5
Owen came upstairs from the bunker when Greer alerted him that his dad and Jax had just parked out front. He opened the door just before they rang the doorbell. He shook hands with both of them, feeling that invisible wall click into place.
Jim joined them in the foyer, a fresh dishtowel slung over his shoulder. “Nick, Jax, glad you made it.”
“Jim. Good seeing you!” Jax gripped his hand then pulled him close to bump shoulders. “I meant to tell you last time that there’s a spot on my team if Owen’s ever an asshole to you.”
“Thanks, but I’m more worried about Russ than Owen.” Jim chuckled. “Your rooms are ready. I can take your things up, if you like.”
“Sure. Thanks,” Nick said as they handed Jim their bags.
Owen shoved his hands in his front jeans pockets as he faced his dad and friend. He wished—relentlessly—that things had been different with them. Normal, even, if such a thing existed.
It was foolish to spend any energy on that. They had to go from where they were currently, as he’d reminded Addy.
Owen broke the awkward silence. “So. You want some time to settle in?”
“We can do that later,” Jax said. “I want to see my sister.”
Owen heard someone running toward them down the hallway leading from his and Addy’s suite.
“Wendelly! You made it!” Addy gave her brother a big hug. This could have been any of so many homecomings he and Jax had made when they visited the senator’s house.
Jax set her down then held her shoulders while he stared into her eyes. “So this is really happening?”
Addy laughed and nodded. “At last.” She gave Nick a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so glad you were both able to make it.” She stepped back and slipped her arm around Owen’s waist. He set his around her shoulders.
“I’m happy for you both,” Nick said. “It’s about time that you get to have your own lives and your own joy.” He looked around. “Now where are my grandboys? I brought them some gifts.”
“At school,” Addy said. “They won’t be home until later this afternoon. Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat?”
“No. We’re good, sis. Thanks,” Jax said.
She gestured toward the living room. “Then come have a seat.” She sent Owen a quick look. “Unless you guys need to have a meeting?”
“Nope.” Owen smiled at her. “This is your weekend. No business.” He looked at his dad and her brother. “Or not much, anyway. We’ll meet later.”
“Good. Then let’s catch up.” Addy sat on the sofa. “I hoped you might bring the Ratcliffs back with you.”
Jax shook his head. “That didn’t work out.”
“Oh.” Addy sent Owen a disappointed look.
He squeezed her hand, hoping she wouldn’t force the issue.
“So what’s the plan for the weekend?” Jax asked.
“I can’t wait to show you the gym,” Addy said. “Everything’s set up. The wedding planners completely transformed it. The flowers are being delivered today. Tomorrow we’ll have our rehearsal dinner, then the wedding’s Saturday.”
“Russ is a little ticked off that his kitchen has been overtaken.” Owen smiled at Jax. They’d both run missions with Jim and Russ. Picturing them in a domestic setting was still an adjustment, but given they wanted to open their own B&B, this was a great step for them.
“Still has control issues, huh?”
“Big ones,” Owen said.
“The repairs to your house are finished, Addy,” Jax said.
Addy looked shocked. “You fixed it? Why didn’t you tear it down? Or donate it to the local fire department for training?”
“Because it’s yours. It’s too valuable to trash.”
“I will never go there again.”
Owen leaned back and drew her close. Everything she’d experienced was still too close to the surface. “You know, Kelan has a shaman he could recommend to clear the place. He brought him here just before Blade’s wedding. I don’t buy in to all that, but both Blade and Kelan said it felt better here afterwards.”
Addy folded her legs against his thigh. Her blue eyes were big as she looked up at him. “Doesn’t matter. I’m never going there again. It can rot and crumble for all I care.”
Owen nodded. “Then that’s how it is. I would never make you do anything you don’t want. Tell my dad about the boys and school.”
The redirect worked. She told him all the things the boys had shared about their first days at their new school. Owen met Jax’s gaze over her head.
He knew that look. Jax had a lot going on. Owen had every intention of discovering exactly what he was up to.
When Owen stepped into the den that afternoon, Nick was sitting in one of the armchairs.
Owen leaned against the edge of Blade’s desk and gave him a nod. “Dad.”
Nick returned the nod, studying Owen’s face.
“Where’s Jax?” Owen asked.
“Here somewhere. I told him you and I needed some time.” He left his armchair and wandered over to the French doors.
For a long moment, Nick didn’t say anything. Owen would have broken the silence if he’d known how. But where did you start when there was so much ground to cover and you didn’t want a single moment missed?
“Where do we begin?” Nick asked, still facing the patio doors.
“I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as we begin—and as long as we each get our questions answered.”
His dad turned around. They both had the same pale blue eyes. It was like looking in a mirror. Really, Nick seemed more like a slightly older brother than a progenitor. Owen had grown to adulthood without the benefit of his presence or influence, and didn’t know where he stood or what they really were to each other now.
“You and Jax left so soon after Thanksgiving—we never had the chance to talk,” Owen said.
“We had to get the Ratcliffs to safety.”
“They were safe here.”
“No, they weren’t. Not even then, before Bastion had come prowling around.”
“What do you know that I don’t?”
“A lot.”
“Did you know Jason was the monster he turned out to be?”
“Not at first. Not before you’d already left his household.”
“And yet you told me to keep Val safe.”
“I knew there was discord between Jason and his son, but in the bigger picture, I thought I was putting you out of reach of the Omnis. Jason had never been involved in the training I’d undergone.”
“You never meant to see me again, did you?” Owen asked.
Nick shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned a shoulder against the patio doors. “I honestly didn’t expect to live. And then years passed. I thought it was too late to reconnect with you. I did what I could for you behind the scenes—getting you into West Point, getting you into the Red Team.”
“Were you involved with setting up the Red Team with Henry and Senator Jacobs?”
“No. I surfaced about the time they were hatching that plan, intent on helping make it happen. I thought they’d returned to our original charter of fighting the Omnis, but then I learned that they were recruiting sons from the families of resistance members. I had a bad feeling they were gathering their enemies into a single, known spot so they could take them out, and realized I’d gotten you deeper in by advocating for your acceptance into the team.”
“Did you know Jacobs had been flipped by the Omnis and Henry’s allegiances were suspect?”
“Eventually, I did. I also realized that by sending the Red Team overseas to deal with threats that may or may not have been connected to the Omnis, Jacobs had effectively redirected the men who were the most capable of fighting the Omnis here in the U.S. I kept working the channels I had to bring you guys back here.”
“But the Army can’t operate against its own citizens.”
“No, but it can run intelligence ops against foreign agents here in the U.S. Enemy infiltration was the original charter of the Red Team.”
“You’ll forgive me for doubting your claims to innocence. You were part of the original crew, all of whom went bad—except, apparently, you.”
“Believe what you will—”
“I did what I thought was in your best interests and those of thousands of other innocent people.”
“By sending me to be raised by the worst of the Omni officers.”
“I didn’t know what he was when I gave you to him. No one did.”
“Tell me, did he know you were still alive?”
“Yes.”
“And did Jacobs?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose Henry did too.”
“He did, but Henry wasn’t bad. He realized Jason was a monster earlier than Jacobs and I did. He started infiltrating the tunnels, learning about the Omnis from the inside out. He tried to counter the oppression by organizing the servants living in the tunnels. When they took his granddaughter, he entered the tunnels full-time, faking his own death so he could protect her.”
“He was there when Ace was taken.”
Nick’s lips thinned. “Perhaps that’s why she’s still alive.”
Owen didn’t say anything. Time would surface the truth about Nick.
“I feel as if I’ve ruined your life,” Nick said.
Owen gave him a cold smile. “Let me alleviate that concern: you have to be part of someone’s life in order to have a shot at ruining it. As far as I care, you’re someone I’m cautiously interested in having as an ally. I don’t trust you. I may never trust you. You knew about Addy. You knew about Ace.” Owen shrugged. “You could have come forward at any point for any reason, but you didn’t. You took the coward’s road, hiding instead of facing the choices you made. What I don’t understand is why come forward now? Is it because we vanquished your enemies?”
“They aren’t vanquished. Not by any means. You’ve only scraped off the dead weight. What lies beneath is stronger than ever and no longer has the burden of power-hungry leaders to choke them out. You think you’ve contained the threat, but all you did was pull out the weeds.”
Owen was just finishing his nightly walk around Blade’s house, as had been his habit after Bastion’s visits began. Jax had set up a phone conference with the Ratcliffs for the morning. Afterward, work would have to be put aside so he could focus on the wedding. He wanted to spend every minute with Addy that he could; it had been a long time since he’d seen her so happy and excited.
When he circled back to the patio behind the house, Jax was standing there, alone. It was cold outside. Owen was surprised to see him there.
“Something on your mind?” Owen asked as he paused next to his one-time best friend.
“Yeah. Everything.” Jax looked at Owen, then back at the shadowy trees at the edge of the lower lawn. “You ready for your wedding?”
“I am. I’ve been ready for ten years. I’m angry it took so long, and I’m thrilled it’s actually happening.”
“You have to let go of the bad and embrace the good.”
“I’m not quite there yet. Like I’m still pissed at you. And my dad.”
Jax met Owen’s angry eyes—he didn’t say anything, but Owen took it as an opportunity to unload. “Why the fuck didn’t you come to me? After all we’d been through?”
“I let myself get used.”
“That’s it. That’s all you got?”
“Yup. I believed the wrong people and spent a long time clawing my way back to the truth. I hurt you. I hurt Addy. The boys. When I figured it out, I shut down the parts of it that I could, as I could. I ordered Holbrook’s death, ending the abuse on the cubs. I got you out here to discover the testing happening via the Friendship tithes. I got Hope into the White Kingdom Brotherhood to find Lion.” He shrugged. “Those were small victories, but they don’t make up for what I didn’t do.”
“Or what we could have done, if we’d stayed working together.”
“Yeah. It’s why I brought Nick back to you. Same deal with him. We need you and you need us. This fight’s a long way from over. And I’m afraid the worst part is yet to come. The top layer we just cut down was merely a veneer covering what’s really happening inside the Omnis.”
“The Ratcliffs told us these human modifications have the potential to shift the global balance of power, at best, and could be a human extinction event, at worst.”
Jax nodded. “Glad they didn’t sugarcoat anything.”
“Okay,” Owen said after a long silence. He held out his hand. “I’m putting my trust in you.” Jax took his hand. Owen’s grip turned painful. “I don’t trust lightly anymore.”
“Good. Now quit fucking breaking my hand. I need it to walk Addy down the aisle.”
Owen released him. “Sorry.”
Jax shook his hand out. “No, you aren’t. You just got to it before I did.”
They both laughed at that.
“You know the Legion’s not going to leave you alone,” Jax said. “Not now that they’ve found you.”
“I know.” They stood in the cold, staring into the distant woods. “Addy wants more kids.”
Jax looked at him. “You think that’s a good idea, after everything she’s been through?”
“That’s why she was hoping the Ratcliffs were coming back with you. She wanted to consult with them.”
“We can talk to them about that tomorrow—unless that’s something for a private call?”
Owen gave that some thought. They were all facing the possibility of undergoing the modifications. His team was young and would likely want kids sooner or later. They needed to know how all of this could affect them or their women.
“I guess having the team there is a good idea. It could be an issue for them at some point in the future.”
“Right. You sure you have time for a meeting tomorrow?”
“We’ll make time,” Owen said. “See you in the morning.”
Selena was exhausted. In the weeks since Max and Hope’s wedding, she’d been walking a thin line between belief in herself and pure paranoia.
The stress was taking a bite out of her.
She had thought, for a short while, that she’d banished Bastion from her mind. She refused to think of him. And since no further anomalies had shown up on the cameras around Blade’s, she’d begun to hope that whatever that experience with him had been, it really was nothing more than her imagination.
Until the night the girls planned Addy’s fuckfest, when he had come into her room and held her in his invisible arms.
Since that night, sleep had been elusive. She’d thought about taking over-the-counter sleep meds, but she couldn’t risk being incapacitated if he tried to take her over again.
What little sleep her weary mind found was shallow. Every time she woke to change positions, she’d wake fully, checking her room, checking her phone for security alerts, which was stupid. Greer had written some code to send alerts when the cameras were mucked with. No point checking her phone if the alerts weren’t sounding.
But Bastion didn’t need to physically prowl around anymore, did he? Not when he could use her mind as he wished.
He’d been absent now for weeks. The wait for his next appearance felt like a timer that was slowly ticking down to zero. He was coming soon. She could feel that.
When she woke next, it was still dark outside. She quickly took inventory of her senses and surroundings. All was quiet, but she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes. Bastion was there next to her, sitting up against her headboard. Fully clothed, his legs crossed at his ankles, his feet bare.
She scrambled out of bed, instantly alert.
“You are extraordinarily stubborn,” he said.
Selena’s gaze darted around the room. She grabbed her phone, checking first for alerts, though none had gone off. Before she could text someone for help, her phone went haywire. Apps flickered on and off, sliding sideways across the screen, and then it went dead. She reached for her panic alert necklace, but it wasn’t around her neck.
She tossed her phone to the ground and pressed the heels of her wrists against her temples. What to do? What to do? If she walked out of here—if he even let her—to go alert the guys, what would he do to them?
She lowered her hands. She needed her gun. She could pretend to be reaching for the light and grab her pistol at the same time.
The light came on before she even took a step.
“Go ahead, shoot your bed.” Bastion disappeared then reappeared in the same place. “I’m not here, so you won’t be shooting me.”
Fuck. Selena rubbed her forehead. “I asked you to leave me alone.”
“I tried. It would seem I have a weakness I did not anticipate.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“You. Come back to bed. We need to talk. I don’t like it when you block me from your mind.”
“Too bad. My mind, my rules.”
“I would honor that were so much not at stake.”
“Where are you? I mean the physical you.” God, did that sound crazy.
“I am not far. Just a few hours away.” He gestured to the half of the bed he wasn’t occupying. “Please, let us talk. I will not touch you.”
“Get out of my bed first.”
He disappeared, then reappeared standing next to her. “Is this better?”
Selena’s eyes moved up his chest, wide neck, and hard, bearded jaw, to dark eyes that were so enthralling she couldn’t look away. She caught a faint hint of his scent, more memory than anything else. Of course he smelled delicious. He was a figment of her imagination—why would she create an illusion with an unpleasant odor?
Bastion laughed. “It is my own scent you are enjoying. My pheromones trigger a chemical response in you, as yours do in me. It is distinctive, addictive.”
“Except you aren’t here, so I can’t be smelling you at all.”
“You have a clear memory of my scent.” He gave her a half-grin. “I wish you could know what you smell like to me. In a sea of a thousand sweet-smelling women, I would find you with my eyes covered and hands bound.”
“Just what I wanted. My very own bloodhound.”
He laughed again. His teeth were big and white and straight. She couldn’t pull her eyes from his smile. He gestured again toward her bed. “Please. I have said I won’t touch you.”
“And you always keep your word.”
He sighed. “Not always. I’ve failed more times than I’d like to admit. I won’t fail you, however.”
Selena adjusted her pillows then sat on her bed. When she looked up, Bastion wasn’t where she left him.
“I’m here.” He was now sitting on her dresser, across from the foot of her bed.
“So, since we’re having this awesome convo, let’s start with your real name,” Selena said, figuring she might as well glean some actionable info from him that the team could use.
“I’ve had many names over many years. I shed them like a snake sheds his skin, having grown out of what he was. So call me what I am. I am the walls that protect you. I am your fortress. I am your Bastion.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“You do, but you don’t know it yet. All of you here need protection.”
“Someone purporting to be my bastion would not harm those I love.”
“Have I harmed your team? I could have, at any point, eliminated them, killed them gently in their sleep, leaving their women to wake next to dead partners. They are as defenseless as infants to me. Your men are not my enemies, that much I’ve learned.”
“So what do you want?”
“The Ratcliffs.”
Selena shrugged. “I don’t know where they are.”
“Find out and tell me.”
“So you can kill them?”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
He flickered out. Bastion! Damn you. I will not let you use me.
Selena took the elevator down to the bunker. It was early, but she was hoping to find Greer on duty already. She crossed through the weapons room to ops. Max looked up and smiled, but his expression quickly faded.
He got up and shut the door to the hallway. “Jesus. What’s goin’ on, Sel?”
Selena met his look a little defensively. “Um. Glad you’re back.”
He waved that off. “You look like hell.”
“Great. Just what every woman wants to hear.”
“You aren’t a woman; you’re a fighter.”
“No.” Selena glared at him. “No, Max. I am a woman.”
Max put his hands up and gave her an odd expression. “Right. Got it.”
Selena sighed. “I’m having problems with my phone. Can you check it out?”
“What’s it doing?” He took it from her.
She lifted a shoulder. “Just started acting funny. A whole bunch of apps flickered, then it shut down.”
Max frowned down at her phone. “Yeah. It’s outta juice. Helps if you plug it in now and then.” He handed it back to her.
“Huh. Thought I’d just charged it.”
“Sel, talk to me. What’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Have a good honeymoon?”
“Best ever.”
“Great.” She stormed out of the room.
Max was solid. Real. Unafraid.
All the things she used to be.