“…Traffic on the threes. There’s an accident on 93 North in the left-lane by the gas tank that’s tying up your evening commute…”

The monotonous tone of the radio announcer filled the interior of Drew’s Acura, and Bas leaned back in the comfortable leather passenger’s seat, closing his eyes and pretending to snore. Any drive, even the twenty-minute ride to the pub where they were meeting Gary, was more fun for Sebastian when he could pester Drew.

He’d missed his friend over the past few months - a fact that had been driven home when Drew had shown up last night, exactly when Bas needed him - and he knew he had mostly himself to blame for the weeks of awkward avoidance. But strangely enough, now it was Drew who seemed to be avoiding conversation.

“Is that a comment on my driving?” Drew pretended to muse. “So smooth and comfortable you could fall asleep?”

Bas snickered, burrowing deeper into his overcoat. It was seriously cold tonight. “Right. One of these days, you’re going to want to listen to actual music, instead of talk radio. Listening to this shit makes me feel old.”

“I don’t know how to break it to you, but you are old,” Drew said with fake sympathy. “You own a car and a home, and as your attorney, I happen to know you pay taxes and insurance on both of those things.”

Sebastian grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

“Also?” Drew continued. “That shit on your business card is not for show; you’re the real-life president of a multinational tech company, which pays you a salary.”

“Funny.”

“And,” his so-called-best-friend continued mercilessly. “You were engaged not so long ago. Engaged to be married. You could have had kids by now, a family of your own.”

The words fell like an anvil, a conversational dead-end, and for a second, Bas was thankful for the monotonous radio announcer, who at least broke the silence.

“Sorry,” Drew said, true remorse in his voice. “That was thoughtless of me, throwing that out there.”

Bas shrugged, because it seemed the thing to do. “Amy was your sister.”

“Doesn’t mean I can tease you about losing the woman you loved. I’m sorry.” Drew shook his head. “And that’s my quota of apologies to you for this year and next.”

Though he appreciated Drew’s effort to lighten the mood, there were a bunch of things in Drew’s statements that just weren’t true. And as much as Bas loathed talking about feelings - and truly, it was hard to overstate the loathing - he’d been wondering since last night whether this wasn’t a huge part of the issues he and Drew had been having.

He didn’t know when they’d started keeping secrets from one another - it hadn’t been a conscious choice, at least on his part, but he knew Drew had made some assumptions about his relationship with Amy that Bas had simply let stand. And he had certainly made some assumptions about Drew’s feelings toward him that, based on what he’d said on Halloween, were a gross understatement of fact.

So.

Maybe they needed to consciously work toward some honesty.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Bas told him. “Not about the kids, for one thing.”

When Bas thought of his family, he thought of his parents, Cam, Drew… and the collection of misfit toys they’d collected over the past few months, Cain, Damon, and Cort. He thought of the weird family they’d formed after the crash.

He missed Amy the way he missed childhood - a vague sense of loss and happy memories, not the visceral heartbreak a man was supposed to feel when he lost a fiancée. Maybe he needed to tell Drew that, too.

Drew blew out a breath and nodded slowly. “Uh huh. Okay. Maybe you would have waited a while. Whatever. Did you want to change the radio station? Pick some music.”

Drew, deflecting. Bas nearly laughed.

“I’m not sure whether I want kids at all,” he continued with a shrug. “And Amy and I never discussed it.”

Bas was well aware of what it said about him, about his relationship with Amy, that he couldn’t speak with any authority about what she would have wanted on what would have been a huge issue in their marriage. He wasn’t proud of it, and that’s why he’d never discussed it.

He was ashamed because he’d stumbled into dating her because it was easy and his mother had approved. He’d stayed because it was safe. And he’d asked Amy to marry him when he wasn’t entirely sure that he was in love with her, because he wasn’t entirely sure what love looked like or if he’d ever experience it personally.

And Jesus Christ, beyond shame that he hadn’t called it off before everyone got in a plane to go celebrate and died on the way.

“I think she did,” Drew said, shaking his head slightly. “God, Bas. You never talked about this with her?”

Bas shook his head. “When we talked, it was mostly about the wedding. The dress, the venue, the ring. And she was really excited to help my mom with her charity work, since her business school thing didn’t work out.”

“But you were marrying her, for Christ’s sake. She was going to be your wife. You… you loved her, right? She loved you?”

Drew sounded legitimately angry, and Bas couldn’t say he didn’t deserve every ounce of his anger.

“Amy and I were maybe the only two people in the world who could date for months without having a single serious conversation.” He had to laugh at himself. “I mean, not that it was hard, given that neither of us liked to talk about deeper issues. But Amy had her friends, and I spent all my time in the lab, as you know. And that was fine for both of us, I guess.”

“You. Guess.”

Bas blew out a breath. He hated this. Hated it. “You want the truth, Drew? The truth is, I loved your sister a lot. She was gorgeous, and she was sweet. She got along perfectly with my mom. But…” He ran a hand through his hair. “No. I wasn’t in love with her. Not… not how I think of being in love anyway. I didn’t think about her when she wasn’t around. I didn’t call her every day.”

“God!” One single tortured syllable. “Sebastian…”

Bas wished he could see Drew’s face better in the streetlights. He was also cravenly glad he couldn’t. But there was more he needed to say.

He took a deep breath. “I’m almost positive it was the same for Amy. She liked the idea of me. Of being a Seaver. I mean, it’s not like she wanted more time or attention and I didn’t give it to her. She was happy enough to see me when I was around, and perfectly fine when I wasn’t, and I felt the same about her. She never felt the urge to hunt me down in the lab and force pad Thai on me, or whatever. She… she wasn’t my best friend.”

I didn’t need her the way I need you, he thought but didn’t speak.

Amy had been everything Drew wasn’t, really. She’d accepted where Drew had questioned, yielded where Drew had pushed, faded into the background where Drew could only ever be the brightest star in Sebastian’s sky.

Which was why Halloween still loomed so large in his mind. Drew was unequivocally the most important person in his life, and he knew he was the most important person in Drew’s. But that was friendship. The attraction he’d felt that night had come out of nowhere, and the words Drew said had rocked Bas to the core.

The red brake lights ahead of them illuminated Drew’s set face as he steered them off the highway and onto a congested Main Street in Southie. Bas struggled to fill the sudden silence.

“Have you ever just fallen into something? And it took on a life of its own?”

“God, no more,” Drew said. “I need… I need to process this, okay?” He slid the Acura into a parking space on the side of the road and shut off the engine, grabbed the keys in one large palm and pushed out of the car.

Bas frowned as he levered himself on the other side, his attention fixed on the keys in Drew’s hand. There was something about them that had caught his attention, but he couldn’t think what. Key fob, a bunch of metal keys that probably went to his house… and Sebastian’s place, too.

Drew slid them into his coat pocket as he walked briskly down the street toward the pub… down the street away from Bas.

Sebastian jogged to catch up.

“So, how are we going to handle this?” he asked, grabbing Drew by the elbow as he reached the outside of the low brick building. There were several high windows built into the walls, and the neon glow of beer signs flashed red and blue over Drew’s carefully blank face.

“I’m thinking we handle it like we ask him questions and he answers them,” Drew snapped back.

Bas rolled his eyes. Okay, so maybe the car ride had been the wrong time to force them into a new level of honesty. Still, Bas was glad they were here together; even pissy Drew was better than no Drew at all.

“Cool your jets, counselor. He’s not a hostile witness, he’s a reporter. He’s gonna be curious about why the hell we wanna know this info, and I want us to be on the same page about what to tell him.”

Drew ran a hand through his perfect hair and sighed, and Bas could practically see the wheels turning in the man’s mind as he tried to compartmentalize his conversation with Bas and get his head in the game.

Perversely, Bas was pretty sure he no longer wanted Drew to be able to do that.

Last night in his office, when Drew had leaned over his desk, Bas had wanted… something. Something he’d studiously avoided thinking about ever since Halloween. But now that his brain had caught hold of the idea, it had become a problem, like a coding issue but trickier…and he couldn’t seem to let go of it until he’d found a solution.

“How do you want to play it, then?” Drew asked, calm as a frozen river.

“Friendly,” Bas said. “I think we need to give a little information to get some information.”

“Fine.” Drew nodded. “Friendly it is.” He turned to walk inside and Bas grabbed him by the elbow again, forcing him back.

“Listen, about that, back in the car.” Bas hesitated. “I feel like there are a lot of things we haven’t talked about, and I don’t want that. Not anymore. Things are changing between us, and I won’t claim to understand it, but I also know avoiding it isn’t going to help anything.”

“You’re wrong.” Drew’s serious brown eyes shone in a stray beam from a nearby street light. “Nothing is changing. We are friends. But the things you said about Amy?” He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m upset. Just drop it for now so we can talk to this reporter. Okay?”

But Bas was still unsettled. He fucking hated this tension. Hated having Drew be disappointed in him, or whatever. As they stood on the sidewalk, breath clouding in front of their mouths, the door to the pub opened, and two men in jeans and leather jackets spilled out, laughing uproariously.

Drew huffed impatiently, grabbed the door before it closed and stepped inside, leaving no choice but for Bas to follow.

The air inside was set to blast furnace, the central bar area crowded and noisy, and nearly every one of the booths that ringed the room was occupied with people - mostly blue-collar guys still in work gear. Bas opened his mouth to speak again, but Drew had already spotted a well-dressed, brown-haired guy in the back booth. Bas recognized him from his online bio.

“Gary?” Drew said, holding out his hand in a friendly way as he reached the table. “Drew McMann.”

Gary stood and shook Drew’s hand, then broke out into a wide grin that brightened his otherwise nondescript face. “Yeah, I recognize you. From Senator Shaw’s fundraiser a couple of months ago. I was there covering him as a probable presidential candidate. Can’t say I’m too unhappy to hear that the chatter about him possibly running has died down.”

Though he’d counted Emmett Shaw as family once upon a time, Bas was extremely glad to hear confirmation that the man’s political star had dimmed, even if it had been because his son had come out in the press, rather than because he’d been exposed for the murdering traitor he was.

“No?” Drew asked. “I’d have thought a journalist would be excited for an opportunity to get to know someone early in the game like that.”

“Ah, maybe. But as a gay journalist, I can’t be entirely objective about a guy who believes in conversion therapy, you know?”

Drew chuckled and smiled his charming, megawatt smile, a smile Bas realized he hadn’t seen from Drew in… a really long time.

“Sebastian Seaver,” he interrupted, sticking out his own hand. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with us.”

“Oh, my pleasure.” Gary turned toward him, shaking his hand briefly, before turning his attention back to Drew. “I was hoping I’d run into you again.”

“Oh?” Drew said, his smile dimming somewhat as he shifted back into cagey lawyer mode. “Wanted information about Senator Shaw?”

Since both of the others were ignoring him, Bas shucked his overcoat and slid grumpily into the booth across from Gary, signaling to one of the harried waitresses.

“No,” Gary said. “God, no. We just didn’t get introduced at the fundraiser, and I felt like I’d missed my shot to get to know you better.” The grin he leveled at Drew was beyond friendly, and something about it made Bas grind his teeth.

Drew cleared his throat and slid into the booth next to Bas, while Gary resumed his seat.

“That’s, ah… The feeling’s mutual,” Drew said, and while Bas watched, his best friend blushed.

Drew hardly ever blushed.

“I mean,” Drew continued, waving a hand in the air the way he sometimes did when he was at a loss for words, “I really appreciated the interview you did with Cain. He’s a good friend of mine.”

“Yeah? I like him. A good kid. I mean, man,” Gary corrected.

“I know what you mean.” Drew’s smile was warm, open. “It was hard for me to stop thinking of him as a kid, too, even though he’s grown up a lot in the last few months.”

Gary’s eyes - a plain brown that actually, now that Bas thought about it, looked kind of beady in the low light of the bar - gleamed. “Pretty sure his boyfriend would be pretty happy if I never thought of Cain again, period.”

Drew laughed, soft and low.

And suddenly Sebastian realized what was happening right in front of him. They were flirting. Gary was fucking flirting with Drew, and Drew was… Drew was letting him.

Bas signaled to the harried waitress once again. “Excuse me? I could really use a drink over here.”

As he did, he spied a man sitting alone at a far table - an older guy with thinning sandy hair and light eyes - whose gaze was also locked on their table. Was everyone staring at Drew tonight? Had this always happened, and Bas had just been oblivious until now?

“Jesus. What is with this place?” he muttered.

Gary spared him a confused glance, but his gaze returned to Drew with magnet-like accuracy. “So, Drew, what do you do exactly?”

Oh, like nosy Gary didn’t know.

“He’s the head of the legal department at Seaver Tech,” Bas said impatiently. Someone needed to redirect this conversation. They were here for a fucking purpose, after all. “And he’s here because I asked him to come along. I had some questions about the assignment you were working before the Senator.”

Gary blinked, then finally managed to focus on Bas, looking back and forth between him and Drew with undisguised curiosity. “My investigation into SILA?”

“Exactly,” Bas confirmed, his voice crisp and businesslike. He ignored the pointed look Drew shot him. “They’ve recently been mentioned in some business dealings of ours, and we wanted to learn more. Get the inside track, so to speak.”

“Okay,” Gary agreed, drawing the word out. “What did you want to know?”

“Well,” Drew said, faint apology in his tone. “General information would be great, since we can’t really talk about why we need the info. Anything you could tell us about the power players, rackets they run, or where they operate would be helpful.”

“So, SILA 101?” Gary said, just as the waitress finally, finally came over to their table. “Um, another Johnny Walker rocks for me,” he told her.

“Oh, a whisky drinker?” Drew said with a smile. “A man after my own heart. Same,” he told the waitress.

Bas gritted his teeth. What the fuck did that even mean, a man after his own heart? God. Drew was being an idiot, but Gary seemed to enjoy it.

“Vodka tonic,” Bas said, when the waitress finally turned her attention to him. “Make it a double.”

Drew gave him a disbelieving look, but Bas ignored it. “Right, so, what can you tell us, Gary?” he demanded instead.

“Well,” Gary began, and once again he looked at Drew as he spoke, like Bas wasn’t the one asking the questions, like he couldn’t see Bas sitting right in front of him, like Bas and Drew hadn’t fucking come here together.

What the hell was taking the waitress so long?

“I’m happy to tell you what I know. But I feel like I need to preface this by saying that everything I know has been learned through anonymous sources who cannot be reached to testify.” He looked briefly at Bas before turning his attention back to Drew. “I’ve already explained this to the police. The main reason I still have my head attached to my shoulders is that everything I’ve written is technically unprovable. Urban legend I have no interest in proving, for my own safety.”

“Of course,” Drew said easily. “No, this is strictly for our own knowledge. Nothing concerning a legal matter.”

Gary nodded. His gaze narrowed on Drew’s face and his lips twitched. “So mysterious,” he said smoothly. “I like that.”

Ugh. Gary was creeping him out.

Bas cleared his throat. “Drew mentioned power players?” he interrupted, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “What can you tell us about them?”

Gary’s questioning eyes flickered to him. “If you want to know about the power players in SILA, you want to know about the Stornovich family,” he said.

“Right. I’ve heard of them,” Drew said, frowning in concentration as though the names weren’t at the forefront of his brain. “Ilya and Alex, I think?”

“Yes, Ilya Grigorovich Stornovich and his son, Alexei Ilyich Stornovich.”

The waitress returned with their drinks, and Gary fell momentarily silent. When she left, he took a sip of his whisky, and Drew did the same. Bas threw back his drink in four quick gulps, then motioned to her for a refill. This meeting was a pain in the ass already.

“Ilya Stornovich was born in the Ukraine,” Gary began. “Sometime in the early 1930’s. How much do you know about Russian history?”

“Not much,” Drew admitted.

“Is this really relevant?” Bas demanded.

“Well, given that I don’t really know what you’re looking for, I can’t say for sure, can I?” Gary said sharply. “But if you want to know generally about SILA, I believe it is.” He took a deep breath like he was composing his thoughts.

“The common joke about Russian history is that every chapter could end with ‘…and then it got worse.’ But even with that said, the 1930s in the Ukraine were a particularly dark time. Communism was alive and well, and Joseph Stalin had a five-year plan… a plan that involved shipping almost all the grain in the Ukraine back east to the cities of Russia.” He stopped and took a sip of his whisky. “Starvation was rampant. It was a time when if you didn’t look like you were starving, your neighbors would rat you out and you’d be accused of hiding food somewhere, which was how Ilya’s father, Grigori, died. Ilya became a thief before he was a teenager just to keep his family fed. And after the war, he got even bolder - moved to Kiev and started smuggling in western goods. That’s what landed him in a gulag - a Russian prison.”

Drew braced his feet and leaned across the table toward Gary, caught up in the story. Bas couldn’t help but notice the way Drew’s shoulders shifted beneath the wool overcoat he still wore and how the dim, yellow light of the bar made his hair look more auburn than brown. He wore the sharp-eyed, curious expression Bas had seen hundreds of times, but tonight it somehow made Bas’s stomach twist sharply.

God, what was wrong with him tonight? Maybe it was the vodka?

He refocused his attention on Gary, who was still staring into Drew’s brown eyes.

“Can we speed this up?” Bas asked. Drew kicked him sharply under the table and Bas turned his head. “What? I’m not here for world history.”

“Please continue, Gary,” Drew said with a smile. ‘I am fascinated.”

Gary winked.

So unprofessional.

“Well, no matter how deep I dug, I was never able to find out exactly how he got from the gulag to the States.” He shook his head with what seemed like amused respect. “I’m guessing there’s a reason why that story doesn’t get told. Being sent to the gulag was pretty much a death sentence, so for him to not only survive but find his way to New York was miraculous and likely required some high-level string-pulling. Ilya had made a lot of friends while he was in prison. Climbed pretty high in the hierarchy of what later became the Russian mafia, or Bratva. Learned to hate everything to do with the government, if he didn’t already. Learned a certain code of honor that earned him respect. And Ilya put all of that to use when he came to New York.”

Once again, Gary paused as the waitress brought Bas his second drink.

“By the time the Soviet Union fell,” he continued a moment later. “Ilya had already moved to Boston and had made himself a bunch of high powered friends - the Colombians, the Irish. While the leaders of the Russian underground were busy dividing up their territory back home, Ilya was already here, staking his own claim, founding SILA.” He looked from Drew to Bas. “He grew his syndicate, and he consolidated his power. And he kept to his own code of honor - he sold information, weapons, protection. Because that was all government bullshit, right? But he became his own authority - kept his men from committing violent crimes as much as possible, kept drugs out of his neighborhood. He was like a Ukrainian Robin Hood. He was, in a word, beloved.”

Drew sat back in his seat, his leg shifting against Bas’s, and they exchanged a look. Drew seemed surprised, but Bas was pretty sure every word Gary said was bullshit. The fucked-up deference Gary was showing Ilya, like the man was a folk hero and SILA was his merry band of elves, was ridiculous. SILA was a group of criminals, and Ilya Stornovich was a murderer. Anyone who said differently was lying.

Bas gripped his glass so tightly his knuckles turned white, and Drew pressed their thighs together beneath the table - either a private show of support or, more likely, a warning for Bas to keep his mouth shut.

But that wasn’t gonna happen.

“Skip to the important part. When did Ilya become a murderous, scum-sucking asshole?” Bas demanded.

Gary blinked, apparently startled by Bas’s vehemence. “Well, the short version is… he didn’t.”

“Bull,” Bas said. “You’re telling me SILA is a charitable organization?”

“Oh, fuck no,” Gary said, shaking his head. His tiny brown eyes - soulless, like a demon’s - turned toward Bas for once. “No, the change that occurred in the organization wasn’t Ilya’s doing, it was Alexei’s.” Gary’s face darkened. “If Ilya is Robin Hood, then Alexei is like that spoiled kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who’s obsessed with getting her way, except imagine him with a penchant for violence and firearms. He’s managed to fuck things up royally in the dozen years since he’s taken over.”

“How so?” Drew asked.

Drew’s leg was still resting against Sebastian’s, not a silent communication anymore but a casual touch. He wasn’t sure if Drew was aware of it, but it felt nice - warm and comfortable. The easy familiarity grounded Bas, and soothed something inside him that had felt prickly and raw all night.

It reminded him of the way their legs had pressed together during that kiss back in October — so much so that he fought the urge to put his hand on Drew’s back to claim more of his heat. And yeah, maybe also to warn off the weird, sandy-haired dude at the next table, whose eyes kept flicking over to Drew in a speculative way every time he thought he could get away with it.

“Day one of Alexei’s regime, he told his men they had carte blanche,” Gary said, rolling his eyes. “We are SILA, we follow no rules but our own. You can guess, everyone was thrilled, from the lieutenants on down to the foot soldiers. They could now drink, smoke, drug, party, fuck, kill, and steal with impunity. So they did. For years. And he managed to lose any respect his father had gained in the community, as well as most of the support from his seconds.”

Gary turned his glass on the table in front of him, seemingly absorbed in the way the light played over the amber liquid inside. Drew and Bas exchanged another look.

“It’s probably strange that I’m so invested in this, huh?” Gary said, glancing up in amusement. “But I have my reasons.”

Reasons. Bas rolled his eyes, but Drew gave Gary an encouraging smile that had Bas tapping his fingers against the tabletop, thumb-pinkie, thumb-pinkie, ignoring the look Drew shot him.

Drew bit his bottom lip. “So you’re saying that Alexei isn’t very popular? There’s a rift within the organization?”

This, this, was what they’d come here to learn about. Not some history lesson about brave and noble Ilya, but the inside track on how to take the fuckers down for good. Bas barely stopped himself from leaning in to hear the answer.

With inquisitive eyes, Gary looked back and forth between Drew and Bas again, but he was far too smart to betray his curiosity out loud. Instead, he took his time before answering the question. “A rift, no. Grumblings, though, for sure. The lieutenants are tired of cleaning up the messes of foot soldiers who have no control. Hell, even the men, themselves, are tired of wondering whether they can trust their brothers, tired of inspiring fear but not respect. Alexei trusts almost no one. Their computer servers are almost all offline now, and they run each crew with strict secrecy so that only a handful of people understand the larger picture. There’s little camaraderie. Alexei has used his men to carry out his personal vendettas, even when it costs money and the lives of his crew. And he’s taken their business ventures into shadier and shadier avenues. Sex trade, child trafficking, adoption scams, identity fraud.” He smiled grimly. “It’s all fun and games until you end up on the terror watch list.”

“Terrorism?” Bas said, blinking. “Like bombings and things?”

“Not his crew themselves,” Gary said, shaking his head. “Not yet anyway. But they do like to broker technology, that’s for damn sure.” Bas fought to keep his gaze on Gary, when he really wanted to look at Drew. Brokering technology? Like the kind they’d gotten from Seaver in the past? “But they’ve gotten into stealing identities and using the stolen info to obtain passports for foreign nationals looking to come into the US.”

“And the government knows this?” Drew demanded.

“I shouldn’t have to explain the difference between knows and is able to prove to you, Drew,” Gary chided. He shook his head. “Law enforcement agencies are likely well-aware that this is happening, but Alexei is…”

“Slippery,” Bas finished, using the word he’d been thinking of just last night as he’d looked at Alexei’s picture on his computer screen.

Gary nodded. “Indeed.”

“Maybe there’ll be some kind of internal coup, and Alexei will be dethroned,” Drew speculated. Gary and Bas both looked at him, and Drew shrugged, as though he was embarrassed. “What? I can be an idealist and a lawyer at the same time.”

Gary smiled like Drew was magic, and Bas resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“I hope you’re right,” Gary allowed. “I had heard that one of Alexei’s lieutenants was thinking to approach Ilya, see if he could corral his son. I don’t believe anything ever came of it. Likely, he recalled Alexei’s impressive collection of guns and his talent for using them.”

“What’s the guy’s name?” Bas asked, at the same time Drew demanded, “Why isn’t Ilya still in charge?”

“Ilya gave the throne to his son because he wanted to,” Gary said, answering Drew’s question first because he was a kiss-ass that way. “SILA was his legacy, something he’d built so that his family would never starve, and he’d always recognized that at a certain point, his son wouldn’t be willing to take orders anymore. He retired to Florida, if you can believe it. Tampa… or something.” Gary shook his head. “He stays out of his son’s affairs completely - cut ties to everyone in the organization, specifically to prevent anyone from using him to usurp Alexei’s power.”

He turned to Bas, and his eyes were cold and serious. “As to the name of the lieutenant who wanted to breach protocol? I have no idea, and frankly I wouldn’t tell you even if I did. That’s the kind of information that gets people killed.”

“That’s the kind of information that could save lives,” Bas argued, jaw clenched. “If someone could use it to compromise them from the inside.”

“And is that your goal, Mr. Seaver?” Gary demanded.

Bas sat back and glared at him stonily, and Gary smiled.

“Fine. Keep your secrets. But trust me when I tell you, a man could be shot for betrayal just for taking my call. And I won’t have more deaths on my conscience.”

“Must be nice to have the option to save your own ass.”

Gary downed his drink in a single gulp and glared at Bas. “The reason I know all that I know about SILA is that I don’t name names. Ever. Not to the authorities, and sure as hell not to spoiled, rich men who are looking to make deals. Alexei wants people to be scared because he thinks they’ll keep their mouths shut. But when they’ve been threatened with losing too much, when their family members have been raped and beaten, when they live in fear every day, they’ve gone beyond that. They get to a place where they’re too scared to stay silent anymore, because they don’t believe their silence will protect them. In exchange for their stories, I’ve helped some of them find resources, ways to start over in places outside of Alexei’s influence.” He shook his head once, quickly. “That’s how I help save lives.”

Bas pushed down an uncomfortable niggling sense of shame as Gary stood and tossed a few bills on the table. He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Drew.

“If you need any more information,” he said, and Bas was almost positive he wasn’t imagining the emphasis on the you, “reach out. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, maybe over dinner sometime.”

Drew smiled and gave Bas a pointed look. “That would be nice. To… talk.”

“Or,” Gary said, his tiny hamster eyes glinting as he leered at Drew. “We could just not talk at all.”

He tossed Drew a wink, gave Bas a brisk nod, and walked away.

Bas barely had time to catch his breath before Drew rounded on him. “What. The. Fuck. Was that?”

“I know! That guy. Jesus. Made my skin crawl.”

“Not Gary! You! That… thing you were just doing.” Drew waved his hand above the table, his eyes sparkling with fury. “Be friendly, you said. He’s not a hostile witness, you said. Jesus, Sebastian. What the fuck?”

“I was fine when we came in!” Bas defended, folding his arms across his chest. “I just refuse to hear him talking about Ilya Stornovich like… like…”

“Like he’s a human being? With a history and a past? With reasons for doing the shitty things he does, just like you?”

“Like he’s a hero.”

Drew blew out a breath. “He was not talking about him like a hero, Bas. He wasn’t. He was saying that he’s better than his son, and I believe that. Remember what Cain told us about his talk with his father? Senator Shaw said that when Seaver Tech took startup money from the Russians, he and your dad originally made their deal with Ilya, and shit didn’t start to go bad until later, when Alexei took over.”

“So?”

“So, it makes sense that Gary appreciates the concept of honor among thieves. Motive matters.”

Bas rolled his eyes, aware that he was behaving like a child, but unable to stop himself. “Yeah, it sure as hell does.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” Bas said snidely. “I think you’re a little bit biased when it comes to Gary. Oh, Gary, take me to dinner. Oh, Gary, call me.”

Drew’s face flushed a deep scarlet. “I said no such thing. Fuck you, Sebastian.”

“Wouldn’t you rather fuck Gary?” The second the words were out of his mouth, Bas knew he’d gone too far. Drew shook his head, disgust written on his face, and stood up from the table.

Bas grabbed his coat and followed Drew through the bar. “Hey, wait!” He paused when the sandy-haired man turned in his seat to watch them leave. “And you, keep your eyes in your fucking head.” The man’s eyes widened and he held up his hands in surrender.

Drew didn’t acknowledge Bas, and he didn’t slow down. He pushed his way through the crowded bar and threw open the front door, nearly hitting Bas in the face. He stormed down the block.

“Drew! Jesus,” Bas said, jogging to catch up to him and grabbing his arm as they reached Drew’s car. “You’re angry? Fine, whatever. But don’t just walk away from me.”

Don’t let us fall apart when we just started talking again.

“Let me go, Bas,” Drew said. His voice was low and tight, and his eyes in the streetlight were shiny with tears. He wasn’t angry, Bas saw. He was hurt.

Goddammit. Hurting Drew was the last thing he wanted to do.

Bas dropped his elbow immediately and ran a hand over his hair. “Listen, I’m sorry. I… I was pissed off at Gary, and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, okay? I don’t know what my problem is.” Except that conversation about Amy stirred up things I don’t want to think about, and I feel like I’m going to lose you, and I really don’t want to do that.

“No,” Drew said. “Not okay.” He pushed Bas out of his way and strode to the driver’s door.

“Are you going to give me a ride?” Bas asked, almost pleading.

“You know what?” Drew said, clenching his jaw. He opened his mouth, then seemed to rethink, and closed it again. “Fine,” he said. “Get in.”

Bas folded himself into the Acura and barely shut the door before Drew pulled away from the curb.

“Drew, I’m really…”

“I really don’t wanna hear it, Sebastian.”

Goddammit. He couldn’t remember the last time Drew had been mad at him. Not like this, anyway. Drew always gave Bas a chance to apologize. That was… that was their thing.

His gaze caught on Drew’s keyring, and he finally realized what had been bugging him about it earlier. The keys and key fob were there, but his keychain was missing.

“Your sand dollar is gone,” he accused, pointing at the key ring.

“What?”

“The blue sand dollar keychain that I gave you back at summer camp. The night I…” Kissed you for the first time. Told you I wasn’t gay. Promised you I wouldn’t run away from you again. Fuck. “The last night of camp. I saw it on your keyring a few months ago, back when you lent your car to Cain and Damon.”

“Oh. It broke, Bas,” Drew said bleakly. “It’s gone.”

“Gone? Couldn’t we fix it?” It was a stupid keyring, a thing he’d forgotten about for nearly twenty years, but it had meant something to Drew. Another of those things Bas had taken for granted, and hadn’t noticed until it was missing.

“Not everything can be glued back together, Sebastian,” Drew told him, and Bas panicked just a tiny bit.

“Drew, I know you’re mad, but you’ve gotta let me…”

“What, Bas? Say you’re sorry? Why? Because that’s how it’s always been? Bas fucks up, Bas apologizes after a day or a month, and Drew just accepts it?”

Well. It sounded pretty shitty when he put it that way.

“How about ‘Bas mouths off, Bas realizes that whatever stupid bullshit he said wasn’t an accurate reflection of his true feelings and appreciation for his best friend, Bas apologizes sincerely because he really never meant to hurt Drew, and Drew accepts because he recognizes that his best friend is an asshole who’s missing a few wires between his brain and his mouth?”

Drew drove the car for several blocks, red brake lights from the traffic around them giving his face a ghastly red glow.

“The thing is,” Drew said, enunciating each word clearly. “That’s not a healthy friendship, Sebastian. I sometimes feel like I have more invested in this friendship than you do. It hurt when you disappeared. It hurts that you didn’t tell me the truth about you and Amy. It hurts that you’re accusing me of throwing myself at Gary North, because that’s not what was happening at all and even if it was, it would be my business and not yours.”

Bas blinked. “Of course it’s my business. I’m your friend. And you don’t have more invested than I do. You don’t, Drew.” He reached out to put a hand on Drew’s arm.

But Drew didn’t seem to hear him. “It’s not your fault,” he went on. “I’ve let things get skewed, and that’s on me. Okay? And I love you. Of course I do. And we’ll always be best friends. Just… give me a little time to process things, okay?”

“I thought me avoiding you was part of the problem!” Bas argued. “How is you processing any different?”

“Because I’m saying let’s not talk on this car ride, not see you in February.”

Okay, fair enough. “It’s just that I didn’t intend to avoid you for a month either,” Bas said softly. “Things just get out of hand when you don’t talk about them right away. The things we need to process alone become secrets, and then those secrets make things harder later.”

Drew was quiet for a moment. “It breaks my heart,” he finally offered. “Knowing you were going to marry Amy and weren’t in love with her.”

Bas sucked in a pained breath at the disappointment in Drew’s voice. This was better, he reminded himself. Better than silence.

“You’re my best friend, and she’s my sister. And I wanted better for both of you.”

“Do you blame me?” Bas forced himself to ask. The question had been weighing on him for a while. “For her death?”

“Christ no! No.” Drew looked over at him briefly. “Not at all, Sebastian. If everyone hadn’t been going to celebrate your engagement, it would have been something else. I have never for one second held you responsible.”

Bas nodded, and he couldn’t deny the relief that he felt at those words.

“It’s just the idea of you falling into something that takes on a life of its own.” Drew shook his head. “You’re smarter than that.”

Bas laughed dully. “You’d think. But I’m finding there are a lot of areas where I’m really fucking slow.”

Looking at Drew now, at the hard cut of his jaw and the soft fall of his hair, he was beginning to realize just how slow.

“I’m sorry for what I said about Gary,” he offered. “I didn’t like the way he flirted with you.” He shook his head and admitted, “I didn’t like the way you smiled at him.”

“I smile at a lot of people,” Drew said. “Pro tip: it’s generally considered friendly.”

“Yeah, thanks. But… you don’t give other people that smile. That’s the smile you use for me. It’s… I dunno. Different. Like you’re really focused on me. It’s special.” It was a flirtatious smile, he realized now, a smile of total interest and absorption. And he wanted that from Drew. He coveted it.

Like fucking One-Eyed Willie the pirate and his Goonie treasure.

Drew laughed and ran a hand over his face, but didn’t argue the point.

“And there was another guy in the bar looking at you, too,” Bas grumbled. “Watching you from afar like a fucking creeper.” He shook his head. “Next time I’m going to bring a baseball bat.”

Drew looked at him and frowned. “Or you could just let me take care of my own love life, thank you very much. I can decide who I want to date on my own.”

The idea of Drew dating made him weirdly anxious, and he really didn’t want to think about it. As long as it all stayed hypothetical, he’d try to control himself.

“You’re, uh… not planning on dating Gary, though, are you?”

Drew smirked - a sexy, sideway twist of his lips - and pondered a long moment before answering. “No. I don’t think so. Although I think he’s a very good guy. An upstanding guy.”

“If you’re into rodent eyes,” Bas mumbled, looking out the window.

“You’re ridiculous.”

Yeah. He kinda was.

He was also able to deny that he was attracted to his best friend.

Drew found a parking place on the street barely half a block from Bas’s gate - a minor miracle at this time of night - and neatly maneuvered the car into place.

“Come in with me,” Bas said impulsively.

Without turning to look at him, Drew shook his head. “Not tonight, Bas. I’m tired.”

“You’re annoyed, still. And I deserve it. But we haven’t hung out in a long time, and I’ve really missed you.”

Drew contemplated this in silence, his finger tapping on the steering wheel.

“We can order whatever you want,” Bas promised. “You got me Thai last night, so you can pick the place. Even that gross pizza with the sprouted wheat crust. And we can play a video game - your choice. I’ll let you kick my ass at FIFA. Or we can watch whatever you want on TV, even if you wanna go wild and crazy with CNN.”

“Shut up.” Drew whacked him on the arm, and Bas took the blow with the same thrill of glad relief he’d have felt if Drew had hugged him, because that teasing slap meant that Drew was forgiving him… probably. As long as he didn’t fuck it up again.

“We’re getting wheat pizza with extra vegetables,” Drew said, shutting off the engine. “And you’re eating it, too,” he warned. “No getting a second one with extra cheese and lard for yourself.”

“I will avoid lard and eat the cardboard as penance,” Bas promised, pulling himself out of the car.

Drew locked the door and met Bas on the sidewalk, shaking his head ruefully. “One of these days, I will figure out how to stay mad at you.”

Bas slung his arm around Drew’s shoulders. “I sincerely hope you never do.”