Chapter Ten
Callum
Callum set the bag in his hand down on the closest bed. Tom looked down at it and sniffed in appreciation. Callum drew out three apple pie doughnuts, fresh-baked from the doughnut shop down the street from the motel. It had caught his eye when he passed it on his way to get here, and he had doubled back, thinking that it was worth the extra few minutes—Tom and Leila deserved something sweet after everything they had been through in the past few hours.
“Don’t get used to this,” he warned ruefully as he passed out the doughnuts. “I won’t be able to use any of my cards anymore, and I wasn’t able to go back to my apartment for my emergency cash, so I’m down to…” He pulled out his wallet and winced. “Three dollars.”
He told Tom everything as they ate—what he had said to his father, and his father’s reactions. He left out the part where his father had talked about getting Leila back and killing her rescuers; even though Leila was trying to pretend she was focused only on the doughnut in her hand, he could see her listening intently as she very carefully didn’t look at the two of them. He also didn’t say anything about what his father had tried to do afterward, and his own narrow escape. He didn’t want to distract Tom with his problems; Tom needed all his energy focused on Leila right now. Anyway, nothing had changed for him, really. His only option was to run, just like he had told Tom earlier.
Tom nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll hole up here until it blows over, then.”
“It’s not going to be that simple,” Callum said reluctantly. He cast another glance at Leila, who had finished her doughnut and was studying the crossword puzzle on her lap. Her pen hadn’t moved since she had picked it up, and Callum didn’t think it was because she was struggling to figure out the clues.
Tom caught his glance. “Leila, can you give us some privacy for a few minutes?”
Leila swept her gaze in an exaggerated arc around the room. “Sure, I’ll just hide under the bed. I’ll never be able to hear what you’re talking about there.”
“Let’s talk in the car,” said Tom. “That way we’ll be able to watch the door.”
“If something is wrong, you can tell me.” Leila was clearly trying to sound unconcerned, but a quiver broke through the hardness in her voice.
“Nothing is wrong,” Callum reassured her, hoping he sounded convincing. “We just have some decisions to make, that’s all.”
“Right.” With a skeptical noise, Leila turned back to her puzzle. No matter how much she tried to hide it with the determined set of her jaw, he could see the creases of anxiety along her forehead. Callum wished there was something he could do to smooth those creases away, something he could tell her that she would believe. Something true.
They walked out to the car together, leaving Leila alone in the motel room. “What haven’t you told me?” Tom asked as soon as he settled into the driver’s seat.
Callum hesitated before speaking. He knew Tom wasn’t going to want to hear this. “The truth is… it might never be safe around here for Leila anymore. My father is mostly worried about finding the people who took her, but he doesn’t want her getting away and telling people who took her or where they were keeping her. He sees her as a security risk. I don’t know how far he’s willing to go to get her back.”
Tom swallowed. “What can we do?”
“Ideally, you’d move her far away from here. My father’s influence is… limited. He wants to think that someday he’ll be running the whole Syndicate, but the truth is, he’s never going to make it there. He’s too greedy, and too shortsighted. He doesn’t understand how to hide his ambition.” Callum didn’t think he had ever said any of this out loud before, not even to Alec. Criticizing his father out loud made him feel dizzy, like he had taken too deep a breath. “If she was on the other side of the country, he wouldn’t have the resources to track her down.”
“Meaning Carrie would move across the country with her,” said Tom, his voice flat. “Ideally. It would probably be best if they didn’t even tell me where they were going.”
Callum wanted to kick himself for not remembering that Tom’s daughter didn’t live with him, and that he hadn’t even seen her before now. Not that it would have changed his advice.
“I’ll call Carrie tomorrow. We can work something out.” Tom’s throat worked, but his voice was as calm as ever. “For now, we’ll stay here. We should be safe here for the next few days.”
Callum shook his head. “You should be, but it’s better not to take the risk. I think he believed me when I blamed it on the Italians, but since you’re her father, his people might still think to look for you. The room is under your name, so it wouldn’t be hard to track you down.”
“Is Carrie in danger?”
“They’ll probably watch her for a while,” Callum answered, thinking back to all the meetings he had overheard between his father and his underlings when he was a kid. “But they won’t go after her once they see that Leila isn’t with her. If you keep your distance for now, she’ll be fine.” He listened to himself confidently spouting all this strategy, and for a moment it was as if someone else was speaking. His father, or even Alec, would never have asked for his input on something like this, and wouldn’t have listened if he had offered it. But he had no doubt that what he was telling Tom was right. This was what he had grown up with, the way a college professor’s child might grow up knowing his way around campus. He knew how the Syndicate operated, and he knew how his father’s mind worked.
“Where should we go?” asked Tom. He looked at Callum as if Callum might actually have something useful to say.
And after an initial panicked moment, Callum did. “The retreat—that’s what my parents called it. Really it’s just a cabin out in the woods. They gave it to her as a wedding gift, and when my parents’ marriage went south, my mother lost everything in the divorce. We haven’t been back to the cabin since then. No one will think to look for you there, or me either—I hated it out there when I was a kid. I always complained about the bugs. Anyway, if you keep paying for the motel room, then if they come looking for you they’ll think you’re still here.”
Tom considered for a moment, looking out at the motel room, where Leila was faintly visible through a break in the curtains. He turned back to Callum and nodded slowly. “You’ve spent some time thinking about this.”
At Tom’s tone of quiet admiration, a blush spread across Callum’s face. He wanted to hide his face in his hands, but that would only make him look even more ridiculous. “A bit,” he said, trying frantically to send signals to his cheeks to return to their normal color. “I told you, I’ve been thinking about running for a long time.”
“Are you planning to come with us?” asked Tom.
He had just assumed it would be the three of them, but as soon as Tom asked the question, he wondered why. Wasn’t it kind of presumptuous for him to think Tom would want him along? “Um. If you want me.” He felt his cheeks grow redder, and looked away. “If you think I’d be helpful.”
“We could use someone with your knowledge,” said Tom. “But of course it’s your choice.” If he noticed Callum’s startling resemblance to a tomato, he was at least gracious enough not to show it.
“I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” Callum promised. He didn’t know what it was about Tom and Leila that made him want so much to help them. Maybe it was that his father had finally crossed one too many lines when he had decided to move from stolen goods to stolen children. Maybe it was that this was the first time in a long time—maybe in his entire life—where he’d felt like he could actually do some good. Or maybe it had more to do with the strange way his heart fluttered in his chest whenever Tom looked at him.
No. His father had gone too far, that was all. And Callum would do anything he could to fix it.
He just hoped it would be enough.
“Just… don’t expect too much,” he warned, lowering his eyes. “I’ll give you all the information I can, but if they really do come after us again, I don’t know how much help I’ll be. You’re the action hero, not me.” If someone actually shot at him, the way those guards had been shooting at Tom, he was pretty sure he would hit the ground unconscious before a bullet even grazed his skin.
Tom was shaking his head. “You’ve already helped us a lot more than you’ve given yourself credit for. And I was a soldier—that’s all.”
“You were Special Forces,” Callum countered. “And I saw the way you managed to lure those guards away at just the right time. You might want people to think you were ‘just a soldier,’ but I think there’s more to you than you let on.”
As soon as he spoke, he realized he shouldn’t have. What gave him the right to try to analyze Tom like that? He should just shut up and be grateful that Tom was letting him tag along with them. But Tom didn’t look offended, only thoughtful. “I’ve never liked the idea of portraying myself as a hero,” he said. “I don’t tell war stories, and that’s a big part of why. I don’t want to look like I’m trying to make myself look good, because that’s not the point. I was someone with a job to do. If I did it well, all that means is that I was someone who was good at my job. Just like anyone else who is good at what they do.”
Callum didn’t see it that way. It wasn’t just about being good at what he did—it was that he was willing to do it in the first place. Not everyone would be. God knew Callum would never be cut out for the military. But he suspected that if he tried to argue about it with Tom any more, all he would do was make Tom uncomfortable, and that wasn’t what he wanted. So he didn’t push his point.
“What did you do in the army?” asked Callum. “If you don’t mind sharing.” He had just said he didn’t tell war stories, after all.
But Tom answered the question easily. “Prisoner rescue, mostly.”
Even in those few words, Callum could hear mist of pride and wistfulness in Tom’s voice. “You miss it.”
“Those years made me who I am. I like this person a lot better than who I used to be, even if the process of getting here wasn’t always pleasant.” He gestured to his scarred face with a rueful smile. “I’m happy with my life now, too. It’s quieter. Simpler. If I had the chance to go back, I don’t know if I would. But yes, sometimes I miss it.”
“You were happy in the army.” Callum wondered what it would like to feel like that—to know he was doing something that he was good at, and that he was doing some good in the world. If he ever found something like that, he would do it for the rest of his life. “But you left.”
Tom’s lips curved in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “That’s a story for a different day.”
Callum took the hint, and dropped the subject. He didn’t speak, and neither did Tom. But neither of them made a move to leave the car.
They met each other’s eyes. An unexpected jolt ran through Callum’s heart, and from there went straight to his cock. He hurriedly shifted, trying to hide his reaction before Tom looked in the wrong direction. Callum shouldn’t have started talking about himself. He should have gotten out of the car as soon as they were done making plans. He shouldn’t have given these unwelcome thoughts time to start worming their way into his brain again, the way they had the second he had first caught sight of Tom.
But something about Tom was too compelling for Callum to have ended their conversation so easily. It wasn’t just the blue-gray eyes that were so hard to look away from, or the muscles that shifted just right when he moved. It was the way he held himself—that unfamiliar mix of power and restraint, of serenity and fierce protectiveness. Tom was like a placid lake on a postcard, idyllic and peaceful, with unfathomable depths hiding beneath.
And Callum wanted nothing more than to dive in.
He shook his head, trying to steer his mind away from that path before it was too late.
Tom looked over at him. “Are you all right?”
Callum wouldn’t let himself meet Tom’s eyes again. Not yet. Not until he had himself under control. “We should start packing up. I don’t want to keep bouncing Leila around from place to place like this, but the sooner we leave, the better.”
Tom nodded his agreement. But when Callum started to get out of the car, Tom stopped him with a gentle touch on his arm. The contact sent a glow all through his skin, and when he looked down at his arm, he half-expected to see it blazing with light.
“You told me what your father said about Leila,” said Tom. “But you never mentioned anything about your own situation.”
Callum could barely think through the bursts of sensation running up and down his arm. “My situation?”
“With your family. I know how much you’re risking to help us. You were in danger even before you went back. Tell me—are you safe?”
Callum hadn’t wanted to involve Tom in his problems, but now that Tom had asked, he couldn’t refuse. Quickly, he gave Tom a summary of what had happened, and how he had managed to avoid getting on the flight.
The more he spoke, the deeper Tom’s frown became. “What will happen if your father finds out you helped us?”
“Probably the same thing that will happen to you, if he finds you.” He tried to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking. “It’s okay. I’ve wanted an excuse to stand up to him for a long time.” He thought the words were an excuse to make Tom feel better, but as he spoke, he realized he was telling the truth. No matter how this ended for him, it was better than living under his father’s thumb forever, wishing he had the courage to break free.
“You’re not who I thought you were,” said Tom after a long silence.
“What do you mean?”
“When you told me who you worked for, I assumed the worst. That’s my fault. I should have recognized that you were putting your life at risk just to save a little girl you didn’t even know.”
“I didn’t have to know her to know that what was happening there was wrong,” said Callum. “And anyway, it wasn’t just about her. I should have left a long time ago. I was never strong enough to be part of my father’s world, but I was never brave enough to leave.”
The frown returned to Tom’s face, but it was different this time—less worried, more thoughtful. “I don’t think you’re who you think you are, either.”
That didn’t make any sense to Callum. He waited for Tom to explain.
“It takes a lot of bravery to do what you did,” said Tom. “And a lot of strength. If you think you don’t have either, you’re selling yourself short.”
Callum wanted to deny it. But as he looked into Tom’s eyes, for a moment he could see himself the way Tom did. For a moment, he let himself believe that Tom was right.
In what he could only explain later as a wild fit of bravery, he leaned across the car’s armrest and kissed Tom.
In his unguarded moments, when he couldn’t stop his own thoughts quickly enough, he had imagined what it would be like to kiss a man. But he had never imagined this. The way the scent of Tom’s skin washed the rest of the world away; the way Tom’s lips met his hungrily, insistently, with none of the yielding softness he had found in women’s lips. This, this was what he had been craving for so long.
And it ended far too quickly as Tom pulled away.
As soon as Tom broke the contact, Callum came to his senses. A wave of shame washed over him. Disgusting, he berated himself. Those thoughts belonged locked in a box in the deepest recesses of his mind, not out here in the real world. What would Tom think of him now?
Tom’s cheeks were flushed as he turned to face forward, away from Callum. “This can’t… nothing can happen between us,” he said, staring fixedly at the building in front of them. “I’m sorry.”
“Of course,” Callum replied hastily. “I understand. I didn’t mean to… I understand.” He couldn’t look at Tom. He might never be able to look at Tom again.
“It’s not—” Tom began.
“We should get packed up,” Callum interrupted, already halfway out of the car. “If we leave now, we can get to the retreat before dark.”
They walked back inside in silence.