Love Thieves #22: Purgatory
Chapters 6 to 10

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Chapter 6

“Michael!”

Clearly Birkoff was not the only one who had trouble adjusting to the sudden emotional imbalance in his life. Nikita was proof. Though she had tried, desperately at times, to keep her family on course, she slept poorly, if at all, during Michael’s absence. As for her appetite, never very good to begin with, Nikita would sit at the kitchen table and stare into space for several minutes at a time, her fork poised to bring food to her mouth, but never quite reaching its destination.

She was a wraith. Her weight loss so noticeable as to make her look ethereal, Nikita was paler than Birkoff. Dressed in one of Michael’s black sweatshirts and jeans, Nikita stood unsteadily in the doorway, unable to believe that Michael was really home.

Her breath catching in her throat, Nikita peered intently through her overly long blonde bangs at her husband. “Michael?” It was as if she wasn’t sure that Michael was, well, Michael.

“It’s me, Kita.”

“Really?” Her face brightened markedly, the animation bringing much-needed life into her face.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. His bright angel looked decidedly worse for wear. If there had been any way to spare her this, he would have found it. For now, all he could be happy for was the fact that they were both alive and well and looking forward to spending the next thirty years growing old together.

He inclined his head ever so slightly, and within seconds, Nikita was in his arms. She didn’t want to cry. God knows, she didn’t have the energy to cry. With a heartfelt sigh, she settled into his embrace, pulling his arms around her waist. “Hold onto me. I feel like I might fly away,” she confessed with a gentle sob.

While Michael regarded his wife in total silence, Nikita kept up a running commentary, as if she were building a wall around them with words. “I missed you so much, but you’d be proud of me, Michael. I’ve been keeping everyone going.”

But who’s keeping you going? “My poor brave Kita,” he finally murmured aloud, burying his face in the space between her neck and her shoulder.

She worried her bottom lip, her hands clenching and unclenching on the back of his neck. “D-Did you miss me?”

He closed his eyes and said, “Yes.” His fingers wound through her pale blonde hair, anchoring her to him. He never wanted to let her go again. But he didn’t dare promise such a thing. Who could say what the future might bring?

Painfully aware that they were being observed by nearly everyone, Michael reluctantly drew back, looking curiously unsure of how to proceed. On the one hand, he wanted to be with his wife, renew their bond. Whether or not that involved sex didn’t matter. He knew only that he existed in that moment to hold her, touch her, claim her.

On the other hand, there was the situation with Adam. He couldn’t ignore him. There were too many things that needed to be dealt with, and the sooner the better. But he was loath to stir those things up right now, especially since Nikita looked barely able to handle his homecoming, never mind that of a son that he thought he would never see again.

“Ki-ta,” he began, feeling himself falter for the first time. He had no idea what to say to her. He owed her the truth. Just as he’d said to Declan. But telling her about his feelings for Elena would serve no purpose. Elena was dead. Besides, it wasn’t as if he loved Elena the same way that he loved Nikita.

He would never love anyone the way that he loved Nikita.

Not even his son.

He supposed that should make him feel ashamed. But it didn’t. Guilt was something he was well-acquainted with. But astonishing as it might seem, this was one thing that he could not feel guilty about. She was the one true light shining in his darkness. No one had ever made him feel that way. No one.

“We found Elena and Adam.” There. He said it.

“You did?” She stunned Michael by peering around him. “So where are you hiding them?”

“I…there’s no easy way to say this.”

“What’s wrong?” Nikita was sensitive to all of her husband’s moods. She could tell that he was upset, even though there was little emotion showing on his face.

“Elena is dead.”

Nikita gasped. “How? Why?”

“Cause he killed her, that’s why!” Adam made his presence known in a very vocal way. “She died of a broken heart!”

Nikita winced. It couldn’t have been a happy meeting. Actually, that was a major understatement.

Without turning to address his son, Michael continued as if Adam weren’t there. “She died…” Michael took a deep breath and held it.

“Michael, it couldn’t have been your fault. You haven’t seen her in a very long time. She—“

He interrupted her quickly. “She had…cancer. Terminal, inoperable cancer. Nothing, not even Section and its technology, light years ahead of any and all competition, could change that. It’s nobody’s fault, doucette. No one predicted this. No one could have changed what happened.”

Michael looked pointedly at Adam. “No one,” he repeated.

“As you must have guessed by now, this is Adam.”

Suddenly Michael had the most absurd urge to laugh out loud. Here he was, pretending a normalcy that he certainly didn’t feel, and laughter was bubbling up inside of him. It was so…inappropriate…for lack of a better word.

As for Adam…*he* didn’t have enough strength to fight them anymore. He would gladly go down trying if he honestly thought he would never see that look on his father’s face again.

Truth to tell, Adam would have stayed in the background forever if he could have. Maybe then they’d forget about him. He was all of 16, but a boy his age didn’t always have good control of his most basic impulses. But more than that, he’d just lost his mother to a lengthy and debilitating illness, and he’d discovered that the father he’d once thought long-dead was quite impossibly alive.

Adam had been a happy child. He remembered laughter. He remembered how it felt to play soccer for the first time with the “big boys”. He remembered the man he called “Daddy”. When his father was “killed”, he missed him. He looked to his mother for answers, and she reassured him that his father would always love him.

But the acute grief passed, and life went on, and soon enough, Adam found himself coping with the fact that he had only one parent. He loved his mother, perhaps too much. He idealized her, even before her death. But the ideal was not that far from the reality, for Elena had indeed been a very special person.

Now she was gone. And Adam faced the difficulty of fitting into a family that he never dreamed existed. Was it his choice? No. But he was not ready to be on his own, and he knew it.

Because deep in his heart, he was scared. Scared that his father, whom he admittedly idolized once, now had no real place for him in his life. Scared that his father had brought him here out of duty, because Elena asked him to take care of him, and his father was nothing if not an honorable man. He would keep his promise to Elena, regardless of his personal feelings towards Adam.

What if the other kids formed a united front against him? He hadn’t done much to make them like him. If anything, he had gone out of his way to be obnoxious. Driving them away. Or was he merely keeping them at a safe distance?

What if his new mother…no, he refused to call her that…his step-mother, then. What if she chose her own kids over him? Could he expect her to do anything else? Adam was a great believer in logic, and he honestly could not see her accepting another woman’s child as her own. Even if her own husband was his father.

But Adam didn’t know Nikita. Nikita had always thought of Elena with considerable respect. She understood that the marriage was one of convenience, for Section and for Michael, but she wasn’t foolish enough to assume that Michael’s feelings were never engaged on any level. He made a child with Elena, and she refused to believe that Michael did not love that child’s mother.

She could never have married Michael if she weren’t convinced that he were capable of that kind of love—for Elena, for Adam. Her heart went out to Adam during those days and nights she spent in the home that Elena shared with Michael. Regardless of her very natural feelings of jealousy, she developed a fondness for both Elena and Adam.

At the time, Nikita had felt torn apart because part of her, the very needy little girl part, the part who wished that her mother hadn’t waited until she thought she was dead to tell her how much she really cared…*that* part felt as if Michael had given Elena something that belonged to Nikita.

But now she stood here, facing Michael and Elena’s son, a son who no longer had a mother, and she realized something. She didn’t feel triumphant. Only sad. Because Michael never loved Elena the way that she loved him. And in the end, Michael chose her.

Could he have found a way to be with Elena? Perhaps, but in all probability, it would have jeopardized all of their lives. Including Adam’s. Michael had made way too many sacrifices in his life for him to be unwilling to make one more.

So he did.

“Hello, Adam,” she said softly.

Adam felt truly conflicted. Torn between what he considered loyalty to his mother’s memory and remnants of the powerful love he once had for the man who was his father.

His father demanded nothing of him. Yet. But wouldn’t he expect loyalty to Nikita? The rival? The usurper of Michael’s affections?

Could he do that?

Should he?

All of these feelings and more played across Adam’s expressive face. Overwhelmed by emotion, Adam dreaded making the wrong decision.

But did he have to decide right now?

Nikita smiled, and Michael’s face lit up, the love they shared visible to everyone, including Adam.

“H-Hello.”

Chapter 7

“I’m sorry to hear about your mother, Adam.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably under Nikita’s forthright blue gaze. She was a beautiful woman. She was a kind person. He wanted to like her. For his father’s sake, if not for his own. Otherwise, he could see nothing but heartache and bloodshed ahead.

But he wasn’t sure that he was ready to talk about his mother with her. It was too new, too fresh. All at once, he realized that his angry attempts to push the others away were a defense mechanism. Perhaps it was not a constructive way of coping with his feelings, but it served its purpose, to keep people at a distance.

In a way, he was very much his father’s son. Though he had clearly been an open and enthusiastic young boy once, over the years he learned to hide his real feelings. Having someone know too much about him was painful. It revealed his weaknesses. It took away his admittedly false sense of being in control.

For now he knew…he was not.

“Yeah.”

“If you ever need to talk….” Nikita was offering more than an olive branch. She was giving him a place in her and Michael’s lives.

Could he be part of their family? Could he try? What if he failed? What would he do then?

“Thanks,” Adam replied huskily, unable to keep the emotion out of his voice. He stared at the floor as if he would wear a hole through it. It took every ounce of his being not to cry. He would never forgive himself if he cried in front of her. In front of them.

Nikita bent her head, hoping to catch a glimpse of the emotion that Adam was struggling so desperately to hide. “We’re not your enemies, you know,” she said kindly.

Adam almdv ost choked on the lump in his throat. God knew, he didn’t need any more enemies. He needed someone to talk to. It couldn’t be just anyone. But he couldn’t be sure that it was Nikita.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

Shooting Michael a sharp glance, Nikita continued, “Would you like to go to your room?”

That brought Adam’s head up. Fast. “My what?”

“Your room. You didn’t think we were going to make you sleep out in the car, did you?” She grinned.

“But you didn’t even know about me till a few minutes ago. How could you--?”

“We have plenty of room, Adam. It’s not a big deal to throw some sheets on a bed.”

“But you would let me? Sleep in your house, I mean? After some of the things that I--?”

“What? Some of the things you said? Or did?” Nikita grew serious. “Or thought?” Adam looked vaguely frightened when she said that, but she hastened to reassure him.

“No, no, Adam, I don’t have psychic powers. Let’s just say, I’ve been where you are.”

Michael cocked his head interestedly, encouraging her to go on. Nikita smiled briefly. “When your father and I first met, I didn’t trust him at all,” she said conspiratorially.

Adam found himself spellbound by the charismatic older woman. Despite his natural misgivings about befriending anyone in this family, but especially her, he was so startled, he blurted out “You didn’t?”

“No,” she said, a winsome smile on her lips. “Remind me to tell you about it some time.”

He nodded. Life kept getting more and more interesting.

***

True to her word, Nikita made up a bed in one of the guest rooms downstairs, and Adam found himself sitting on the edge of that bed moments after she left.

He didn’t know what to make out of these people. They seemed to have each other’s best interests at heart, and when one of their own was threatened, they circled the wagons to protect them. Yet here they were, taking in a virtual stranger. One who was hostile to boot.

He shook his head. Maybe he would never understand.

Nikita had left the door open a crack. Adam felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and suddenly he knew that someone else was there.

“Who is it?” he called. “And what do you want?” He almost laughed at that. Nikita had given him his own piece of territory, and he was ready and willing to claim it.

“It’s me,” called Sasha, standing in the doorway. “Just thought I should check on how you were doing.”

“What are you, the freaking police here?”

Sasha shrugged. “Look, we all gotta live together, and it would be a whole lot easier if we get along. That’s all.”

“Is that really why you came? Or did you want to find out what I’m up to?”

“Up to? What the hell could you be up to? You just got here, for God’s sake.” Sasha sounded exasperated. “I was trying to be nice, you asshole.”

“You came into my room and I’m the asshole? Jeez.”

Suddenly Sasha couldn’t wait to get away from him. In fact, he was in the middle of turning around to go when it hit him. Shit, he doesn’t want anyone to see how much he’s hurting. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure that out.

Sasha stopped in the doorway, his body half in silhouette. “Well, listen, if you change your mind—“

“I won’t,” Adam said emphatically.

“They’ll prolly give you a couple of days off to get used to your new life.”

“What am I, in witness protection?”

Sasha gave the older teenager a considering look. “Actually? Yes.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “What is this place?” he said, more to himself than to Sasha.

“It’s where we’re all lucky enough to live. So try not to screw it up, okay?”

With that, Sasha left. Adam pondered that last exchange. It kept him from sleeping for hours.

Chapter 8

“Mi-chael…we have company,” Nikita whined, but it was apparent that her husband’s mouth on the nape of her neck was exactly where she wanted it to be.

His mouth felt warm and wet, his tongue flicking out between straight white teeth to caress her willing flesh. “Mmm…don’t stop.”

He chuckled, the sound low and deep in his throat. “Oh, I have no intention of stopping.”

She twisted around in his embrace, aligning her body with his. Her arms wrapped around his neck, she looked into his changeable grey-green eyes and saw the mischievous glint there. “You’re teasing me.”

“I’m trying to,” he agreed, sliding both hands down the sides of her body to her hips. He held her, loosely enough to permit some movement, but snugly enough to provide a certain level of friction.

“Mmm…” she moaned again, her eyes falling shut of their own accord. “The kids aren’t in bed yet, Michael.”

“I can’t wait that long, doucette,” he whispered against her ear.

“But what if Adam needs something?” she asked, instinctively realizing that she had ruined the mood by mentioning Adam’s name.

Michael pulled away, his hands reluctantly giving up the prize they had claimed. “I don’t want to talk about this now,” he eventually said, unable to make eye contact.

“Michael, we have to talk about this sooner or later.”

“Fine. We can talk about it later.” Michael shook his head, his mouth poised as if to say something else, but he thought better of it.

“Okay,” she said softly, reaching out a finger to stroke his cheek. He grabbed her finger and held it away from him, as if her touch would somehow be painful. “Please. Don’t.”

“Michael, you’re letting your feelings for Elena and Adam color the way you feel about **us**. “

For a moment, Michael’s eyes met hers, and the look they held was tense, almost apprehensive. “What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t want—“

“You don’t want what? Michael, talk to me,” she urged. It could be strangely satisfying figuring out what Michael was thinking, but then, there were those times when it was simply too frustrating for words.

“I don’t want things to change!” he shouted helplessly. He felt so vulnerable. He hated when circumstances were beyond his control, and this situation more than qualified. On nearly every level.

“Oh, Michael. Everything changes. It has to.”

He allowed her to touch him, then, submitting to the tender caresses she lavished on him: his temple, his cheek, his jawline. “But I **love** you, I don’t want this to change **us**.”

Her eyes were impossibly blue and sharp enough to pick up the slightest nuance in Michael’s expression. “Nothing can ever touch that, Michael. We’ve survived all this time because we finally learned to trust each other. Don’t give up on us now.”

She kissed him with all the love and compassion and hope that lived inside her. “You’ve been my strength all these years, Michael. Now let me be **yours**.”

He shivered and tried to pull away from her, but Nikita was nothing if not steadfast. She maintained her grip on her husband, refusing to let him go. Not entirely surprised to see the flash of unguarded emotion in his eyes, she said firmly, “Adam will come around. In time.”

Michael automatically began to shake his head again, more vehemently this time. “No. He’s already halfway to accepting you, Kita, but me…” He sighed, the despairing sound almost a groan. “Me he hates. Me he can never forgive,” he whispered.

“Hate is such a terrible word, Michael. He doesn’t understand. He’s reacting emotionally. He **will** forgive you. But it’s going to take time.”

Michael wanted to believe that. With every fiber of his being, he wanted to believe that. But it was harder than he ever expected it to be. “But—“

Nikita leaned into Michael’s body, inadvertently losing her balance, and Michael intuitively caught her, his back now against the wall of their bedroom. “Let it go for now, Michael,” she exhorted. “Make love to me.”

She kissed him, her movements suddenly wild and improbably fervent. “Fill me up,” she begged plaintively. “I’ve been so empty…without you.”

He couldn’t help but respond to that tone. Need. Now there was something he was well-acquainted with. He bent her head back, grasping her hair between his fingers, exposing the pale expanse of skin that was her throat for him to suckle.

She gasped. But not with pain. Nikita couldn’t be sure how it would be with them this time. Given his present mood, she assumed, wrongly, it seemed, that Michael would make love to her with tantalizing slowness, feeling his way over her body with tender, caring hands.

Instead there was this urgency in him. In both of them. This need, for there truly was no other word, that existed only to bridge the physical gap between their two bodies. As hard and as deep and as fast as humanly possible.

Never breaking away from the kiss that sealed them together, Nikita slid her hands down to Michael’s belt, unfastening the leather constraint that prevented her from reaching her primary objective.

At the first touch of her lips on his ardent flesh, he rocked his head back, hitting the wall with an audible thud. Unconsciously spreading his legs further apart, he rested his hands on her shoulders, their presence for balance, not pressure.

“Ki-ta,” he hissed, her name the only word he was capable of forming.

She knelt between his legs like a willing acolyte at the feet of her chosen god. Yes, she did worship him that way, for he gave her everything, denied her nothing. They came together like the elements of a storm combining to unleash a thunderstorm.

With a noise that was almost a lamentation, Michael climaxed, his life essence pouring down the throat of his most significant other. She smiled as she drank, as his hands untangled themselves from her hair.

Standing again, this time on unsteady feet, Nikita brushed Michael’s mouth with hers, letting his taste himself. Now there could be tenderness. Now there would be sweet, slow lovemaking through the night and into the morning.

“Doucette,” he whispered, as always amazed at her intuitive grasp of what he needed. But then, had it not always been this way between them?

Even when he himself didn’t know what he needed, Nikita knew. She sighed happily, her own satisfaction the farthest thing from her mind. Now she would gladly lie in his arms, as chaste as a maiden, just to feel the safety there.

“I love you.”

Chapter 9

He meant to tell him. First thing in the morning. Before he could accidentally discover the biggest secret that Declan had ever kept from him.

But Declan was nothing if not emotionally wrung out. He slept through each of Sey’s impatient attempts to wake him, never realizing the conflagration that was about to occur.

With a careless shrug, Sey gave up on trying to communicate with Declan, his feet finding their way down the stairway at the back of the Samuelle home. It was Saturday. No school. Sasha had taken off for parts unknown with his best friend, Jazz, and Emmy was undoubtedly commiserating with Chris, who had been taken sick just before the valiant adolescents decided to rescue their parents.

“Hey, Nik!” Sey called out as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. But it wasn’t Nikita who was sitting at the kitchen table, looking like he belonged there.

No, it was…**him**.

Well, not exactly him, but close enough. More like an alternate reality version of Sey, this Sey had close-cropped hair, similar in color to Sey’s own dark brown. He wore no glasses, and his clothing looked impossibly trendy. Not to mention expensive. They were the same height, and Sey guessed, they would have been the same weight, if he hadn’t decided to forego eating in a desire to hasten death. No, that was too strong. It wasn’t so much that Sey wanted to die as that he didn’t want to live without Declan.

“Um, who are you?” Sey asked curiously.

A suspicious gleam entered Jason Crawford’s eyes, eyes that reminded one of melted bittersweet chocolate, eyes that were astonishingly like the ones that stared owlishly at him now. “You don’t know?”

An irritable look flickered across Sey’s face. “Would I ask you if I knew?”

“Why don’t you take a guess?”

“Look, I don’t have time for games, okay? So why don’t we skip this part and go right to what the hell you’re doing in our kitchen?” Sey folded his arms in front of him, a mulish look taking the place of his previous good humor.

“I’m your brother.”

“Yeah, right,” Sey snorted derisively. “What are you, freaking delusional?”

“No, are you?” Jason countered.

Sey began to tremble. “Are you r-really my brother?” Not some Section clone that somebody whipped up in a lab, but my real brother?

“Yeah,” Jason stated flatly.

“But how? My parents never told me I had a brother.” My parents never told me anything. But how could they keep something like this a secret?

“They weren’t your parents.”

“What?”

Sey faltered on the way to the other side of the table, and Jason reached out instinctively to steady him. “Hey, you okay? You don’t look so hot.”

“I’ve been…sick.”

“Maybe we should talk later. When you’re feeling better.” Hell, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun to enlighten his twin brother if he was nearly unconscious. This discussion could wait.

“No!” At Jason’s startled glance, Sey continued, albeit in a much softer tone, “I mean, no, I want to find out what you know. Now.”

I’ll just bet you do, Jason mused.

“Have a seat, then, it’s a long story.”

***

When he woke up, Declan had an immediate sense that something was very wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he knew he was right. His sixth sense was unerring.

By the time he showered and dressed, it was perhaps a half hour later. Long enough for Jason to “cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.” Long enough to come dangerously close to destroying the already-battered trust between Declan and Sey.

Declan followed the smell of food cooking and it quickly led him directly to the kitchen. Astonished to find Jason Crawford blithely making himself breakfast in the Samuelle kitchen, Declan blurted out, “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? Y’all aren’t that swift on the uptake now, are you?”

That might have worked on someone as vulnerable as Sey. But it didn’t have a hope of succeeding on someone like Declan. “Looks like you’ve forgotten your bloody manners, boyo,” Declan said, casually wrapping his fingers around Jason’s neck.

His air momentarily cut off, Jason struggled to get free. Declan wasn’t proud of reacting this way, but what could he say? As much as Jason looked like Sey, he was his very antithesis. In short, he couldn’t stand the Comm op.

“What are you doing here?”

“Here? As in, in the kitchen? Or here? As in the existential sense?” Jason quipped despite the fact that he could barely breathe. “Why don’t you a-ask him?” He pointed to someone behind Declan.

Declan turned and caught sight of his lover, standing in the doorway. Declan gasped. He looked like he’d been run over by a truck. “Sey!”

“When were you going to tell me, Declan?” Sey’s voice, so cold, so chilling, sent shivers up and down Declan’s spine.

“Tell you what? That you had a brother? I just—“

“Don’t lie to me! I can’t stand it when you fucking lie to me!” Sey put his hands over his ears, as if to shut out the sound of Declan’s voice, and Declan grabbed them, struggling to pull Sey’s hands away without hurting him.

“I didn’t know, acushla! I wasn’t keeping this a secret from you!” Declan protested.

Jason met Sey’s eyes, and an unmistakable look of denial passed from one man to the other.

“That’s what you say.”

Declan released Sey’s hands, and his lover didn’t even pause to chafe the reddened areas that Declan left on his wrists. Within seconds, he was gone.

Whirling around like a man in shock, Declan screamed in anguish. How could someone look so much like the angel he claimed as his own when he was really the devil?

“What the fuck did you tell him?” Declan shouted, his own emotions frayed badly at the edges, his control slipping its leash.

Jason smiled. “He wanted to know about his parents. I told him.”

“What did you say to him?” Declan repeated. If he survived the next few moments, he might kill Jason. He had a feeling that Sey might not mind.

“That the people he thinks were his parents weren’t.”

Declan frowned. “Then who the hell were they?”

“Foster parents.”

“What happened to his real parents?”

“Ah, now wouldn’t y’all just love to know?”

“His parents abused him. Did terrible things to him. Made him afraid of life,” Declan spat angrily.

“Yeah, well, Section didn’t do such a great job of finding a nice family for him. Fact is, they were more interested in their experiment.”

“What experiment?”

“The one where they split up us twins. Kept one to be raised in Section. The other…well, the other got the dubious honor of being raised by Mr. and Mrs. Norman Bates there.”

“Who did this?”

“Who do y’all think?”

An image of Paul Wolfe’s face, his pale blue eyes glittering with demonic pleasure, ran through Declan’s turbulent thoughts. I’m glad he’s dead. Now I won’t have to kill him.

At Jason’s sharp bark of laughter, Declan abruptly realized that he must have spoken aloud. “But Sey lived at home until he was 8 or 9, I think. What happened to the arrangement?”

“It fell apart.” Jason gave Declan a half-smile of invitation. “You sure y’all want to hear all this now? We could—“

“Take your hand off my arm,” Declan growled. Jason’s dark eyes danced playfully, as if he were quite enjoying this.

Nevertheless, he removed his hand.

“How did it fall apart?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t think the foster parents told Section about the abuse. It would have gotten them cancelled straight off. Instead,” he paused thoughtfully, “they blamed it all on my brother’s emotional disturbance.”

“In a manner of speaking, Seymour failed. The experiment. Being outside. Being part of a family.”

Declan closed his eyes on tears he could never shed in front of this man. How dare he gloat over his own brother’s pain?

“What happened next?” Declan rasped.

“They sent him back.”

“Just like that?” Like a piece of returned mail? Like a defective piece of merchandise?

“Y’all know that Section doesn’t waste time cutting its losses.” Jason sighed. “They brought him back. Made him functional again. I mean, Section gave him a reason to be, didn’t they? When he didn’t have one anymore?”

It was all he could do not to strangle the smug smile off of Jason’s face. “How dare you—“

Jason fairly snarled back in the older man’s face. “I’ll tell you how I dare! I dare because that fucking grub you think you love is the reason I’m here now! I should have been the one who got a chance to live a normal life! Me! Not him!”

His dark eyes almost black with rage, Jason said, “If they’d chosen me first, none of this would have happened! And if he hadn’t screwed up, they wouldn’t have yanked me out of my well-ordered life at Section and given me a taste of what I was missing!”

Jason continued to breathe hard, his obvious resentment of his brother going much deeper than even Declan might have suspected. “Instead, here I am, each and every day, thinking about the life they took away! The life they fucking wasted! I could’ve been somebody! If they’d only let me stay! But no, the geek fucked that up, too! He escaped! And guess who fucking replaced him?”

“Sey never belonged in Section. But you…you seem to be right at home there.”

“And who do y’all think I blame for that?”

For a long moment, neither man spoke. Declan was too busy cataloguing the information Jason had given him, while Jason was lost in contemplation of a life that would never be.

“You said they should have chosen you. Who chose Sey? Operations?” Declan’s voice was deceptively soft, his tone dark and dangerous.

“No!” replied Jason, a bit startled.

“Then who?”

“Our father made that decision.”

“Are you saying that your father was in Section?”

Jason nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“Is he still there?”

Jason shook his head. “No.”

“Dead? Cancelled?”

Jason looked bemused. “No. Still alive.”

“Who…is…it?”

A full-blown smile erupted on Jason’s face, its presence somehow more menacing than a grimace.

“I believe…it’s the gentleman…y’all know…as…Walter.”

Chapter 10

Everyone heard Declan scream. Michael was the first one to arrive at the scene. In time to see Declan backhand Jason across the face. The younger man staggered for a moment, then smiled, a wicked grin made all the more macabre for the split lip that Declan had given him.

In the meantime, Declan was doubled over, apparently in pain, but whether or not he was physically hurt was hard to tell. Michael wondered if the pain had more to do with assaulting someone who looked too much like his lover than with anything else.

Michael grabbed Declan from behind, effectively trapping his arms at his sides, but Declan was not resisting. “Don’t,” Michael whispered to the man he called brother of his heart. “He’s not worth it.”

Jason taunted Declan, blood trickling down his chin, blood that he made no effort to wipe away. “I’m not the one you’re angry with. Am I, Declan?”

Michael felt Declan tense in his arms, but a second later, Declan willed himself to relax. Then a voice came from behind him. “No, that’d be me.”

Declan turned his head so sharply, he felt vaguely dizzy. “Walter!”

Jason smeared blood across his face with his fingers, making himself look like a warrior in full paint. “You must be Daddy,” mocked Jason.

“As if anyone would want to acknowledge fathering you,” returned Walter.

“I find it significant that the one who started all this has nothing particular to say.”

“You don’t know how it was!” said Walter. Declan couldn’t recall ever having seen Walter look so fierce.

“Oh, but I do,” chided the Center op.

“You couldn’t,” Walter protested. “Even I don’t know everything. I’ll admit, there was a chance that I could be Seymour’s father, but it was never confirmed. The only one who could tell us is dead.”

“And who would that be?”

“The mother. Lisa,” Walter’s voice broke on the syllables that made up her name.

“Now that’s real touching. You actually gave a shit about Mom, huh?”

“You son-of-a-bitch! For two cents, I’d pound your head right into that wall there!”

Declan’s pale eyes glimmered with something feral. “Not if I get him first.”

“Don’t y’all find it interesting that the man you’re all so busy defending isn’t here?”

There was an audible gasp from Declan as he spotted his lover, slowly making his way through the family gathered. “Sey!”

“I’m here.” His dark eyes lit on Declan’s face, and Declan could swear he felt that gaze as if it were physically touching him. Warmth pervaded his entire being. Sey was looking at him with such utter reverence and devotion that there could be no question that he still cared. He understood that Declan hadn’t lied to him, that Declan had no prior knowledge of Jason’s many secrets.

Thank God.

Sey laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “You need to stop.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?”

“I’m your brother,” Sey said.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean a whole helluva lot to me, y’know.”

“I know.” Sey looked sad, but in control. “I always wanted to belong somewhere, have a family. I used to think that I was cheated. Cause of the way I grew up. And then the way Section took over where my parents left off.” Sey looked directly into his brother’s eyes.

“But now I met you.” Anyone waiting for Sey to make some heartwarming declaration of love and affection was sadly mistaken. “And I realize just how lucky I am.”

Jason had the grace to look away at that.

“As you pointed out, I’ve got people willing to defend me. What’ve you got?”

“I-I….” Jason wasn’t just speechless, he was overcome by his own pain. “I have someone. Or I did,” he said in a low voice.

“You lost them?”

Jason nodded. “I think so.”

“You mean, you don’t even know? How close could you be to this person if you don’t—“

“You don’t know anything! He was good to me! He said he loved me! But then he sent me away!” Jason was aghast at having confessed such deeply concealed feelings in front of everyone.

“And now you feel what?” Sey prompted.

“He’s punishing me. That’s why he sent me here. He doesn’t want me anymore.”

Even Michael opened his eyes a bit wider at that. “You have a personal relationship with Mr. Jones?”

Jason’s eyes grew damp. He tangled his fingers together anxiously, suddenly looking more like Sey than Sey. “I’m in love with him.”

Walter burst out, “Jesus, you’re in love with Mick?” Miranda immediately smacked him in the ribs with her elbow.

“Ow!” he cried, glaring at his wife.

Jason stepped forward, holding his brother’s intense gaze. “I was wrong, y’know. About you. I thought you were the weaker of us. But now I’m not so sure.”

“I shouldn’t have told you the way I did. I wanted to hurt you.” Sey nodded in apparent agreement. “But everything I told you is the truth.”

Sey blinked. “Then Walter…is our father?” he asked, carefully avoiding looking at Walter.

Jason gave his brother a watery smile. “Yeah. Isn’t that a kick?”

“I told you, kid. It was never confirmed. And now we’ll never know. Cause Lisa’s…dead.”

Jason shook his head at Walter. “You don’t understand. I have access to files you didn’t have. Not Section files. But Oversight and Center files.”

“What are you saying?” Walter couldn’t take his eyes off Jason now.

“DNA testing wasn’t available to the general public back in those days.”

Walter gestured impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, so?”

“But Section had it.” He waited while Walter processed that information, noting the exact moment that Walter came to the right conclusion.

“You’re kidding.”

“No. You are, for better or worse, our father. Dad.”

“Shit.”

“Fuck.”

Another elbow hit another set of ribs. Another glare. Another exclamation.

“So…” Jason said, “…you finally got what you wanted. A family.” Jason wasn’t jealous of what Sey had. He wasn’t in the market for a father at this stage of his life. But he wished, with quiet desperation, that things could be different for him and Mick.

Sey looked at the man who was really and truly his father and smiled. “Walter’s always been my father. We didn’t need a secret file to tell us that.”

“Seymour,” said the older man, quite overcome with emotion.

Sey frowned, but his words were kindness itself. “I told you. Don’t call me that. Dad. I’ll sic my blessed protector on you.”

Declan cupped the nape of Sey’s neck with one hand, threading his fingers affectionately through the long dark hair there.

“You’re taking this almost too well, son. Aren’t you upset because I never told you about any of this?”

Sey regarded his father with utter calm. “You weren’t responsible for what happened to me out there. Neither was I. It’s funny, but this is the first time that I’ve said that and honestly believed it.”

A few moments passed. “I would like to know about my mother, though. Anything you can remember.”

Sey turned his face into Declan’s chest and sighed with relief. He had come through this, somehow, and though there was undoubtedly more to deal with in the upcoming days, he felt stronger than he had before. Declan wrapped his arms around Sey, feeling his lover relax against him, all at once, like a breath that had been held for far too long.

Jason glanced at his brother furtively, knowing that all things considered, Sey was far better off where he was. Now if only his dreams could come true….

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