Chapter 7 #3
“But Jay’s… well, kind. At least he was when we met.
We’d been together for a few months, and we had a system.
I knew when it was clear to come over, and he’d set up the back entrance for me—har-har, right?
Back entrance? But he’d set it up for, well, me.
I had a key, and he’d leave little gifts when he wasn’t there.
It’s sort of an entrance to the old maid’s quarters, but he fixed it up nice, with a desk to study at, and books and a TV.
It was like… like the rest of the house was his job, his public life, but those rooms were ours.
And then one day, there we were, watching TV, and this slick guy walks into our space, and Jay takes one look at him and then one look at me, and he turns white.
And he tells me to go to the kitchen and fix us something to eat.
I do—scared the bejeezus out of the actual housekeeper, who’s really nice, by the way.
When she tries to shoo me back into our quarters, I tell her somebody’s there, scaring the shit out of Jay. ”
Wow. This was—well, frightening was what it was. Not that Gideon approved of keeping your lovers hidden from the world, but it seemed like Jay Arnold had been doing the best he could with what he had.
“Do you know who barged in?” Carlyle asked—probably too soon, but the kid was on a roll, so it didn’t seem to put him off.
“Halsey Garber,” Kael muttered. “And yeah, I know who he is and why Jay shouldn’t be having any conversations at all with him.
But at first it didn’t seem to matter. Jay said he had it handled, the housekeeper showed me three different secret passages out of the apartment floors, and the next time Halsey Garber arrived unannounced, Jay was there, feet up, watching Celebrity Bachelor, and I was in the housekeeper’s closet, which she’d set up with a comfy chair, a pillow, and a little monitor of our room so I could, you know, make sure the mob wasn’t killing my boyfriend. ”
Gideon found an unexpected bark of laughter stopped up in his throat. The kid was funny—but he was also very real. No wonder he’d been heartbroken. Gideon had assumed he’d been a sidepiece, used and ignored and cast aside when things got rough.
But that’s not what this setup sounded like. Not a picnic, no—and not the way Gideon would lead his life—but this didn’t sound like a sidepiece. This sounded like love.
“So things were tense,” Carlyle prompted. “But not urgent.”
Kael nodded, started patting his pockets for cigarettes again, and then let his hands fall.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Not urgent. I… I probably could have lived like that for a while, until politics changed, you know? Until he could bring me to parties, make me his special friend. Come out without worrying about his party turning on him like a pack of pit vipers. But I knew Garber was putting pressure on him for something—only Jay wouldn’t share that with me.
He kept saying he wanted me out of it. He’d managed to keep my name from the guy, keep my picture.
Halsey knew I existed, but he doesn’t know who I am.
And then a couple of weeks ago—” He glanced pointedly at Gideon. “—that changed. What changed?”
“What changed was that Garber was asking your boyfriend to ignore a dogfighting ring,” Gideon told him bluntly.
“And apparently Jay Arnold is the last honest man in New York, because that didn’t sit well with him.
And when he found out Halsey had authorized a dognapping—and a kidnapping when the owner came to find the dog—he used our people as pawns to make it stop without telling us what we were walking into. ”
Kael closed his eyes. “Shit.”
“Not his greatest moment,” Gideon admitted. “But not strictly illegal either. But if your boyfriend was a pawn too, maybe we could help each other out.”
“Halsey Garber’s a piece of garbage,” Kael said with loathing. “Every real estate broker in New York knows he doesn’t pay his workers, and his projects all go bust. It’s like he makes his living out of declaring bankruptcy and leaves this… this trail of broken lives behind him.”
“You sound like you know,” Carlyle said perceptively.
“I had a college fund,” Kael told him, the bitterness palpable.
“And then my father’s company invested with that asshole.
Now my parents don’t even have a house, and my dad’s a greeter in Walmart when he should be retired.
So I know Halsey’s bad news. And whatever he wanted to involve Jay in, it had to be shady.
” His voice dropped miserably. “And I guess the only reason Jay would be involved with something shady was me.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Carlyle said, and he sounded kind—and sincere. “You wanted somebody to love. That’s not supposed to be a bad thing. But yeah, Jay got put in a spot, and he did something stupid, and now we need his help to get the bad guy off the street.”
“I’d do a lot to fuck up Halsey Garber,” Kael said.
They didn’t need to meet eyes again, but they did anyway. That shit was starting to send a thunder through Gideon’s veins.
“Can you introduce us to your boyfriend?” Carlyle asked. “We haven’t spoken for a while, and it’s about time we did.”
GIDEON TEXTED Clint a quick debrief as Kael led them down the side path to the stairs that took them up to Jay Arnold’s level. This wasn’t strictly surveillance, but all they were doing was visiting a contact, right? No need for weapons—this was administration.
Except in person.
Right?
Once they were upstairs, Kael pulled out a key and let them into a tiled hallway that led to a large airy kitchen—or would have.
Kael turned instead into a doorway right off the entrance, one that Gideon would have thought led to a laundry room, and they found themselves in a cozy little apartment, carpeted, with a couch and a minifridge and two recliners.
There were bookshelves and a television, and even a small desk in the corner, and a doorway in the back that led, Gideon assumed, to sleeping quarters.
The furnishings were masculine—leather and dark wood—and the carpet was a tasteful Berber.
There was an art rail, though, with some rather glorious cityscapes, and the couch was navy blue and looked comfortable.
There were some throw pillows there with dents in them, and a warm throw in a muted purple along the back, a napping couch that had seen a recent nap.
Kael let out a sad little sound and walked over to plump the pillows and refold the throw.
“He’s been sleeping in here,” he murmured. “He… he has this big bedroom upstairs, but he says he can’t sleep in there, and he can’t sleep in our bed without me, so he’ll….” His voice broke a little. “He missed me.”
Gideon could admit it—he’d carried a grudge. Jay Arnold had put his team in danger to cover his ass, had bullied Pearson and Carlyle when they’d been sheltering their injured colleague, and had threatened to bully Crosby—Crosby—who had been injured while caught up in Arnold’s subterfuge.
He’d been pissed.
But this little domestic scene softened him. Kael softened him. He’d been right. The kid wasn’t a sidepiece. This was protection right here.
This was love.
But that didn’t mean Arnold didn’t need a little come-to-Jesus.
“Call him,” he told Kael, but Kael grimaced.
“Do we have to?”
“We do,” Carlyle said earnestly. “Because a predator has already been in this den. Halsey Garber was here. He’s seen your face. Eventually it’s going to come down to threatening you, and I don’t think your boyfriend wants that. Which means he needs our help.”
Kael swallowed and nodded, pulling out his phone.
“Jay?” he said softly. “Yeah, I’m—”
At that moment, they all heard the door to the hallway burst in, and a voice Gideon didn’t recognize screamed, “Arnold! Arnold, get down here or your twinkie is toast!”
Gideon and Joey didn’t even need to meet eyes. Joey, who was nearest to Kael, grabbed him and shoved him toward the sleeping quarters. “Bathtub?” he whispered, and when Kael nodded, Joey said, “Get in it, get down, cover your head.”
Kael disappeared while Gideon pinged at the comm on his collar.
“SCTF, overwatch,” he enunciated as Joey got behind the couch and he got behind the door, arm braced so it wouldn’t rebound off his face. “Hostile intruder at the house of Jay Arnold. We are inside, without weapons, protecting a civilian asset. Request immediate backup, going silent, out.”
And after dropping that bomb, he crossed both his arms in front of his face and sucked in his gut. This would hurt.
Hurt it did, but it worked like clockwork.
The door cracked open and bounced off his crossed wrists like a blow, and Gideon took advantage of the bounce and thrust forward, shoving an unsuspecting Halsey Garber back into the doorframe.
As he stumbled back, whacking his head hard enough to leave hair and blood, Joey shoved the couch sideways against him, hitting his knees and hips.
He went over, hard, landing on his stomach, and Joey catapulted over the sofa and landed on his back.
Joey pulled his drop piece—the wicked little dagger—and held it at kidney level, hard enough to pierce the man’s gray wool coat and the sweater underneath.
“Help!” Halsey wheezed, and Gideon wiggled from behind the door and knelt on his wrists, to keep him from going for a weapon.
“SCTF,” Gideon said, knowing his comms were picking up the exchange. “Halsey Garber, you’re under arrest for breaking and entering and threatening the occupants of a private residence, with other charges pending. You have the right to remain silent….”
He finished reading the man his rights and watched as Jay Arnold rounded the corner, his personal weapon held out in front of him in a credible three-point stance.