.

  “Call me,” Ian said. “I have the burner phone. You’ve got the number. Trust me, I’m not leaving town.” He leaned in to look at Phoebe. “I know you think your law degree gives you some kind of magic shield or super-power against the Dellarosas, but it doesn’t.”

  She started to argue, but he cut her off.

  “I know what I’m asking is a pain in your ass, but if what I’m doing here, right now, doesn’t work—and I don’t expect it to—I am going to need your help. So will you please stick around until I get back?”

  “What are you doing here, right now?” Deb repeated Ian’s words as Phoebe grudgingly nodded. “At least tell me where you’re going.”

  But Ian ignored her. “Thanks,” he said, giving Phoebe one last smile before he shut the door. And with that, he was gone.

  “Shit,” Deb said. “Trust me, I’m not leaving town. Great.”

  “Welcome to the club,” Aaron muttered.

  Phoebe pulled away from the curb, glancing up into the rearview mirror at Aaron, who also knew exactly where Ian had gone.

  They weren’t too far from the hospital where Manny Dellarosa was recovering from a heart attack.

  No doubt about it, Ian was intending to walk directly into the lion’s den.

  Looking out for his brother yet again.

&n
bsp; * * *

  Sheldon was dreaming. Had to be.

  Rory was tiny—a newborn—and crying, always crying. They couldn’t get him to stop crying.

  Aaron was calm—calmer than Shel, who wanted to scream, too. He comforted both of them, his voice soothing and low. “It’s okay, little man, you’re gonna be okay. We’ll get through this, together.”

  And then suddenly, he and Aaron were teenagers again and sitting outside the Brentwood headmaster’s office—knowing full well that the shit was about to hit the fan, and they were going to be outed. The school had sent a copy of the sex tape to Aaron’s brother and to Shel’s father. Jesus, his father was going to kill him.…

  “You need to get out of here,” Aaron was telling him, his voice low so that the headmaster’s secretary couldn’t hear him. “Pretend to go to the bathroom, and just keep walking. Do it, Shelly, go.”

  “What about you?” Shel asked.

  “I’ll be okay,” Aaron promised, but the headmaster’s door had opened.

  And with that, the dream shifted and changed again.

  Aaron was right beside him now. He’d put his hand over Shel’s mouth, whispering, “Shhhh!”

  They weren’t at school anymore, they were in their own living room, sitting on their sofa. Rory was finally sleeping.

  And Aaron wasn’t seventeen anymore. He was older. He was full grown and even more handsome, with that glint that was half possessiveness, half exasperation, and half adoration in his eyes.

  And that was too many halves, Shelly knew that, but that was Aaron—larger than life. It was impossible not to smile back at him, but then Aaron’s smile turned to a grimace and when he leaned close to whisper, “Don’t make any noise,” his voice was harsh and weird-sounding.

  But Shel couldn’t speak, couldn’t ask why not, couldn’t move with that heavy hand over his mouth and something holding his hands and feet tightly in place—but it wasn’t Aaron, it was—

  Sheldon awoke with a gasp, with a hand that definitely wasn’t Aaron’s covering his mouth.