Chapter 2
MAVERICK
SEVEN YEARS LATER
There was an impromptu slumber party at the condo last night, which was awesome until Oakley showed up this morning after a hookup.
Turns out the sounds coming from Oakley’s room weren’t from my cousin but from my married uncles, who are well into middle age—not that you can tell, what with their matching six packs.
Add in Rami and Truett, his hot barber boyfriend, plus my own extracurricular fun, and we might need to sage the poor walls before we sell this place.
Breakfast was fifteen conversations over pancakes, and I could barely keep up. Holmes asked Truett for help with his fade—half a millimeter off regulation, probably—and Truett happily obliged.
Holmes is in the military, just like he always wanted to be, even if the only thing I know about his highly classified service is that he really cares about the regulations. Also, I can tell when he’s in danger because I feel it in my chest.
I’m internet famous, so I totally get being in high-pressure situations. I mean, God. I could lose followers if I used the wrong product on my luscious, sun-streaked curls.
Now that Holmes and Truett have taken off and the conversations about all the fucking that went down last night have settled, my thoughts, as always, go straight back to Boone. I’d been doing well on that front, but we reconnected a few months ago.
Reconnected in that he cuffed my drunk ass at the tail end of a spring Pride event and dropped me back home.
Turns out, he still fucks with Earth’s gravity whenever he’s near.
I’m pretty sure he meant the whole Pride incident as a warning, but I’ve turned it into foreplay.
Realizing there’s still conversation going on around me, I knuckle down and concentrate on making the words make sense. Rami’s talking about his barber, and the uncles are teasing me mercilessly, so…the usual.
As I’m getting into the swing of things, though, my hard-won focus is hijacked by a rush of adrenaline and a tightening right beneath my sterno.
Sternum.
My cousin’s phone chirps, and he reads the incoming message, leaning forward as his brows meet in the middle. We simultaneously turn to each other and goosebumps spread down my arms and across my chest.
“Is it Holmes? Is something wrong with Holmes?” I ask, barely able to catch my breath.
Whatever this is, it’s worse than what I’ve felt when he’s on his missions.
Honoré looks beyond me to Rami.
“Holmes just texted. He heard a shout and squealing tires, then raced over to Truett’s car. The driver’s side door was left open, and Truett is nowhere to be seen.”
Holy…shit. “What the fuck?”
Uncle Anders grabs his phone, his thumbs flying. Seconds later, he’s nodding at the screen. “Jake’s on it. He’ll grab the security feed from the garage.”
What?
The others crowd around Anders’ phone as the door to the stairs opens. Holmes jogs in, cutting the cord on the tension in my body. He sends me a quick nod, touching his chest before turning to Uncle Anders.
“What happened to him?” Holmes asks. “Did you see?”
“Jake’s sending me the feed right now,” he says as everyone presses in a little closer.
Not knowing what to expect, I walk up behind the group and stretch up on my tiptoes, trying to get a glimpse at the small screen.
My uncle taps the link that comes through, and security footage from the garage boots up. My brain trips up on the angle, the lighting. Like it’s some sort of fucking student film and not…shit. Three men in military gear kidnapping Truett.
Truett fights back, nearly connecting with one guy until one of the other men slams the butt of his gun into his temple. His legs give out, and they scoop him up like a sleeping child, shoving him into a van.
Omar holds up his phone. “Wimberley’s scrambling a response. We’ve got a description of the vehicle, and they’ll have air support within the next five minutes.”
Wimberley? Air support?
For a second, I think I’ve misunderstood him, but then everyone is on the move.
Silas brushes by me, Cupcake on his heels as they hit the stairwell, and the others go to the back, leaving Oakley and me in the living room. I’m so fucking confused.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” I ask, panic rising in my chest again.
Oakley seems to be taking things in stride, even though he looks as confused as I am. “And what, exactly, is Wimberley scrambling?” he asks, his voice low.
Nobody’s here to explain it, and each second that passes ratchets up the anxiety and the feeling of foreboding in my body.
Moments later, everyone has made their way back to the living room, looking ready to go to fucking war. Like this is something they’ve done before.
Like, a lot of times before.
And then there’s Silas.
I’ve never been afraid of Sy a day in my life, but my dads have never particularly trusted him.
In this moment, I finally see what they’ve always been so afraid of.
He’s wearing combat gear and the darkest sunglasses I’ve ever seen, even darker than the ones he usually wears.
Cupcake’s not with him, so whatever he’s about to do doesn’t require the use of his support animal.
It’s that, more than any of this, that sends a cold shiver down into my very fucking soul.
Rami, though, puts me over the edge. My do-gooder cousin is carrying a gun. A gun.
I turn to Oak, needing to confirm this is all as bat shit as it looks. His mouth is downturned, and his jaw is set, but he is way more hinged than I am in this moment. Turning to my brother, who looks like a stranger and hasn’t explained any of this, I finally lose my shit.
“Holmes, if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on…” I grab my hair at the roots. “Why are…?”
Fucking. Words.
“Why are all y’all in combat gear?” I finally spit out.
Sy turns to me, tilting his head, and I can’t…
“Why is he wearing those goddamned sunglasses looking like Death’s fucking right-hand man?”
Sy grins, and I am thisclose to clocking him when Uncle Anders grabs my shoulders.
“We are going to get Truett,” he says, maneuvering me so I have to look him in the eyes. Probably because he knows I’ll process it better that way. “Then we are going to come back and explain everything we can to you and Oak, okay?”
Everything we can. Right.
Oakley nods, seemingly okay with that nothing explanation.
“Why aren’t we calling the police?” I point to my cousin, who looks way too comfortable with a pistol. “And why is Rami, of all people, armed?”
There’s some back and forth about weapons, and none of it involves me. Realizing I’m not going to get anywhere with them right now—and that Truett is in real danger—I shut down.
Oak still asks if we can do anything, but Uncle Omar just tells him to stay here with me, like I’m some mental patient that needs minding, and to call Aunt Hedy because “she’ll know what to share with you.”
Aunt Hedy?
What the fuck does Aunt Hedy have to do with any of this?
I mean, she’s connected at the government level, but not at the law enforcement level.
Right?
Before I can say anything else, my uncles and cousins get into the elevator and leave. They just fucking…leave. Without calling the police and, apparently, without needing to.
I stand in the middle of my living room, stunned. Oakley walks over to the window and stares out across the city.
I’m reminded of the suspicion I’ve had for a while that my brother is hiding things from me. I want to laugh because boy, was I off by a country mile.
It isn’t just my brother. It’s my entire fucking family.
And I feel like my world just got turned on its fucking head.
Oak shakes his head, takes out his phone, and approaches me.
“You calling Hedy?”
He nods, then puts the phone on speaker.
“Oakley, sweetheart! I can’t wait to talk to you about that psych rotation at Wakefield General.”
He’s just about to get his PhD in Complex…something. Psychology?
Psychopathy.
“That sounds great, Aunt Hedy, but…we’ve got a situation here, and Maverick and I were told to call you.”
“Oh?” she asks.
Oakley gives her the rundown.
“Oh.”
Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but she doesn’t sound even a little surprised.
“Hedy?” I ask, already out of patience.
“You deserve answers,” she says after a moment, the practiced calm in her voice making my scalp itch. “But first I need to make a few calls.”
She hangs up on us, and I grind my molars to dust. Oakley doesn’t look much happier.
A few minutes later, she calls back, the sound of her heels on tile like a series of gunshots.
Leaving off any kind of greeting, she says, “As you know, most of your fathers were associated with some form of high-level, mostly covert government-level work. They are no longer members of an official government agency, but they are all still involved in high-level ops in one capacity or another.”
She lets that hang there, and Oakley and I stare at each other, waiting for her to clarify. She doesn’t. Oakley pulls himself together faster than I can.
“Do they…?” He shakes his head. “What exactly do they do?”
An engine starts with a loud whine in the background, and a low whomp-whomp-whomp.
“I am holding on to some of those details until I have a conversation with the team. Obviously, this is not the way we wanted you two to find out about the Guardians, but—”
“The Guardians?” I ask, shaking my head. “Like protectors or…bodyguards?”
“Protectors, yes,” Hedy answers carefully. “Like I said, there are details we’re hanging on to for the time being.”
I can practically see Aunt Hedy working out what to say as the engine noises get louder. “Look, I’ve got about thirty seconds before I hafta take off,” she says, voices rising in the background. “But I’ll explain the mission when I get back.”
Oakley mouths the mission with a million questions in his eyes. Also, is she flying the helicopter?
Oak and I exchange a look. He takes a breath, then says, “Doesn’t feel great that we were left out of something that’s clearly a family-level operation. I’d like to know why that is.”
She sighs and shuts a door. “I know it’s frustrating not having all the details, but…” Another fucking pause as people talk to her. She comes back on the line. “The choice to not tell you was up to your fathers, so they may be the best ones to ask.”
I walk away from the phone and over to the massive wall of windows, choosing the corner that overlooks Lady Bird Lake.
Oakley ends the call and joins me at the window.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, his familiar calm keeping me on this side of sane.
“That she’s flying one of the helicopters that were scrambled.”
“Agreed.”
“And that they were waiting for you to get your doctorate before bringing you in.”
“Probably,” Oakley responds, shifting uncomfortably.
“So, you were always going to be let in,” I say quietly, “but I was never supposed to know.”
“Do you think maybe your dads thought you wouldn’t be interested?”
Leveling a gaze at my cousin, I answer, “Or maybe they thought that my language processing shit prevented me from being a good candidate for the family business.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” Oakley insists.
“What happens when I call myself an idiot?” I ask, damn well knowing the answer.
“Don’t call yourself that.” Oak’s response is immediate. Reflexive. “Take it back,” he insists, finally looking genuinely angry.
“Exactly,” I say, going to the bar. I don’t care what time of day it is.
I grab a beer and crack it open. “Well, let me tell ya, cuz. Nothing makes me feel more idiotic than knowing my family successfully hid such an important thing from me, likely because at some level, they don’t think I’m smart enough to handle the truth. ”
I think back to the conversation I had with Holmes. I'd been worried that my travel schedule for the spring would keep me away from the family. He assured me that he was equally as busy, and now I'm left to wonder if that was code for, "I'm glad you won't be in the way."
And that thought sits in my gut like a verdict.