Chapter 17 #6
Danny gave him an expression of annoyance, putting his hand up to cup his ear as he listened to Stirling. When he was done, he nodded and glanced up to the hillside, searching, presumably, for the lights from Kadjic’s vehicle.
Then he focused on Felix. “Fox, this isn’t a death sentence.
Stirling’s got a fix on Josh and Grace—and me.
But even if we’re stripped of our earwigs, he’s got a fix on Kadjic.
Grace gave him some information to look up, Stirling tagged his phone, and now, even if they send a signal jammer to burn out our comms, Stirling’s got a track on Kadjic’s.
So follow me. Let him take me and follow me.
If we get Grace and Josh back, it’s all worth it. ”
Felix nodded, his brain seeing the sense of it, but his heart….
He kissed Danny hard, desperately, needing him so much in that moment, his common sense checked completely out of the picture.
Couldn’t this man see that Felix was nothing without him?
He’d spent ten years as nothing, a shell, Josh and Julia his only ties to the land of the living.
They’d kept him there, sure, and he’d never be sorry he’d kept the promises he and Danny had made—of safety, of shelter, of caring—but none of that had been for Felix until Danny had come back into his arms.
Danny pulled away, giving a shy grin that yanked Felix immediately back to twenty years ago, when they were practically children, and Felix had first let Danny kiss him in his tiny, airless garret room.
And then Felix had kissed him back.
“This isn’t the last of me,” Danny said. “I promise, Fox. I won’t leave you. I meant it. Never again.”
“You had better fucking not,” Felix said thickly and then held him close, so close, against his chest, wondering if he’d ever learn to breathe again after this night.
At that moment, Danny cocked his head and parted from him, then whispered, “Go lay on the hill, there, in the grass. They can’t see you, Felix. I need you to come get me!”
Felix nodded dumbly and hurried to do as Danny said, sliding into the weeds on the hillside, which were, as the fall rains threatened, high enough to cover his shoulders as he flattened himself to the ground.
At that moment the car—an enormous luxury vehicle, black, of course—slithered down the last curve of the hill to the upper lot.
The headlights picked up Danny, slouching insouciantly, looking for all the world like he wasn’t waiting for his ex-lover and greatest mistake, the man who had tried to murder him in a back alley and left a twisting of scars on his ribs and worse ones on his heart.
In his ears there was a crackle, and Stirling said, “Josh is in the trunk—they don’t know about him. Grace is in the back with Kadjic, and they’re making the trade for him. Josh says there’s a quick-release handle in the trunk. He should be able to open it, but he says he might need an assist out.”
“An assist?” Felix asked, shocked out of his fear. “Josh?”
And Stirling, who while running comms on an op always sounded at least fifty years old instead of Josh’s age, suddenly sounded much, much younger.
“Felix, he hasn’t said anything, but he’s not sounding…
great. I didn’t want to tell Danny that, but I think the reason he ended up in the trunk was he was too weak to run anywhere else to hide. ”
Oh. “Oh no,” Felix whispered, his heart aching. Of all the bloody times. Josh had been so conscientious since Felix had arrived from Stuttgart. But the last two weeks had been a lot to ask from anybody.
Good God, the way that boy drove himself.
Felix had seen it as a child—even before Danny left, he’d wanted to be the best at everything he tried.
(Except test scores. Felix was aware that Josh had fixed his test scores to be slightly behind Grace’s, but even that spoke to Josh’s kindness and his intense loyalty.) And since embarking on this enterprise, this…
this adventure to go out into the world and not simply tilt at windmills but slay the real giants, Josh’s drive had amped higher.
Felix had been so relieved he’d allowed Liam back into his life. But Liam—for all that he seemed to be a very good boyfriend—was not a miracle worker, and Josh’s body needed a year of peace in which to heal.
Felix would not object to that. That month at home, him and Danny working their actual jobs, Julia consumed with the joy of a pregnancy not only wanted but celebrated—and Leon, their new brother, who had come to him and Danny for counsel and for companionship every day—that had been golden.
And Felix wanted more of that peace. Jobs, yes, he thought yearningly, but he wanted jobs they could do from home. He wanted time with his family not fraught with danger.
But first they all had to survive this night.
Felix watched anxiously through the tall grasses as the car drew to a halt, Danny still illuminated by the LED lights, looking for all the world as though he were waiting for a bus.
DANNY TRIED to block the headlight glow, dying for a glance at Grace. He wished he’d known Josh was still in the trunk—he would have placed Felix closer to the main road so he could run, open the trunk, and get Josh out, all while Danny was occupying Kadjic.
And the thought that that’s what he was doing—occupying the man and not fencing for his life—helped keep him calm.
Anything he and Andrejevic Kadjic said to each other would be inconsequential to getting Josh and Grace out of the man’s clutches.
An enormous man emerged from the rear of the town car as it idled, and Danny dismissed him. Muscle. Yes, he could probably snap Danny’s neck like a twig and probably had several weapons on his person—but Kadjic was the real killer, the commander of the troops.
“Andres?” Danny asked politely, and the man with no neck scowled and shook his head. So Danny raised his voice. “Andrejevic, get out here and face me yourself, you coward, and bring the boy with you.”
The muscle backed up, and Grace emerged from the town car, moving jerkily as though pushed.
Kadjic himself emerged behind him, glaring through the mist now lightly peppering the space between the headlights and Danny.
“What are you doing here?” Kadjic asked, sounding shocked, and it occurred to Danny that while his empire had been collapsing, Kadjic hadn’t thought to connect the flamboyant art thefts with the massive inroads he and his people had made at dismantling the branches of Kadjic’s life work.
But Danny knew a little of Stirling’s plan, and if Kadjic didn’t know now, he’d figure it out in… how long? One minute? Two?
“Think, Andrejevic—I know it’s hard for you. Too much cocaine, too many rent boys—but think. What could I possibly be doing here, on the night your favorite painting in the National Museum of Prague disappears, replaced by a stunning forgery?”
It was wonderful, in its way, watching the parade of emotions cross Kadjic’s face, as he made the final connection, realized that he wasn’t losing his mind, that Lightfingers had been behind the dissolution of his businesses and his personal ambitions.
And that tonight, at a place where one of his biggest business assets had been housed, was where he found Lightfingers himself.
He paled and swallowed. “What… what did you do?”
And suddenly, Danny wanted to tell him.
“LET THE boy go,” Danny said, allowing a small, unpleasant smile to cross his features.
In profile, Felix could see it—all the evil Danny could have been.
His childhood had been horrific, although he laughed it off when asked.
He had literally whored his way to Europe just to get away from the Jersey shore, and then he’d stolen his way out of a rich man’s bed so he could live free and do whatever he’d pleased.
He’d pleased to feed children half of what he stole to survive. He pleased to give Felix a hand out of a tight situation. He pleased to scam Hiram Dormer out of his trinkets to pay for the children Dormer had fathered by assaulting any woman who worked for him.
And when they realized that Julia had been Dormer’s victim more than she’d been his daughter, Danny had pleased to sacrifice himself and Felix to help her.
The Danny Mitchell that Felix had fallen in love with could have been this vindictive demon he showed to Kadjic now, but Felix knew, would know until he died, that the real Danny was the laughing boy he’d taken to bed all those years ago, and the warm, kind, sensual man Felix would not relinquish in a million years.
“Why should I?” Kadjic asked, shaking Grace by the scruff of the neck.
“Well, for one thing,” Danny said, “because his boyfriend is a trained killer who makes this one look like a kitten in a sandbox.” He indicated the man with no neck who had cleared the car first. “I am not kidding, Andres—if you wish to survive the night, you will not give him a reason to come after you.”
Grace—who had been unnervingly quiet, Felix had to admit—gave Kadjic a sunny smile.
“He loves me,” he said with absolute sincerity.
“That nice man whom I have never seen before is absolutely right. My boyfriend will skin you with a shiv and use your meatsuit as a sack if you hurt one precious hair on my head.”
Felix winced. Oh God. Grace. Every fiber of his being was telling him to stand up, to make himself a bigger target than Danny, a bigger target than Grace, to spar verbally with a monster, to engage him until they could get Liam there, get Hunter or Chuck to fire a lethal shot, get an entire Interpol army to take him down!
But the same reasons they couldn’t do that from day one stood.
If Kadjic died before his empire died, the harm would still continue.
The entire justification for the past two months was to take Kadjic’s empire down as well as to demoralize the man, to make him ripe for the plucking for law enforcement.
To bring him to justice for crimes much bigger, much more destructive than what he could inflict on their small family.
Felix had lost Danny because he’d been thinking about his company—not the money, but that they’d trusted him, the employees, the people who’d invested with him. They’d given him their faith, and he could not let them down.
He’d been looking beyond himself, beyond what he’d wanted, what he’d ever wanted, and here he was, about to do it again, lose the man he loved because he was focused on the big picture and not the slight, unassuming, beautiful, amazing god of chaos who loved him.
“No,” he said, not sure he’d said it out loud until there was a rustle in the grass next to him.
“Stay put,” Leon whispered, breathing hard. On his other side, Lucius slid quietly and murmured, “Not yet.”
Felix glanced from side to side, wild-eyed, and Leon caught his expression and chuckled soundlessly.
“I understand this is a family. We can’t get into trouble alone—that’s not right.”
Felix grinned at him, charmed, as Julia must have been.
“The others are heading for the SUV,” Lucius said. “I think Stirling had to take a moment to pack up his personal laptop.”
“Why are we staying put?” Felix whispered, eyes back on Danny and his deadly verbal waltz with Kadjic.
“Wait for it…,” Lucius whispered.
“You wear my name!” Kadjic screamed, shoving Grace aside to lunge for Danny, and Lucius and Leon had to actively restrain him as his muscles shrieked to put him between Danny and the man who’d harmed him.
“Your name?” Danny chuckled. “Hardly. I’ve got some ugly scars, you know, but you didn’t finish it. You ran away for a coward before you could finish the last two letters. However, I’ve got the name of the love of my life tattooed on my ass, and that shit, as the kids say, is going nowhere.”
“Really, Danny?” Felix whispered to himself, both amused and appalled. The tattoos had been their secret. But then, if there was ever a time to tell a secret….
“I’ll rip him from your body as I rip him from your heart,” Kadjic snarled, shaking him. Kadjic was taller than Danny, and outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, but Danny’s mouth was curled up into that evil smile, and Felix would’ve put his money on Danny any day.
“You can try,” Danny said, and Felix realized that this was the long game again. Find Kadjic’s lair. Find the art he’d stolen, squirreled away, blackmailed from the world.
Fuck the long game, Danny. Let us get you out of there now!
And then Kadjic started glancing wildly around, screaming at his muscle man in Russian as he, too, searched the immediate surrounds.
Oh hell.
Where the fuck was Grace?
Danny’s smile widened, and as Kadjic shook him harder and Felix strained against Leon and Lucius’s restraining hands….
Wait for it.
BOOM!
Forgetting stealth, the three people in the grass rolled over so they could scope the river below them, and stare in horror as the Spelyy Presik burst into flames, a handful of people throwing themselves off the aft deck and into the black water twenty feet below.
As Felix caught his breath, worried for his friends, he heard faintly—so faintly—Josh’s cry of “Liam!” but before he could run to the back of the town car and pull Josh out of the trunk, Kadjic gave a howl of rage and threw Danny in the car, lunging in after him and screaming for the driver to pull away.
Their no-neck friend barely claimed his foot from the pavement before the car squealed up the hill and into the night, and as it disappeared from the circle of ambient light, orange from the burning ship, Felix saw the back hatch of the vehicle slam shut, obviously yanked from the inside.
“Oh hell!” Felix cried.
And Grace was nowhere to be found.