Saving Ren (Barretti Security Series, Book 3) (22 page)

They both turned and saw Vin and Dom winding through the crowd with their significant others in tow. It wasn’t until both men noticed that he and Declan were holding hands that they fell silent.

“Are you…” Dom lifted his eyes from their joined hands. “Are you two together?”

“Yeah, we are,” Declan said.

Dom and Vin exchanged glances. “Declan, I’m sorry, I never knew…”

“Nobody did, Dom. I made sure of it.”

Dom seemed at a loss for words and it was Logan who broke the tension. He dragged Declan into a bear hug. “Congratulations you two,” he said as he reached for Jagger. After that there were more hugs and questions about how they’d met but Jagger could feel the tension running through Declan and he knew the stress of lying to the two men he considered family was taking its toll. For whatever reason, Ren still hadn’t reached out to his brothers to tell them he was back and it wasn’t their place to do so either.

“Declan, you mind if we cut out early?” Jagger asked. “My head’s starting to hurt a bit.”

“Yeah, sure,” Declan said and Jagger could feel the relief go through him.

They said their goodbyes and began walking towards the front entrance but Jagger was caught off guard when Declan dragged him into a secluded alcove and wrapped his arms around him.

“I miss him so much,” Declan whispered.

He held Declan tight against him. “I do too. He would have loved watching you do this tonight,” Jagger murmured.

“Thanks for getting us out of there.”

“Let’s go home, Declan.”

Declan nodded against his neck. Jagger took the keys from the Valet when the car was brought around. Once they were on the road he asked, “What did you and the Chief talk about?”

“He wants me to take the Lieutenant’s exam.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say it directly but I got the impression he wants me to be Captain at some point. You have to be a Lieutenant for at least a year before you can become Captain.”

“You think he wants Mitchell out?” Jagger asked.

“I think so. He kept saying it was time for the department to catch up to the times.”

“You going to do it?”

Declan was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think you’d be fucking incredible at it,” Jagger said. “Haven’t you ever thought about it?”

“Once or twice but it’s such a high profile job that I was always worried it would be harder to hide my secret.”

Jagger grinned at him. “Well, you took care of that in a big way tonight.”

Declan smiled. “Yeah. God, that felt good.”

They both fell silent as Jagger drove but Declan soon said, “Where are you going? You missed the turn.”

Jagger steered the car into a deserted parking lot and got out. He waited until Declan came around to his side of the car but cut off the tirade he was on about what they were doing there with a kiss. He yanked open the back door of the car and pushed Declan inside. He climbed in after him and closed the door and used the key fob to lock the car.

“Jagger, what the hell-”

Jagger kissed him again and then began reaching for the bow tie around his neck. “Now what is it that you were saying you wanted to do to me in the back seat of the limo you neglected to rent?”

Declan smiled broadly and then reached for the button on Jagger’s pants.

Chapter 12

Ren watched his brother kiss Cade goodbye. It was strange to see his baby brother all grown up and in a relationship with someone, but it offered him a measure of comfort to know that Rafe had finally found the happiness he deserved.

“You want some more coffee?” Rafe asked.

Ren shook his head. Rafe filled his own cup and returned to sit on the couch next to him.

“You don’t need to stay and babysit me, you know. You can go back to work.”

“Is it babysitting if I’m not getting paid?” Rafe joked.

Ren smiled but then sobered. “How are Dom and Vin?”

“They’re good,” Rafe said. “I think they’re still struggling with everything that’s happened but we’re taking it really slow.”

“They’re blaming themselves for what happened with Gary?”

Rafe nodded. “It doesn’t help that I blamed them for so long. If I’d been a smarter hacker, I would have thought to check their files for information about me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I always thought they hadn’t looked for me. If I’d done a search on myself, I would have seen all the files and notes they had on the searches they did for me, the PIs they’d hired.”

“Would you have come back here if you’d known?” Ren asked.

Rafe fell silent at that. “No,” he finally said. “I was too hung up on the belief that being around them would make me think of Gary and everything that had happened.”

“It doesn’t?”

Rafe shook his head. “New memories are replacing the old ones. Like watching Dom and Vin bicker over the stupidest things like when we were kids. Or family dinner.”

“Family dinner?”

Rafe nodded. “I guess it’s something Logan’s side of the family started but now it includes Dom and Vin and Mia. Cade I started going a couple weeks ago – it’s gotten so big that they had to move it to Vin’s house.”

Ren’s heart sank as he realized that even if he got to a point where he was a part of family celebrations, not all of his family would be there.

“Sorry,” Rafe whispered.

Ren shook his head. “I guess it would have been hard to explain to Vin and Dom why I need two extra chairs at the dinner table instead of just one.”

“You know that wouldn’t matter to them.”

Ren fell silent as pain bloomed in his chest. “I miss them so much,” he whispered. “You know, I actually started to believe I could have a normal life. That I’d been forgiven for what I did to my team…for what I did to Brandon.”

“You can still have that,” Rafe said softly.

Ren shook his head. “All those men died because I was a fool. Because I made the wrong choice-”

“Jesus, Ren, didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Fuck,” Rafe said as he suddenly stood. He quickly disappeared down the hallway leading to the bedrooms but was back a moment later with a sheaf of papers in his hand. “I thought the military would have told you when they debriefed you.”

“Tell me what?” Ren repeated in frustration.

“Geraldine Holt got your team’s exact location from one of your teammates, not you.”

“What?”

“Shit, let me start at the beginning. When I started hacking Dom and Vin’s servers for information to steal, I discovered emails that described the ambush on your unit and your imprisonment. I didn’t even know you were missing until then. I decided to do some investigating and found some emails on the DOD’s servers that a guy named Phillip Benton had deleted.”

“You hacked the Department of Defense?”

Rafe brushed him off and continued. “The emails mentioned a villager who knew where you were being held hostage and I was able to anonymously send the coordinates to Vin.”

Ren couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Rafe was the reason he’d been found?

“I didn’t look at all the emails and it wasn’t until someone came after me in L.A. that we figured out the rest – that Geri and Benton had been working together to sell the weapons your team was escorting. Benton’s the guy Jagger shot when he came after me a couple months ago. After Cade got out of the hospital, I went back and started looking through more and more of the emails. I found an email between Geri and Benton where Geri was saying the cowboy had finally given her what she needed. It didn’t make any sense to me until I saw another email where she was talking about a stallion that wasn’t biting.”

“I don’t understand-”

“What was the name of your high school football team?”

Ren froze. “The stallions,” he whispered.

“You know a guy named Danning?”

Ren nodded. “He was on my team. Holt Danning.”

“Danning went to Oklahoma State University. Their football team is the-”

“Cowboys,” Ren said in amazement.

“I hacked Danning’s email and texts. I found pictures of him and Geri together – pictures he’d sent his folks. He told them that he and Geri were engaged.”

Ren’s head began to pound as pieces clicked into place. He’d never had a clear idea of exactly how Geri had determined their exact route – he’d only told her the general vicinity.

“Danning used his government email to send the pictures to his parents. We figured someone must have made the connection at the DOD. We assumed they would have told you during your debriefing in Germany. Vin said you didn’t say much about it.”

“Jesus,” Ren said as he stood on shaky legs. “It wasn’t my fault?” he whispered.

“It wasn’t your fault,’ Rafe responded as he also stood. Ren couldn’t move or speak as he felt Rafe’s arms wrap around him. He just stood there as his brother held him and tried to make sense of it all.

***

Declan stepped off the elevator and nodded at Dom’s secretary. “Hi Cecile.”

“Good afternoon, Detective Hale,” she said with a smile. “You can go on in. Mr. Barretti will be in shortly.”

“Thanks,” Declan said as he went into the conference room on the other side of Cecile’s desk. His gut tightened as he saw the blinds were drawn on the glass wall. When he opened the door, his stomach fell when he saw Jagger pacing back and forth in front of the windows that overlooked the city.

“Fuck, this can’t be good,” Jagger murmured as he came around the table and gave Declan a quick kiss.

“Do you know what this is about?” Declan asked.

Jagger shook his head. “Dom’s secretary called me and said there was a staff meeting.”

“Hey guys,” Dom said as he walked into the room, a bright smile on his face. Vin was right behind him.

Declan reached his hand down to clasp Jagger’s. He’d been preparing for this moment since the day he’d told Ren he would keep his secret but he still wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the only two men that had been a part of his life longer than anyone else.

“So what’s up?” Vin asked as he dropped down into one of the fancy, high backed leather chairs that surrounded the huge table.

Declan glanced at Jagger in confusion and then at Dom. “Didn’t you call this meeting?”

“No, we thought you did,” Dom said as he glanced at Vin.

“I called it.” All four men turned to see Cade stride into the room. Rafe was right behind him. Anticipation went through Declan as he saw Rafe glance behind him and then Ren was walking into the room, his eyes instantly seeking him and Jagger out.

“Oh God,” Declan heard Dom whisper and then Ren was in Dom’s arms. Vin’s arms wrapped around both of his brothers and then somehow Rafe was being dragged into the mix. Declan felt tears sting his eyes and he turned into Jagger’s embrace.

As happy as he was for the brothers to finally be reunited, Declan had seen the look in Ren’s eyes when their gazes had briefly connected. There’d been no joy at seeing them – just pain. And in that instant Declan had known that Ren wasn’t coming home.

The group hug went on for several minutes and Declan could hear Ren’s soft murmurs as he spoke to his brothers. Dom and Vin finally released them and sat down.

“Would you sit, please?” Ren asked as he glanced first at Jagger and then at Declan. The scene was surreal as Vin and Dom sat on one side of the table and Declan and Jagger on the other. Ren sat at the head of the table while Rafe and Cade stood off to the side.

Ren turned his attention on Dom and Vin. “I need you to let me say what I need to say before you start asking questions, okay?”

Dom and Vin both nodded.

“I’m sorry for disappearing like I did after the shooting. I was scared…” Ren said. He glanced at Declan and Jagger for a moment before turning his attention back to Vin and Dom. “I was scared that I was going to end up hurting one of you or one of the people that you loved. But I knew you wouldn’t just let me go if I asked you to. After Declan told me there wouldn’t be any charges against me, I tried to leave. He told me I should wait to talk to you but when he saw that I was going to leave anyway, he made me a deal.”

Declan shuddered as he felt Ren’s eyes shift to him again and hold his gaze as he spoke. “He offered me the use of a cabin he owned in the mountains and gave me some money. I told him the only way I would agree is if he promised he would stay away.”

“You knew where he was?” Vin said angrily.

“Vinny,” Ren said softly and Vin fell silent when his eyes returned to his brother. Ren’s eyes drifted down to where his hand was idly rubbing against the tabletop. “But I didn’t go straight to the cabin.”

Ren was silent for so long that Dom finally asked, “Where’d you go, Ren?”

“I went to buy a gun.”

***

Ren heard Dom suck in his breath at his response. God, what he wouldn’t give to be sitting between Declan and Jagger right now. To be able to draw from their strength. He forced his eyes up and looked at Dom and Vin. He could tell they had a million questions but they were doing their best to respect his request to not ask them.

“It took me 3 days to find someone who would sell me a gun. Once I had it, I went to the cabin. It was still light out when I got there but as it got darker I started hearing things. I thought…I thought they were coming to get me to take me back to my hole,” he said softly as he dropped his eyes back to the table.

“Part of me was actually kind of glad because at least in my hole I knew what to expect. I had already accepted that I would die down there so it was okay. But another part of me had decided I wasn’t going to go out in that shithole and that I would take as many of them out as I could…I just had to remember to save one bullet.”

“Jesus,” he heard someone mutter – one of his brothers presumably since he knew Jagger and Declan’s voices by heart.

“I don’t remember everything after the first shot,” he admitted. “I guess some big asshole knocked the door down to save my ass and I took a shot at him,” he said with a small smile and he glanced up in time to see Jagger smiling at him. He forced himself to turn his attention back to his brothers. “Declan and Jagger saved my life that night. And every night after that,” he added.

Vin and Dom both cast glances at Declan and Jagger but quickly turned their focus back on him. “They knew it wasn’t safe for me to be alone or around other people so they made a deal with me. They would keep me safe so I could focus on getting better. My condition was that they not tell you where I was.”

He didn’t miss the hurt in either of his brother’s eyes but he pressed on. “I need you both to be okay with them lying to you so they could keep their promise to me. They knew I needed professional help but that I couldn’t be forced into it so they gave me the time I needed to figure that out. You’re Declan’s family and I don’t want him to lose that. And you guys gave Jagger a place he can finally call home. Please don’t punish them for choosing to save me over their loyalty to you.”

Dom shook his head. “We won’t, Ren.” He looked straight at Declan and Jagger. “We won’t,” he repeated.

“Ren,” Vin said softly. “Is there more between the three of you than them just watching over you?”

Ren smiled slightly. “I found what you guys did,” he said as he glanced at each of his brothers. “My soulmate.” He looked over at Declan and Jagger and felt his heart swell. “Except it turns out I have two,” he softly.

Ren got up and went to where Declan and Jagger sat. “I love you,” he whispered to Declan before brushing a kiss over his lips.

He leaned across Declan and kissed Jagger before murmuring, “I love you” to him. Both men had said it back to him and looked at him expectantly. He drew up a chair and closed his hands over each of theirs. “I know now why you didn’t tell me about Rafe. But it made me realize that I can’t be an equal partner in this relationship if you have to keep things from me because I’m not strong enough to deal with them.”

“Ren, it doesn’t matter,” Jagger started to say.

“It matters to me. I can get there if you give me time.”

He could tell both men were disappointed but they nodded. He’d had no doubt that they would give him exactly what he needed – that was what they’d been doing from day one. They both got to their feet when he did and he went into their arms willingly. Jagger told him to stay safe while Declan told him to come home soon. As he forced himself to walk away, he cast one last look at them and saw they were hugging each other and in that moment he promised himself that he would become everything they needed him to be and more so that they’d never have to be apart again.