Chapter Two #2
The copper lines gleamed in the late afternoon light spilling through the open garage doors.
Good work.
He tightened the final connector, then sat back on his heels and let out a slow breath.
There wasn’t much left to do on the bus.
Looking around, he realized it was pretty much move in ready, just a couple of aesthetics he had planned, like the stylized surfboards he had painted to put on the wall that sat behind the kitchen and separated the master bath and bedroom from the space.
One said Hale for house, and the other said Aloha.
House of love in his native language. He had no idea why he had spent hours designing them at night in his current van conversion, but he had.
His team had never seen them, but they were the best work he had ever done. He would put them up eventually.
The quiet in the massive commercial garage didn’t last long.
It never did.
Somewhere outside, someone revved an engine hard enough to rattle the walls. A second later came the unmistakable shout of Niko swearing at whatever he was working on, not going the way he wanted, and blaming the poor bastard he was working with.
Keanu’s mouth twitched slightly.
That was probably Tane.
Or maybe Victor. Since he had joined them, he had proved to be a very good mechanic.
Or both of them egging each other on like idiots.
He pushed himself to his feet and rolled his shoulders, muscles protesting after hours crouched in tight spaces. The bus settled around him, and he realized that this was something special.
A home.
Not just transport.
He rested a hand against the live-edge wooden counter of the kitchen, fingers tapping absently.
His mind hadn’t really been on the wiring. It had been wandering for most of the afternoon. He kept circling back to their last mission, saving Ethan’s younger brother Marcus from their abusive and power hungry father.
Not the fight. Not the gunfire.
Those were normal.
What stuck in his head was the moment afterward. In the parking lot at the airport, as they were preparing to leave. The way the desert air had cooled once the sun dropped and the adrenaline bled out of the team like water through cracked stone.
And the two men standing across the pavement.
Rangi Te Aho.
Alexios Petrakis.
Familiar in a way that had nothing to do with introductions and everything to do with his past. Keanu had known who they were as soon as he set eyes on them at the airport.
And he knew what they were to each other.
They were two parts of the same system, running in perfect sync without needing to communicate. The kind of connection you didn’t interrupt. The kind you didn’t step into.
Keanu frowned slightly as he reached for tools he had left on the bench, the metal cool against his palm.
It hadn’t been attraction. Not exactly. It had been recognition.
The same feeling he got watching someone handle a vehicle the way it should be. Rangi had that skill.
The way he moved—balanced, grounded, every shift of the gears deliberate. Like velocity worked with him instead of against him. Keanu had clocked it instantly.
A man who knew where he stood. Who didn’t need to prove it. There was something in that kind of certainty that pulled at him. Not sharp. Not overwhelming. Just steady.
Dangerous in its own quiet way. Even before the conversation. Even before the brief exchange beside the SUV.
“You drive?” Rangi’s voice—low, direct. No wasted words.
Keanu had shrugged. “Sometimes.”
The memory made him huff a quiet breath, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his mouth. Understatement of the century.
He crossed to the workbench and grabbed a bottle of water, twisting the cap off before taking a long drink. The cold slid down his throat, cutting through the heat clinging to his skin.
Alexios had been different. Harder to pin down. Where Rangi was grounded, Alexios was ... fluid.
Controlled, but in a way that suggested the control was a choice, not a necessity. Like he could tilt the room if he felt like it—and might, just to see what happened.
He carried himself like a man who knew exactly the effect he had and enjoyed it. He had sharp eyes and an easy confidence. That crooked smile lingered long enough to make you wonder what he wasn’t saying.
But Alexios hadn’t been performing.
He’d been watching. Watching Keanu. Not with suspicion. Not with challenge. But an open curiosity.
Like he’d already worked something out and was waiting to see if Keanu would catch up.
He set the bottle down harder than he meant to, dragging a hand through his hair.
It didn’t matter. They were a closed circuit.
Whatever existed between Rangi and Alexios—it wasn’t fragile, it wasn’t casual, and it sure as hell wasn’t something a third man just wandered into because of a spark of curiosity and a handful of looks across a parking lot.
Keanu knew better than that.
Knew the difference between interest ... and territory that wasn’t his.
Even if some part of him—quiet, persistent—had clocked the way Rangi’s steadiness pulled at him...
And the way Alexios’s sharp, knowing gaze had lingered a fraction too long...
Didn’t change the facts.
They were together.
And he had no place in it.
Keanu exhaled slowly, rolling the tension out of his shoulders as he reached for another tool.
Didn’t matter.
The mission was finished.
Life moved on.
That was the rule.
The sound of boots approaching across the concrete pulled him out of his thoughts.
"Jesus, Palani," Drew called from the front entrance to the bus. "You building a house in there or starting a mobile hotel?"
Keanu glanced over his shoulder.
Tane stood with his hands on his hips, grease smeared across one forearm, and a grin stretching across his face.
Behind him, Victor Dane filled most of the doorway like a silent wall of muscle. The Greek’s dark eyes moved slowly across the bus interior, taking in the layout with quiet interest.
"I like it," Victor said after a moment.
High praise.
Tane sighed, stepping inside the bus and whistling low. "Okay, I take it back, this is a home." He turned to look at Victor, his soulmate. “And something we should build for ourselves, baby.”
"Yeah, I think we should," Victor replied with a smile.
Keanu’s mouth twitched. He loved that his brothers were finding the ones meant for them. It made him happy. Lonely and jealous as fuck, but happy for them nonetheless.
Luca’s voice floated through the open door before he appeared. "We need to head upstairs, Kael has called a meeting," he announced.
He paused mid-step when he saw the bus interior, his eyes widening slightly. "Shit." He turned slowly in a full circle. "Okay, now I understand why you disappear into the garage for days at a time."
Keanu shrugged. "Needed something to do."
Luca leaned against the doorway, arms folded across his chest. "You build things when you think," he observed. "Well, whatever deep thoughts you're having, you can finish them later, because we just got a call from the Pathfinders."
Keanu’s instincts sharpened instantly. Calls out of the blue from them or Bravo were rarely good news.
"What kind of call?" he asked.
Tane grimaced. "The kind that gets Kael calling a meeting would be my guess."
"Specifically," Luca added, "they said they were asked for someone called..." He frowned, glancing down at the tablet that was never far from his hand. "Ahi."
Keanu felt something old and dangerous stir in the back of his mind. A name he hadn’t heard in years. And it belonged in a life he’d buried.