CHAPTER 13
Cecily sat cross-legged on her brother’s bed, feeling spent after confessing all the details of her life over the last year with James, right up to the misunderstanding at Shane’s pickup and some—though not all—of the details of the road trip.
Dex was resting in bed, a laptop at one side and his leg propped up; the recent surgery meant he was still a little messed up. And he didn’t look happy.
A look of guilt washed clear across Dex’s features. “As soon as I knew who James was, as soon as we put the pieces together, I called you and told you to go, and I called Shane and told him to go get you. I am so sorry, Cece. I am so sorry that me being part of the Hudson Kings got you into trouble. If I’d had the slightest idea . . .” He swallowed hard, and Cecily touched the side of her head to his.
“I know you never meant for me to be in any sort of danger,” she said.
She could feel him nod. “It’s that, but also . . . you know it’s not just that,” Dex said. He looked at her with worried eyes.
Cecily’s cheeks burned. “I hate it when you look at me like that. I know. Look, I admit that it was going downhill fast, and I should have left sooner, before you called, but that was the only time he ever hit me. Right after I told him I wanted to go see you and get some space. Really. I’m better than that, Dex. I know. I’m so embarrassed.”
It was worse than embarrassed, but she couldn’t say it. That James was a Russian spy and neither an all-American boy nor a New York banker doing business in Minneapolis was so crazy it was hard to believe. But when she finally had a moment to herself after arriving at the Armory, it started to sink in. The violation of it all. She couldn’t tell her brother that it made her sick to think of sleeping with James. That it made her sick to think of the time she put into building the two of them a beautiful life. And she certainly couldn’t tell him that part of what made her relationship with James seem so obscene and so very hollow was meeting Shane and finding out how deep you could really get with a man, even in such a short time.
“Anyway,” Cecily said. “I’m sorry I lied to you all those times, making excuses for him and pretending everything was okay. But I guess,” she added pointedly, “we’ve been lying to each other for a while now.”
Dex took a deep breath.
“You going to tell me what this place is, who all these guys are, what you’re all doing, and if there’s a possibility you could either, oh, I dunno, get arrested or die doing it? Because, I swear to god, I don’t want to lose you,” Cecily said.
“Didn’t Shane tell you?” Dex asked.
“He told me some—probably as little as possible.”
“I don’t blame him,” he muttered.
“You knew Shane before he was with the Hudson Kings, right?” Cecily asked.
Dex nodded. “Our paths crossed a couple of times. That used to happen with more than one guy currently on the team. I’d get hired for some Ocean’s Eleven gig, or whatever, and get matched with somebody I’d worked with before. You start to see what a man is made of, you know? That’s how I met Shane. I’ve been talking in his ear or listening in on his moves for a long while now. He told Roth about me, Roth hired me freelance on a couple of jobs, watched me operate, liked what he saw, and invited me into the fold.”
Cecily leaned back on Dex’s pillow. “Dex,” she said quietly. “I thought you were just a computer programmer. You know, the guy who’s going to keep the corporate website from going offline, or whatever.”
Dex stared down at his hands. “You know how Mom was constantly moving us from city to city and then disappearing for a week at a time?”
How could Cecily forget?
“We’d go to the library after school because we didn’t want to go sit in whatever shitty motel room she’d paid for. Unlike you, you know I wasn’t always doing my homework. I was going online, trying stuff out, meeting people. Online I didn’t have to look like the guy whose head you were going to shove in the toilet,” Dex said.
“You sure don’t look like one now.”
“Well, if you look around at the other guys here, you’ll see I had some incentive not to be the odd man out. Growing up, that’s all it was, being the scrawny nerdy new kid. The nerdy came in handy. The scrawny I could do something about. And here I’m not the odd man out. And I’ve got friends I can count on. Brothers.”
“Who are these people, Dex?”
He shrugged. “Guys like Chase, jack-of-all-trades, can fit in anywhere. He calls himself a construction worker, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the things he can build. Nick knows how to get around inside the New York money business and can launder better than the fucking Clorox Company. Geo . . . well, shit. I can’t tell you about Geo, and there are a couple of our other guys in the shadows who’ve made a decision not to surface, so they’re off record. Flynn . . . explosives and custom devices. He’s got the messed up face to prove it. Romeo . . .” Dex chuckled. “Romeo is a master of disguise and a smooth talker. His skills are not to be underestimated. Nothing I really want to get into with my sister. And you know about Shane.”
“Not that much,” she said wryly.
Dex’s forehead creased. “The trip was okay, right? I mean, I know Shane’s . . . different. But it was fine, right?”
“Don’t look so worried,” Cecily said. “It was obviously embarrassing, because he knew what happened to me. And it was weird to do a road trip with a complete stranger, but then he stopped being a complete stranger, and it was really fun.”
Dex couldn’t seem to process that statement. “Shane was fun.”
The suspicious look on his face was the same one he’d sported after Cecily jogged back up the Armory steps after throwing herself in Shane’s arms. Well, she’d thought he was leaving. She wanted him to know she appreciated what he’d done. How was she to know he wasn’t going anywhere? “Yeah. That’s what I said,” she said.
“Broody, don’t-breath-in-my-space, don’t-touch-anything-in-my-car Shane was . . . fun? I mean, Shane is cool. He gets plenty of ladies. Plays the strong, silent type. He’s a good wingman.”
Ugh.
“But Shane . . . fun? That’s not really a Shane keyword.”
“Yes, you’ve made that very clear. But he was. At times.”
“I think my meds are off,” Dex muttered. “I’m not hearing you right.”
She studied his new look, which was basically his old look except that he was fit and muscular and had lost the never-see-the-sun pallor she remembered. Which meant that apparently he was eating well, working out like a fiend, and periodically leaving his man cave. He looked amazing, like a geek gone wild, if you didn’t count the leg. “When was the surgery again, Bro?”
“Uh, last week,” he said vaguely. “Hurt like a mofo.”
She reached for a bottle of aspirin, and her brother grabbed her wrist so suddenly she gasped, suddenly back in Minneapolis, suddenly in James’s crosshairs. She leaped off the bed.
“Shit, Cece, sorry!” He stared at her. “Was it like that?”
“No! I mean, yes, but no! Not . . . just in the last couple of weeks. He was a little . . . rough.”
Dex’s whole body tensed. “Rough?”
Cecily suddenly realized that the new model of Dex could probably take James in a fight. A thought that made her both proud and terrified. “Not like what you’re thinking. Not that bad. Okay, let’s both calm down.” She inhaled and exhaled a yoga breath that was supposed to make everything better but didn’t usually make a difference. “I’m just on edge. All of this”—she waved her fingers in the air, indicating the Armory—“plus leaving James. It’s just a lot, you know?”
He nodded, still studying her face. “You’ll get used to it here.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying. I’ve got plans. And I guess I thought . . . I mean, we never talked about it, but I thought maybe you’d like to get an apartment with me. It would be fun.”
“Cecily, until we figure this out, you’ve got to stay close . . . or at least with friendlies.”
When had her brother started sounding like a TV show? “Friendlies?” Cecily asked, trying not to huff. “I was talking about you and me.”
“If you want an apartment, ask Missy to hook you up,” Dex said. “Rothgar’s cleared a girl who’s got a place we sometimes use. I’m making good money here. I can spot you for some rent and whatever you want to do to get on your feet. Lord knows you pulled enough coffee drinks in high school to pay for my shit.”
Cecily blinked. “Yeah. Allison, right? Shane mentioned her. He also mentioned her missing brother. Look, I get the appeal. Doing this stuff, it’s like living in a video game. Which is one of the reasons I bet it really appeals to you, but I’m not sure it’s good for you.”
A pissed look flashed across his face. “What do you mean? This is the best thing that ever happened to me. You know how shitty it was.” He gestured to his body. “You know what I was.”
Dex had been bullied, had the crap beaten out of him regularly, even had a couple of serious scars from locker room grates and garbage can edges. It was awesome he’d remade his life, remade his body to be strong, but something about him was off.
“I know, big brother. I’m not judging. But when we talked about our future, it was always you and me looking out for each other. Living a normal, happy life. You have an option.”
A chime sounded. Dex looked over at the computer screen, read something, typed in something that resulted in the printer on his bureau turning on, and said, “Listen. Rothgar wants to go over some stuff. I’ve gotta get going.” He added under his breath, “Do not want to forget anything.”
Cecily tried not to let her disappointment show. “I thought you and I could start fresh together.”
“I don’t think you get it; I already started fresh.” Dex pushed off the bed and crossed to a bureau where he apparently didn’t actually keep any clothes. Cecily could see that the drawer he pulled open contained a slew of computer parts, bits of metal pages from notebooks covered in diagrams. It was all organized on plastic, compartmentalized trays, where the underwear was supposed to be separated from the socks. The printer was spitting out some kind of a list.
Cecily watched his face while biting her nails as he poked through the parts and put some of them into a gym bag. Time stretched out, and he seemed to forget she was there.
On the one hand, her brother looked good; his body was buff. He had a confidence about him that she didn’t remember. It was weird seeing her brother have his shit together so well, look so competent. On the other hand, his clothes were disheveled, he was way touchy, and he winced every time he put too much pressure on his bad knee. “With as much as you know about computers, you could get a really great job in Manhattan.”
“I have a really great job in Manhattan,” he said, checking the contents of his kit against his list. “And I’m attempting to do it.”
“One that doesn’t cause you to get shot in the knee,” Cecily said.
He whipped around. “Who told you that?”
Dread filled Cecily’s bloodstream. “A week ago, I wouldn’t have guessed you were bullshitting me about a weightlifting accident. But it’s been quite a week.”
“Don’t start.”
“Shane told me about Missy and Allison. About their brothers going missing. They’re probably dead. I mean, what else could it be?”
Dex’s eyes went soft. “Is that what this is really about? You think something is going to happen to me?”
A week ago, she wouldn’t have been worried about anything close to what he was suggesting. But after everything she’d been through with Shane and everything both of them had told her about the team, danger wasn’t just theoretical anymore. It was real. “I’m not trying to get you to turn your back on this family that, it sounds like, all of you have built. But . . .” She had to speak in a hushed voice to avoid having her voice actually crack. “It sounds like those boys left behind people who loved them.”
Dex took Cecily’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t know all the facts, Sis. You don’t know how the Hudson Kings work, what we do, how we do it.”
She was losing this fight. She’d had some ridiculous fantasy of coming to New York and picking up Dex and starting their lives over, and now he’d already gone and done that—with a new family that appeared to eat danger for breakfast. Cecily panicked, blurting, “I do know. Shane took me on a job on the way over.”
Dex pushed back from his work so hard that computer parts sprayed all over the floor. “What did you say?”
Cecily stared at her brother, tongue-tied by the venom in his voice. “That was an exaggeration. He didn’t want me to get involved, but I sort of . . .”
“You sort of what?”
“Um, walked into the situation. Listen, I shouldn’t have said anything.” Dex’s expression had turned to stone. Oh, god. Oh, god. I really should not have said that.
“He took you on a job and then you got involved in the situation? Tell me what happened and don’t lie to me.”
“Dex,” she said gently. “I—”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Don’t yell at me,” she ground out, feeling her blood race just like it did when James started down that path. “Thank you. Thank you for helping me when I needed it. Thank you for sending Shane to me. But I don’t have to explain anything to you. If you have a problem with Shane—which you shouldn’t, because he was . . .” Ack. Digging a hole much? Can’t say he was a perfect gentleman. Can’t say he never did anything unsafe. In a voice suddenly clogged with emotions, Cecily said, “He was there when I needed him.” In every way. “You have no right to shout at me about lying, Mr. Oh-did-I-forget-to-mention-your-boyfriend-is-a-spy-and-I’m-a-mercenary-Hudson-Kings-hacker-man-person!”
Dex looked pretty close to losing his mind.
“You’re really pissed,” Cecily said nervously.
“Yup. But not at you.”
“Don’t be pissed at Shane.”
There was a long silence. “Cece,” Dex said in a low voice. “He’s not for you. You know that. Maybe he doesn’t. Do I need to have a conversation with him?”
“And say what? Are you going to pass him a note during a meeting telling him I have a crush on him? Do not humiliate me like that!”
Dex sat heavily down in his chair, his face a mix of disbelief and misery. “You have a crush on Shane?”
“What?” Argh! “No! I was assuming that you assumed that. Can we end this conversation?”
“Absolutely,” Dex said grimly.
“So, you won’t say something stupid to Shane?”
“I won’t say anything stupid.”
Cecily curled her hands into fists. If she’d been a cartoon, she’d have heat lines above her head.
“You don’t need to protect him, Sis,” Dex said, obviously working hard on self-control. “You’ve been down that path way too recently.”
“Ugh. Are you talking about James?”
“It’s not like it was that long ago. You know I’m right. You need to watch yourself. Give yourself time to heal. Listen, I need to get to that meeting. You want me to take you back to—”
“No, I can find it!” It was only because Dex was right that Cecily got so mad. Dex rolled his eyes, hobbled over, and held open the door while she flounced under his arm and down the hall.
She lost her way pretty fast in the Armory’s maze of corridors and pulled on random doors for a while.
Note to self: stock up on water, trail mix—and find out where all the bathrooms are.
After about fifteen more minutes of wandering, to the point where she couldn’t even have returned to Dex’s room if she’d wanted to, Cecily stopped below a video camera mounted above one of the doorframes and waved both arms like a complete and utter idiot.
It took another five minutes for someone to show up. Cecily’s heart started beating wildly as a door at the far end of the hall opened up and a man walked through. Her body had obviously wanted it to be Shane. Based on visuals alone, at least it was the next best thing. Shane didn’t have this man’s beauty, but somehow Cecily preferred Shane’s rougher edges to this man’s smooth perfection.
“Hi,” the man said in a deep, rich voice. “I’m Nick.”
Oh, come on. They can’t seriously all look like heaven and sound like sin. Is that a requirement for membership?
This one was dressed like James . . . times half a million dollars . . . but there was at least one significant difference. He. Was. Huge. “Extremely huge, super-hot,” Cecily blurted. Without asking him if she could check the label in his pants—which did hold a certain amount of appeal—it was obvious he had expensive tastes. Dex had described Nick as the money guy; he definitely knew how to spend.
Dress pants and a crisp white dress shirt with a hint of light-gray pinstripe. A suit coat slung over one shoulder. No tie, so the collar was open around the neck, showing off some serious bone structure and a delicious swath of flesh. A massive gold watch circled the cords of his wrist. His hair was much shorter than Shane’s, although a certain amount of neglect had left a longer piece on top. It was this piece that he swept off his face as his lips curled in a smile. “You looked like you needed a hand,” he said.
“This?” Cecily asked, waving her arms in the air even more ridiculously than before. “Yeah, that would be me needing help. I’m definitely lost. I’ve learned an important lesson about living in an armory. If you’re going to flounce out of a room, you’d better know where you’re going.”
“Not a bad mantra for life,” Nick said, holding out his arm.
Cecily took it with a smile. “Can you get me to Missy’s?”
Nick paused. “Not Shane’s?”
Cecily looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “You trying to make trouble?”
“Make it? I think you brought it with you,” Nick said, holding the door open at the end of the hall and gesturing to the left.
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” Cecily said. “I’m sure you know about me, but I have to tell you I am really not about drama. The opposite.”
Nick turned them to the right this time and after a minute said, “Shane looks more relaxed than I’ve seen him in years.”
“That’s Shane relaxed?”
Nick laughed.
“Sorry to say that has nothing to do with me. I think I made him a little crazy,” Cecily said.
“That too,” Nick said, finally stopping in front of a door that had been painted to look like a cottage entrance, complete with grass and flowerpots. He knocked then, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared down at Cecily. “Known him for a while. Saw you two when he brought you in. Talked to him briefly. Think you threw him for a loop. Think he likes it. You messing with our guy or what?”
“I’m really not the messing-with type,” Cecily said, a little bewildered.
A redhead in her twenties wearing a grease monkey jumpsuit and black Nike high-tops finally, blessedly opened the door.
Missy smiled a huge, welcoming, uber-extroverted smile. Nothing about her appeared to find it strange that a woman she’d never met before was appearing on her doorstep, expecting to move in.
It was with some shyness that Cecily, still fatigued at being helped by so many people who never seemed to expect anything in return, held out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Cecily Keegan, Dex’s sister, and I was told—”
“Cool! You’re here. Holy shit, you totally look like Dex! Except you’re a supercute female!” She stopped abruptly and looked at Nick. “Why the escort? Something going down?”
“Just looking out for Shane,” he said, his mouth turned up in a wicked grin.
Missy leaned forward like she was going to inhale a delicious piece of gossip. “Shane needs looking out for?” she asked reverently. “Do tell.”
“He thinks I’m messing with Shane,” Cecily mumbled. I’m usually the messed-with.
Nick shrugged innocently.
Missy cocked an eyebrow. “Are you messing with Shane?” she asked Cecily.
“No, I’m not,” Cecily said. But I’d like to be messing around with Shane. She couldn’t shake the regret that their time together was at an end. Shane’s responsibility for anything to do with Cecily was at an end, and he’d been almost eager to drive away from her. Dex had already logged his stamp of disapproval. It was definitely over, and nobody was messing with or around anybody. Nick and Missy seemed to be having so much fun joking around about it they missed Cecily’s gloomy sigh.
“Oh. Right, then I guess we have it.” Missy faux whispered in Cecily’s ear, “I like to stay in the know.”
“That could have been way more fun, Missy,” Nick groused.
She did not seem concerned. “Anything else, Nick? ’Cause we’ve got that meeting, and I know you need to refresh your makeup or something.”
Nick scowled down at Missy. “Watch your step.”
“I always do,” she answered sweetly, pulling Cecily inside and slamming the door behind them.