Chapter 2
Deacon should have known that Rafe wouldn’t stay out of trouble. He’d stayed in his room the rest of the evening, but the next day he was back to college, and when he came home his whole demeanor had changed. He had this look of determination on his face, and that was only going to end badly.
He was only a few minutes ahead of Deacon going upstairs to his room, but that would clearly be enough to mess things up.
He would have been right behind Rafe, but Bryan stopped him on the stairs.
“Can we talk?”
He was a barman, but he was also more; he used the drugs that Arlo sold. He was a good enough kid, laughed a lot, but he was trapped there by more than a job; he relied on being paid in heroin.
“Later,” Deacon said, and tried to move past.
“Please, Deacon…”
“Later, find me later,” Deacon said, and moved past him, straight up the stairs.
He heard the words long before he saw the people speaking them.
“Little homo,” the voice dripped with sarcasm and hate.
Felix, the older twin, arrogant asshole.
“He’s not worth it.”
Chumo, the peacemaker, younger twin.
The third person around the corner wasn’t talking. Rafe never talked, never fought back, just closed his eyes and let it happen. And why wouldn’t he? He was shorter than Felix, not weak but certainly not hopped up on whatever the hell steroids Felix took to make himself bigger. He probably knew that his only chance was to play possum, close his eyes and hope the words, and sometimes violence, stopped.
“You wanna tell me what you were doing in the office, homo?” Felix snapped, and there was the sound of a fist meeting flesh. Deacon wanted to step forward right there and then and get Felix bloody and unconscious on the ground.
But he couldn’t.
He had to hear what the answer to that question might be. He clearly hadn’t been the only one to notice that Rafe spent a little too long with his nose in places it shouldn’t be. Idiot man.
Still nothing from Rafe – not a single word. Deacon fought the instinct to go charging around the corner, knocking the twins on their asses and blowing the cover he was trying so hard to keep solid. From the first look, Rafe had gotten under his skin, with his innocent eyes and his serious expression.
And then last night had happened, and everything had changed in one single moment of insanity. One stupid-ass kiss and he’d realized that Rafe could be the very thing that destroyed two years of work.
“Felix, stop.” Chumo actually telling his brother to stop? That was new.
“Fuck you,” Felix snapped, and there was another sound of someone being hit. “Fucker’s all up in business that doesn’t concern him.”
Deacon wasn’t gaining anything by standing there, apart from growing his already guilty conscience and fighting the desire to rescue Rafe and drag him right away from this toxic vipers’ nest. He stepped around the corner as casually as possible, sizing up the situation in a few quick glances. Rafe with his back to the wall, on the floor, his knees drawn up, his face buried in his hands. Next to him a bag was ripped, books strewn on the floor, and notebooks open at random pages full of words and doodles.
“Felix, your dad is downstairs,” Deacon lied, and left it loose-ended, implying that possibly Felix’s dad wanted him, which would clear him from the corridor and the quieter Chumo would go with him.
They didn’t move. If anything, Felix looked more determined, toeing at Rafe and cursing under his breath. Deacon tensed and thought on his feet. He dropped to a crouch next to Rafe and gripped his hair, tipping his face up.
“What’d the little fucker do now?” he asked, seeing the split lip that was bleeding copiously down Rafe’s stubbled chin. Rafe’s eyes were tightly shut, and for a second Deacon wished he’d open them so that he could look right into them and reassure Rafe about who he was and what he was doing. He gentled his hold on Rafe’s hair and saw a faint flutter of his eyelids, but no sign of the pale green irises beneath.
“Caught him in the office,” Felix said, posturing, his arms crossed over his chest. Felix wasn’t just a bullying asshole, he was his daddy’s son, and he was out to kill someone one day. Not that it hadn’t crossed Deacon’s mind that Felix could actually already be a killer. Too many missing people in this city for it not to loop right back to the psychotic bastard hating on his own cousin.
Deacon sighed theatrically. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, and his tone brooked no argument.
“I want to know what he was doing,” Felix insisted.
“I said I’ve got it.”
He stood up and went toe to toe with Felix. The man was dangerous, a mix of drug-fueled mania and the righteous indignation of a person no one had ever stopped. Least of all his doting father, who thought the sun rose and fell on his precious twins.
Felix didn’t have any subtlety in his expressions; he either hated or didn’t, and there was a venomous hate in his eyes right now.
“Back. The Fuck. Off,” Felix ordered. He was vibrating with rage, and his expression was becoming more unfocused as the red heat of temper climbed from his dark heart.
Deacon could play this two ways. He could kill Felix, close his hands around that bastard’s neck and squeeze until he was dead, expose his cover, get himself killed. Or he could play his damn part and play it well.
Forcing himself to relax, he stepped back and tilted his head in deference. “He’s all yours,” he said.
Felix wrinkled his nose, then grinned. “Too fucking right,” he said.
“I’ll tell your dad you’ll be down in a minute,” Deacon said, deceptively quiet, and he saw the indecision on Felix’s face. Felix never went against his dad, probably because he actually respected the old man.
Felix kicked out at Rafe one last time.
“I’m not wasting my time on him.” He poked Deacon in the chest, and Deacon had to fight the instinct to snap his hand back and break every bone in his fingers. “You find out what he was doing.”
“Let’s go,” Chumo said, and backed away from the situation.
Felix cursed, and Deacon steeled himself for Felix to get in one more kick or punch. He didn’t, but he hadn’t finished with the words.
“I mean it – find out what the little fairy was doing,” he ordered.
Deacon fought the very strong instinct to beat Rafe to a pulp, and stayed in character.
“On it,” he agreed.
“Fucker was going through—”
“I’ve got this,” Deacon interrupted.
“Sir,” Felix added.
“I’ve got this, sir,” Deacon replied dutifully.
That seemed to be enough to have Felix stalking away, Chumo falling into his normal position a few steps behind. Now, Deacon had time to get Rafe to understand how much shit he was in.
Only when he was sure they had gone did he crouch down by Rafe.
“Get up,” he said, softening his tone a little, and nudged at one of Rafe’s hands with his own.
“Go ’way,” Rafe muttered. It was a start – at least he was talking.
“Get up, Rafe,” Deacon said, and nudged him again.
Rafe scrambled away in a sudden uncoordinated move and used the wall to stand. For a while he kept his eyes shut, and he swayed in a dangerous manner. Deacon held out a hand to steady him, but it was as if Rafe knew what Deacon was doing, and he took a step back, his foot stepping awkwardly on a textbook. He windmilled his arms to stay upright, his eyes opening abruptly.
This time Deacon got hold of him, gripping his shirt and then his arm, yanking him upright, then supporting him until he got his bearings. Only as soon as that happened, Rafe pulled his arm free and went into a crouch to pick up his books and stationery and all the loose notebooks. Deacon stooped to help, but Rafe let out this small noise that was equal parts pain and anger, and Deacon backed off. He knew a cornered, wounded animal when he saw one. Rafe stuffed everything in his bag and turned to leave, Deacon following.
“What?” Rafe snapped, and spun on his heel. He was scarlet – with temper, or embarrassment, or pain, Deacon couldn’t tell.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Rafe didn’t sound fine; he sounded as though he was just about to crack in half.
Deacon shrugged as if the way Rafe was standing and looking at him didn’t have a single iota of effect on him. “I need to find out what happened.”
Rafe, all bristling temper, stepped up into Deacon’s space; a good six inches shorter than him, he had to crane his head back to look up at him, and there was fire in his eyes.
“One of my cousins is a psycho, and the other cousin is a sycophantic asshole, and I’m going to my room to revise.” Embarrassment was abruptly lost in pure anger.
He walked off again, and Deacon was right on his heels, only this time Rafe didn’t stop him or talk to him, only let himself into his room, then waited for Deacon to follow him.
“Get on with it,” he said dispassionately, as if he was expecting something from Deacon. A beating, or hateful words.
“Rafe—”
“Fuck you, Deacon – you’re no better than they are.”
“That’s bullshit,” Deacon snapped, then realized what he’d done. Was he really going to blow everything by exposing the true Deacon, the one who had kissed Rafe the night before?
This was nothing like it had been in the darkness at the side of the lake; this was Rafe back in his hard shell.
Deacon shut the door behind him, and only then did a flicker of fear pass over Rafe’s face. He clutched his bag to his chest, solid armor against whatever Deacon could do to him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Deacon murmured.
“I don’t believe you,” Rafe snapped. “I’ve seen you try it all now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hurting me, kissing me, confusing me – I’m not falling for any of it.”
Deacon didn’t know where to start with any of that, and in the end he fell back to being as honest as he could.
“Rafe, you’ve got to stop doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
Rafe stiffened and tilted his chin in defiance. Deacon could see the moment Rafe’s shields came up and the lying began.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said with fake confidence.
Deacon sighed. Rafe was a pretty poor liar. Unlike his cousin, Felix, every expression Rafe felt was telegraphed on his face. That and the fact that he was gorgeous and sensitive and needed Deacon in his life was what had led to them kissing the night before.
“Why were you in the office?” Deacon pressed. “Just give me some kind of credible reason here.”
He needed to pass something on to the family. Security was his job, and that included coming up with a plausible reason why Rafe had been rooting around his uncle’s office. He had to stay undercover long enough to get this job done, and that started with balancing all the truths and lies that lay between him and Rafe.
Rafe tipped his chin again and clenched his fists at his sides, looking every inch the scrappy fighter he needed to be to survive this poisonous family. “I was looking for a damn stapler,” he said.
“Don’t lie to me, please.” Deacon didn’t have to be an expert in body language to see the tightening of Rafe’s jaw or the way he couldn’t quite meet Deacon’s eyes.
Deacon wanted to shake the idiot. All Rafe had to do was get through his finals, and he could get out of this place. He shouldn’t be here in this place.
“You lie to me,” Rafe said.
And he wasn’t wrong. Deacon wanted to tell Rafe that he was there to take the Martinez family apart from the inside. He wanted to blow the cover that had taken two years to create. He wanted to haul Rafe into his arms and kiss him and promise him he would do anything to keep him safe. He couldn’t do any of that.
He’d been guarding Rafe for three weeks now, and every single day the younger man had pulled at him in ways he’d never understood before. Deacon wasn’t stupid; he knew he was attracted to Rafe, to his tenacity, his bravery, and his goddamn stubbornness that one day could get him killed.
“I want you to leave,” he said, not adding an explanation. It was a familiar refrain; he’d said the same thing the night before, just before he’d hauled Rafe in and kissed him.
“No,” Rafe whispered. “I won’t leave.”
“I can’t keep you safe—”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Rafe, please.”
“No.”
Deacon steeled himself to try a different direction, slipping back into the hard-man persona that was getting more impossible to find each day he was around Rafe.
“Sit down,” he ordered.
Rafe stared at him mutinously for a moment, then the fight left him and, with his bag still huddled close to him, he sat on the edge of his bed. Deacon moved closer and they began a short but terrier-like battle over the bag. Deacon finally got it away from him and placed it gently on the bed next to him. Then he reached out and pressed a hand under Rafe’s chin, raising his face and examining the cut where his teeth had torn into his soft lips.
There was the smudge of red near his eye, and that would likely bruise as well. He softened at the hurt he could see there. Underneath the not very professional intrigue he had going on, Rafe was a quiet guy, happy to sit in the restaurant when it was empty and study. He had glasses he pushed up his nose when they had a tendency to slip down, and long, layered hair that hung around his face, giving him a gentle appearance. Startling green eyes were framed with long lashes and he had this way of staring at Deacon when he thought Deacon wasn’t watching.
“Your face,” Deacon murmured, and using his other hand he brushed away Rafe’s hair. This was dangerous; this was caring about someone he had no right to care about.
But Rafe didn’t react to the times Felix intimidated him or bullied him; he closed his eyes and let everything wash over him. He never called out, he never argued, and Felix was close to losing his shit with Rafe; any idiot could see that. Felix was a typical bully. He wanted Rafe crying and on his knees.
Deacon was older than Rafe, and even as he looked up at him with soft eyes, Deacon could see the man he would become.
“I thought you were different,” Rafe murmured, his voice breaking, so much emotion dripping from every syllable. “Last night, when you kissed me…”
“That shouldn’t have happened,” Deacon interjected before Rafe could continue.
Rafe raised his hand and settled it over Deacon’s. “You don’t belong here,” he said, his tone questioning. “You’re not the same as them.”
Deacon wavered, leaned closer, and for a second he was going to kiss Rafe, just as they had in the dark. One kiss and he’d lost his fucking mind. Training kicked him back into line, and he leaned back, seeing the flash of hurt in Rafe’s eyes.
“Your dad wouldn’t want you hurt like this,” Deacon murmured.
“You didn’t know my dad,” Rafe said sadly. “You wouldn’t know what he wanted for me.”
“I know his son well enough.”
Rafe’s breath hitched. “You don’t. You can’t really know me, not yet.”
“Go back to college, get your degree, be the best person you can be.”
Jeez, now he was waxing lyrical. But Rafe only had one semester left until graduation in pre-law, finishing the credits online, and then he’d go on to law school as he was supposed to and he’d make a markedly different impact on the world than Deacon did. Rafe would be pure innocence, fighting for the little guy, making things right, and Deacon would continue to be on the blunt end of taking down the bad guys.
Rafe looked at him, and his eyes glittered brightly with emotion. “Maybe you could be the one who makes me the best person I can be.”
God, Rafe was going to kill him talking like that.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Deacon said, his tone hard. The years that separated them had been hard, and he was left with all kinds of scars on his skin and even darker marks on his soul. Yet Rafe looked at him as if he saw something other than his scruffy beard and his messy blond hair. He’d been looked at before, times when he guessed people had judged him and found him wanting, but that was part of his job. Rafe, on the other hand, stared at him as though he couldn’t get a real handle on what Deacon was.
And that was dangerous, to Rafe, but most of all to Deacon.
Rafe circled his wrist, but Deacon couldn’t guess if he was going to push him away or hold him still. His heart was sore; he hated undercover when innocent people were getting hurt, but this was bigger than Rafe. Bigger than anyone could know.
“Deacon?” Rafe murmured.
“What?” He was being lulled, pulled in by Rafe’s hesitant use of his name. He was leaning in, down, and Rafe tugged on his hand, rising to his feet. The kiss was so close that Deacon could feel it.
Fuck. He could taste it.
“Deacon…” This time there was no question on Rafe’s lips, and it was that which thrust Deacon back into the here and now.
He snapped back into being the tough guy, the bad one who could physically wound Rafe.
“Where do you hurt?” he asked, and cleared his throat at how gruff he sounded to his own ears.
“Nowhere,” Rafe said, and he moved his chin away from Deacon’s touch. “Why didn’t you kiss me?”
“Get some salve on that lip.”
“Shit, Deacon.”
“No talking. I don’t know why you think I would want to kiss you again, kid. Stay away from Felix.”
Rafe crossed his arms over his chest, much as he’d used his bag defensively.
“Get out of my room.”
Deacon held himself rigid and met Rafe’s hardening gaze. “That was my plan,” he said dryly.
Only outside the door did he realize how close he’d come to fucking everything up. Felix was making his way up the long corridor, intent in his walk. Likely he was on his way to check up on the situation. Deacon made a show of touching the knuckles of his right hand, and saw Felix glance down at them, a feral gleam in his eye.
Felix came to a stop next to him. “You warmed him up for me—”
“You’re not touching him,” Deacon interrupted, and his cover slipped into place. “Your dad was explicit in his instructions that the kid was to be watched and that was it.”
“Then he shouldn’t be in Dad’s office.”
“He was looking for a stapler.”
“And you fell for that?”
“I don’t give a shit what he was doing. I have my orders, and if he steps out of line, then it will be me who does the beating.”
“You work for me—”
“No, sir, I don’t. I work for your dad.”
There was an epic staredown. At least it would have been epic had Felix not started muttering to himself and walked away after the first few seconds. There was something seriously wrong with this man that wanted to rail on Rafe at a moment’s notice. Something evil in Felix’s eyes that screamed of insanity. It wouldn’t be the first time Deacon had seen that level of craziness in the kind of people he got involved with, and it likely wouldn’t be the last.
All he could do now was hope that, at least for the rest of the day, Rafe stayed in his room where he would be safe, and Deacon had successfully neutralized Felix.
He’d known this gig wasn’t going to be easy, but he’d never expected to feel affection for one of the people he’d been sent to watch.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered to the empty corridor.
A really bad feeling.