Chapter 30
harmonious family breakfast nonsense
Kit was ready to be furious when James and Darius got home. The garage door echoed his thundering anger. An entire day of limited updates. Holden did his best, but he couldn’t distract Kit the entire time. All Kit knew was that his men were fine, and everything else was good.
The vagueness meant James and Darius didn’t want to put the details in writing.
But Kit’s anger deflated with one look at them coming in through the garage door. Darius and James were exhausted. Dazed. They both wore the same clothes Kit last saw them in, rumpled and worse for wear.
Darius had a black eye and swelling along his left jaw. Somehow, he looked better off than James’s hollowed-out stare.
“About time,” Kit said quietly—then squeaked as James flung a hug around him. All his breath squeezed out, Kit gasped, “Missed you both.”
James buried his face in Kit’s shoulder, and his arms tightened like tentacles. A broad hand ruffled Kit’s hair. Darius, if Kit was tracking everyone’s hands right.
“Sorry about vanishing on you,” Darius said, sounding just as tired as James. “Shit got complicated fast.”
“Are you okay?” Kit tried to turn, but James’s tentacle grip only tightened. “You’re hurt.”
“That was me,” James mumbled into Kit’s shoulder.
“What?” Kit managed to wriggle away to properly inspect Darius’s face. “What the fuck happened?”
Darius held still. No flinch of pain as Kit’s fingertips ghosted over dark bruises. “I’m fine. I knew I would piss him off.” Darius covered Kit’s hand, then drew him close for a kiss on the knuckles. “I killed one of his targets before he got there.”
One of his targets. Kit stumbled over the idea. It couldn’t be. James was still searching. Still preparing. Except by the look on James’s face, that was exactly what Darius meant.
“Oh, that’s the worst,” Holden said, lurking nearby. “Bishop did that to me once. I get it.”
Kit grabbed James’s arm—but James’s flash of rage had already fizzled out. He barely tensed under Kit’s grasp.
“You don’t get it,” James said, with a manic-tired grin. “Be grateful for that. But hey. Darius left the second one for me. So, we’re okay.”
“The second one,” Kit repeated, not letting go of James. “You mean the Rat Kings? They’re both dead?”
“Thoroughly.” James entwined their fingers. His touch brushed over Darius’s kiss. “The Rat Kings are dead. My family is avenged. I’m taking a fucking nap.”
Each word struck Kit’s heart like a hammer. He’d never heard James need him so much. Their clasped hands were a wordless plea for comfort.
Darius would be okay for tonight. Kit would demand explanations for his vanishing act later. James needed him now.
“Behave,” Kit ordered the others. Then he dragged James upstairs.
Kit led James to the bedroom they had shared already—the one they broke in on their first day in the house. Rust-orange walls and rumpled white bedding and new memories taking root. Late evening blazed through sheer curtains, and neither Kit nor James reached for the light switch.
This would probably end up being James’s room. It was halfway between the master bedroom and the main staircase. Kit figured Darius would want one of the downstairs bedrooms, because he still needed more space sometimes. But James liked being in the middle of everything.
Usually. Right now, James just needed Kit. Knowing someone so well was eerie. The pressure hurt Kit’s heart.
Closing the door shut out the rest of the world, and Kit didn’t know what to do next. James needing him was one thing. Figuring out what that meant was another.
Normally Kit would try sex—tried, tested, excellent distraction. But if James wanted sex, he would already be shoving Kit against the wall. Every other idea seemed stupid. Hot bath? Scented candles? Foot massage?
How did people comfort each other without orgasms?
God. Only one thing to do.
“What do you need from me?” Kit asked, feeling horribly, awkwardly sincere. He must really love this man, if he was willing to use his words.
“I want to lie in bed holding you for at least five hours,” James said, like he’d planned this out. “If you need the bathroom, now’s your chance.”
Kit rolled out his neck and shoulders. “I can do that.” He tugged James toward the bed. “Let me… let me take your shoes off.”
“You don’t have to,” James started, but he must see Kit’s desperation to do something. Without further protest, he slumped on the edge of the bed.
Kit knelt. The moment his knees hit the floor, he felt right. As he unlaced James’s boots, he recalled the first time he knelt for James. In the limousine, letting James fuck his face, after Kit helped him kill a man.
That day led them here. To James achieving his revenge. To Kit loving him—and hardest of all, admitting it to himself.
Kit slid James’s left boot off. If he was into feet, this would be great, the way James’s foot was all warm in its sock. Kit wasn’t into feet, but he didn’t mind because it was James. Just like he wasn’t into murder. But he didn’t mind when it was James. Or the others.
He moved to James’s right boot. “Is it weird that I wish I’d been there?”
“Kinda weird, babe.” James pulled Kit up by the elbows. His grin was brighter than the sunset. “But I love that about you.”
They tumbled into bed, where they fit perfectly together.
Kit’s back pressed against James’s chest, and James’s arms looped around him like a straitjacket.
Being there for the deathblows would have been nice.
It was such an important moment for James, and Kit selfishly felt excluded by being left at home.
But being here for this was better. The moment after—and the moment before. The rest of James’s life was about to begin.
When Dad got convicted, Kit had thought he was at a similar moment. Everything was handled and Kit could move on. That lasted for about three days, before elation shattered into fear shattered into numbness.
Maybe if Kit had killed Dad instead of turning him in, moving on would be easier.
James kissed the back of Kit’s head. “I’m going to lie low for a few weeks. Put some face time in at the office. But after that… I want to visit my family at the cemetery. Would you come with me?”
Kit squeezed James’s hand over his chest. “I’d like that.”
Sometimes love hurt. Just like Kit used to fear. But it was better than being numb.
Bacon and pancakes called Kit to the kitchen the next morning. The scene was bizarrely adorable. Holden and Darius sat at the kitchen table, Holden scrolling on his phone and Darius reading an actual physical newspaper. A pitcher of orange juice presided over the syrup and butter.
“Look who’s finally up,” James said, sliding a platter of pancakes onto the table.
Kit rubbed his bleary eyes. “It’s seven in the morning, you fucking psychopath.”
Kit and James got in a solid several hours of weird grief cuddling last night, then stayed up late with the others reviewing events. The warning assignment from Felicity. Darius’s insistence on acting fast and acting alone. Preliminary cleanup status.
Only the smell of bacon had dragged Kit from his empty bed.
“Busy day ahead,” Darius commented over his newspaper. “I’m meeting Bishop to continue the cleanup.”
“Can I come?” Holden asked eagerly.
Kit dropped into an empty seat, the one with a steaming mug of coffee waiting for him. “Don’t you have class today?”
It was Monday, unless Kit had slipped into some weird time portal. Which would explain the harmonious family breakfast nonsense.
“Today’s lectures will all be online later,” Holden explained. “I can listen to them while we dismember bodies.”
“We’re not dismembering bodies today.” Darius flipped a page, then paused. “Probably.”
Holden turned his big brown eyes on Kit. “Please darling, can I dismember just one of them?”
Kit cradled his precious coffee. “Maybe, if you’re good. Guys, what the fuck is this cheerful family breakfast thing?”
“James is coping,” Darius explained.
“I’m coping,” James confirmed, sliding a full plate of pancakes, eggs, and bacon in front of Kit. “I woke up at five and needed something to do that wasn’t ruminating over murder. Shut up, Blondie, I know you can’t imagine that.”
“Sometimes I don’t ruminate over murder,” Holden said. A foot suddenly nudged Kit’s ankle. “Sometimes I ruminate over Kit.”
This was more food than Kit usually liked before he was caffeinated. Hopefully he didn’t have to eat all of it for James’s coping mechanisms.
James sat in the chair next to Kit and scooted the plate between them. Okay, good. Sharing made more sense. And it was funny how Holden glowered about it.
“Do you want to come into the office with me today, Kit?” James asked, snagging a piece of bacon.
The question was casual. Thoughtful. Any other time, Kit would be thrilled. He liked watching James at work, plus getting fucked over the desk on breaks.
Today, his curiosity led elsewhere. He wasn’t there yesterday, but he needed to listen to the echoes.
“I wanted to go to Lemon Beach,” Kit said, then paused, coffee halfway to his mouth. Because everyone else suddenly looked shifty.
What the fuck. So ‘take your boyfriend to work day’ was an excuse to keep him away from the crime scene. They wanted to shelter him. Sweet, but no thanks. Kit liked being protected from actual threats, not from reality.
“You killed everyone already,” Kit pointed out sternly. “It’s not going to be dangerous.”
To his surprise, that was that.
“Sorry,” James said, dumping syrup on their shared plate.
“We could use another set of eyes,” Darius added. “Felicity kept a lot of documents. Mostly dirt on other people.”
Holden moved some of his bacon to Kit’s side of the plate. “Let me do any dismembering, darling. You can watch, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“Thanks,” Kit said, grabbing the bacon gift before James took it and escalated things.
James wasn’t paying attention to the plate shenanigans, though. Gaze distant, he cut a perfect triangle of pancake. “If you find anything about my family, don’t tell me when I’m at the office.”
“Understood,” Darius said, and Kit leaned against James’s shoulder. Holden didn’t even look mad about that.
Felicity Carrow’s beach house was pristine. If not for the disturbed garden gravel and the bleach scent inside, Kit would never suspect a recent massacre.
His men were admirably—or disturbingly—strategic. Knowing this would be a multi-day cleanup, they spent yesterday on the essentials. Now there was no outward sign of the incident. Darius had even checked the neighborhood’s waste management schedule and taken the trash cans out for pickup.
James had disabled all the security systems, making sure that disabling them wouldn’t trigger any outside alarms. He also broke into most of the computers and other devices.
Bishop found a couple new ones today that they would save for James tomorrow—though Holden might take a crack at them.
He had learned a lot from his internship.
Most importantly, all the bodies got moved into Felicity’s massive, chilled wine cellar.
Bishop and Holden were in there now, cataloguing the bodies. They needed to identify them, figure out which security guards could disappear and which should turn up dead in mysterious other locations.
Kit was with Darius, in the living room that smelled like bleach. They were sorting through the first batch of Felicity’s sketchy devices. Darius had one of her laptops, and Kit had one of her phones.
“She was good about compartmentalizing,” Darius commented. “All her personal resources are separate from Nazario’s money-making ventures. Once we carve out what we want to keep, handing the rest to law enforcement should be easy.”
“What, you don’t want a drug trafficking operation?” Kit teased, and was unsurprised when Darius grimaced. Trafficking involved too many people for Darius’s lone wolf style.
Lone wolf. Good at compartmentalizing. Kit barely knew anything about the late Felicity Carrow, but her fingerprints were clear in Darius’s psyche.
And Kit finally had Darius alone.
“Hey,” Kit said quietly. “Are you okay?”
Darius’s sudden tension was answer enough.