Chapter 19
“How do you like your eggs?” Matthew asked him politely.
“You’re up early,” he commented, frowning at the Mafia boss as he sat at the kitchen counter, sipping coffee and frowning at his phone.
A man stood at the stove, flipping things in a pan.
As he turned towards them, Beckett was surprised to see that the man was terribly disfigured.
It was hard to imagine what had happened to leave him so scarred, but Beckett’s best guess was that the damage was from serious burns.
“Kyle is an amazing chef. Makes the best scrambled eggs in Montreal, if you’d like to give them a try,” Matthew said, catching Beckett staring as if mesmerized.
“He was a cook in Afghanistan. Fed a whole platoon,” he informed him, and it was perhaps the simplest, and best, way to explain the man’s appearance to Beckett.
Caught in an explosion in foreign territory, he surmised.
“Sure, thanks. I never turn down free food.”
Matthew waved to the man, who looked up from the pan and stopped the flipping motions. Then he signed to Matthew in ASL and turned back to the stove.
“Will Agent Monroe be joining us?”
Beckett detected a hint of annoyance when he said Hayes’ name. Probably because he hadn’t enjoyed being cornered by Beckett’s better half and having his ass handed to him. Beckett smiled to himself as he briefly relived that special moment.
“Don’t know. Woke up before me. Probably went for a run,” Beckett said, as he sat down at the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe. It hadn’t exactly been a surprise to wake up to an empty bed. Even after having begged for sleep, Hayes was usually an early riser.
“Does he do that often? Or do I anger him that much?” Matthew asked, abandoning all pretense of studying his phone and sitting back to look at Beckett.
Beckett snorted in amusement.
“Don’t flatter yourself. Daisy’s a SEAL through and through.
The sky could be falling, and he’d go for a run.
” It was easy to forget the kind of training they’d both been put through, and the impact it had on their lives—but especially in Hayes’ case.
Once you got to know him, it was impossible to miss.
Beckett’s military path had been—unorthodox.
They’d been put through their paces alright.
While he truly admired the SEALs, the Force Recon guys, and the Green Berets he’d encountered over the years, he couldn’t deny his own path had been drastically different.
Their training had been hardcore, but far less regimented than that of SEALs.
Their training had been based more on survival.
Kill or be killed—quite literally, and to such an extent that both the Canadian military and US military would rather not divulge any details regarding their specialized training to the public.
“You don’t subscribe to the same level of masochism?” Matthew asked, and fuck all if Beckett didn’t hear Franklin’s perspective in that sand trap of a question. Copycat bastard.
“I’m more of a sadist, myself,” he replied with a sickeningly sweet grin.
Kyle slid a mountain of scrambled eggs onto his plate, along with an artery-clogging pile of bacon. Beckett’s ASL skills were pretty rusty, but he gave it his best shot trying to say thanks. Kyle smiled, so Beckett figured he’d gotten it right.
“Kyle has been a part of my staff for a decade.” Matthew sipped his coffee, his expression telling Beckett, “You can speak freely. I trust him.”
“That’s very reassuring. But I have nothing new to share.
Unfortunately, I’m not one of the three muses—the oracle did not bless me with some kind of vision overnight—so whatever I know this morning, I knew last night.
” Rolling his eyes at Matthew’s ploy, he shoveled eggs into his mouth, moaning as the amazing flavor hit his taste buds. Since when were eggs so fucking good?
“The muses?” Matthew parroted, amused. “Franklin said you were smarter than you looked.” Matthew looked over the rim of his cup at Beckett, frowning contemplatively.
Beckett glanced up and scowled.
“Yeah? I guess he told you lots about the family, huh?” He saw no reason to disguise the venom in his tone.
He hated that his brother had trusted this sonofabitch more than he had his own family, and that chapped his ass more than just about anything else in this entire shit show.
It wasn’t fair—wasn’t right—wasn’t anything he could change, but he fucking hated it.
“Not much,” Matthew replied, shaking his head, sounding deceptively honest. “He said your older brother—John?”
“Jackson,” Beckett corrected.
“Yes, Jackson. He said he was as honest and straightforward as they came. Like following the interstate. No off-road or by-pass needed.” There was a curve to his lips as he spoke that Beckett hadn’t quite decided if he agreed with or despised.
“He spoke rather fondly of your parents. A good set of parents who got handed far more than they’d bargained for in terms of children and had done far better than could be expected, all things considered—”
“Franklin’s an asshole, just so you know. You really shouldn’t take anything he says at face value,” Beckett said, chewing his bacon viciously to alleviate his tension and distract him from an almost overwhelming impulse to punch Matthew.
“Of course. He mentioned that too.”
“He did?” Beckett was, admittedly, surprised to hear that.
“Of course. A classic self-aware narcissist. More likely to harm those he loved than to actually help them were his exact words. He warned me to stay welllll away from him from the outset. Just goes to show I don’t listen very well,” Matthew snorted and then continued.
“He said the smartest one was Maggie. That it was criminal how she underestimated herself because she’d gotten caught up in all of your masculine energy.
He was glad she’d found love early because she was—slightly hard to love at first.”
And fuck if Franklin hadn’t hit it right on the nose with her. Beckett felt a grudging kind of admiration for Franklin’s perceptions and insights.
“You don’t disagree,” Matthew said, appearing intrigued as he continued to sip his coffee.
“My brother’s a dick—but he isn’t stupid—most of the time anyway,” Beckett relented.
“No, he isn’t.” Matthew’s fondness for Franklin was revealed in his smile. “And then there was you, of course.”
“I’m well aware of my brother’s diagnosis,” Beckett stated coldly to shut him down. He didn’t need to hear any of it. He’d heard it all before.
“Are you?” Matthew asked.
Beckett wished he could believe the asshole’s interest was faked.
“Yes, I am. And fair warning, if I were you, I’d look both ways before getting on my last nerve this morning,” he warned his brother-in-law.
Matthew snorted in amusement, then carried on, undeterred.
“He has quite the case of hero worship of you. I told him it was unfounded, but—” he sighed tiredly, as if that had been an old argument between them.
“Hero worship?” Beckett scoffed, because he’d been on the receiving end of his brother’s sharp tongue too many goddamned times. His criticisms of Beckett’s life choices had always been harsh and cutting. There had been no worship whatsoever. Just constant friction and verbal abuse.
“There is no martyr as grand as his work. As Cerberus guards the underworld—so does he guard his own reality,” Matthew said.
“I’m not into Shakespeare,” Beckett said, hopefully sparing himself the philosophical lecture.
“It isn’t—” he snorted, like Beckett was an idiot. “You believe you should die for those you love. That your life is forfeit almost—worthless unless you are sacrificing it to protect those you love. Your brother disagrees.”
And—God, Beckett wished he didn’t understand those words as easily as he did. He suddenly felt the eggs stick in his throat and he had to swallow hard to get them down.
“I don’t—” he lied. Openly so. And everyone here—including deaf Kyle, was fully aware he had.
Matthew laughed like the fucking asshat that he was.
“You know, I thought your brother might be a little jealous of you. A little—dare I say, delusional? But—” he shook his head. “It is actually quite alarming just how accurate his description was.”
Beckett opened his mouth to counter his assessment and tell him he was an asshole, but suddenly the front door opened. He reached for the pistol he’d stashed under his shirt.
“Unarmed,” Hayes announced, knowing that Beckett would be armed and ready when he heard the door. With a smile and wink, he veered towards the bedroom to shower.
“Now, Agent Monroe, on the other hand—I don’t believe your brother has figured him out yet.” Matthew lowered his voice so only Beckett could hear him.
“What do you mean?” he asked against his better judgment, tucking away his gun in the waistband of his jeans.
“He is far more enamored of you and dangerous to be around than I—or your brother—had been led to believe.”
Perhaps that was the most accurate description of Hayes that Beckett had ever heard.
Franklin had once called Beckett a ticking time bomb, and maybe he’d been right.
And sure, yes, he had a measure of insanity in him that he couldn’t deny.
The kind that made him as unpredictable as a homemade bomb—still, wasn’t it much more insane to be the man holding steadfast to said bomb?
“You talk too much,” Beckett grumbled and then shoved another forkful of eggs into his mouth.
Matthew grinned smugly, pleased to have gotten under Beckett’s skin.
The moment Hayes entered the kitchen, he picked up on the tension between Beckett and Matthew.
Beckett was muttering and staring hard at his coffee cup, his plate wiped clean.
Matthew sat near the end of the counter, his arrogant smirk advertising his success in their latest round of verbal jousting.
Hayes sighed, already exhausted just thinking about what the day held for them and he hadn’t even had breakfast yet.
“Had a good run, Agent Monroe?” Matthew asked.