by AJ Sherwood
Popping his head around, Brannigan inserted, “I’ve seen her work, Papà. She’s amazing. And it’s not that she’s mimicking what Kyou is doing. She’s explained things to me when I’ve asked. Frankly, she’s going to be a holy terror when she turns eighteen.”
Shaking his head, Kyou corrected, “She’s a holy terror now. Fortunately, she has a very firm sense of morals. Otherwise we’d all be in trouble. But yes, Mattias, please meet her.”
This pleased the older man. “I will, then. Do you think I could be a grandfather to her? I’d like a granddaughter,” he added wistfully.
Kyou felt like that might be jumping the gun. Just a bit. He almost said so, but instinct held the words in check. He considered how excited Remi had been to finally meet Brannigan in person. How few contacts she had outside of her immediate family. He thought, too, of what excellent care Mattias showed for every child he helped. “I’ll let you work that out with her. I’m not sure if she really understands the idea of grandparents. She’s met Carter’s parents, and they’re nice to her, but they didn’t connect very well.”
Mattias nodded, a gleam of determination in his eye. “We’ll see how things go.”
He placed a personal bet with himself then and there that Remi had just gotten a new grandfather. Whether she knew it yet or not.
Brannigan once again leaned around him. “Papà, we might have some trouble coming. An old enemy of Kyou’s has tracked him down because of what happened—”
Kyou turned and hissed at him. “I can handle that.”
Eyeing him, Brannigan didn’t even slow down. “—and we’re not sure what the man’s up to or how he’ll strike. Just that he will as he’s going through considerable trouble to find Kyou’s whereabouts.”
Such a disobedient boyfriend. Kyou would have to punish him later.
“We’ll help this time.” Mattias must have seen the disagreement on Kyou’s face as he informed him in a thou-shalt-not-argue tone, “Kyou, you are mine. Not just because you’re dating my son, either. You’ve always been one of mine. I’m not content to sit on the sidelines and watch you struggle when I can help. I let you handle the last problem because you knew precisely what to do. This time, I want to be involved as well.”
Kyou stared at him, struck by those words. He really felt that way. Mattias looked at him and saw someone he wanted to protect and care for. Kyou sat, stunned at the warmth spreading through his chest, gripping his heart. Why had he ever feared he’d be rejected by this man? Why had he ever hesitated to reach out to him? Mattias had been waiting this entire time for Kyou to do exactly that.
This had been here, waiting for him to claim it, all this time. Kyou felt like an idiot for not realizing it earlier.
Mattias put a fatherly hand on his shoulder, tone gentle and coaxing. “I still have quite a few friends and contacts from the old days. Let me put some feelers out and see what information I can dig up. Alright?”
“Okay.” Brannigan Genovese had been right. Kyou had nothing to fear here and everything to gain. A brilliant smile broke out over his face. “Looking forward to working with you, Papà.”
Kyou got kissed on both cheeks again for that.
19
Brannigan
Brannigan surveyed the scene with immense satisfaction. Everyone had met up at his townhouse to have a meeting on what to do next. His parents were here, as well as an old friend of his father’s, Piero. All of Kyou’s team were in attendance, including Aiden and Remi. The doctor looked tired, and a coffee cup seemed to be permanently attached to his hand, but he steadfastly refused to go home and sleep, even though he had just gotten off shift.
The first ten minutes of introductions, Brannigan wasn’t quite sure how things would go. His parents were keen on meeting people, and vice versa, but personalities didn’t always mesh well, even with the best of intentions. Remi especially was a question mark for him as he didn’t know her well enough to guess.
But Remi had surprised them all by walking right up to his parents and greeting them with a bright hello. In Italian. Mattias’s face had lit right up, and he’d immediately responded, bending down a little to her level. He’d asked her multiple questions, running the gamut from how she liked Boston and had she walked the Freedom Trail yet, to did she have the right computer to learn everything from her Uncle Kyou? No? Whyever not? It’s alright, Nonno will get that for you.
They ended up with his father in his favorite wing-backed chair, Remi sitting on the ottoman in front of him, both of them seriously discussing computers and tasers and where to find all the bad men in the city.
Brannigan watched this play out with an amused smile. Even his mother was charmed by her. She lingered nearby and fetched Remi a drink and cookies several times.
It wasn’t a serious meeting, not yet, and everyone was happy to get plates of desserts and finger foods while they waited on the last informant to arrive. Brannigan was glad everyone seemed comfortable in his home. He’d re-arranged the couch and chairs and brought in a few more chairs from around the house, trying to accommodate so many warm bodies. It seemed successful. People were relaxed and eating, chatting with each other. It felt strangely more like a party than a meeting.
Ari drifted up to his side, a slice of lemon iced cake in one hand, his eyes on his daughter. There was a certain amount of fond resignation in his expression. “Your parents just adopted my daughter, didn’t they?”
“Indubitably.” In a confidential tone, Brannigan admitted, “Between four uncles, two doting fathers, two enchanted grandparents, and Tricksy, I don’t think there’s any hope for Remi. She’s going to be utterly spoiled.”
“Five uncles,” Ari corrected with a long sigh. “My brother is just as bad. I think once Carter’s parents and siblings get to know her better, and vice versa, things will pick up there, too. Maybe we need more kids in this family to spread the love around. Remi’s case will be hopeless otherwise.”
That was a very intriguing idea. “You and Carter?”
“Eh, maybe. We’re talking about it but no decision there yet. Ivan and Aiden fully plan to once Aiden’s done with residency.” Lips pursed, Ari stared at his thief brother cuddled in next to Aiden on the couch. “Limits need to be imposed there, I think. Ivan’s the type to go hog-wild once he gets enthusiastic about a project. I fully expect to go over to his house and find he’s suddenly got a dozen kids.”
Ivan clearly heard him as he drawled, “You say this like it be problem. No problem.”
“Problem!” Aiden jerked in semi-panic, frantically shaking his head. “I am not raising a dozen kids. No. This is me, putting my foot down.”
Ivan tilted his head to look down at Aiden’s face, eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Okay. Half a dozen. Only six is good, da?”
“Are we negotiating this now?” Aiden rolled his eyes expressively. “Seriously, now?”
Looking about at their setting, and amused audience, Ivan shrugged. “Perhaps later be better.”
Aiden’s look at his husband conveyed, You think?
They were saved by the doorbell. Literally. Brannigan went to the front door to answer it and suddenly acquired Carter on the way, who oh-so-casually guarded him as he let Tricksy in. She noted the guard and grimaced.
“Good that you’re taking precautions. You’re not going to like this.”
Brannigan winced. “That bad?”
“Well, it’s certainly not good.” She sailed past him and into the living room as if she already knew the layout. (She probably did. Brannigan chose not to think too hard about that.) To the group already gathered, she gave a smile. “Hello, all. I bring bad tidings of no joy.”
“That’s not how that Christmas song is supposed to go.” Shaking his head, Kyou introduced her with a wave of the hand. “Tricksy, this is Mattias and Deidra Genovese and their friend, Piero. This is Tricksy, a good friend and one of the informants I hired.”
“Hello, everyone.” Tricksy sauntered over to shake hands and give Remi a quick hug.
“Nice to meet you, wish it were under better circumstances. Is that cake I spy? God, I need sugar.”
Ari, being a wise man, fetched her a slice and handed it over.
Taking it, she inhaled the smell with a blissful expression. “You’re now my favorite. Let me eat a bite of this, then I’ll tell you how stupid things just turned.”
Brannigan didn’t like the sound of this at all. He went to join Kyou, sliding in next to him on the loveseat. Kyou shifted to allow this but didn’t take his eyes off the woman.
Tricksy in fact ate two bites before groaning in pleasure. “I want either the recipe or the name of the bakery before I leave tonight.”
“Done,” Brannigan promised her.
She shot him a quick smile of thanks before the expression was chased off by aggravation. Tricksy shifted to the only open chair, putting her near Remi. “Okay. So Emura, in his desperation, stupidity, and general depravity, did something I never thought a sane man would do. He’s started the criminal version of a GoFundMe with the intent of hiring an assassin to take K out. He claims he’s found exactly where you live. That he can track you through Brannigan. Probably isn’t wrong on the second part, not sure about the first. It hardly matters. He can find K.”
Kyou’s wince was so hard it was almost audible.
“Now, this is where the stupidity comes in. He’s made this visible, probably so people can readily find it, but that meant I found it. K and I both did, I should say. The idiot didn’t take the necessary privacy precautions when he set up the page.”
“I didn’t even have to hack into it,” Kyou pitched in with another wince. “It was a little alarming how much money he’d gathered and how many donors there were.”
Tricksy regarded him with a tilt of the head. “How many people have you pissed off in your career, anyway?”
Kyou shifted under all of the curious eyes, about as comfortable as a novice fakir on a bed of particularly sharp nails. “Too many. Apparently. Anyway, we called the meeting because donations came to something of a standstill yesterday, and Emura seemed to be on the move, looking for an assassin. Without physically getting out there to track him, I can’t figure out who. He’s being very careful to stay offline right now.”
Brannigan thought the reason for that fairly obvious. Anyone trying to take out a hacker would keep their online footprint as nonexistent as possible.
“This man is evading everyone I associate with,” Mattias informed the group. “I’ve found no word of him outside of the website.”
And it frustrated his father; Brannigan had seen him swear more than once. “Tricksy, were you able to figure it out?”
“I’ve been tailing him since last night.” She lifted the plate with her half-eaten cake in illustration, as if to explain why she needed the sugar rush. “The people he was meeting with are not people you’d even tell the time to, let me tell you. Seriously bad guys. He finally found someone to take the job sometime around o’dark thirty this morning. Ari, it’s a man by the name of Edgar Lewis. Ring any bells?”
Ari’s lips curled back from his teeth in a slow, menacing manner. You could call it a smile, if said smile was held between a stone wall and a spear point and forced to beg for its life. “I do indeed. Oh, this will be a downright pleasure.”
Ivan perked up, as hopeful as a dog eyeing a bag of new treats. “Is it playtime?”
“It’s totally playtime,” Ari assured him with dark promise.
Eyes bouncing between the two of them, Brannigan suddenly felt concerned for Boston. Hell was apparently about to break loose. He could not imagine what the man had done to garner this reaction.
Mattias cleared his throat. “I think we skipped ahead, gentlemen. Why don’t we go back a few steps and you explain?”
“This was, oh, some number of years ago. Kyou and I had done a single job together, so I knew him and Ivan by that point. I took a job to kill the head of a cult, and was happy to do it, as I hate cults. What I didn’t know at the time was that the person who hired me had, in fact, contacted three other assassins about the job before contracting me to do it. I spent a week planning, as the cult had a compound with some tight security. The night before I was set to go in, Edgar Lewis beats me to the target, but he doesn’t target just the cult head. Instead, he blows the compound to hell. It was not what my client wanted; he wanted to free his daughter from the cult. She gets very hurt in the blast, and the cult head wasn’t even there that night, so he goes to ground and is never seen again. I get in trouble because the client thought I’d blown the place sky high and injured his daughter in the process.”
Kyou picked up the story with an expression like a dark thunderstorm. “He contacted me for help, and I was able to prove his innocence, so the client forgave him. Still, it dinged his rep and jobs were hard to come by for about a year there. I remember you having to do some nasty jobs just to stay financially afloat.”
“It wasn’t a good year for me.” Ari raised his head and stared at Carter. A silent communication passed between the two men, emotions being conveyed without words at a level only lovers could achieve.
Carter gave him a serious nod. “Then let’s deal with this bastard. Is dynamite his signature weapon?”
“His fallback,” Ari corrected. “When the security is too tight for him to get through, he grows impatient and will blow it all to hell.”
Brannigan envisioned bombs being delivered to his office, possibly his home, or—worse—to his parents’ doorstep. He’d take a hard pass on that one. “I don’t like the idea of having to guard against bombs.”
“Oh, I’m not really suggesting it.” Ari had that evil gleam in his eye again. “There’s a reason, you see, why the client chose me over Lewis. It’s because I’m better. Even six years ago, I was better. And now…” He trailed off and looked around with a smirk at the men and women gathered. “Now I have a far better support base which makes all the difference. So, I repeat, I think Ivan and I should go play.”
Piero cleared his throat. “You want to assassinate the assassin before he can reach you.”
Ari was fully aware that Piero, in the old days, had been the main enforcer for the Genovese family. Now he was head of their security and he did a very good job of protecting his parents’ and their interests. It was why Mattias and Deidra had both insisted on him being at this meeting. But it was only partially to the Piero of today that Ari spoke. His words recalled a darker, more violent time. “Which is easier, Signor Piero? Defending or attacking?”
The old enforcer grunted. He’d never been a big man, but in that moment his short stature seemed as solid as any tank. “Then attack, Signor Benelli. I will defend.”
“Merci.” Ari turned to Tricksy next. “You know where both men are?”
Tricksy took a bite of cake, her arch look informing him just how stupid that question was.
“Apologies, dear lady.”
“Lady? Really?”
Ivan cleared his throat and intoned, “Fearsome siren who commands the wind and tides.”
“Much better.” Tricksy inclined her head toward him in a regal movement, accepting this as her due. “Only question left, how quickly do we want to move on this? Emura is paranoid and moving to a different hotel every night, so my intel on him is only good until tomorrow morning. I followed him to his new hotel so I know where he’ll be tonight. Same hotel for Lewis, too. Although he’s not acting as paranoid, I think he’ll stick with the same hotel until the job is done.”
Brannigan knew how he’d play this, at least, but this wasn’t his call to make. He had a vital stake in it, yes, as his heart was on the line. But so were the other men’s hearts, and their lives as well.
“I don’t see any reason to wait.” Carter looked from face to face as he said this, gauging reactions. “Right now, we have the element of surprise. They haven’t set up yet, they’re not ready to take us on. We’ll be flying by the seat of our pants if we go now—”
Kyou snorted. “This makes it di
fferent from other jobs, how?”
Point taken, Carter shrugged in agreement. “Not that our plans ever survive first contact anyway. But I think we should go now. Tricksy, you said they’re in the same hotel?”
“Same hotel, different wings, so they’re not close to each other,” she clarified.
Kyou seemed to think this was settled as he asked Ari and Ivan, “Who’s taking who?”
“I want Lewis,” Ari stated firmly.
Ivan pouted at Ari. “I want Lewis.”
Aiden gave him an odd look. “Why would you want Lewis? The man hasn’t done anything personally to you.”
“He’s more of a challenge to take out,” Ivan explained with a shrug.
Ari had his eyes on the ceiling, clearly praying for patience. “So how are we going to work this out?”
“Leg wrestle,” was Ivan’s bright idea.
Brannigan fully expected this to be shot down, but instead Ari set aside his plate and went straight toward the floor. Chuckling like a demented elf, Ivan promptly joined him.
To the older adults in the room, Kyou stated dryly, “I promise they’re not complete children. Evidence notwithstanding.”
Mattias looked at the two men with their legs earnestly locked, desperately trying to flip the other one, and there was laughter lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Let them have their fun. They have hard work waiting for them tonight.”
Personally, Brannigan thought they’d view getting rid of two dangerous thorns in their sides as a distinct pleasure. But he wasn’t about to say so. Aloud.
20
Kyou
Once again, Kyou had Brannigan sitting in the chair next to him. Remi insisted on helping out, so she was across from Kyou in her own chair, with her laptop and set-up. They’d rearranged things in Kyou’s apartment so that they had enough room to put all of the computers next to each other and still have room to seat the peanut gallery. She had Mattias and Deidra on either side of her. Both of them were invested in how this night went, of course, but they were also rather captivated by the ten-year-old who explained in no-nonsense terms how she was hacking into hotel security and piggy-backing on their video feeds.
