Chapter 38
HUNTER
My brother punched my boss in the face.
Well, Shaw wasn’t technically a boss anymore since the party was meant to celebrate me becoming a partner like him, but Andrew definitely had still punched him in the face.
Lincoln looked like he wanted to crawl under a table and evaporate into thin air, but instead he did the opposite.
He bolted out of the party faster than I could even register what had happened.
“I’ll go after him,” Silas said, touching my arm.
I looked down at the point of contact, Silas’s fingers soft and delicate around my arm. He didn’t bite his nails the way Lincoln did, not a single hangnail in sight.
“I should go,” I said.
“I’ll tell him you said that.” Silas squeezed, mouth twisted into a grimace. “I think you need to figure out what happened here first.”
“He’s right,” Marshall agreed, and I looked up worriedly at my oldest brother. “We’ll find him. He’ll be in good hands.”
“I know.”
I wanted to be the one to go after him. I wanted to be the one to find him and catch him, console him over whatever had transpired that had him fleeing the party with such a dramatic exit.
He deserved it to be me, I thought to myself, but Silas and Marshall were already on their way to the elevator, and Andrew was heading for me, shaking out his hand.
Lincoln called me Sir, called me Daddy. I should be the one to find him, to take care of him.
But Andrew was in front of me, his knuckles an angry shade of red, his face flushed with just as much fury.
“What happened?” I managed to ask, frowning at my brother.
Shaw was still on the floor, but at least now he was seated on his ass with a welt across his cheek and blood pouring out of his nose. Winters was with him, the two of them speaking in hushed tones.
“That piece of shit was trying to blackmail Lincoln,” he said.
“What?”
“I walked over in time to hear him proposition your boyfriend,” Andrew explained.
I was a college-educated man, but I was in a bit of shock over the events that had just transpired, so I felt particularly daft when I stared blankly at my brother before muttering, “I don’t understand.”
“He said he’d been paying Lincoln for years, whatever that means, and he’d tell everyone if Lincoln didn’t have sex with him. Were they involved?”
He’d been paying…
Oh.
“They weren’t involved,” I said.
Andrew swiped his finger across his nostrils, sniffing an inhale. “The rest makes sense, though?”
“Yeah. It makes sense.”
Near the window, Winters helped Shaw to his feet, gesturing with a jerk of his thumb toward the closest conference room.
“Sorry if I fucked everything up for you,” Andrew apologized.
I shook my head before he even finished speaking, pulling him into a rough hug and clapping him on the back before he could think too long or hard about what happened.
“I would have done worse,” I assured him. “Can you stay with Finn and Smith? I need to go talk to them.”
Andrew followed my stare toward the backs of two of the partners at my firm before they disappeared into the conference room.
“Of course.”
Smith looked so worried he was ready to crawl out of his skin, but his attention darted from Finn to Andrew and back again after I headed toward the conference room.
This was definitely not how I’d imagined the night was going to go, but my brothers were with each other and Silas and Marshall were on their way to find Lincoln, and I would wrap this conversation up in record time before joining them.
I closed the conference room door behind me, crossing my arms in front of my chest and narrowing my eyes at Shaw.
He sat on the edge of the conference table, still bleeding from his nose.
No one had gotten him a towel, and I fought the instinct to be the one to do it for him.
The collar of his shirt was stained red with blood already, and Winters looked sick from the sight of it.
“What happened?” Winters asked.
I shrugged and jerked my chin toward Shaw. “Ask him.”
“Your brother hit me.”
“Why?” I prompted.
“He didn’t say.”
“Was it because you were trying to blackmail my boyfriend?”
At the ask, Winters’s brows shot up into his hairline, but Shaw didn’t even have the decency to look offended.
“He’s a cam boy.”
“He’s not yours,” I hissed.
“You could be blackmailed or bribed because of him,” Shaw went on. “Trying to keep his work a secret when the whole world has already seen him naked. What a violation of our morality clause.”
“His work isn’t a secret,” I said. “And that’s rich considering you were the one trying to blackmail him into sleeping with you.”
“What?”
My comment was enough to shock Winters back into the conversation, his confused look landing on Shaw, whose nose had finally stopped pouring blood.
“You can tell him,” I said.
Shaw, thankfully, didn’t say anything.
“You tried to make my boyfriend sleep with you because you—incorrectly I might add—assumed I didn’t know about his work, which is a preposterous observation. You, of all people, should know to never make assumptions about intent or impact in this line of work.”
“Is this true?” Winters asked, and I didn’t know which of us he was speaking to.
“Yes,” I answered. “And if this is an issue, I’m happy to call all of this a wash and walk away from not just this offer of partner but the firm as a whole.”
Winters held up both of his hands, one palm toward me and one toward Shaw.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Let’s not be rash.”
“I’m not being rash, but I refuse to work with that man,” I said, pointing a steady finger at Shaw. “So you can let me know later if I’m coming to work Monday or coming to pack my things, but I honestly have more important things to do right now.”
“A complete lack of dedication,” Shaw muttered under his breath.
I gave the man one last look and sighed heavily, glancing at Winters’ unreadable expression before turning on my heel and leaving the both of them in the conference room.
The party had absolutely thinned out, which was not a surprise, so the first people I saw after closing the door behind me were Andrew, Finn, and Smith.
The three of them had fresh drinks in their hands and looked as comfortable together as they looked with me.
“Everything good?” Finn asked.
“I need to go find Lincoln,” I told him.
“I’m sure he went home,” Smith said.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry your party was a bust,” Finn added with a small grin. “But you can save the catalyst of that sucker punch for the next time I ask you to tell me something interesting.”
I snorted, rolling my eyes at my closest brother before reaching into my pocket to dig out my phone.
I don’t know if I’d expected to have a message from Lincoln there, but I was beyond disappointed to find out I didn’t.
I texted Marshall, and he didn’t answer, but Smith was probably right about Lincoln’s final destination.
“Enjoy as much of the booze as they’ll let you,” I told my brothers. “I’ll text you in a bit.”
“Use the group chat,” Finn said, reminding me of its existence.
I nodded and jogged to the elevator, already keying Lincoln’s address into my nav.
As soon as I pulled my car out of the garage and into the street, I called Marshall but he didn’t answer.
Lincoln didn’t live terribly far, but it still took me half an hour of frustrating weekend traffic to get there.
The lights in his apartment were off, and no matter how many times I banged on the door, there was no answer.
I called Lincoln next, that also going unanswered.
I texted him twice, pounding my fist against his door until one of his neighbors came out to yell at me over the noise.
I apologized to her profusely, called Marshall and Lincoln again, then headed to my next destination, Marshall’s house.
I ended up running into the two of them in Marshall’s driveway, Silas looking a little frenzied, phone held tight in his hand.
“Is he here?” I asked.
It made sense to me that Marshall’s house would be a safe space for Lincoln to go when he was feeling off about things.
It was, after all, not just Marshall’s house now but also Silas’s.
It was also the place Lincoln had gone after our first scene together, back before we’d even known each other’s names.
It was the place everything had started for us, and I hoped it wouldn’t be the place things ended.
“No,” Marshall told me, his head tilted to the side in nervous concern. “We just checked his apartment, but he wasn’t there either.”
“That’s where I came from too.” I bracketed my hands against my hips and stared up at the night sky, not a star in sight. “There’s no point in us chasing each other around the city all night.”
“If he shows up here, I’ll let you know,” Marshall promised.
“I’m still trying to get a hold of him,” Silas added, and I nodded at them both, dialing his number again for myself and finding nothing more than voicemail. “Okay.”
I agreed because I didn’t know what else to do.
“He can’t be far,” Silas told me, another gentle touch against my arm. “He’s a creature of comfort. He’ll want to be someplace safe.”
“That’s why I came he—” I snapped my mouth closed, cursing myself under my breath. “I know where he is.”
I ignored both of their questions, hopping into my car and heading to my apartment.
I’d been an idiot for thinking Lincoln would have gone to his apartment.
That wasn’t his home anymore. He’d literally moved his things—and his fish—into my place only hours before.
If Lincoln had gone anywhere, he’d gone to my place.
He’d gone home.
My assumption proved right, as I found his car in a guest spot, the engine still warm.
After the slowest elevator ride from the lobby to my floor, I all but sprinted down the hallway.
The door was propped open, much like I’d done for him in the early days of our relationship, and something burned hot in the middle of my chest. He knew I’d come after him, and he’d wanted to make it easy.
“Lincoln!” I called out for him as soon as my feet hit the tile entryway, but I heard no reply.
I did hear running water, though. The shower.
And I found Lincoln with his back pressed against the wall and his eyes closed, steaming hot water splattering against his cheeks and his chest. His clothes were scattered across the floor, the plug I’d put in him hours before discarded alongside them.
“Lincoln,” I said again, stepping into the shower without even bothering to take off my clothes. I wrapped my arms around him and yanked him into my arms, the tight scrabble of his fingers against my shoulder blades almost enough to crack me open on the spot.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered against my chest, and I curled my hand around the back of his head, pressing his body more fully against mine.
“Stop that,” I warned. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“You deserve someone better than me,” he argued, the words still muffled against my soaking wet shirt.
“There is no one better for me, Lincoln. I want you.”
He said nothing.
“I need you,” I whispered against the shell of his ear. “More than I’ve ever needed anything in my life.”
Around me, Lincoln’s arms relaxed, but so did his knees.
It would be easy to hold him if we had more room, but once he’d landed in my arms, my adrenaline started to crash.
I held him tight while we both slid down to the floor of the shower, and I opened my arms only wide enough for him to crawl onto my lap and curl into a ball.
“I’ve found you,” I promised him. “Daddy’s here, alright? Daddy is here. Sir is here. I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
That promise, that vow, that was the thing that broke him, and Lincoln let out a breathy sob that rattled straight through my sternum.
I held him tighter, like my arms could ever be enough to keep him together.
Like I could be enough. An hour later, after the water ran cold, and I carried Lincoln to bed, it turned out I was