Blurb:

Together, they might stand a chance.
Divided the world might never survive.

Richard, chased by the memory of losing his entire team in Syria, agreed to help his younger brother Talon, in an attempt to forge bonds between them that had been broken when Talon had transformed.

Adam, terrified of the team that had given him a chance at life, finding out what he had done. Would it result not only in losing the family he had always wanted but never had, but the real risk of harm to those not expecting it, and knowing he was going to be forced to choose between the two?

Sawyer, torn between the real possibility that his ability was out of control, and terrified to admit it even to those who had always had his back, was secretly being drawn to both the warrior that might save the world, and the innocent that might have to sacrifice himself for it.

And the very real possibility that the evil they faced would defeat all three.

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“Our colleague is here.” Detectives Shaughnessy and Imbarrar sent each other a look again, and a flash of irritation shot through Richard. He looked up as the door opened, and the detective was shown in. He had a second to assess the woman dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, her dark blond hair tied back in a ponytail, and realized she hadn’t even looked at Talon as he rose to greet her. She was too busy staring at Adam; Adam had gone so pale that Richard was glad he was sitting down.

“Tammy?” Finn exclaimed, the disbelief in his voice as he got to his feet. Her eyes flicked away from the detective to Adam and then back to her.

“I—” Then she rounded on Shaughnessy as her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t think to fill me in, Detective?”

Adam still didn’t say a word; he didn’t move, just stared.

“Finn?” Talon questioned. By this time, they all knew something was wrong.

Shaughnessy sighed. “This is Detective Tamara Dunne. Tamara has worked on the Courtney Black case since the beginning and is more than capable of going undercover to get details on Saint. She just needed an immediate acceptance, and as Adam’s sister, she has a guaranteed way in.”

“Adam’s sister?” Daniel echoed, as stunned as everyone else.

“Detective,” Shaughnessy said coolly. “Your sergeant agreed—”

“Peters knows?” The horror and disgust in Tammy’s voice were apparent.

“We had no choice,” Shaughnessy ground out. “Your sergeant believed you might put personal animosity over the needs of the case.”

Tammy gaped then everyone glanced at Adam as he shot to his feet. He stumbled back, panicked, and something else on his face, then he darted to the door before anyone could stop him.

Richard just heard Finn lambast Shaughnessy for doing this in front of an audience, and then he was out of the door after his partner. He heard a door slam ahead and assumed he’d gone to a bathroom, but as he rounded the corner, the last door was signposted emergency exit. He headed through it and heard the pounding footsteps heading up. Sudden concern had his heart jack up, and he raced after Adam up another three flights until Adam shot through the exit door at the top.

It was the roof.

Richard burst through, and Adam turned in alarm, then he shook his head and shoved his hands into his pockets, striding to the edge. Richard followed, ready to launch himself at him. “Adam?”

Adam came to a stop near the railings, or what little there was, and whirled around. “What?” Richard’s gaze flicked to the edge behind him, then met Adam’s eyes. “Fuck,” Adam swore. “I’m not fucking going to throw myself off.”

Richard’s lips twitched slightly. Was he going to spend all day running after people? Not that he’d had to talk Sawyer down from a ledge. “Yeah, because that wouldn’t be a good first day for me, and I played a lot of football in high school.”

Adam blinked. “You’re going to drop-kick me off?”

Richard rolled his eyes. “No, partner. I was getting ready to tackle you.”

Adam walked to a concrete slab and sat down, looking weary at just about everything; the flicker of humor in Richard’s chest swiftly dried up. Richard stepped over, turned, and perched on the slab, not touching but reasonably close. “Tell me about your sister.”

Adam glanced up, and Richard read the suspicion in his eyes. “I guess it’s the whole team’s business now.” He huffed. “I didn’t know she was a cop, for starters.”

“Dunne?”

“My gran’s maiden name. I’m assuming she took it because she couldn’t risk any association with me.”

“There can be a lot of reasons for that. Maybe she didn’t want any association with your parents? Hell, my family wrote the book on dysfunctional.” Richard paused. “Or at least my mother did. If it’s any consolation, I think Finn’s down there ripping them a new one.”

Adam smiled. It wasn’t full on, but Richard was less inclined to believe Adam was gonna throw himself off the roof. “I don’t really know her,” Adam said. “I haven’t seen her since I was eleven. She was sixteen.” The day he transformed. Richard had heard them all speaking as if it was a defining moment. A before and after, and never in a good way.

“Typical big sister? I know everything, and you’re just an embarrassment?”

“No.” Adam shook his head immediately. “Tammy was always great. We always hung out, even when she was busy. Mom and Dad were always concerned with appearances, and right up to that day, I’d never been the problem child.” His lips softened as if it was a good memory. “She came home with bright blue hair the day of homecoming, and Dad locked her in her room, so she climbed out of the window and went anyway.” He swallowed down his tight throat. “Mom and Dad wanted her to go to college for business studies but not because she would have her own business, so she could be some secretary and land a rich husband.”

“They said that to her?”

“No, they said it to each other when they thought she was tucked up in bed asleep, and she would tell me the next day what she’d overheard. We used to talk. Set off early for the bus before separating as Tammy went to the high school, and I met Finn.”

“She sounds okay,” Richard said.

“She tried to visit me,” Adam whispered.

“Visit you?”

He nodded. “She wasn’t allowed until she was eighteen, so it had been two years. I was told she’d requested a visit.” He was silent.

“You refused, didn’t you?” Richard said.

Adam gazed at him as if surprised Richard had guessed, but once upon a time, reading people had kept him alive. “I couldn’t imagine why she was there, and I suppose I didn’t want to see disgust.” Disgust? Richard nearly questioned that, but it might not be the time.

“How come you all left Florida?”

“I left because one of the only juvie detention places for enhanced was in New York. I was shipped off even though I’d barely done anything. I gave Mom a mild electric shock, more heat than anything else. She didn’t even have a burn, but Mom and Dad were terrified of what it meant to them.”

Richard glanced over at him. “What it meant?”

“They left Tampa because of other people, neighbors. Dad was something on the school board and had much higher ambitions, but having an enhanced son wasn’t likely to get my dad elected. So they moved and just pretended I didn’t exist.” Adam looked out over the fields and the lake at the back of the building. Richard could see the cars on the highway in the distance. “It wasn’t hard for them because they never came to see me. Not once.”

Richard glanced at him, then back at the lake. “Tammy did, though.”

“And you saw her reaction downstairs.”

“Which seemed anger at her so-called colleagues for putting her in that position, not at you.” Adam still looked skeptical. “Did Talon ever tell you that, between my uncle who was a surgeon, and my mother, who sounds a lot like your dad, they locked him up in a psychiatric hospital?”

“Finn did,” Adam admitted. “He didn’t say much, just why your mom has the political connections she does, how she got Talon released when it turned out she knew Bryan Duvall, who was running for vice president then.” And was likely to be elected in November.

“Because she suddenly realized what she’d thought was a dirty secret she had to hide might get her back in the political spotlight,” Richard said. “But what makes me most ashamed is that I took Talon transforming like some personal insult. Like he’d done it on purpose just to screw my life up. I was glad to be taken on vacation while Talon was locked up at home, then sent to Gran’s.” Richard drew a hand over his face. “I don’t know how Talon can bear to look at me, but what I’m trying to say and making a mess of is that Tammy might surprise you. Talon and I aren’t close yet, but we’re getting there.”

“Is that why you came to Tampa?”

“Not just.” Richard cleared his throat. “I have some friends to look up.”

“Did Finn send you up here?”

Richard considered the question. “Would it be important to you if I said he had?”

Adam made a desperate sound. Not an answer, not even another question.

“I didn’t wait to ask,” Richard said honestly.

“Why?” Adam said mockingly. “Because of this bullshit partnership that Gregory pushed on you?”

Richard sighed silently. Either he was honest, or he asked for another partner. But he wasn’t ready to give up on this one quite yet. “What did Talon tell you about me?”

If Adam was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. “Nothing. We saw you at the nightclub, so he really didn’t need to say anything.”

Just because he’d managed to hold a gun steady? Fuck. “I have a lot of family shit to work out with Talon; that wasn’t his fault.” He paused. “And I guess, in a lot of ways, it wasn’t my fault either. But that’s only half of why I’m here. I was on a mission, and I can’t say where, but basically, because of bad intel and a stupidly bad decision I made, I got my entire team killed.”

Adam met his gaze but thankfully didn’t offer platitudes. That might have been the end of anything Richard was trying to build.

“Because you trusted someone?” Adam asked.

Richard frowned. “How—” But he snapped his lips shut.

“I suppose because I trusted two someones,” Adam explained without being asked. “Finn doesn’t know, but I went to see my mom and dad when they moved back nearer Orlando after I got out.”

Richard waited for more, but Adam seemed to be struggling. “I’m assuming it didn’t go well?”

Adam tried to scoff, but the sound didn’t quite seem unconcerned or derisive. It just sounded heartbreaking. “My dad pulled a gun on me.”

“What?” Richard echoed in disbelief. “The fucker.” Then he remembered he was talking about Adam’s parents.

“It was the worst thing I could have done.”

“I can’t imagine how much that hurt.” And shame burned through him again when he remembered how they had treated Talon.

Adam gasped as a sob seemed to work its way out of his chest, and unable to stand it, Richard leaned over and drew him into a tight hug. Adam tightened his own grip on Richards’s arms, and he took a few breaths struggling not to cry. Richard just held him for another moment but then let go before it got awkward. “How did you get out of juvie?”

“It’s sometimes called electric shock therapy.”

Richard looked up. “The fuck?”

“There was a clinic on site, and a doctor that wanted to know everything, and no one to care how he found out. There wasn’t just me. I was in this unit with six, maybe seven enhanced, and three other kids who weren’t. We were just drugged most of the time at first, but they didn’t know that our metabolism burned them off faster, so they tried behavior correction, as they called it.”

Richard managed to keep his mouth closed…just. Except Adam hadn’t misbehaved. All he’d done was wake up with a scar.

“They used to get mad because a lot of us didn’t know what we could do, and they thought we were lying. The shocks were mild at first, but then they started turning it up. They never understood why it stopped working on me and just increased it, which made no difference. Then this doctor wanted to know if the electricity was going to burn my skin or not. I was supposed to be sedated, but I heard him say not to put gel on, and I was just done. I’d spent two years convinced if I was good, Mom or Dad would come and get me, and just taken everything they threw at me without protesting.”

But how much protesting could he have done at fucking eleven? “What happened?”

“Lost my shit,” Adam whispered. “I guess somehow I must have blasted the electricity without knowing what I was doing, and all the machines just blew up. It was utter chaos, and I ran. Didn’t do much good because I got caught, but it got us sent somewhere else. There can’t have been a record of it because I wasn’t locked up this time. Maybe they couldn’t say what I’d done because they couldn’t say what he’d done.” Adam shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They were silent for a while. “Can I ask why you left the army or whatever you were in?” Adam said quietly.

“My unit was in a fucked up corner of the world no one’s heard of,” Richard said, understanding what he needed to know. “Except they captured US aid workers, so we went in to get them.” He glanced at Adam. “They wouldn’t have negotiated.”

Adam winced. “I can imagine.”

“Anyway, like you said, I trusted intel I shouldn’t have. They killed the team.” It was easier to forget the loud noise and explosions. It was Razor’s whispered pleas to let him die that he would never get out of his head.

“How did you get out?” Adam curled his hand around Richard’s arm. “Sorry, forget I asked.”

“No,” Richard ground out. “It’s okay. Four of us were taken, and for some reason, I was the only one without an open wound. We were kept…” in a cell… “for nearly two months. They all died.” They died smelling of death, riddled with infection. Richard stayed awake as long as he could every night just to keep the insects off them. And that wasn’t the worst that had happened. They’d all been tortured. It had been complete bullshit because the questions made no sense and weren’t something any of them had a hope of answering. Jacko was the worst. They kept him for what seemed like three days, and in the four that followed until he took his last breath in Richard’s arms, he never spoke again.

“There were two of us left alive when the group holding us got into it with another group, and they basically shot each other to shit. The survivors realized they could get in with the US and immediately reported where we were. Corporal Madden didn’t survive being transported to the pickup point.”

But he’d known they were free. Richard had made sure of it.

“Was that why you left?”

Richard huffed. “I left because I punched out my CO, who visited me on the emergency base before they flew me to Landstuhl. He tried to tell me shit happens, and it was either go or be asked not so nicely to leave.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “After all that had happened?”

“So I get guilt,” Richard said, avoiding his question. “Even if your sister sounds a little like mine.”

Bullets and Babies!

Victoria writes about guys loving other guys in between dodging bullets, kidnappers, and serial killers. She enjoys putting them through hell to get their happy ever after—it’s a character flaw she embraces.

She also believes that family is who you choose, that dogs are often much wiser than human beings, and that we’re steadily destroying the world we live in.

She also believes that if people read more books, they wouldn’t screw up as much.

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