Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
TANK
Present Day
Rain drenched the city streets, sending people into a flurry on the sidewalk below. I watched from my office window as they scurried to and fro, careful to avoid the larger puddles as best they could. The cars on the road didn’t seem to hold the same regard. They sped through, splashing any and everyone.
It felt a bit like a metaphor for life.
You could try to avoid tough times with all your might, but it didn’t mean you would. Often, life would plow you down out of nowhere. You’d be as soaked as the poor people simply trying to get around the city.
“Tank,” Ronan called from my office door.
I turned to him, my mask back in place. No need for him to see me in one of my more depressed moods. It wouldn’t help any fucking thing if they thought I couldn’t handle this.
Besides, I totally could.
Handle this, I mean.
I was more equipped than anyone, had more connections and favors too. If I couldn’t make something happen, then I knew at least two other people who could. And they likely owed me a favor or would trade for one.
“What’s up?” I walked over to my desk and took a seat.
The cushion welcomed me like an old friend. It had been too long since I’d been behind my desk. Most of our recent work has required me to be out in the office or around the city striking deals. My office is practically covered in dust.
Not truly, though it was damn close.
“Wanted to talk to you about Lune. Is there anyone you know who we could ask for intel?” My friend and business partner settled into the chair across from my desk. He was clearly hoping I had the answers we desperately needed.
I wasn’t sure how to tell him I felt stumped. Diestro Lune had been a thorn in my side since the moment Memphis discovered the identities of the Gilded Ones’s leaders.
While the others were dangerous, at least they were easy to track down. Lune had been mostly evasive from the start. It didn’t help that he was a psychopath too.
Having run into my fair share of them through the years, I knew how easily they could blend into society. It was a skill that made them perfect for jobs in the military — or sectors like it. Private security boasted more than a few assholes who were one flip away from a murderous rampage.
“To be honest with you, I’ve run out of ideas for him. My resources are at a loss on how to get to him. He’s more slippery than Mordecai was.”
The memory of the bitch that took Archie and bugged my offices still sat uneasy with me.
"What the fuck are we going to do then?" Ronan asked me, his voice full of exasperation.
I knew exactly how he felt.
This entire Gilded Ones Operation had destroyed our peace. Everything we had built and worked for felt like it was in shambles.
Sure, the business was operating, but the men that were at the core of it all had been shaken. We had all faced setbacks of some kind, whether it was one of our team members being hurt or a new person that we cared about being taken advantage of.
The threats and the violence were not what they had signed up for.
Thankfully, everyone had taken to the project with ease. I didn't know what to think whenever it first came into our hands. I was never the type to just let things go.
I could hold a grudge like nobody's business, and I really fucking hated people who hurt the little guy. I was a fan of the underdog every time, because if you were bigger and meaner and stronger, then you should use that to do good things, not bad.
Intimidating someone else or hurting them simply from the joy of it was horrible.
The Gilded Ones were the worst of the worst. All the information that we had found on them, and continued to find, clearly painted that picture.
The bulk of the work was getting the six-figure heads taken down. With five of them gone, we only had one remaining.
Finding Diestro was going to be tougher. We all knew it.
It hadn't been an easy journey already, but this was, well, to be honest, it was looking damn near impossible.
“We do what we always do, Ronan. We pull our shit together, and we figure it out. I don't have an easy answer. There's nothing I can say to make this problem go away and put us all back in our safe little bowl. What I can do is fight for my team, to provide all the resources I can.”
Ronan scrubbed his hands over his face.
He looked at me then, his eyes pleading. "Shit, boss, I'm sorry. It's just taking a lot out of me lately. It's hard to sleep at night when all I do is worry about the team or remember how Damari felt when everything happened.”
I nodded once, hard enough to let him know that I understood without the words. He and I had been working together for so long we didn't need them. A simple look or a slight movement told us everything.
I was thankful for it because it had come in handy more times than I thought it would have needed to.
With the silence stretching between us, I knew he understood everything that I couldn't say out loud: that he was my best friend, that I loved him like a brother, that I would have his back and the rest of the team as well, that I would protect their loved ones with my last breath, and that we would figure this out.
But amidst all those truths there was a lie. And it was a lie that ate me up inside every time I thought about it.
It was also a lie that wasn't mine to tell.
The man I loved more than anything in this world couldn’t be mine. He wouldn't be mine so long as his parents were living, and his goals were to make them happy.
I had settled with that unfortunate reality long ago, but I would rather have Chance Sheppard in my life in some form or fashion than to not have him at all.
Which meant not telling my team.
It meant hiding and sometimes lying to ensure that his sexuality wasn't called into question.
It meant watching him attend events and give speeches that I knew he didn't really believe in or want to be at.
Ronan stood from the chair and put his hands on his hips. “I'm going to go back in there and see if maybe we missed something. Let me know if you hear anything, okay?”
“I will,” I promised. “As soon as I know something —”
My phone started to go off, the alarm letting me know it was time to go to my meeting. That acid burning my chest rose up again as I knew I was about to have to lie.
“Another meeting?” Ronan asked, familiar enough with the sounds on my phone to know what that one was.
“Yeah, I've got to get down to talk some things over.”
He tilted his head to the side looking me over. “Are y'all ever going to come to some kind of agreement? Those city officials must be giving you a hard time.”
I smirked because he had no idea just how hard a time they were giving me or how much I enjoyed every second of it.
“It's business,” I replied instead.
We left the office side by side. When he turned off to go to the war room, I took off down the hall to check on Jared.
He was our receptionist for the floor. He would lead people where they needed to go, and he also handled any phone calls that came in for the security team because sometimes people would just call us when they didn't actually need us.
It was the most annoying thing ever. I used him as the line of defense, which he didn’t seem to mind. Aside from that, he was also a bright, sunny young man who gave us a little light when we needed it.
With all the men now paired up, we had different forms of light to add to our group, but Jared had been the first.
I knocked my knuckles on the counter in front of him to get his attention. His head popped up, and he smiled.
"Tank!" he said happily. "What's up?"
I laughed and said, “Nothing much. I'm about to head out for a meeting. Anything I should know?”
He shook his head while looking through his notes.
"Nothing today. I would have passed it along. It's pretty boring actually."
I scowled at him. "You take that back right now. You know as soon as you say it, you're going to jinx yourself."
His eyes went wide. "Oh, crap. You're right. It's been..."
He paused.
"Very steady and busy. A day that’s not for resting at all."
He used a robotic tone as if he were forcing the words out, and I laughed.
"Well, let me know if you need anything," I said.
"Sure thing, boss.”
With a wave, I took the elevator downstairs. A few people joined me, each nodding and smiling at me, familiar with who I was. I had a bit of a reputation, and my face was one of a kind, or so I've been told.
When we reached the bottom floor, I let everyone else off first as I casually made my way past the front security desk, watching as they worked.
They greeted me with waves and smiles, though none of them stopped to speak long. It was obvious they were deep in their work. It’s exactly how I wanted them.
I took off for my vehicle in the underground parking lot.
My BMW i7 was a beauty. I cherished her like she was the love of my life. It had been one of my first splurges once NightShade had reached a level of success high enough to earn back the investments.
She stood out everywhere she went, which is also why I didn't take her places very often. But when I needed to make an appearance downtown, she was what I chose.
On the off chance — haha — that Chance would be able to come with me for a ride, it was his favorite of the vehicles I owned. He always lit up when he had time to sit beside me as we drove around the city.
If I had it my way, I would be driving him to work every single day and picking him up too. We would have lazy afternoons driving through the city, or maybe even cross-country if we took some time off.
Those were all pipe dreams.
Chance Sheppard was destined for greatness, not to be the partner of some lowlife foster kid whose parents were murderers and abusers.
Our time would run out eventually. I wouldn't have any more reasons to go to his office, and he would need to be more in the spotlight than ever. He couldn't be mayor of a city like this without having his face on every newsstand or TV show.
My Chance was going to be famous.
He was going to make big changes in this world, and I would have to let him go so that he could. That was the part that gutted me the most because I never wanted to let him go.
I believed he could make the changes in the world that he wanted to see with me by his side. But his misplaced desire to make his parents proud wouldn't allow it.
And because I loved him, I knew letting him go would be for the best when the time didn’t come.
I pondered over my thoughts the entire drive there. Traffic was a bit backed up, so it took longer than usual.
When I walked in, Marten, Chance’s assistant, shook his head at me.
“I was about to call the cavalry,” he teased.
I smiled at him, propping up on the desk to speak with the young man. He was a joy, just like Jared, though Marten had a lot more sass to him.
His half-Hispanic, half-Asian roots created a unique look. Had I met him before Chance, I might have been tempted. I couldn’t see anything past the man I’d come to see though.
People would pay big money to see Marten on billboards. Instead of chasing down the model life, he had chosen to do what made him happy, which was work as a personal assistant, go home, play video games, and repeat the process over and over again.
He had no aspirations for marriage or political standing. He even told me once that if this didn't work out, he would go work in some other customer service retail job until he found something that he liked as much.
It was a breath of fresh air to be around someone who wasn't always striving for the next thing.
And I think part of the reason I came here instead of meeting anywhere else was just to see Marten and be grounded a bit more in life.
When I formed NightShade, it was all about the next best thing. I wanted to be the best protection agency in the business. Then it became about acquiring other businesses and taking them into our fold.
Before I knew it, I looked up, and we had grown into this metropolis all our own with business that rivaled security companies around the country.
NightShade was a brand, a name, people knew.
It was said in whispers during back-alley deals, but it was also spoken in elite spaces where people wore really nice dresses and suits and spent more money than some people made here.
Quite frankly, it was baffling how it had changed.
Marten always reminded me where I started from. He reminded me of who I once was in a good way.
I leaned forward. “How is he today?”
He tilted his hand side to side. “He's okay. Not too hot. His father is meddling again.”
I leaned even closer, my interest piqued.
“Meddling how?”
On top of being a cool guy, Marten was also an expert gossip. He knew everything there was to know about what was going on in Chance's office and his personal life, which meant I got the details before I walked in. It gave me intel so I knew how to appropriately handle situations.
Marten looked around, making sure we were alone, and whispered, “His dad tried to fire me.”
I leaned back, gasping as I clutched my chest dramatically.
Marten laughed at the movement, then shook his head, motioning me back down so he could whisper.
“I know, I know. It's some crazy shit but listen — he tried to fire me, but Chance wouldn't let him. So now I'm getting relegated to full personal assistant, no political mess. They're bringing in a political advisor as well.”
I frowned at the news.
“That means there'll be another person here to blockade my ability to get to him.”
Martin shrugged one shoulder.
“Looks like it. All I know is his name is Emmett, and he starts next week. He sounds like a ray of sunshine for Papa Sheppard.”
I faked gagging.
“Ugh, don't call that man Papa. Makes me think of daddy kink, and he is not a daddy.”
Martin laughed loudly, throwing his head back with gusto. A few people turned, staring our away. Since the space was mostly empty, they went about their business after realizing they weren’t getting anything new to discuss.
I smacked Marten on the arm, pulling him back.
“Calm down, you're going to get me busted.”
As soon as I said the word, the door beside us opened. Chance leaned his body on the door jamb. His ankles were crossed, and he folded his arms in a way that always got to me.
"What are you two troublemakers up to?" he asked.
I shook my head and stood to my full height. I strolled to him slowly, careful not to make it look like I was flirting with him but also trying to make it look like I was flirting with him.
It was a delicate balance.
"We were just talking," I said as coyly as I could.
His smile was heart-stopping. I wanted to bag it up and take it with me so I could pull it out whenever I was having a moment that didn't feel as good as this. For any time that I questioned things or came across a problem I couldn't solve, a single smile from Chance Sheppard made everything else disappear.
"We're supposed to be in a meeting. You were already late and now you're distracting my assistant."
Marten raised his hands, waving a white flag so to speak. "I’m just here. Don't throw me in time-out with him."
I turned my back on Marten, smirking at the man across from me. "Yeah, don't put Marten in time-out with me. I'm the only bad boy here."
Chance huffed, but I saw all the way his body shivered slightly at my words. I could also see the bulge forming in his pants.
He was aroused at the idea.
Our role play ventured into so many different directions. There wasn't any favorite type of scene, but I knew that he liked to be in charge from time to time.
Man, I loved it too.
He could put me in time-out anytime he wanted.
“Come into my office, Tank. We have things to discuss.”
I turned around and saluted Marten before stepping inside.
The minute he closed the door, his hand was at my throat, and he was pushing me against the wall.
"I don't like it when you're late," he said as he trailed kisses down the side of my throat. “It's hard enough to get time with you."
I leaned to the side, giving him full access to my body the way I knew he needed.
I sighed and admitted, "Traffic was a bitch and there have been problems. I'm sorry, baby."