Chapter Two
TOM
Tom Barrington paused outside Councilor Steadman’s office and knocked. Never more than one soft rap. He’d learned the hard way his first day that protocol wasn’t optional.
When invited to enter, he found Steadman standing with her back to the large window overlooking Independence Avenue. It wasn’t optimal from a security point of view, but he knew better than to mention it. She’d already know, and it wasn’t his job anymore.
Although he’d started in the personal security role, these days he carried the grander title of “Aide to Councilor Steadman,” which mostly meant he handled the jobs no one else wanted. And from the look on her face, what she was about to hand him ranked high on the “do not want” list.
“I need you to go to Colorado and check something out,” she said.
“What?” he asked, because the councilor preferred straight talking to politeness.
Something flashed through her eyes, too fast for him to identify. “There’s a pack out there who claim they have an Argent. One of the more promising interns was dispatched to check it out, and he confirms their story.”
Tom’s jaw dropped. An Argent? In this day and age? It was impossible. Like becoming a fighter pilot with red-green color blindness—some things just didn’t happen, no matter how badly someone wanted them.
But joking about interns on hallucinogens wouldn’t be well received, so he stood silently, his face expressionless once more.
“Bennett is ready to charge out there, bit between his teeth, to ensure he gets control over both the Argent and the inevitable press coverage,” she said, sounding as aggravated as she always did when Bennett’s name came up. “Which means I have to go with him for damage control.”
Everyone on the Hill knew Councilors Steadman and Bennett couldn’t agree on lunch, let alone policy.
It made day-to-day running of the National Council rather awkward given that he was Leader and she was Deputy Leader.
They’d be no more likely to agree on how to handle the discovery of an Argent than anything else.
“I need you to check out this pack for me,” she said, her eyes steely.
“I’ve got the backroom wonks running down details, but I want you to find out the things that words on paper won’t tell me—where the power really lies in this pack, who holds any sway with this Argent, and what he’s like himself.
I need to know what it will take to persuade him to come to our side rather than follow Bennett. ”
She paused for an instant, to underline her next sentence. “And if you find that he’s not particularly persuadable, you need to identify the levers I can use to bring him onside.”
This was the part of politics Tom hated.
When he’d first come to work in Washington, he hadn’t noticed just how dirty the place’s underbelly was.
He’d been too depressed to notice much of anything after losing the life he’d planned ever since he was five and had watched his first fighter jet blast across the sky.
Now he’d been here longer and was more experienced, he could see more clearly.
Manipulation of those the politicians had been elected to represent was par for the course.
“Anything else, Councilor?” he asked.
“That’s it,” she said, and moved to settle in the chair behind the large oak desk that stood in one corner of the room.
She smiled slightly. It was a pale shadow of the one she used on the public, but it still made her look sympathetic and unthreatening.
“I’m counting on you, Tom,” she said, before turning her attention to the papers in front of her.
Dismissed, he retreated into the antechamber where the councilor’s executive assistant, Maria, was waiting to thrust a folder into his hands. Steadman still liked some things done the old-fashioned way, on paper, so that the audit trail was controllable.
“Everything you need is in there,” Maria said, her smile as genuine as Steadman’s had been manufactured. Maria was a ruthless gatekeeper for the councilor, but for some reason she had a soft spot for Tom. When Zack had left him, she’d taken to setting coffee and muffins on his desk every morning.
He flicked the file open and found it was as organized as everything else that left her desk.
There was a list of pack members, together with the results of background checks on them, including known associates and previous pack affiliations where this information had been traceable.
Probably, knowing the backroom wonks, they’d even found out how each of them took their coffee.
“Thanks, Maria,” he said.
“You better move,” she said. “Your flight’s in four hours, out of Dulles.”
With DC traffic, that barely gave him enough time to swing by the apartment, grab his overnight case, and tell—
That was when his brain derailed. Because it had been six fucking months and he still forgot sometimes. Like when he woke up in the middle of the night and listened for Zack’s breathing beside him. Or when he heard something that made him laugh and he reached for his phone to text Zack.
But Zack was gone now, and there was no one to care how long Tom would be away.
Thirty minutes later, he slid through the front door of his apartment and quickly packed his case, feeling like an intruder in what used to be his life.
Whatever awaited him in Colorado, it was better than sitting in the silence of a home where he’d thought his life was perfect—young, successful, and in love.
He knew he should give up the lease, but the apartment held too many memories.
They were all he had left of Zack, and he didn’t want to let them go.
He told himself he didn’t hear the echo of emptiness as the door shut behind him.
brYCE
Matt rubbed at his temples, as if one of the headaches that plagued him was starting up.
They’d been friends too long for Bryce to miss the signs.
In the old days, Bryce would have stepped behind him, slid his hands over tight shoulders and kneaded the tension away.
Matt would’ve leaned back into him eventually, tipping his head back with that heartbreaking smile, grateful and open in a way he rarely let anyone else see.
But that wasn’t Bryce’s place anymore. Not now Matt was with Jesse. So he kept his hands to himself and poured coffee instead. Something safe, mechanical, and impersonal.
He took his usual seat at the kitchen table—opposite Matt now, not beside him. Funny how the geography of closeness had shifted. He had to stop himself reaching for what wasn’t his.
“Four councilors are determined to visit, and they’ve required two separate security checks beforehand.” Matt’s voice was tightly reined in, but Bryce heard the edge of weariness underneath. That was new. Or maybe it wasn’t, and he’d just been trying not to notice.
“What the hell do they think is going to happen to them here?” he asked. Then he remembered the way they’d found Cale’s pack slaughtered, and grimaced. Perhaps the Council had a point with their security arrangements.
“But seriously, two checks?” he continued. “Next thing you know, they’ll want us to move out while they grace the place with their presence.”
“I hate this,” Matt said. His eyes held the kind of honesty that came from decades of knowing one another too well.
“I hate the way they’re looking at Jesse, like he’s some sort of thing.
I hate that I have to let them in order to keep him safe.
But most of all, I hate that they’re poking around about all of us. ”
“Yeah,” Bryce said. Because most of the pack had stories they didn’t tell. Wounds they’d wrapped tight and buried deep. Letting the Council poke around now in the name of background checks felt like handing them scalpels.
“Sending Christian to New Mexico might be the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” he added, before taking a sip of his coffee. God, that was gross—he’d forgotten to put any sugar in, which told him just how distracted he was right now.
“Do you think Christian and Dave will actually find out anything about Jesse’s old pack?” he asked, spooning sugar into his mug and stirring it in.
“This many years on?” Matt stared into his mug, as if trying to find the answer in his coffee. “I doubt it. But maybe someone remembers something. We’ve got to try.”
“Yeah,” Bryce said, and sighed. Needle in a haystack didn’t begin to cover what they were searching for.
“You know the Council’s going to send people down there just as soon as they hear Jesse’s story,” Matt said.
“I don’t think locals are going to want to talk to the likes of Caddel, and once they’ve muddied the waters, we won’t have a hope in hell of finding out anything.
With Christian and Dave going now, they’ve got a few days’ grace to get ahead of the curve.
” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain.
“Fuck it. I’m starting to talk like a damn politician. ”
Bryce snorted. “Not much danger of that,” he said. “You’re too straight. Talking, I mean. Obviously. Not straight straight. Or Jesse might have something to say about that.”
Matt rolled his eyes, but the tightness around his mouth loosened a little.
Bryce kept going. He didn’t mind being the clown if it was what Matt needed. “The other good thing about sending them now is that we don’t have to worry about Christian assaulting a politician for excessive pomposity.”
“There’s that,” Matt agreed with a rueful grin. “Or, knowing Christian, just for existing in the wrong place.”
Bryce huffed a laugh. The pack had certainly been more… interesting since Christian came along. It was like he spent his life revved up, ready to take offense.
And with Christian away for a while, Colby would finally have a little space.
No constant barbs and no narrowed eyes judging every damn thing he did.
If only they’d fight out their differences, Bryce was sure everything would be okay.
But Colby didn’t fight back. He suffered Christian’s hostility, flinched from it like he thought he’d earned every lash.
And that, more than anything, made Christian double down, taking it as proof he was right.
Of course Christian was testing Colby—standard pack bullshit for a newcomer.
But Colby wasn’t standard. He’d barely survived his previous pack, and now he was here, trying so hard to stand up straight.
Every time Christian snapped at him, Bryce could see Colby shrinking down like he was bracing for a blow.
It wasn’t fair, yet Bryce knew if he or Matt intervened, the two of them would never sort it out.
But sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing was damn hard. Tristan—Bryce’s kid in everything but name—was wearing that pinched, anxious expression again, the one he thought he was hiding as he worried about his mate.
Matt knew it too. He knew everything that happened in his pack and cared about them all. It was Matt who, unasked, had found the trauma counselor Colby was now seeing. Bryce wouldn’t be surprised if Matt had chosen Christian and Dave for that trip partly to give Colby some breathing room.
He blew out a slow breath and looked at Matt, still hunched over his coffee. His face was strained, the way it had been ever since he’d learned about the buyer in Washington, and Bryce wondered just how much sleep he was getting.
“I know it’s all bullshit,” he said quietly. “But we’ll get through this. Jesse’s going to be a seven-day wonder right up until they find he isn’t a poodle they can parade on a leash. They’ll lose interest when they find they can’t use him. Then, they’ll probably want to pretend he never existed.”
“You don’t think that’s when the scientists are going to step in and want blood samples and God only knows what else?”
“I think,” Bryce said slowly and carefully, “you’ve been watching too many bad sci-fi shows and you need to get some sleep. Maybe you and Jesse should take the horses out while I deal with security guy number one.”
He saw the instant of longing on Matt’s face before he shut it down.
“I figure Jesse could do with the distraction,” he added casually.
Matt Urban was the least likely person Bryce knew to let himself be manipulated. The fact he allowed it this time told Bryce all he needed to know about Matt’s need to be somewhere alone with his mate, away from all the crap.
He watched them ride off up the trail, seeing the growing relaxation in both of them as they rode side by side, knees almost touching. Matt turned to say something to Jesse, his face soft, and Bryce’s heart ached. He was glad he could give Matt this. He really was.
Now, if he could just get Colby and Tristan sorted out, along with the bullshit politicians and those phantom scientists Matt was so worried about, he’d really be on a roll.