“That isn’t going to fly, and you know it, Lyman. You had a duty and you failed it.” He nodded but said nothing. What could he say, anyway? There was nothing left for him to do other than to tell all. “Lyman, will you help us?”
“Yes. I cheated on my exams. And I didn’t rape that woman, but they never believed me. Now, with all this, I know it was more than likely my brother, and since I never knew that he could do anything like that, I used him as my defense. The trouble was, he used me for his own.” She told him he was being recorded again. Not that things mattered at the moment, but he told her his name, the rank that he’d been, and that he was doing this without payment of any kind, no promises had been made to him, and that he was doing this of his own free will. “My family had been after me for a long time to join the service. I have no idea why they thought I’d make a good soldier. But when they were hiring at the FBI office, I though why not? I never knew it was so difficult.”
“You took the tests.” That was all the prompting he was going to get, he supposed. But he told her again that he’d cheated on the tests. “Who helped you cheat?”
“My father. He did that. He wrote everything down on these little sheets of paper for me. I never thought he could spell that well. Do you suppose he had help as well? Anyway, water under the bridge, I suppose. I also did drugs, whenever I could, to get settled. My family again. I hate to keep blaming it all on them, but they were difficult to—” He thought of something then. “They made it so I had to live at home. Making it difficult for me to get a place of my own, as well as causing trouble with landlords. Every time I tried to move out, they’d reel me back in with one thing or another. Not always my brother, but that was a part of it. They wanted me there to...I have no idea why, but they wanted me there.”
He was chained to the bed when they were finished. A guard, one of his own men, was put in the room with him. Suicide watch, they’d told the others, but he and the man with him knew what a total waste of dog shit he really was.
Lyman wasn’t allowed a television. He was hoping, when they came in to take it out, that he might be able to get a glimpse of his brother walking on his own two feet. But it wasn’t going to happen now. And when his guard told him that they’d found his mom, he decided that life, for him, was just too much to handle.
He did want to end his life. Today if he could manage it. To be so free of life’s troubles would be wonderful, he thought. There wasn’t really anything for him to look forward to, other than a few hours in the sunlight once he was put in prison. But there was not going to be enough for him to keep at, to keep his mind working all the time. Boredom wasn’t something that he did well.
Looking around his room, he tried to think what he could use to off himself. There was nothing. The room’s only chair had been taken by his guard. The table had long since been taken out. The television, as well as the knobs on the dresser, were gone. It occurred to him that there wasn’t even a bathroom in this room, and he wondered about that. Not that he’d ask out loud, but he did have a thought or two about it.
For fun he thought of all the reasons there wasn’t a bathroom. Well, the person in here couldn’t walk. That opened the pain back up about how his family had duped him, and he thought of other reasons. Like the fact that the person in this room had been shot in the leg and he couldn’t walk yet. Yes, that sounded better. He looked at his own shoulder as he sat there.
His father had done this. Had hired a person to fire into the group of people that he was near. Lyman wouldn’t have been on his list to kill. No, he was some sort of moneymaker for him. Whatever he made, Lyman had never seen a penny of it.
He wondered what would make a person lie to his son about his brother. Lyman had no doubt that they both knew about it. And he thought of the things he’d thought about when he and Leo would take those trips. They never wanted him to go because if he did, then he’d be able to tell on them about Leo. Lyman didn’t think that he would have told. But then, he never got the chance to prove himself to them.
“Why do I care?”
The guard said nothing as Lyman lay there. He’d more than likely been told to listen to his every word and then tell them of it later. Again, why did he care? As it was now, he was going to be spending a great deal of time behind bars. So lying there, he thought of things that he could tell Addie.
She’d been nice to him. Even, when he thought about it, in how she’d told him that she didn’t want to see him. Up front and honest, just as she was telling him that he wasn’t going to date her. Nor anything else. And she’d not done it so that he would be ridiculed in front of his colleagues either.
He also thought about all the things he’d done to his people. The ones that not just worked for him, but with him as well. Lyman had been a terrible person. Not even worthy of all the things he’d gotten with his job—the perks. Perks that he’d never used, but his father and brother had.
Today. It was going to be the first day of his life. He was not just going to be a better person, but a human being as well. Things were going to be different from now on. In his life, his mannerisms, as well as the way he did things. Prison, he knew, wasn’t going to be good for him. But it might be better than he had it now. At least there, no one would be taking pot shots at him. Nor would he be hurting others. A sort of self-imposed better him.
Chapter 9
Xander watched Addie. One wrong move and the world could come tumbling down on not just him and her, but his entire family. Again, she was going over the plan. There wasn’t any way that he’d be involved in this. He would surely become either a target or a hostage. Instead, he let her plan and plot while he made sure that she had all the supplies that she needed, as well as support.
“He’ll want to know why I’m there.” They’d gone over this before, several times, but Taylor was worried. And he didn’t blame him. This was a big fucking deal. Right or wrong, no one was going to come out of this unscathed. “Tell me again what I need to say.”
“Taylor, you can do this.” Jamie hugged him to her as she laid her head on his shoulder. “You’re going to do just fine. I know that. And you should too. Just act like this is a training mission, and it’ll be easier for you to deal with.”
He hugged her. The two of them had become a good set of tigers. Mates that didn’t walk all over each other, and had done a great job of supporting each other and boost each other up when they needed it. Wolves weren’t even like that. They would support, but could bully you into doing the job. He looked over at Addie as she spoke to the man who was helping them. Ben had become a good friend as well.
“All right. I’m ready to go.” Taylor kissed Jamie and then left. But he returned a second or two later, kissing Jamie again. Then he left for good. This was going to be hardest on him, he thought.
The plan, as small as it was, was going to net a great many people. Not just the one that Taylor was going after, but a long line of people, humans too, that had been fucking around with people’s lives for a good long time. Xander looked over at Jamie and decided that this would make a good story someday. Just not yet.
Instead of waiting around with the rest of the people in the room, Xander went to his office. It had come a long way since he’d started this project. Now not only did he have a new computer, which he had needed since college, but he also had a fax machine—which surprised him with how much he’d used it—as well as a large copier.
Charles joined him a bit later, just as he was bringing up their second book together. “I saw my book. You put my name on it. Why on this God’s good earth would you do something like that?”
“You helped me. And since the story is about you, I thought it would be a nice touch as co-author.” He smiled at the man. “You know, I was also hoping that it would help me see if there was anyone out there that might know you. You said once that you fathered a child or two.”
“Lies. I told them so often back in the day that I never really got the hang of telling the truth. I told you
, for the first time in my whole durn life, the truth. Felt like I’d been awakened. You know what I mean?” He said that he did. “When I was a boy, there weren’t no one around to gainsay me. Just a bunch of people that would rather hit me than to help me. I was starved most of the time. Then when I turned me sixteen, I joined the Army. Best thing I ever done did.”
“At sixteen, you must have been about the youngest man there.” Charles told him that he wasn’t the youngest by far. There were some that were only about ten. “My goodness.”
“Yeah. Some families, they got themselves too many mouths to feed or they just can’t do it. Better than what some people did. They sold off their young’uns, and then when they got killed or something befell them, they said it was God’s will. I think that God would have been happier had they just kept their kids with them. That’s why you have them, ain’t it?”
“I agree with you there. My mom and dad, they were broke. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized just how broke we were. Mom would take in mending. Dad would plow other fields with his broken-down tractor for extra. All our gifts were handmade, and we were lucky to have gotten them.”
He thought about his brother Owen’s friend, Clay. How they’d been so poor and the mother had suffered from depression and killed them all, including herself. He remembered what his brother had told him about the confrontation between mother and son. And with her husband too. It was very painful. And Clay hadn’t forgiven her. Xander wasn’t sure that he would have been able to either.
They talked well into two hours before things were starting to work on the other end. He would hate to be Taylor right now, and the worse part was, he was pretty sure that Taylor hated being Taylor too. When Addie entered his office, he wasn’t sure if he should run or go to her.
“He’s there.” Nodding, Xander asked if he should do something. “Yes. Hold me. This is something that I never in all my life thought would come to pass. And you know as well as I do what it took for Jamie to do this. For her own leap.”
“You told me that she’d been doing it for a long time. Looking into the leap.” Addie nodded as she sat across from him. “I thought you wanted me to hold you.”
“I do. Actually, I want more than that. But if this thing goes where I think it will, then having you hold me won’t get me anywhere near where we are now.” He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant so asked. “If we go to bed and have screaming sex—because, my dear, I’m going to make you scream—then nothing will be done when it needs to be done down here.”
“I guess so. But it would be fun.” She snorted at him. “You’re so mean to me. I don’t think you appreciate me as much as you should.”
“You should appreciate that I don’t pull my gun out and shoot you on a daily basis.” He didn’t laugh. Honestly, he wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t do just that. “I’m joking, Xander. Why are you so tense all the time lately?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her it was her fault, but he knew that it wasn’t. Tense? Yes, he supposed he was. He had a movie deal going down. He had a new mate. There were issues with the president. They had just arrested an FBI agent and his brother. Who, he thought, was the worst kind of criminal—he’d been sucking the system dry. And on top of all that, he had magic.
The magic part wasn’t that big of a deal. Yes, he had a lot of it, most of which he didn’t use all that much. The tats didn’t bother him either. He had them, but they didn’t interfere with his work. It was, he figured, all of it at once.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Xander told Addie, all of it. “You do know that there is nothing really to what you’re thinking about. I mean, it’s all just stuff. When I was first out in the world, after spending years, decades, working on my craft to protect others, I was terrified. I knew that I’d been created to kill. Well, not just kill, but to help them. But it got to the point that I was doing more of the work than them doing it. Like organizing things. Getting people to train for the upcoming whatever. Mostly, the kings that I would go to work for, they’d be sitting on their asses and waiting for me to slay their enemies without them having to even show up. That didn’t sit well with me.”
“What did you end up doing?” She told him that she’d walked away when the army for the other side came calling. “I bet that went over well.”
“Not so much.” They both laughed. “I bet you’re wondering what this has to do with your being overwhelmed. It does and it doesn’t. What it does is, hopefully, show you that you’re not alone. And that you don’t wait around for things to go ass up or not. You do something about it.”
“And the does not part of it?” She came and sat on his lap, holding him to her as she laid her forehead to his. “This is very nice, but not answering my question.”
“You’re always going to have me here for you. Not just at your side, but wherever you need me. Back, front, sides, I don’t care, I have you. And when the roles are reversed, then I know that you’re going to be there for me as well. Anywhere and anytime that I need you.” He kissed her, giving her all that he had. “Xander, had you been with me all my life, I would have been a much better person, I think.”
“I think that you’re perfect.” Standing up, he sat her on the desk and took a step or two back. “But I can hear my family and they need us. Taylor is doing well, but it’s time you left for him.”
Another kiss and she left him. The great falcon disappeared from the open window a few seconds later. Xander made his way to the living room—Taylor Central, it was called. Just as he entered the room, he saw Asim move and become a part of his body. Since Bug was missing, he assumed that he was with Addie. This was about to go bad or well, depending on which side you were on.
~*~
Addie made herself very small as she entered the large room. It was lavish, the room of the leap, and she had a thought that few entered this room. And those that did wondered why he had gold plated goblets on a shelf, or the head of a large lion.
That startled her the most. A lion’s head? He was a tiger, yes, but to have a lion on the wall meant all sorts of things to her. Moving along the baseboards, she was quiet...well, she was as quiet as the mouse that she was. The men were only talking, and she decided to wait for the signal before she took over. If she had to. Taylor seemed to have things under control, for now.
“I’ve come to do this formally.” James nodded. “The hand of your daughter is very important to me, and I want us to be friends as well.”
“I’d like that. I would.” James asked Taylor to have a seat. “I don’t usually see people in this office. It’s more formal than the other one. Things that I’ve collected over the years. And if, someday, you decide to take over for me, you’ll be able to have this as your office as well.”
“What about the lion there? That looks out of place, don’t you think?” Taylor laughed, and even from where she was, it didn’t sound forced or strained. “I mean, you being a cat and all. I never thought that I’d see that on a wall of a leap leader.”
“You’d be surprised, I think, of all the things one can do and places one can go when a leap leader like me.” Taylor asked him what he meant. “A man of means. A leader of all this. Did you know that I have over one thousand people under me? And, for the most part, I think they love me. I keep them safe.”
“I’ve been walking around the area. There are some that grumble.” He asked him why he’d listen to them. “Well, Jamie and I, we’re trying to figure out where we’re going to stay when we get married.”
“You’ll stay here.” Taylor laughed. “This is not a joke, young man. You’ll stay here. And you can work for the government—in fact, I would encourage it. But you’re not leaving my leap. You can, I suppose, but Jamie isn’t going with you.”
“Wouldn’t that be for her to decide?” James shook his head, then laughed. “I don’t know what you’d think was funny. I believe you just threatened me.”
“Oh, you have that all wrong, young man.” She was
sort of relieved by that. “I actually was threatening you. If you leave here, you’re not taking my daughter. I have plans for her. And if you try to take her, I’ll kill you. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. You’ll be as dead as anyone else that crosses me. What I’d do, if I were you, is just keep my mouth shut and do as you’re told.”
“And what would that be?” James laughed, but it sounded angry to her. “You want something from me, right? This coming here to ask you for her hand, it was just a ruse.”
“Of course it is.” James leaned back in his chair and pulled out a gun. He didn’t lay it on the desk as she assumed he would, but held it up so that Taylor could see it. “You talk to my daughter and I’ll blow that fucking head of yours off. Now.”
“What do you want from me, James? I’m assuming you have something in mind.” He nodded. Taylor was getting angry himself. “I’m not going to be your lapdog or cat. Tell me straight up or I’ll walk now.”
“I have your mother.” That startled her. She knew that Taylor had a mom, but not that she’d be a pawn in all this. “And you’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you, or she’s as dead as that father of yours.”
“My father isn’t dead.” James said that he was now. “Why would you do that? Why would you kill my dad? He was nothing to you.”
“Because he was everything to you. This is the way it’s going to work. When I ask you for information, you’re going to get it for me. Jamie does it now, but in a less helpful kind of way. She tells her dear daddy everything—and I mean every little thing—that is going on. The man that shot and killed my other man, Finch, he’s gone now, and I’ll need a replacement for him. You’ll do just fine.”
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