Chapter 7
Jack
The coffee is half gone when I come down at six, which means Tiernan beat me by twenty minutes. He's at the counter in a grey henley instead of the usual button-down. His sleeves are shoved to his elbows, and the small deviation from routine makes me hesitate in the doorway.
"You're late," he says without turning.
"It's six-oh-three." I reach for the cabinet where the mugs used to be and find air.
They're on the lower shelf now, exactly where I don't have to stretch, still warm from the dishwasher. I pour without commenting, because commenting would mean admitting that I noticed someone did this for me. Considering the options and the schedule I’ve fallen into, that man is Tiernan and bringing it up would invite questions I don’t want answers to.
"Callen mentioned you tried the garden door again," he says.
"I was remapping exits. In case one of your men decides to bleed out faster than I can reach him," I justify.
"And if the exit's through a keypad you don't have?"
"Then I improvise."
He sets his cup down and straightens. The distance between us closes by a degree. "You're not a prisoner, Jack."
"The locked doors suggest otherwise."
"The locked doors keep people out. Not in."
I want to argue that it's the same cage no matter which way the bars face, but Callen appears in the doorway.
His eyes move between us with the careful neutrality of a man who's learned not to see things. He notes changes and lets them pile up until they create a pattern he doesn’t have to ask about.
"Boss. We need you," he states.
Tiernan's whole posture changes. The looseness is gone and expectation coils in its place. He's halfway to the door before he stops and looks back at me. "Moretti's people have been quiet. Quiet usually means a move coming. Stay in the compound today."
"Why does quiet involve me?"
His jaw tightens, making his face more severe.
"Emilio Moretti knows you're here, and he knows what you're worth to me.
He's the one pushing. But understand, Emilio answers to his uncle, to the whole family.
Even if I take Emilio off the board, the Morettis don't forget a slight.
There's no version of this where one bullet ends it. "
It's the most he's told me without being forced to. There’s no life on the line to justify it or a contract that orders transparency. I add it to the puzzle I’ve been steadily crafting about Tiernan in my head.
There are glaring spots that annoyingly, or thankfully, keep the full picture from forming.
He's gone before I can push.
The day stretches. Remy posts himself outside the medical room and pretends to read while I reorganize supplies I already organized. When men pass, they nod to me now. Two come to talk to me and ask my opinion about things outside of wound care before they even address Remy.
Remy gives me a look that reminds me what he said about not being here because of a debt.
They all know about it and they’re all pretending it’s more.
I don’t know if it’s insulting or a compliment.
The hierarchy in this house has been the same for years, Tiernan told me that once.
Now it's shifting around me and I’m not at the bottom.
That’s too much to process and if I let myself believe it means something, then I’ll have something other than a contract tying me here. Remy seems to notice my shifting perspective anyway.
“Told you,” he murmurs.
“It’s natural for patients to want to keep their nurse in mind after moments of trauma,” I justify before scrubbing all the counter tops and the bed despite the fact they’ve already been disinfected fully.
“Trauma bonds, actual respect, totally the same thing,” he comments anyway.
Tiernan comes back at dusk with a bruise on his jaw I didn’t put there and that coiled stillness still on him. He gives Remy one look and Remy disappears without a word or smile.
"Two of Emilio's lieutenants got an offer to defect," he says from the medical room doorway. "He's making moves. He thinks he's winning."
"And you?"
"I think he's about to find out he isn't."
Something has been building between us for weeks, in coffee and charged silences and the two feet of tile he keeps leaving, and tonight the room is too small to hold it.
This isn’t anything he has to tell me. It doesn’t involve my brother or me. But he’s being open again. He’s not leaving, again. And every sharp breath he takes makes the resolve in his eyes magnify.
“And?”
He arches an eyebrow, not answering.
“Why are you telling me any of this? I’m a nurse. I’m contracted to be here, so why?”
“You know why,” he says.
I cross the distance because I'm tired of pretending I won't. “Spell it out, Tiernan. I’m not going to stay in this gray area where I have to guess.”
“I already said you’re more than a prisoner. You’re a part us. You matter,” he says, eyes still on mine.
“Yeah, I save your men, keep them alive, and keep them healthy,” I say, ready to step back.
His hand brushes mine. If I didn’t know him, I’d say it’s an accident. The electric contact keeps me in place. He exhales slowly. “You matter for personal reasons … to me. It’s not covered by the contract, but it’s just as real. Believe me.”
"You want me to believe you – to trust you just because you say so?" I ask. "Then you earn it. You don't command it like I owe it to you."
His eyes drop to my mouth for a burning second. "I've never wanted anyone the way I want you," he says, his voice going rough. "And I hate it. Because you're right. I've done nothing to earn it except keep you alive and make coffee you pretend not to notice."
The honesty undoes something I wasn't braced for. My comment slips out anyway. “And you’re telling me why? You know this is a terrible idea.”
"I know."
"I should hate you."
"You should."
“Argue. Plead your case. Put your facts forward and – and-”
“I don’t have facts, Jack. I have you, right here, but feel like I’m not allowed to touch you.”
“You’re not,” I whisper, determined to stand my ground until he slowly looks me over and his face doesn’t have a hint of stoicism. He’s molten, restrained, the want leaking out of him in a way that breaks me. “But I can touch you and still call it a mistake.”
I grab his shirt with both fists and pull him down to me.
The kiss is every charged silence at once, every dawn we stood at the window pretending the coffee meant nothing.
It’s the hunger, need, desire, and curiosity that I’ve been telling myself was nothing more than a consequence of proximity.
Every renewed pressure of his lips on mine and the taste of his breath mixing with mine murders that idea.
His hands find my waist and then my back, hauling me in until there's no space left, and my spine hits the cabinet hard enough to rattle the contents. He tastes like coffee and something darker. His mouth leaves mine to drag along my jaw, my throat, and I make a sound I'd be embarrassed by if I had the ability to feel anything but him. His hand slides up my ribs, and I accept that I’m drowning in a man I should hate, should be fighting, shouldn’t want, but fucking do.
I want him more than anything and I’m tired of pretending that it’s not his face I picture every time my thoughts get raunchy. I’m too worn thin by his presence, his consistency, and the effortless respect, transparency, and routine he gives me.
The door slams open.
Callen stands there, face pale, phone in hand. "It's her brother. Jamie. Moretti's people have him."
The world goes white. Then cold. Then very, very clear.
Tiernan steps back from me, and his face changes into something flat and absolute. The mask slides into place so fast the last sixty seconds might never have happened.
"When," Tiernan demands.
"Twenty minutes ago. Outside his university. They left a note."
My legs give out, then become ghostly and wrong. I grip the counter to keep from collapsing. "What does it say?"
Callen looks at me, then Tiernan. Tiernan nods.
"The debt is now owed to the Moretti operation,” Callen answers. “Maddox stands down from the waterfront, or the debt is paid in a different currency."
Different currency.
I see Jamie at five, crying because I burned dinner and there was nothing else. Jamie at fourteen, hugging me after a double shift. Jamie at nineteen on the phone, telling me he loved me while I sat on a cold bathroom floor.
"Whatever you're planning," I say, and my voice comes out level, clinical, the voice I use to tell families their person didn't make it, "I'm part of it. He's mine."
Tiernan looks at me for a long moment, and whatever passes through his eyes isn't something I can read.
"Callen," he says. "Everything we have on Moretti's properties. Now."
Callen disappears. Tiernan steps close, not touching. “Breathe.”
I inhale the word reflexively even though something other than panic has slipped into my veins. This is the same unyielding determination I feel when someone’s crashing and my tools are in front of me.
"I'm going to get him back," he says quietly. "Before morning."
"Don't get yourself killed. I just reorganized your entire medical operation. It would be inconvenient to train someone else."
He offers something close to a smile, lifts his hand to gently brush my always free lock of hair behind my ear, then stops himself from leaning in. Then he's gone, and I'm alone with the ghost of his mouth on my throat and the cold certainty that everything is about to change.