Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
A s Leo went about setting up his laptop and making sure everything was working right, his phone rang with a FaceTime request. “Hey, Rafe.” He greeted as he answered, not bothering to look at the screen only his brother would dare call him at this time in the morning. His family knew he was usually writing at this time.
“Hey bud, what’s up?” Rafe asked, the screen blurring for a moment as he moved before he righted it.
“Not much about to get started on a new chapter…hey, Momma.” Leo smiled as he saw his mom, followed by his dad, sit next to Rafe. “Hey, Dad.”
“Leo, how’re you feeling?” Bram asked as he settled deep into his chair with a sigh.
“Good. I’m about to get some work done while Torres is still passed out.” Leo leaned down over the chair to hide the blush on his face and silently cursed himself for letting that slip. The fact that he knew Torres was still asleep wouldn’t fly over his brother’s head.
“Oh…do tell.” Rafe teased.
Leo rolled his eyes. “Relax, you are not going to live vicariously through me.”
Rafe snorted. “So you didn’t have any fun. That sucks.”
Leo rolled his eyes again. “Shut it.” He waited as his laptop booted up before he opened his drafting software. “How’s Levi doing, Dad?”
Bram yawned. He was exhausted. “He’s doing better. He’s supposed to be fitted for his prosthetics next week.”
“That’s good.” Leo clicked on his email as he waited for his book to load. There was an email from someone he didn’t know, but that wasn’t that uncommon as his email was on his website for his followers to reach out to him if they wanted to. He clicked on it, but all that popped up was the link to what looked like a video. “Hold on a sec got an email. I need to check.”
“Ok, take your time.” Rafe said through a mouth full of food.
Leo’s brows furrowed as he clicked on the link and waited for the video to load. “What the hell?” Once the video started to play, all he could see was Daegan. His husband was standing in front of a man who was on his knees. The man on the ground stared at his husband with unfiltered hate. There was no sound, but Leo could clearly see this was not a good scene. Men were standing behind the man on the ground. They were all black and wearing gold bands around their biceps and wrists. He could see scarring on their chests and faces… due to the darkness of their skin and attire, he guessed it was scarification. The man on the ground had more gold and more scars than the young men behind him, which would make him the leader of the tribe. Leo assumed that was how that worked. He was so engrossed in trying to figure out what was being said he didn’t notice what happened until he saw the head of the man on the ground explode and the young men’s faces crumple in grief. The sleek black gun in Deagan’s hand confused him. What the hell had he done? The screen blanked as he was still trying to process the message that popped up: YOUR HUSBAND KILLED A GOOD MAN, YOU WILL PAY FOR HIS CRIMES. He must have made a noise because the next thing he knew, Torres came through the door. The wood splintered as he shouldered through it, his gun drawn and ready.
“Leo, what’s wrong?” Torres demanded. He’d heard the man scream as he was getting up.
All Leo could do was stare at him in horror, before he felt his stomach rebel and he bolted for the bathroom.
Torres looked around the room, trying to figure out what had happened.
“He got an email.” Rafe said, his eyes wide in shock.
Torres looked at Leo's phone and saw Rafe and his parents sitting there, looking on in shock. He nodded and moved to the laptop before he grimaced. “Uh, Leo, I gotta touch your laptop. I’m sorry.” He said, making sure to raise his voice enough for the man to hear, but when he got no response, he clicked play on the video. After it played, he immediately called Kade.
“What do you have?” Kade’s rough voice demanded.
“Daegan killed a tribal elder in his time overseas. Leo was just emailed a video of it and a threat.” Torres answered, ignoring Sanem’s gasp of horror as he tried to gather details from the video. Who was the man he killed? Where was he? And why the fuck did he kill someone?
“Send me a copy of the video. I’ll get Cowboy on it and see what we can get from it. Are you ok? Is Leo?” Kade demanded.
“I’m pissed, Leo’s throwing up what has to be his internal organs at the moment.” Torres growled.
Kade grunted. “We‘ll get right on it.”
“Thanks, Kade.” Torres hung up. “Rafe, gonna have to call you back.”
Rafe nodded. “Just check on Leo. We’ll wait.”
Torres nodded, then hung up Leo’s phone. “Leo.” He called as he knocked on the bathroom door. He could hear Leo’s deep sobs and pushed through the door to get to him. Leo was sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees as he cried into them. “Hold on to me.” He sat beside Leo and pulled him into his arms. Holding tight, he let Leo deal with the emotions as he petted his hair and ran his hands up and down Leo’s back as he cried into his neck. He didn’t bother to say anything. He just sat there in silence, letting Leo know he wasn’t alone.
“Ho…how could he do that?” Leo stuttered out, breathless from crying.
“Deep breaths, baby, you’re gonna start hyperventilating.” Torres waited until Leo matched his breathing before he continued. “I don’t know, baby, but I will do whatever I can to find out what happened.”
“I was married to a killer.” Leo raged. “What the fuck? There’s no excuse to just kill someone.” He sat back to see Torres’ face.
Torres’ heart sank. He was a killer, granted he didn’t just go around killing people, but he had been paid by the military and by Kade to take out some pretty bad people. “Sometimes it needs to be done.” He said softly. “Sometimes people are so bad they don’t deserve to be on this earth.”
Leo shook his head. “Don’t twist my words, Vince, that’s not what I meant. You were trained and sanctioned to eliminate targets. Daegan was not trained, nor did he have any dealings with killing someone legally. What he did was cold-blooded murder, Vince.”
Torres met those swimming blue eyes. He had to know if Leo was telling the truth he couldn’t fall any further just to have Leo not be able to deal with the things he’d had to do. He’d never killed an innocent, he didn’t kill women or children, he’d only ever killed men who deserved to be put down. He nodded.
“I mean it, Vince. I don’t have an issue with your past. My brother has had to do some of the same things. I applaud your service and the sacrifices you made. Daegan was a trust fund baby who always wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to heal people, not kill them.” He took several deep breaths. “You are a soldier, a fighter. You’re very protective and will do whatever it takes to protect those you care about. Daegan would not. He was a fucking coward.” He let out a choking laugh. “He couldn’t even handle hiking up to the top of a hill to look at the view. He was so scared of heights. I just don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I know.” Torres ran his hands up Leo’s back to rub at his shoulders. “Kade’s working on it now. I’ll let you know as soon as we find something out.”
Leo cleared his throat. “What about the threat?”
Torres sighed. “We have Cowboy on that to see if he can trace where the email came from, but as of right now, I’m your shadow even more so than before.”
Leo chuckled. “You gonna handcuff us together?”
Torres narrowed his eyes and felt a thrill when Leo swallowed hard. “Don’t tempt me. Do you want to go to your parents? Or do you want to stay here?”
“My parents, it’ll help me focus on something else. You can do what you need to.” Leo said, trying not to notice the gleam in Torres’ eyes when he mentioned the handcuffs.
Torres raised a brow. “Nope, I’m stuck with you. What you do, I do.”
Leo snorted. “Won’t that be boring for you?”
Torres laughed. “When is your family ever boring?”
Leo winced. “Ok, yeah, you got me there.”
Torres grinned. “I adore your mother. She’s amazing.”
Leo stumbled to his feet and pulled Torres after him. “I know she always has been. You think she’s funny, you need to meet my grandmother. Her mother is hilarious. She’s four foot nine and the way she bosses my dad around is something you can’t miss.”
“I can’t wait to meet her.” Torres ruffled Leo’s hair and kissed his cheek. “Get ready. Can you leave your laptop for the day?”
“Yeah, I can go old school.” Leo held up a pad of paper and a pen for Torres to see.
“Ok, good. Go ahead and get ready. I'll check in with Kade then we’ll be ready to go.” Torres walked back to his room to finish getting dressed. Thank god he’d put on boxers before he busted into Leo’s room. He shook his head; nothing was making sense. Even if Daegan had killed someone he was dead, why would they come after Leo? He grabbed his shoulder holster and his thigh holster and made sure he was locked and loaded before he put on his jacket and went to find his wayward boyfriend. He paused. Were they boyfriends? He didn’t know he hoped like hell they were. He didn’t want what had just happened to affect it. “You ready?” He asked as he walked into the kitchen, where Leo was grabbing a bottle of water.
Leo had to clear his throat. He’d never in his life been attracted to guns, but holy fucking shit the way Torres was strapped. The sleek black gun strapped to his thigh was porn worthy. He wondered if he could talk Torres into letting him take some pictures of him naked with his gun. Talk about having that as a muse. He could also see another one under his left arm strapped to his chest. The way he moved like a predator just fucking did it for him. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Torres nodded and leaned against the counter as he studied Leo. “You ok about last night?”
Leo cocked his head in question. Torres’ face was unreadable, so he had no idea where he was going with this line of question. “Yes,…are you?”
Torres nodded. “I just wanted to make sure some things get said in the heat of the moment. I meant what I said, but I just wanted to make sure you were ok with it in the light of day.” He shrugged like it wouldn’t fucking gut him if Leo changed his mind.