Chapter 9 #2
A little comfort from home was due, especially after the past few days.
A raid gone wrong. A kidnapping on his watch.
Seeing Nic’s body tossed across the hood of a car.
He’d thought his imagination was bad before when it kept showing him Nic bleeding out in the street.
Now he didn’t need his imagination. He had the real thing to go on, sans the blood.
Nic’s unconscious form lying motionless in the middle of the road was there every time he closed his eyes.
That sight was a big part of the reason he’d volunteered to take point infiltrating Becca’s crew.
He’d be damned if Nic walked into the line of fire again on this case.
Going undercover would also require him to play his full accent.
Nothing like the unchecked Southie drawls of his nieces and nephews to help bring back his own.
Full strength, not the watered-down version his friends here thought was thick but sounded pitifully thin to his ears.
A call wouldn’t be as good as being back there but every minute on the phone helped.
He asked each of them how they were doing in school.
How his nephew was doing on the Pop Warner football team.
How far his niece could kick the same football, determined to play with her twin brother.
Cam held out hope the youngest of Bobby’s kids would follow his uncle’s footsteps onto the court—Cam had even put a tiny basketball in little Jack’s hands at Christmas—but with the way he worshipped his older siblings, Jack would probably go the way of the pigskin too.
He’d have to hold out hope for his own someday.
Just as Bella finished telling him about their field trip to Salem, a door slammed and Cam’s mother called out, “I’m here. With cannoli!”
Shouts of “Nonna” and “I get first pick” rang out as they all abandoned him for his mother and pastries.
Laughing, Bobby came back on the line. “Now you know where you rank.”
Cam couldn’t blame them, his own mouth watering. “Everything ranks below cannoli.”
“We are the worst Irish family ever.”
“Yeah, us and half the Irish families in Boston.”
Bobby laughed out loud. “Only half?”
“Truth, brother, truth.”
Standing, Cam grabbed the straps of his bag and started to lift only to be swatted by a clawed paw. Green eyes in a white-and-orange tabby face glared at him from inside his open bag. “Shoo, furball,” he said, patting the cat’s rump until it vacated his bag and room with an angry meow.
Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Cam carried it down the short hallway to the front bedroom he’d set up as a home office and gym.
No way he could afford the gym memberships here.
Not that it ever got cold enough he couldn’t run outside.
No snow and relatively little rain to contend with either.
He should ditch the equipment and rent the room out.
Bring in some spare cash. Buy an extra suit or two with it.
“Hey, brother,” Bobby called. “Where’d your attention go?”
“Sorry, sorry.” He dropped the bag on his desk chair. “Let me switch you to video.” He swapped the audio call for visual and propped the device against the stack of unopened mail on his desk. “Just got a lot going on here.”
“You got a woman you’re not telling us about?”
A man, maybe, but until that maybe became a firmer yes, he wasn’t going to spring his bisexuality on his family. He’d never been serious enough with anyone to bring them home, and he’d kept his college partying to campus.
So he’d chickened out and never corrected his family’s assumption.
He felt like a coward every day for it, especially after Jamie had been brave enough to come out last year and with the rest of his friends here who were out and proud.
Another way he didn’t measure up. Granted, his family had taken Jamie’s coming out in stride, sending wedding gifts and well wishes, but Cam didn’t know how they would take his.
Having caused his family more than enough strife already, he didn’t want to create more unless and until he had someone special in his life. And it was too soon to tell with Nic.
“Work thing,” he answered Bobby. “New assignment tomorrow.”
“Where’s this one?”
“Local.” He bent at the waist, opening the lower desk drawer and unlocking his safe there.
“That why you called?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have. He’d just worry Bobby, and if Bobby told anyone else in the family, they would worry too. But Bobby knew better than anyone the Cam he was about to become again. He was the only one Cam could talk to about how much that fucking scared him.
“Remind me . . .” From inside the safe, Cam withdrew the bag of tools long since retired. “Best way to jack an AmSec 8000 series vault door?”
Bobby’s blue eyes widened, then the dark brow above them furrowed, forming a deep crease between them. “Why do you need to know that?”
“The assignment I mentioned . . . undercover gig.”
“Not someone else who can do that?”
“’Fraid not.” He had the skills, and there were people he had to rescue. Others he needed to protect. This was his job.
“You really need me to remind you?” Bobby said.
Of course he didn’t. Despite the intervening years, Cam had done it so many times it would be like riding a bike. If he’d really needed pointers, he would have asked Danny instead of worrying his brother.
He tossed the tools into his bag, tossed the bag onto the treadmill, then sank into the desk chair.
“Called for a different reminder.” He pulled out his wallet and the library card again, smoothing a thumb over the name preserved in laminate.
More than could be said for the owner’s body, which two decades later was still missing.
When he glanced back up, Bobby’s eyes were likewise on the card, as sad and heavy as Cam’s chest felt. “We made a deal,” Cam said.
Bobby blinked, casting aside the same memories plaguing Cam. “This is for work.”
“Still, we said never—”
“You got backup?”
“Yeah, my partner.” The memory of Nic rolling over the car hood streaked behind his eyes again. If he would go to those lengths for their CIs . . . “And the prosecutor on the case. He’s retired Special Forces.”
“Tell them about our deal,” Bobby said.
Cam hung his head as his heart raced, turning the card over in his hands.
Aidan had to know. It would have been in his file, in his psych evals. He hadn’t hidden the truth of why he’d joined the Bureau.
No, that wasn’t the reason why his pulse sped. It hammered at the prospect of exposing his grimy past to the man who always had his shit together.
“Tell them where your line in the sand is,” Bobby continued. “Make sure they hold you to it.”
But could they if he was on his own—embedded, undercover, and cut off?
He righted his head, meeting his brother’s concerned gaze. “If anything should happen—”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“You still ignoring what I do?”
“I know it’s what you needed for your sanity, but for the sake of mine, yes, I’m ignoring it.”
They both chuckled, the tense mood lightening a bit, then more so when background calls of “Daddy” grew in volume.
“Duty calls,” Bobby said. “You want to talk to Josie or Ma?”
“Nah, I’ll just make them worry. Don’t say anything about this, okay?”
His brother nodded his head of dark hair, going gray at the temples. “Call me when you get back. Or during if you need me. I’m always here.”
That devotion had saved both their lives, right when they’d been on the edge of throwing their futures away for good. “Love you, brother.”
“Love you too.”
Bobby clicked off and Cam reclined in his chair, closing his eyes and tipping his face to the ceiling, card held to his chest. What would Nic think when he learned that by-the-rules Agent Byrne was a figment of Cam’s imagination? Created out of necessity but a persona nonetheless.
Sighing, he pushed to his feet, pocketed the card and wallet, and checked his bag over once more. He zipped it up just as a knock sounded at the front door. He glanced at his watch. His appointment was early.
Flicking off the lights, he pulled the hallway pocket door partway closed and crossed the living area to the front door, opening it to . . . not the visitor he expected.
Not that this unexpected one was unwelcome.
Nic stood on his doorstep, dressed down in slacks and rolled-up shirtsleeves, holding up a six-pack of Cam’s favorite imperial stout. “Not much of this left,” he said. “Thought you might like to share some with me.”
Cam held the door open wider. “Won’t say no to that.”