3. Dax
DAX
I ’d checked on Travis several times in the last two hours, but he was still sleeping soundly. I’d ignored two calls from Remington, and I knew sooner or later I was going to have to call him back. I was hoping I could wait until Travis was up and I’d had a chance to talk to him.
My instincts told me Travis was still in danger. I wasn’t sure why, but I’d learned to never go against a gut feeling. We were as certain as we could be that Elandra and Guidry didn’t have other accomplices, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Once I’d made myself some lunch, I sat down at my desk.
I’d taken a short nap, but I knew if I didn’t do something, I would fall asleep again.
I gave in and called Remington but left my office door cracked so I could hear if Travis was moving around.
Remington would be pissed as hell if I hung up on him, but Travis was my first priority.
I couldn’t say why I felt so strongly about him, but I knew he was meant to be my responsibility.
“What do you need?” I asked when Remington answered the phone.
“For you to fucking answer when I call you.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping? We all should be.”
Remington snorted. “I hardly have time to sleep on normal nights.”
“Yeah, but that’s Henri’s fault, isn’t it?” Henri was my cousin’s beautiful boyfriend, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“Don’t push your luck. Is Travis still there?”
“Yeah, he’s sleeping.”
“Good.”
“He gets to sleep, but I don’t?”
“I’ve got things for you to do, and Travis is… young.”
“He’s older than Corbin.” Shit. Why did I sound so defensive? Remington wasn’t implying Travis was too young for me. Hopefully he had no idea I’d ever think of Travis that way.
“True.” Remington’s voice was too flat. What the hell was he thinking? “But last night was a lot for him.”
I could argue that being shot at in the alligator-infested bayou in the wee hours of the morning was a lot for anyone, except maybe Ambrose, but I didn’t want to talk about Travis anymore. “I was about to do some more digging on the assholes who’ve been fucking with our weapons suppliers.”
“Good. Send anything you’ve learned over to Lance.”
“Lance? He’s going to take care of it?”
“I’m sending him out to bring the fuckers in. He plans to put them on ice for you.”
“And while that’s happening, I will…”
“Stick by Travis.”
That was exactly what I’d plan to do, but why did Remy want me to?
“What’s up with Travis?” I asked.
“He’s in trouble.”
Shit. I knew my gut wasn’t wrong.
“Beau asked Blackjack to look into more of what Travis had been involved in.”
Blackjack was a man we kept on retainer for his wizard-level hacking skills. I’d assumed Beau had found out all he could before seeking out Travis for information on Guidry. “He hadn’t already done that?”
“He hadn’t had access to Blackjack.”
“Yeah, but he could’ve found somebody.”
“I don’t think he wanted to know. I think he wanted distance.”
I tried to imagine ever not wanting to know where Ambrose was and what he was doing, but everybody said twins were different.
Maybe that was true, or maybe I just couldn’t imagine Ambrose ever betraying me.
I didn’t know the details of what had happened when Travis fucked Beau over, but I wanted to find out.
I didn’t want Travis to have been as horrible as it sounded like he was.
I had to admit if I was Beau, I’d have a hard time forgiving him as well.
“Did Blackjack find something?” I didn’t want Travis to be mixed up with assholes again. Was that the real reason he didn’t want to stay?
“What he found indicates Rob was abusing Travis, that he was essentially Rob’s prisoner.”
“That motherfucker. However he died, it wasn’t painful enough.” I wanted to scoop Travis out of bed and hold him. He needed all the comfort he could get.
“I agree, but we have to focus on what we can do. Rob apparently thought a lot of himself, and he got himself involved with some men who weren’t at all forgiving. They weren’t small-time like Guidry. He was in deep with Louis LePlatt.”
“Oh, fuck.” LePlatt was a drug runner who had a reputation for being insane and ruthless. His power and reach were nothing compared to ours, but he was dangerous as fuck.
“He’s not the only one, but he’s the most likely candidate to come after Travis because…
I really think it ought to be Travis’s story to tell, but let’s just say he definitely has a vendetta against Rob.
The fact that he sees Travis as Rob’s accomplice means he thinks Travis knows things that shouldn’t be public knowledge. ”
My pulse pounded in my ears. “If I knew anyone who could raise the dead, I’d pay them whatever they asked for the chance to kill Rob again. Slowly. Over days, maybe weeks. I would enjoy the hell out of it.”
“I’m sure Beau will feel the same way.”
“Will?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I asked Blackjack to report to me first. I think Beau needs a chance to talk to Travis before this information comes out.”
“But if he knew about Rob, wouldn’t he better understand?—”
“Like I said, some of this should be Travis’s story to tell.”
I understood Remy’s point, but I didn’t think it would work like that. “He’s not going to tell Beau anything if he hasn’t yet.”
I’d only met Rob once, and I’d thought he was a slimy piece of shit.
I didn’t know how he’d ever managed to be friends with Beau, and I hadn’t been shocked when he’d betrayed their friendship and seduced Travis.
I knew Travis had felt like an outsider most of his life, and Rob preyed on that.
Travis had been so damn young, still in fucking high school, when Rob started sniffing around him.
What had that bastard done to him? I’d known Travis was wounded, but this… I’d at least thought he’d gone with Rob willingly.
“We don’t know what he might say to Beau now, but let’s focus on our most pressing problem of the moment.”
“Fine. How do you want me to handle the bastard Lance is bringing in?” I was ready for some strenuous torture. The idea of ripping somebody apart with my bare hands would actually suit me just fine.
“I need him alive.”
“So I can’t kill him, but you want me to hurt him?”
“Yes. Badly. I want you to make a very clear point.”
That would help me relieve some tension. “Can I leave marks on him?”
“I don’t care how much fucking damage he takes as long as he’s able to talk.”
“Fine.” I froze. I heard something like fabric or a hand brushing against the wall. I listened more closely and thought I heard an intake of breath. Travis was awake, but he didn’t want me to know he was there. How much had he heard? “Remy, I’ve got to go.”
“I’m not?—”
I heard more movement. “It’s Travis. He’s awake, and I need to check on him.”
“Call me back when you have more info.”
I ended the call without saying anything else and rushed into the hall. Travis had his hand on the front doorknob. How had he moved that damn quietly?
Because he’d learned to. Because he’d fucking had to.
Why hadn’t he run from Rob? Anyone in my family would have helped him, especially me.
Maybe he thought we wouldn’t have after what he’d done to Beau.
Why hadn’t he left before then? I was going to find out.
I wanted the whole story, but I knew I had to go slowly and carefully to get it.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Home.”
“And where’s that? You said you lost your apartment. Are you going back to the bayou?”
He shook his head. “I’ll figure something out.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“Dax.”
“No. You’re going to come in here and talk to me.”
“Or what? You’ll torture me until I do?”
Fuck. Did he really think I would hurt him? “You’ll always be safe with me, but I’m not letting you leave.”
“I’m not your prisoner.”
“No, you’re my responsibility.”
Travis huffed. “That’s worse.”
What the fuck did that mean? “How?”
“If I’m your prisoner, then you want to keep me. If I’m your responsibility, I’m just a fucking burden. Goodbye, Dax.”
He reached for the door again, but I grabbed his arm and swung him around. “Travis, I’m not fucking kidding. I won’t allow you to just disappear.”
“Why? Because you’d have to answer to Beau?”
“I can handle Beau. I don’t want you to get hurt. Do you really have a safe place to go?”
The fear in his eyes told me he didn’t. “Come in and let me explain what you heard.”
“Dax, I know what you do. I’m not worried about that.”
“What I do?” Did that mean he’d only heard the last words I’d said and not what I’d said about Rob?
“I know about your family business, and I understand your role in it is… violent.”
Violent hardly described the things I did. “I want you to feel safe with me, so I’m going to explain anyway. Then if you still want to leave, I’ll find somewhere you can stay. I know most people can’t accept what I do.”
“What you do keeps people safe, doesn’t it?”
Did he mean that? Did he really see it that way?
There were times I fucking enjoyed extracting information from our enemies.
I let myself revel in that sick desire to hurt, to maim, to kill because it served something greater.
I’d never tortured or killed anyone who was a decent human being, and that was why I could live with what I did and stay sane.
Maybe that was why Ambrose struggled with what he’d done in the army.
He’d had no way to know the true character of the enemies he’d killed.
No matter how much I justified it, most people couldn’t stomach what I did. Even other criminals shied away from those of us who did the most gruesome jobs.
“I make sure we get the information we need. Sometimes that helps keep the people I love safe. Sometimes that helps us keep our business going.”
“You wouldn’t hurt somebody who wasn’t evil.”
Travis speaking with such conviction made something flutter in my chest. “Most people say I’m evil.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you trying so hard to run away.”
“Because if I stay on…” He paused and licked his lips, keeping his eyes cast down at the floor.
I took hold of his chin and tilted his head up, forcing him to look at me. The heat of his skin seemed to burn my fingers, and I almost let go from the shock of it. This was wrong, so very wrong.
“What will happen if you stay?”
He shook his head. “I need to be on my own. I need to make my own start.”
“You’re in danger.”
“I’m always going to be in danger.”
“Not with me watching out for you.”
He shook his head. “That’s not your job.”
“Then whose is it?”
He stepped back, freeing himself from my grasp, but he didn’t try to leave again. “Nobody’s. I got myself in this fucking mess.”
“No, you didn’t. Rob got you in this mess.”
“I wanted Rob.”
“You wanted things Rob promised you.”
“You don’t know anything about it.” He tried to step around me, but I blocked his path. “Move, Dax. You don’t want to get involved in my problems.”
I could tell how hard he was trying to keep himself together. Had he ever been able to relax in the years since Rob had manipulated him? “Whether I want to or not, I already am.”
“What the fuck does that mean? You don’t even know what’s going on with me and you don’t need to. Just let me walk away.”
“What about Beau? He said he’d come over later today. He wants to talk to you.”
Travis shook his head. “No, he doesn’t. He just feels like he has to. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what he’s thinking.”
“I know what he was thinking a week ago, and that was that he wanted me to stop bothering him, even when I was scared Guidry was coming for me. He doesn’t want me in his life.”
“Then why did you come to rescue him last night?”
“Because I don’t want him to die. I still love him.”
“Travis, I do know some of what happened when you were with Rob.”
A look of horror came over his face. “No.” He shook his head frantically. “No, you can’t. How would you?”
“Come sit with me, and I’ll explain.”
When he looked at me again, his eyes were damp with unshed tears. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Travis, please.”
His eyes widened, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. It was clear he knew I didn’t use that word often.
“Come on.” I wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and he let me lead him to the sofa.