“Hey, Bas?”

Drew shook the blanket covered lump still curled up in the middle of the king-size bed. It appeared Bas hadn’t moved since Drew had gotten up to take a shower half an hour ago.

He slapped what might have been Bas’s ass. “Wakey, wakey, Sleeping Beauty.”

A tired moan emerged from the duvet. “I want another round, Drew. You know I do. I just need, like, thirty more minutes of sleep.”

Drew snorted. “This is the kind of stamina I have to look forward to?”

“Fine. Twenty minutes.”

Amused, Drew pulled the blanket down to Bas’s shoulders, baring his dark head and one corner of his stubbled jaw. No one should look so sexy when they first woke up.

“Hey!” Bas whined. “It’s fucking cold. Climb back in, if you want.”

“I wish. I’m afraid it’s time for you to climb out, baby. I got a call from Cam. He and the guys are on their way over.”

Bas rolled over onto his back and stacked his hands behind his head, blinking sleepily. He looked Drew up and down, his gaze traveling over Drew’s naked chest so intently that Drew could feel it like a physical touch, then he narrowed his eyes.

“You look way too awake right now, McMann. I’m rethinking this whole relationship.”

Drew ran a hand through his clean, mostly-dry, perfectly tidy hair. “A shower and coffee will do that for you, too.”

“You made coffee?” Bas perked up.

“Yep. Yours is in the kitchen.” Drew smirked when Bas scowled. “I purposely didn’t bring it in, because I know you’re more likely to get up for coffee than because I’m telling you to.” Bas’s eyes narrowed further, and Drew winked. “The downside of being with someone who knows you too well, Seaver.”

Bas’s lips quirked, like maybe he didn’t think that was a downside at all. He ran his hands over his face and sat up. “So they’re all descending on us? Right now?”

“Right now. Apparently they have some new developments to discuss.” Drew stood and glanced down at Bas’s naked chest. Do not get distracted! “My jeans from last night are fine, but I kinda wanna burn that sweater. It smells disgusting.”

“Take anything you want,” Bas said, throwing the covers aside and rolling out of bed with a deep sigh. “You know my closet better than I do.” He stood by the bed and stretched fully, the lean, naked length of him fully on display.

Drew forced himself to look away and busied himself pulling open the t-shirt drawer in the dresser at the foot of the bed, cursing Cam and the whole crew for interrupting what otherwise would have been a long, lazy Sunday morning, segueing into a delightful New Year’s Eve. “You don’t seem very excited,” he noted. “I thought you’d be dying to know what new developments they found.”

Bas stalked forward, wrapping his arms around Drew’s waist from behind, and their gazes met in the mirror above the dresser. “Damon mentioned something about news last night but didn’t get into details.” Bas put his mouth at the juncture of Drew’s neck and shoulder, sucking lightly, and Drew shivered. “I figured we’d hear from them today.”

“Wait.” Drew grabbed a shirt from the drawer without looking at it, and held the folded fabric against his chest. “You mean they told you last night they had stuff to discuss?”

“Mmmhmm. When I called to let them know what happened to you.”

“And you didn’t want them to come over last night to talk about it?” Drew demanded.

“Uh, no.” Bas said immediately. “Baby, you’d just been through the wringer! I wanted to take care of you. I wanted to be alone with you.” Confused blue eyes watched Drew. “Did you want me to have them come over?”

“No! I… no. I’m just surprised.” Stunned, actually. Since when was anything more important to Bas than stopping Alexei? “And you didn’t ask what it was?”

Bas’s eyebrows went up. “Nope. I told you, I had more important things on my mind. Are you upset?” he demanded, arms tightening.

Drew shook his head slowly, then turned in Bas’s arms and gave him a brilliant smile. “Not even a little.” He pressed his mouth to Sebastian’s, but just as Sebastian gave a little moan and started to take the kiss deeper, the doorbell rang.

After a final brush of lips, Drew pulled back. “Go. Shower. I’ll get them settled.”

“Don’t let them drink my coffee,” Bas warned over his shoulder.

“Never,” Drew vowed on his way out the door. “I’ve got your back.”

He pulled the t-shirt over his head as he made his way down the hall. The hardwood floors were chilly against his bare feet, and he thought longingly of the warm, rumpled bed he’d left, and the even warmer man currently in the shower.

“Hey,” he greeted, throwing the door wide and stepping aside for the four men bundled up in coats and scarves.

Cam was the first in the door. “You okay?” he demanded, laying a hand on Drew’s bicep. “I cannot believe that guy drugged you!”

“I’m fine,” Drew promised. “I didn’t drink very much of my drink, and I vomited what little I did. I’m not actually sure if I was drugged, or…”

“From the way Bas described things, it sure sounded like it. And I can tell you more later,” Cort said, stepping in behind Cam. He carried Cam’s laptop bag slung over his shoulder. “Glad you’re okay, man.”

“I am,” Drew said. He stretched out his arm, inviting everyone to head into the living room.

“Looks like you’re a little better than okay,” Damon remarked, stepping in after Cain. He raked his gaze from Drew’s wet hair down to his bare feet and gave him a wink.

Cain elbowed his boyfriend lightly, and Damon gave him the boyish smile he reserved just for Cain. “Hey! Just sayin’ what we were all thinking!”

Drew pursed his lips, unsure of how to respond and annoyed with himself for being unsure. He and Bas hadn’t discussed how they were going to play off the new development in their relationship, and really, Drew should have seen this inquisition coming. He didn’t want to out Bas before he was ready, and this crew was worse than a gaggle of old women when it came to gossip.

Cort was his unlikely savior. “Not a social call, brother,” he yelled from the living room. “You can grill Drew, or not, another day.”

Damon gave Drew an apologetic shrug and let Cain tow him into the room. Drew followed, watching as Cam and Cort pulled the two side-chairs and the ottoman closer to the coffee table, while Cam set up his laptop.

Cain pushed Damon into one of the chairs, and pulled the ottoman over to prop up Damon’s injured leg. Damon scowled. “I told you it’s fine, baby.”

“Uh huh. And I told you, you’re gonna rest it.”

“But—”

“Stop arguing,” Cain said, plopping himself down on the ottoman by Damon’s leg.

Damon shook his head, but grinned. “Stubborn.”

“It’s no wonder, living with you,” Cain grumbled, but the way he smiled and leaned back against Damon’s leg took any sting out of his words.

Drew wondered whether he and Bas would reach that level of comfort with their relationship. Speaking of which…

“Uh, Sebastian just jumped in the shower before you came. He’ll be along soon.” He frowned. “I have no idea what food he has in the kitchen,” Drew said, frowning. “But there’s coffee, if anyone wants some. Do we have enough chairs?”

“Hey, guys!” Bas said, lifting a hand as he entered the room. The others all greeted him distractedly, but Drew watched in surprise and, yeah, excitement, as Bas came directly to Drew’s side and put his hand on Drew’s lower back. It was proprietary, claiming. Soothing.

“Calm down, babe,” he whispered, low enough that only Drew could hear.

“I’m calm,” Drew whispered back, but Bas shook his head.

“Nope. When you go into hyper-Martha mode, it’s a sure sign you’re stressed. When things get tense, your need to take care of people goes through the roof.”

“It does not!” Drew argued. “I just like to cook. And make sure things are set up properly. Some people wouldn’t remember to eat for days if I didn’t…”

“You’re cute when you’re hyper,” Bas said, low and intimate. Drew was pretty sure no one else could hear what they were saying, but they could sure as hell hear the sex in Bas’s tone and see the hot glint in his eyes.

Drew swallowed. Well, then. Apparently they weren’t hiding anything.

Another knot of Drew’s tension loosened.

“You guys have all been here a hundred times,” Bas said, addressing the others. “You don’t count as guests anymore. Just help yourselves to coffee, or whatever else you want. I’m about a gallon low on caffeine, and judging by the looks on your faces, I’m gonna need it.”

“You, sit.” Bas pushed Drew into the other side chair, leaving Cam and Cort to sit on the sofa. “Need more coffee?”

Drew shook his head. Between Sebastian Seaver and the upcoming conversation, he was already wired.

Bas nodded once. “Be right back.”

“Okay, so,” Cort began, raising his voice slightly so Bas could hear him. “Sean was sufficiently worried that he put in some time last night, running the company names Bas gave him.”

“The ones he found on Alexei’s server,” Cam clarified.

“Right. Not shockingly, all of them seem to be legit, just like the dummy companies Cain and Damon found in Senator Shaw’s records last month.”

“Figures.” Bas came back and perched himself on the arm of Drew’s chair, one foot up on the seat next to Drew’s thigh. It was incredibly distracting - every cell of Drew’s body was warmed by the proximity.

“They’ve all got an online and/or physical presence. They all filed taxes for last year,” Cort continued.

“Why isn’t that a shock?” Damon demanded. “I know good people who don’t pay taxes.”

Cain snorted. “Let me guess what tinfoil-hat-wearing mountain man you might be thinking of.”

Damon nudged Cain’s back with his foot. “Hush.”

Cain grinned. “I bet the difference is, Eli’s not a criminal. If the government does come after him, the most they’ll get him on is failure to file taxes. But for Alexei…”

“Exactly,” Cort confirmed. “Alexei doesn’t want anyone poking around in his files. He doesn’t exactly have receipts for his expenses.”

“There have to be other servers where he keeps his black-hat accounting information,” Bas said, shaking his head.

“Air-gapped,” Drew said, repeating the new vocabulary word Bas had taught him. “So there’s no way to get at the information unless you can access the server physically.”

Bas pursed his lips and looked like he was thinking about something.

“Which you’re not doing,” Cort told him. “We’ve already discussed this, Sebastian. So seriously get any idea you have of infiltrating SILA right out of your head. We don’t even have a clue where the server might be kept.”

Bas sighed. “Yeah.” The agreement was grudging and unconvincing at best.

“And,” Cort continued, still staring at Bas like he’d heard the reluctance in his voice. “As we have discussed in the past, Sebastian, obtaining information from SILA that way would only damage any case against them. None of the evidence would be admissible in court. I know you want to take down the organization, but—”

“But that’s not the way. Fine,” Bas said, frustrated. “I get it.”

Cort nodded, satisfied. “Yesterday, Cam had Margaret comb through all of the Seaver Tech projects your father took the lead on, searching for Michael Paterkin and/or Collier - the project that Paterkin mentioned in his emails. Sadly, both searches came up empty.”

Cam spoke up. “And it’s worth noting that Margaret’s memory is long, and she doesn’t remember anyone by that name.”

Drew pushed a hand through this hair. “Great. Tell me you didn’t call this meeting to tell me that all we have are dead ends.”

Cort’s grin was positively feral. “Would I do that to you? No. Darling Margaret, the love of my life, who deserves a raise by the way—” He pointed to Bas and raised an eyebrow. “Was brilliant enough to notice that there was a client your father handled who generated quite a bit of income for Seaver Tech over the years. So much income, in fact, that she was shocked she couldn’t remember the details of the project, or the contact person. She can’t remember handling any of the billing. And? There are no notes or files in the project folders. No contact person listed. It’s like they’ve all been removed.”

Bas frowned and rubbed at his chin. “I guess it’s possible there was a glitch. That something got archived…”

“It might have been possible,” Cort allowed. “But it wasn’t. Show them, Cam.”

“The name of the company is Storm Surge Enterprises,” Cam said. He turned his laptop around to show them the screen, where a very, very basic website of white text on a black background was displayed. The only visual interest on the entire page was a picture in the header bar.

“Is that Comic Sans font?” Cain demanded. “Was this created by a thirteen-year-old?”

“More like a fifty-year-old who wanted to stay under the radar, I’m pretty sure,” Cam answered, ill-concealed excitement in his voice. “The contact information at the bottom is bogus except for the email, which is listed as R. Van Rijn at Storm Surge.”

Drew blinked. “Who?”

“Van Rijn?” Cain asked, leaning forward to look at the website more closely. “Isn’t that the painter Rembrandt’s last name?” When Damon shot him a look, he said defensively, “What? My mom made me take an art appreciation class back in the day.”

“Ding ding ding!” Cam exclaimed, pointing at Cain. Then to Cort, he said, “See? I told you someone else would recognize it.”

Cort rolled his eyes. “Literally, one other person. You and Cain.”

“Not to be a kill-joy, trivia fans, but I’m still not getting why this is important,” Damon interjected in his rough voice.

“Look, Bas,” Cam said offering up the laptop. “Look at the picture on the site.”

Bas grabbed the laptop and sat back down on the chair arm, enlarging the painting on the website so he and Drew could look at it.”

Holy shit.

“Bas, isn’t that—?” Drew began, but Bas was already nodding.

“Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Bas confirmed. His jaw was set, and Drew could feel the tension coming off him, even as he handed back the laptop. For the others, he explained, “My mom did a copy of that painting - an amateur thing - in one of her art classes, and it’s hanging on the wall in the private office my dad and I shared.”

“This has to be some kind of… thing,” Cam said, gesturing with his hands. “A secret message or a clue or something. Dad is trying to tell us something.”

“Like what?” Drew asked.

“I don’t know,” Cam admitted. “But if he was bringing in money off the books, it makes sense that he’d want to push it all through a dummy company.” He grimaced. “Sort of like Alexei, in a way.”

Bas rubbed a hand over his eyes, sorrow stark on his face. “But what would the painting have to do with anything?”

Drew lifted a hand to the base of Sebastian’s spine and rubbed gently. Hearing these things about Levi Seaver, a man Bas had always looked up to, had to be killing him, and he was infinitely glad that now, finally, he had the right to touch Bas this way. To comfort him. Bas flashed him a grateful smile.

“Is it possible that there’s a safe behind there? Maybe with all the project notes and files that are missing?” Damon asked. “If this were some James Bond movie…”

“My dad was no James Bond,” Cam said. “More like Q, the tech dude.”

“Yeah, you said he wasn’t a pen-and-paper guy,” Cort mused, drumming his fingers on the table. “But then again… Maybe that would be the last thing anyone would expect.”

Cam blinked and looked at Bas for direction.

“It’s possible,” Bas allowed. “It’s not exactly a secret that the painting is there - the cleaning people have access to the office. But my dad never conducted meetings down there, so I can’t imagine anyone would have connected the dots.” He shrugged sadly. “I think at this point, neither Cam nor I can claim to be an authority on what our father would or wouldn’t have done.”

Cam huffed sadly, and Cort pulled him into a sideways embrace.

“So, we need to get into your office and look at the painting,” Cain said, looking from face to face for confirmation.

“That’s easy enough,” Bas said. “I’ll go over right now.”

“And I’ll come with you,” Drew told him.

“You might wanna wait a minute,” Cort told them. He licked his lips, looking between Drew and Bas. “You, ah, remember the final name you wanted Sean to run for you yesterday, Seaver?”

Bas frowned for a second, then his face cleared. “Oh, right.” He looked down at Drew guiltily. “Mark Charbonnier.”

“You had Sean run the name of the guy I went on a date with?” Drew demanded. “Before or after the date?”

Bas cleared his throat. “Uh, it might have been before?” He spread his hands. “I just got a bad vibe off the whole thing.”

Damon snorted. “A bad vibe called jealousy.”

“Well, it turned out he is a criminal, so it was justified,” Bas said with a nod, though his eyes sought Drew’s as though he worried Drew might be upset.

In truth, Drew was far from upset. The idea of Bas being that jealous turned his insides to putty, and the worried look in his eyes made Drew want to laugh. But he knew admitting it would only make Bas even more of a caveman, so he pressed his lips together and tried to look stern.

“You have a handy way of making up rules to suit your purposes,” he remarked. “Try to control that.”

“Or don’t,” Cort said. He glanced at Cam, and then at Cain and Damon, who all nodded solemnly, before turning back to Drew and Bas. “I’m afraid Mark Charbonnier isn’t just your garden-variety asshole. The financial services company he runs is on the list of businesses from Alexei’s server.”

“What?” Bas jumped to his feet, running a hand through his hair. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Drew was paralyzed by shock. He was vaguely aware of Bas’s agitation, but he could barely process it. Mark? The fucking idiot who looked like a turtle? Mark, with the stupid dog? He’d hardly processed the idea of that self-absorbed creep being the kind of person who’d drug him, though he knew logically that date rape wouldn’t be so rampant if you could tell that sort of thing about a guy by looking.

Still. To think he’d been texting with someone who worked with Alexei was nauseating. He had to swallow before he could force out the words, “What the hell could Alexei want with me?”

Bas sat back down and wrapped an arm around Drew’s shoulder, and Drew knew that Bas was pushing down his own anger to give him the support he needed.

Drew leaned into his solid body, and thanked his lucky stars for Bas’s caveman instincts. They’d saved him from… God only knew what.

Cort raised his eyebrows at Cain. “This is your part of the show and tell, bud.” He looked at Drew and Bas. “Damon already called and filled me in on this part, so I could get the ball rolling with Sean. But I wanted you to hear it straight from Cain.”

Cain nodded. He looked down at his hands, which were clenched tightly in his lap, the picture of nervousness.

Damon pulled his leg down from the ottoman and leaned forward, bracketing Cain’s body with his own. He leaned his chin on Cain’s shoulder. “Remember, baby, everybody here knows you’re not your father. And nobody blames you for the shit he’s done.” He glared at everyone else in the room, as though challenging them to disagree.

But of course, no one did.

“Damon’s right, Cain,” Cam said encouragingly. “You’re braver than all of us put together.”

Cain snorted, but he leaned back against Damon, looked directly at Drew, and said, “I heard from my father this morning.”

Drew looked from Cain to Cort and back. “And that’s a bad thing?”

Cain had mentioned that his dad had been trying to “salvage” their relationship, calling at Christmas and even inviting Cain to bring Damon if he agreed to visit his parents. Cain had also told them that he didn’t feel right cutting off his parents completely, though he wasn’t sure there was any relationship there to “salvage.”

“Yeah. He wasn’t calling to chat. He was calling to warn me.” He rubbed the back of his fist over his mouth. “Alexei made contact with my dad last night.”

Bas’s hand clenched on Drew’s shoulder, but otherwise his body locked down. Drew wanted to soothe him, but couldn’t. He could tell from the look in Cain’s eyes that whatever he was about to say was going to be bad.

“You know the way my father and Alexei left things after Damon and I had that confrontation with the senator.” He looked at Damon. “Alexei has information on him, he has information on Alexei. They agreed on a standoff. A ‘you don’t fire, I won’t fire’ kinda thing, with the understanding that none of us would move against Alexei either.” He nodded around the room.

“Another Cold War,” Cort said. “Or so we thought.”

“Right.” Cain agreed. “And we knew it wouldn’t last forever, because Alexei Stornovich is a crazy bastard. But we hoped it would last long enough for us to find the information to take SILA down. Acting under the radar.”

“But that changed?” Drew asked.

“Well, yes and no. I think it’s safe to say that Alexei was running his own game under the radar all along. He wanted Sebastian to work with him again.” Cain looked at Bas. “If he could get you to make the same mistake your dad made, he’d own you, just like he owned your dad. You’d never be able to move against him without ruining Seaver Tech and sending yourself to prison.”

Bas shook his head in disgust. “That’s what those emails were about?”

“Yup. But you didn’t take him seriously,” Cain said.

“Because I didn’t even know that Michael Paterkin had anything to do with Alexei!”

“Maybe he thought your dad had shared more of that with you,” Damon suggested. “I mean, he was leaving you and Cam the company the way his dad left him SILA. It stands to reason he would have shared this big, dangerous secret with you.”

“But he didn’t!” Cam said. He shook his head once, sadly. “Maybe he thought he had time. Or that he could resolve things himself.”

“Or maybe he never intended to tell us at all,” Bas said harshly. “Because he was too ashamed.”

Drew leaned his head against Bas’s chest.

“In any case, you didn’t respond favorably to his requests, so he came up with a backup plan. Getting to you through Drew.”

“Me?” Drew demanded, but then he understood. “Mark.”

“Yeah,” Cain said. “Seems that way, putting together the other stuff we figured out today. He was going to blackmail you somehow.”

Drew frowned. “I’m no saint, but I haven’t committed any felonies that I’m aware of.”

“Maybe it wasn’t going to be that kind of blackmail,” Cort said, looking from Drew to Bas, clearly uncomfortable. “If you had gone out with him, maybe slept with him…”

Beside him, Drew felt Bas tense, and he defended himself. “I didn’t!”

“No. But if you had,” Cort said in a low voice. “If he’d gotten compromising pictures of you? Threatened to publish them?”

“Then, whatever! I wouldn’t have gotten involved with SILA, even if my junk was all over the nightly news!” Drew said hotly.

“He wouldn’t have gone to you,” Cort said, looking at Bas.

Bas nodded once. He sat upright and folded his arms over his chest. “Cort’s right. If he’d come to me with those pictures… I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Drew demanded, pulling away to glare at Bas. “You would have signed your soul over to Alexei? Jesus Christ, Bas. We weren’t even together then.”

Bas turned his head, blue eyes hard. “Yes we were. We just didn’t know it yet.”

And what the hell was Drew supposed to say to that?

“But Drew didn’t date the asshole back in November,” Cam prompted.

“Right,” Cain said. “And then Alexei figured out that we weren’t sitting quietly by.”

Drew frowned at Sebastian, still more than a little annoyed at his earlier declaration. “Did he figure out you hacked his server?”

“Impossible,” Bas declared. “And that’s not bragging. It would be impossible to track me through the botnet. At best, he’d be guessing I was behind it.”

Cain nodded. “Sebastian’s right. No, somehow he figured out you’d met with the reporter.”

“Gary North?” Now it was Bas’s turn to frown down at Drew. “I told you we couldn’t trust that guy. He was all about getting in your pants!”

“No way!” Drew demanded. “Gary didn’t like Alexei at all! He wouldn’t have…”

“Jesus, could you two can it for a second and let my guy finish?” Damon demanded.

Drew hung his head for a second, trying to release the tension from his muscles, while Bas muttered, “Sorry, Cain. Go on.”

“I don’t know how he knew about you meeting Gary,” Cain told them. “I didn’t get that deep into it with my father. Although I also wouldn’t be surprised if he was paying people to follow us. Remember he’s a paranoid freak.”

Drew nodded. “Fair point.”

Bas blew out a breath. “There was a guy at the bar that night, watching us. At the time, I assumed he was interested in Drew.”

Drew shook his head. Beyond ridiculous.

“However he found out,” Cain said, his voice stronger now, “he knew you had the meeting. And that’s when he upped his game. Namely, with you, Drew.”

“With Mark, you mean.” Drew was pretty sure that date was the biggest mistake of his life. “Fuck. If he drugged me…”

“I don’t know that we need to say if anymore,” Cort interjected.

“Fine. If he’d gotten me out of that restaurant after he drugged me, he could have a billion blackmail pictures.”

“Worse,” Cort said. “He’d have you. And I don’t even need to ask Sebastian what he’d be willing to do if he thought your life was in danger, Drew, because it’s the same thing I’d do if it were Cam, the same thing any of us would do if the person we love was threatened.” He smiled grimly. “We’d sign over our souls. In a heartbeat.”

Drew pushed his lips together and nodded. Risking himself was easy enough, but risking Sebastian? Cort was one hundred percent accurate. It would take less than a heartbeat for him to sacrifice anything and everything if Bas needed him.

He looked at the unsmiling man beside him and put a tentative hand on his leg. “But that didn’t work either,” he said. “Because Sebastian saved me.”

“Which brings us to my father,” Cain said.

“Finally,” Damon muttered. “No more interruptions from any of you. It’s hard enough for Cain to get through this.”

Cain gave him a grateful smile, but it disappeared quickly. “Since Alexei can’t use you, he wants to ‘tie up loose ends.’”

Drew and Bas exchanged a glance. That sounded ominous.

“My father said he wouldn’t be involved in hiring out another murder. But Alexei said he didn’t need a ‘trigger man.’ He just needed to get everyone in one spot. And my father agreed… and then called to tell me everything.”

The strain in Cain’s voice was mirrored on every face in the room. They’d known all along that Alexei was dangerous, but to hear Cain speak it aloud - to confirm that Alexei literally wanted to kill them all - was terrifying.

“Did he say how?” Drew croaked.

“Yeah. There’s a black-tie charity auction being held by the Cambridge Collaborative,” Cain continued. “They’re a great organization - a reputable one I’m pretty sure isn’t connected to Alexei in any way. The senator is supposed to get us all to go.”

“That’s not quite what he said,” Damon growled. “He specifically said that you don’t have to be there, Cain. That you shouldn’t.”

Cain shrugged. “Irrelevant. If you’re going, I’m going.”

“We’ll see about that,” Damon muttered.

“Whoa, wait a minute.” Bas’s scowl was fierce. “Nobody is going to go!” He turned to Cort. “Right? We’re not all gonna traipse along to some party where we know we’ll have targets on our backs!”

Cort winced. “I agree with you,” he said, but not as firmly as Drew would have liked.

“Tell them,” Cam insisted, nudging Cort. “Tell them what Sean said.”

“Camden, I told you, I don’t give a shit what Sean said. Not about this.”

“Fine, I’ll do it then!” Cam said, ignoring Cort’s glare. “Sean said we should do it. He’ll get a team on-site. Maybe claim there were threats about the auction or something. The team will be our security, but they’ll also be there to watch for Alexei or his ‘trigger man.’ If they can nab him on a weapons charge, they have probable cause to get a warrant and search his premises. If they can nab his guy, they can lean on him to talk, and then have probable cause for a warrant. Either way, Alexei goes down.” He dusted his hands off. “And we are finally done.”

“If we live,” Bas exploded standing up to pace once again. “Do you hear the words you’re saying right now, little brother? You’re talking about using yourself, using all of us, as bait!”

“What’s the alternative?” Cam said coolly. His eyes, a paler version of Sebastian’s blue, were resigned.

Drew leaned forward, bracing his knees on his elbows, and ran his hands through this hair. This was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. He couldn’t imagine Sean would go along with it. And yet…

“I can’t think of one,” Drew said dully.

“No!” Bas said, turning to glare at Drew. “You’re on board with this, too? Is everyone in this room crazy?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth! I’m not on board with it. I just said I can’t think of an alternative!”

“The thing is,” Cain said softly. “It’s not like we have the choice to just stay home and stay safe. You know? If the senator doesn’t get us there, Alexei will ruin him. Or, for all I know, kill him.” He rubbed his palms on his jeans and said softly, “And maybe that’s justice. But that’s not going to stop Alexei from coming after us, too. It’s personal now. And if he doesn’t come for us this way, he’ll come for us some other way. A way we can’t predict, and can’t take action to prevent.”

The room fell silent after that. Drew looked at Bas, who was staring at Cain, seemingly frozen. And then suddenly, Bas exploded into motion.

“I can’t handle this right now,” he announced. “I’m going to Seaver Tech. I’m going to see what’s behind that fucking painting.”

“But Bas,” Cam argued, pushing to his feet. “We need to agree so we can plan…”

“I’m not agreeing to a goddamn thing, Camden!” Bas insisted. His eyes were wide, and he was shaking his head like a madman, but his voice was very precise as he bit out, “I’m going to see what’s behind that painting. And when I know, I will call you. But I’m warning you right now, no force on earth is going to make me change my mind.”

Drew shook his head. Bas, when he’d made his mind up about something, was an unstoppable force. Unfortunately, Alexei Stornovich was an immovable object.

He felt a spurt of anger in his chest. Anger, and hurt, too. They didn’t have time to deal with Bas stalking off in a huff until he could wrap his mind around an issue.

Not now. Not again.

Not after he’d fucking promised to communicate.

Bas stomped to the front door. Drew turned in time to see him grab his coat from the peg that hung there, and reach for the door handle. But just as Drew opened his mouth to protest, Bas stopped with his hand on the knob. He didn’t turn. “I’ll be in the car. If you’re coming, Andrew, you can borrow a pair of my socks.”

Drew let out a relieved breath he hadn’t known he was holding and stood. “I’m stealing your sweater, too,” he told Bas, then hurried to the bedroom.