When I pulled into pit lane and coasted into the space assigned to me, I had a good idea of what was happening in the engine. Ten minutes under the bonnet confirmed my thoughts and I spent a couple of hours immersed in fixing the issue. When it was done, I still had an hour or so before my next track time, so I sat in the stands and watched a parade of cars go round and round. Even judging other drivers wasn’t enough to keep my thoughts centred wholly on the track.
Jack liked the profiler. I had gathered more than enough evidence over the past weeks to confirm it. From how Jack talked about him to the way he smiled at the man when they sat in the pub together. I fixated on how close the other man got when he rode on the back of Jack’s bike, and the way Jack didn’t stop him. It was friendship, yes, but it could also be so much more than that.
It wasn’t hard to see that Jack was happy when he was with him. Just as it was obvious he had never thought “serial killer” when talking to him. The profiler didn’t come with dangerous baggage in the form a deranged brother and the global-wide secret organisation that created him. He likely didn’t need to hurl a high-powered vehicle around a racetrack at ludicrous speeds just to feel in control of something. He would let Jack touch him in public, he wouldn’t spend nights obsessed with the lack of locks on the door or fixate on the fact the same car had parked outside three days in a row. He wouldn’t be so scared about this new and amazing part of his life it sent him right back to the job he’d tried to leave over and over in the past.
When it was my turn on the track again, I slammed Victoria through a dozen rough and hard circuits, straining the fixes I’d made. She handled it beautifully, coming out the other side as perfect as she’d gone in.
This I could do and did it very well. I had my cars, I had Nine’s bike I could take apart and put back together blindfolded. I’d go back to Austria and just be a mechanic, happy and safe. Jack would be very happy with the profiler and much safer without me here endangering him with my mere presence. I wouldn’t have to worry about Dejana keeping her promise to excise me from the Cabal once and for all. I wouldn’t have to worry about Jack thinking I was no better than a murderer.
I let the realisation wash through me, let it resonate with the roar of Victoria’s engine and the shiver in her body as she glided around corners and showed off her raw power on the straights.
Jack should be happy. He deserved it after all he’d been through. If I let Jack go, he would finally have that and I could go back to the life I knew, where I wasn’t constantly second guessing myself or confused or lost. The world where I would never know another kind touch, or surging passion, or the tranquillity of hearing Jack breathe beside me at night.
But he’d be better off, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him, or myself, any more.
Jack was waiting for me in the garage when I got to the apartment building, though he appeared to have been working out. Sweat made the thin material of his T-shirt cling to the dips and curves of his muscular torso and I sat boneless in the car, staring at his body as he approached. The sight made all of my convictions crumble.
It wasn’t just the beautiful body, or the contrite expression, or the vaguely hopeful smile he gave me as I got out of the car. It was simply that he was here, clearly waiting for me, hoping I would return.
He was here, not at work, and not with Quinn. Here for me.
My original goal in going to Wakefield had been to give us a place to talk away from potential eavesdroppers. I had let myself forget that, let my fears override everything else. Yes, Jack deserved to be happy, but so did I. Could Jack and I be happy together?
Only if I found out the truth first. We needed to talk. To be honest with each other.
“Jack.” I faced him, car between us.
“Ethan. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
Jack winced and looked away. After an awkward moment he asked about Victoria, which helped break the brittle atmosphere a tad. Before it could get worse, though, I suggested we go upstairs to talk privately. We fell into familiar and trusted patterns on the way to the apartment and by the time we were behind a locked and secured door, Jack had lost some of his tension. His shoulders slumped as he drifted around the kitchen counter and leaned on it, appearing to need the solid support. He looked so defeated in that moment, I knew I had to go first. I had to explain and hope he understood.
It still took a few moments to gather the words and I couldn’t look at Jack while I did so. His big brown eyes were working too hard to undo all my best intentions. Even without seeing him, I felt him in every bone of my body, in the way my blood seemed to pull towards him. It was hard to resist the desire to just go to him and beg for him to touch me. The physical connection between us had always been easy. Too easy at times, but I was learning that wasn’t enough.
“I want to be here. I came with the expectation that this was it for me. We’d be together and nothing else would matter. I should have known better. There are things that can’t be escaped, and the past is one of them.” Particularly the men in both our histories. “I’m trying. I really am, but I don’t know what I’m doing. You know your place in the world. You have your work, which you believe in, and a family you want to protect, no matter how distant they are. You have friends that care about you. Right now, all I have is you.”
Jack made a soft noise, perhaps in sympathy, or protest, I wasn’t sure. All I knew for certain was how much it hurt to admit this, how much it hurt to do this to Jack again. If I was going to get the truth out of him, though, I had to do it.
“I thought I could do this. Be what you wanted. Needed. But clearly, I’m failing.” In so many ways, so it was time to go back to something else I knew how to do well.
“Ethan,” Jack said, tone ragged with pain.
“Are you sleeping with Adam Quinn?”
As intended, the sudden question threw him. Jack floundered and his incredulous “What?” was full of honest surprise.
With the blinds drawn on the balcony doors it was dim enough I didn’t need my glasses, and I needed to see Jack clearly, to see his reactions. He was right where I needed him, off balance, so I pressed the point.
“You talk about him all the time. He’s part of your current job, yes, but you spend a lot of time with him outside of the demands of the strike force.”
“Yeah, but it’s still part of the job. Being friendly—”
“You don’t have dinner with Senior Sergeant Stephanie Phelps, but she’s part of the job.”
“No, but—”
“And unless you’re hiding something big, I don’t believe you ever slept with her before.”
Jack blinked at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I settled into the role just as I’d settled into Victoria’s driver’s seat and pushed her to wild speeds. “I know you’ve slept with him before.”
And just like that night we first met, Jack responded by slipping into his SAS lieutenant role.
“Okay,” he said patiently. “Yeah, I fucked him a couple of times, way back before you and I got serious. You knew I saw other men sometimes back then. How did you know about Adam, though? Were you spying on me?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
Jack shook his head angrily. “Actually, I think I do.”
He was right. I had wanted to think I was protecting Jack, but I had been spying. “You haven’t answered my question. Are you sleeping with him now?”
A world of thoughts flashed through Jack’s eyes as he watched me. Whatever they were, they made his hands clench on the counter and his shoulders stiffen. Then, just as suddenly, the tension melted away from him and he said, simply and honestly, “No.”
He saw through my plan. As he’d always done. No matter the shields I put up or the walls I hid behind, Jack saw me. All the scars and the weapons and the fake names meant nothing to him. Even after I’d hurt him.
How could I ever think to leave that sort of connection?
> Jack came around the counter and stood in front of me, close but not touching. “I’m not sleeping with him, or anyone else. I don’t want to. I want this, too. Us. So much it scares me sometimes.”
And there it was. Fear. The truth behind so much. I’d let my fears consume me at the racetrack, and never once considered Jack might be feeling the same way.
“Me too,” I admitted. “I never used to get scared, Jack. Not for a very long time, at least. Then I met you, and suddenly there was so much I didn’t know, couldn’t know, and that . . . frightened me. I didn’t know if whenever I went to you I would be welcomed or not, or perhaps find you already with someone else.”
I was so grateful that had never happened but wondering just how Two knew of Jack and the profiler sent a shudder through me.
“I didn’t know, still don’t, if you would get tired of my . . . oddities and want nothing more to do with me. Each time you let me into your home, into your life, I didn’t know why you would do that for me. And he is so much better for you. He’s not a liability to you. He’s not here on a fake passport. He’s not messed up.”
Jack swore quietly and it sounded like agreement.
“That’s what I did today, Jack. I drove and it helped me decide that if you were with him, I’d walk away. You’d be safer. And happy. And I could stop being so scared.” I pulled in a ragged breath and so did Jack. “But when I got out of the car and saw you waiting for me, I changed my mind. In spite of the pain and the risk, in spite of everything and everyone else, I want this. I don’t know what I’m doing, Jack, but I want to keep trying. With you.”
We reached for each other at the same time and ended up on the floor, tangled in a mess that seemed to perfectly capture our whole relationship.
“Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I think we’re certainly a danger to ourselves.”
Jack’s words so closely mirrored my thoughts it surprised a laugh out of me. With a few minor adjustments, we lay somewhat more comfortably and just held each other.
“Hey, are we good?”
Jack’s fingers in my hair derailed my cognitive functions for a moment. When I could, I said, “Yes, we’re good.”
“Great. Can we get up, then? I’m lying on something that’s digging into my arse.”
It turned out to be a small shifter that had fallen out of my pocket, which Jack teased me about and then laughed at my attempt to turn it into a seduction.
Right then, I knew I’d made the right decision. How could I have ever thought I would be able to live without this? Jack may have been happier—or at least safer—with Quinn, but surely moments like this were worth the occasional pain.
“McIntosh called me in today,” Jack said when he’d finished making me blush. “They’ve decided working with the strike force isn’t worth our time anymore. The Office is no longer interested in the Judge or Infinity.”
Blast. Two liked being ignored as much as he liked being disagreed with. Hopefully this wouldn’t hinder his compliance with my demands.
“Ethan? Isn’t that good news?”
“Of course it is.” It was, because it would mean Jack wasn’t directly entangled in Two’s plot anymore.
“How about if I sweeten it with a bonus of me having a week off work?”
I smiled. If I could keep Jack out of sight for a week, Two would have absolutely no recourse but to give up his game. The Cabal wouldn’t stand for his delaying in finishing the job much longer. This was perfect. And I was fairly certain I knew how to keep Jack from wanting to leave the apartment.
Standing, I pulled off my shirt and headed for the bedroom. “That is incredibly good news. Let’s celebrate.”
How had it gone so wrong so quickly? Three short but intensely good days of pure bliss and now . . . this.
It was my fault. Jack had been pressed against me, between my legs as I sat on the kitchen counter, so out of my mind with the firm belief he was about to kiss me I hadn’t cared about the open door. I’d left us vulnerable right as a threat appeared. Quinn. The man I’d almost lost Jack to, reappearing just when everything had been so perfect.
Instinct had driven me. Throw Jack off, find weapons, eliminate the threat. Jack had stopped me though. He’d put himself between the profiler and my guns. He’d tackled me to the floor rather than let me attack.
So here I was, gripping the edge of the bathroom sink, needing the solidity to tether me, while Jack dealt with the threat. The need to move, to eliminate the danger, still fired through my body like a physical force. The curve of the counter edge nestled into the space between thumb and forefinger like the butt of a gun. Like the grip of the gun I’d pointed at Adam Quinn.
“It’s not his fault,” the image in the mirror told me but I shook my head, unable to fully believe it right then. He was a threat to everything I loved and I only knew one way to deal with it.
Hunt and kill.
It would be easy to do. The target was predictable and careless. Reckless too, the way he’d just stood in the doorway while two weapons were trained on him. Stubborn, as well, because he’d persisted in arguing while Jack told him to leave. All easy traits to exploit. All traits that would make it so easy to stalk him, set my sight, and pull the trigger. So easy.
Calm settled over me. My hold on the counter eased and my spine straightened. The beat of my heart slowed, and my breaths deepened.
This I could do and do well. I wouldn’t mess this up as I had everything else.
A high-pitched whine cut through the silence, followed by a scrabble of little claws at the base of the bathroom door.
Shorty. Here because Rocco Cesare trusted us to look after his beloved companion while he was away. Because he thought I was a good enough man to call “son.”
All of the conviction to kill rushed out of me. I sank into a crouch, head bowed, hands in my hair, fingers digging into my scalp.
This wasn’t me. Not anymore. The blind reliance on skills and thoughts drummed into me as a child hadn’t held sway in a long time. Not since Eleven, and the whipping, and Moraitis. It’d had even less control of me since meeting Jack. I had been yearning for a way out of the life created for me by the Cabal ever since I’d understood just what they were doing. It hadn’t been until Jack looked at Ethan Blade and saw not just a remorseless killer for hire but a man, that I’d known I could truly do it.
And yet here I was. Reduced to the instinctual killer in one stupid moment, ready to go after an innocent person and end them. Because I’d been careless. Because I’d been so caught up in Jack and our cosy, warm world within the apartment I’d failed to see the weakness in the perimeter. If the target—if Quinn could find Jack’s place, if he could walk right up to the front door and look in at us, then anyone could. It clearly hadn’t taken anyone of Two’s standards to find us and get into a position to pose a serious threat.
I couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be here with Jack. Not now, with Quinn and Two in the city.
Shorty gave a surprised bark when I opened the door, then immediately scrabbled at my leg, whining. I picked him up and he wiggled frantically until he could lick my chin and snuffle at my neck, looking to comfort as well as needing it return. I tucked the squirming body under one arm and carefully scouted the apartment.
Quinn was gone, as was Jack. There was no doubt that Jack had gone after the man to rage at him. He always did find the most inappropriate outlet for his anger.
Assured the place was free of threats, I set Shorty down, but he kept close by as I packed up my gear. The dachshund knew what was going on and he kept staring at me with his big dark eyes, pleading with me to stay. He even climbed into one of the bags and curled up tight. I left him there until the very last moment, until I’d put everything back where it had been before I moved in. Shorty grumbled about being removed, bounced excitedly when I pulled out his leash, then whined pitifully when I tied it to the knob of the downstairs neighbour whom I knew occasionally looked after him while Rocco was away.
Then I left. Again. I wouldn’t be back for a long time.
I’d nearly killed an innocent person. Like a serial killer.
I was well ensconced behind the security of the Bathurst Street penthouse when Jack’s call pinged my implant.
“Jack.” I schooled myself to simply not beg him to come to me, to tell me he still wanted me. The penthouse wasn’t finished yet and after all the ways I’d failed him already, I wanted to give him something perfect for once.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I yelled at Adam for a while.”
That made me smile slightly. “I imagine you did.”
“He won’t be back. Will you?”
Much as Shorty had, I curled up tighter on the huge bed until the urge to weep passed. “I don’t know. I can’t feel safe there, Jack. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” His tone was warm and understanding. “I know you can’t. Are you safe now?”
I didn’t deserve him. “I am.”
“Good. Can I come to you?”
It was hard, but at the same time, easy. I wanted him so badly it hurt, but right then, having him near would also hurt because he would so easily forgive me for what I’d done.
“Not yet,” I managed. “I need to be on my own for a while. I left Shorty with Mrs. Langridge on the first floor. Please fetch him back. You shouldn’t be alone because of me.”
“Okay.” His steady tone wavered a bit. “Just . . . let me know how you’re doing.”
“I will. See you soon, Jack.” It was the truth. I was going to get myself sorted out, then I would bring Jack here and show him in no uncertain way how I felt about him.
I lost myself in putting the finishing touches on the penthouse. The furnishings had all arrived and I spent a couple of days arranging and rearranging everything until the flow felt right. There were clear paths to the various weapons caches, which I ran through until the moves were second nature. I tested the security systems daily, plotted out escape routes and ensured I could enter and leave the penthouse and building without being seen.
Dealing in Death: A Death and the Devil Extended Novella Page 11
