Absolution (The Protectors, Book 1) (17 page)

I shoved myself off the swing but Cole stood just as quickly and used his body to force mine back against the porch column. “Don’t run from me…us,” Cole whispered and then he kissed me. “You’re not that man anymore.”

“I can feel him, Cole. Right there under the surface. One wrong step…I won’t survive it this time,” I said with a shake of my head. “I tried, too,” I whispered, needing to tell this man who’d so quickly become a part of my everything the truth of who and what I’d been.

“Tried what?” Cole asked gently as his hands began stroking up and down my arms.

“What Jonas did,” I said since I couldn’t force the actual words from my lips.

Cole stilled. “You tried to take your life?”

I swallowed hard and nodded before I took Cole’s hand in mine and sifted his fingers through my hair until they found the scar on the side of my head. “My hand jerked at the last second. The doctors kept saying how lucky I was.”

Cole gently probed the raised flesh before dropping his hand to my cheek.

“Lucky,” I whispered.

“What happened after?”

“They institutionalized me for a while until they said I wasn’t a danger to myself or others. As soon as I got out, I picked up where I’d left off. Bought another gun, made plans to get it right the next time around. Then I met a man who offered me something I wanted more than my next drink.” I hesitated for a moment before I said, “You still sure I’m not that man anymore?”

“I’m sure,” he said with a nod as he brushed a soft kiss over my lips. “Because that man wouldn’t have given one thought to whether the man he saw through the scope of his rifle deserved to be there or not.”

The next kiss Cole laid on me both eased and terrified me at the same. Eased me because I could feel that Cole was in just as deep as me and terrified me because he’d just validated my greatest fear...that there would be no coming back for me a second time if I lost this.

Jonas

As I listened to Cole and Mace kiss, I felt my heart start pounding as I realized I’d been right the night before as I’d watched them making love to each other. I was in love with both of them. And I was scared to death at what that meant.

I’d woken up alone just a few minutes earlier and the emptiness I’d felt had been crushing, because it was a sign of how quickly Cole and Mace had changed everything I’d thought about myself…everything I’d spent years coming to accept. Even with my inattentive parents, I’d still known as a kid that I would someday meet the man I was supposed to be with. I’d dreamed of what that man would look like, sound like. I’d envisioned him being the suit and tie type who’d come home after a long day of work and not care that when I greeted him, it was with paint stained fingers. He’d be attentive and open with a wicked, teasing sense of humor and he’d want the same things as me – kids, dog, white picket fence.

One night of Eduardo’s “lessons” changed all that. I knew the second he stole what remained of my childhood that he was stealing the man, the kids and the white picket fence too. The men that came after took what was left, and it was only by sheer lack of knowledge that I hadn’t lost everything else after dragging the razor blade across my wrist in one smooth glide as I’d sat on the dirty floor of my bathroom.

Casey had managed to give me back a piece of myself by showing me that being family didn’t necessarily mean sharing blood, but I hadn’t been foolish enough to think I’d find a version of the man from my childhood fantasies. Victor had been proof that I’d been right because he’d been everything I’d wanted – patient, sweet, understanding. Until one night when he wasn’t. When he became one of the many men who took rather than gave.

There’d been several men since Victor who’d shown an interest in me, but I hadn’t even considered trying again. And it wasn’t just the fear of sex that held me back. It was the fear of losing that one last piece of myself to someone else…that piece that had made me get up off that dirty bathroom floor and reach for a towel to stem the flow of blood from my wrist, instead of picking up the shiny razor blade so that I could finish what I’d started.

But I knew now that Mace and Cole didn’t want to take that from me. The only things they wanted to take were things I would have gladly given up willingly if I could have…the pain, the darkness, the memories. But they’d done the next best thing. They’d lanced the part of my soul where those things festered and then they’d given me what I needed most…a choice.

I’d been sure I wouldn’t be able to be a part of their lovemaking the night before so I’d stayed by the bedroom door so it would be easier to walk away when it became too painful to watch them together. I hadn’t expected them to include me so completely without even touching me. And in that instant that they both watched me as they loved each other, my childhood version of my perfect other half dissolved and morphed into the two men in front of me. After that, it had been easy to walk forward, straight into Mace’s arms.

Now as I sat on the stairs just out of view of the screen door, I listened to my men as they murmured a few more things to each other that I couldn’t make out, and then went back up to the master bedroom and crawled into bed. I heard their footsteps on the stairs a moment later and I closed my eyes. Not because I wanted to hide from them but because I didn’t want Mace to know I’d heard his painful admissions. I knew he’d tell me when he was ready.

The bed shifted beneath their weight as they got in next to me. I knew Cole was at my front because I could smell his unique, woodsy scent as he pulled me against his chest. Mace’s lips skimmed over the back of my neck in a feather light caress and then I felt his warm breath fanning my skin as he settled there, his arm wrapping around my waist.

My last thought as I drifted off to sleep was that tomorrow I was going to start giving back to them just some of what they’d given me.

* * *

The next time I woke up, it wasn’t dark anymore and I certainly wasn’t alone. Lips and hands were exploring my body but never once strayed below my waist. At some point, I’d flipped so that I was facing Mace so his were the first eyes I saw. He didn’t say anything, he just watched me as his thumb came up to stroke my cheek. I was the one who pulled him down for a kiss and then I was reaching behind me to seek out Cole’s mouth. Mace rolled me to my back as Cole kissed me.

“Can we touch you, Jonas?” Cole asked, his lips hovering just above mine.

My throat felt too tight to speak because I knew what he meant. Fear skittered up my spine but I pushed it away. All it would take from me was one word and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would stop.

I nodded.

Cole kissed me again and then began working his way down my throat. They left no part of me untouched except the part that needed their touch the most and by the time they both reached my mouth again, I was ready to beg them. Only I couldn’t force the words past my lips.

And then blessedly, Mace’s hand wrapped around my painfully hard cock and the feel of his rough skin on my sensitive flesh had me arching off the bed. As Cole kissed me, Mace used the fluid leaking from my tip as lubricant and began heavy drags up and down my shaft. The torture didn’t last long because he released me and began fondling my balls.

“Has anyone pleasured you with their mouth?” Cole asked me between kisses. I wanted to tell him that that was exactly what he was doing at the moment but I knew he wasn’t talking about my mouth.

Mace’s torment had slowed so I was able to speak. “One of my regulars liked to do it to me but I didn’t…”

“You didn’t like it,” Cole supplied. When I nodded my head, Cole asked, “Will you let Mace show you?”

I cast my eyes at Mace and then shifted them back to Cole. “Will you both show me?”

I saw a hint of fear in Cole’s eyes and I guessed it would be his first time touching a man in that way. “You don’t have-”

Cole stole my words with a kiss. I felt Mace shift his body and I couldn’t help the tension that overtook me. I could feel my erection wilting as my fear began to increase but before I could call the whole thing off, I felt Mace’s tongue lick over my crown. The sensation caught me off guard and I held my breath to see if it was just some anomaly as I waited for Mace to do it again. But he didn’t’ just lick me. He sucked the head into his mouth and used the tip of his tongue to tease the slit. The hot, wet heat of Mace’s mouth felt so good that I instinctively shoved my hips up. He took more of me inside of him and then added such an intense level of suction as he dragged his mouth back up, I bowed off the bed and dug my nails into Cole’s arm.

After that, I lost all sense of everything except being engulfed in white hot heat and the coil of need in my body that drew tighter and tighter. I managed to open my eyes long enough to see Cole’s head bobbing up and down on me just before he pulled off and joined Mace in licking my entire length from root to tip over and over again. I came with almost no warning and I didn’t know whose mouth I shot into as I screamed Cole and Mace’s names. I couldn’t even tell who’d taken my load when they each kissed me because I tasted myself on both of their tongues. Which meant I’d missed the kiss where one had shared my release with the other.

When I next woke up, it was under far less pleasant conditions because Cole was shaking me awake and I tensed when I saw the rifle in his hand.

“Jonas, someone’s here, we’ve got to move.”

I yanked on my jeans and snatched my shirt off the floor but didn’t bother with anything else and then Cole grabbed my hand and dragged me down the stairs. I tried to look out the front door but it was closed. I was about to ask where Mace was when Cole led me to the back door and handed me the revolver I’d held on Mace just a couple nights ago. “I need you to watch the back and tell me if anyone heads towards the house.”

I swallowed hard but managed a nod.

“I need to cover Mace but I’ll hear you if you call out,” he said as he headed towards the front door and yanked it open and then aimed the rifle.

I need to cover Mace.

I wanted - no, needed - to know what was going on, but Cole needed me to do this. Mace needed me to do it. So I forced myself to turn my back on whatever was happening up front and started methodically scanning the backyard.

Mace

I held my Ruger loosely by my side as I watched the car come to a stop next to mine. I already knew who it was but that didn’t change my stance at all. But when I heard the front door of the house open behind me, it took everything in me not to take my eyes off of Ronan as he got out of the vehicle.

“Cole-” I said without looking behind me.

“Mace, don’t waste your breath telling me to go back inside. I’ve got Jonas covered,” Cole said coolly. I wanted to tell him that my worry wasn’t only for Jonas, but I needed to keep my attention on the man in front of me.

Ronan was wearing his standard issue black slacks and perfectly pressed white shirt but he’d foregone his usual suit jacket, probably so I could see he wasn’t armed. In fact, he wasn’t wearing the double shoulder holsters he typically wore. He kept his hands by his sides instead of holding them out, despite my gun and the rifle I had no doubt Cole was holding on him.

Ronan always had been a cocky son of a bitch. But I knew it wasn’t for show – he was exactly what he portrayed himself to be.

“How?” I asked. I kept my eyes on him and hoped like hell Cole was able to scan our surroundings to watch for any forthcoming attacks.

“Jonas’s watch,” Ronan said.

Fuck, I hadn’t thought to check Jonas’s watch for a tracking device.

“How did you get his watch?”

“He takes it off when he washes his hands. I swapped it out when he went to the bathroom in the coffee shop he goes to every day.”

I shook my head at my own stupidity. Ronan clearly hadn’t believed me when I’d said I’d followed through on the assignment after he’d provided the so-called proof of Jonas’s supposed affair with Devlin Prescott.

“You knew I’d take him and run.”

Ronan shrugged. “It’s what I would have done.”

I wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment or not. “You’re not getting him,” I said. “Even if you get past me, you won’t get past him,” I said motioning to Cole.

Ronan’s eyes never left mine. “I’ve known where you were from the moment you left the city. You really think I would have waited all this time if this was about a job?”

“Then what are you doing here now?”

“There’ve been some developments you need to know about.”

“You think I’d believe any of your bullshit? You fucking set me up. I know it. You know it,” I bit out. I hated the disappointment that went through me that Ronan’s betrayal actually hurt. I started backing up towards the house so that I’d be next to Cole if we needed to make a stand.

“It wasn’t about you,” Ronan said. “It was about Jonas. It still is.”

I stopped moving at that but didn’t respond otherwise.

“He used you. He used all of us,” Ronan admitted and I was actually surprised by the thread of disappointment I heard in his voice.

“Who?” I asked.

“Benny.”

I couldn’t school my reaction to that. Benny was one of the most trusted members of our group.

“Look Mace, can you just check me for weapons and let me in so we can talk about this? I’ve been running my ass ragged for three days trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”

I studied him for a moment and then finally backed up until I reached the porch stairs. I reached my gun behind me and Cole took it without hesitation. Ronan held out his arms as I approached him and I took my time searching him. I searched his car next.

“Grab the folder on the front seat,” Ronan said.

I got the folder and then searched the car as best I could for any tracking devices but figured it was pointless since Ronan would have told his backup where he was going.

“I swear, Mace, it’s just me,” Ronan said as I came around the car. “You trusted me once,” he added.

“The stakes are too high now,” I said. “Talk.”

“Jonas will want to hear this,” Ronan said.

“Cole,” I called out.

“Kitchen,” he responded without hesitation. “We can cover the front and back yard from there.”

I motioned to Ronan and followed him to the house. Cole was already in the kitchen and he had Jonas at his back. I could see my revolver tucked in the waistband of Cole’s jeans.

“Sit there,” I said as I pulled a chair out and put it near the front window so that I could watch both Ronan and the driveway at the same time. Cole moved to the window overlooking the back yard. I kept Jonas between us as I glanced down at the folder in my hand.

“Benny set this up?” I asked.

“Isn’t that your tech guy?” Jonas asked from behind me.

“He was,” Ronan said and I didn’t miss the fact that he used past tense. I knew what that meant in Ronan’s world. “After the shootout at your gallery,” Ronan said as he looked at Jonas, “I began looking at what we had. They weren’t any of my guys, Mace.”

I nodded because I’d already figured that. Ronan’s men would have had all the exits covered, but the men who’d shot at Jonas had left the roof unguarded. We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if they’d been Ronan’s men.

“Open it,” Ronan said as he motioned to the folder.

I flipped the folder open and the first page I saw was very familiar. It was a picture of one of the boys Jonas had been accused of assaulting. The statement the boy provided was exactly the same except for the part where he named his attacker. The same suspect was named on all three statements and listed as the person of interest in the case file on the missing boy. I handed the pages to Jonas so he could see for himself.

“Those are the real reports, Jonas,” Ronan said. “Benny pulled them from BPD’s servers and changed the suspect’s name to yours.”

“So no one else saw the other reports? The ones with my name on them?” Jonas asked.

Ronan shook his head. “Your name isn’t linked to any investigation anywhere.”

I didn’t need to look at Jonas to feel his relief.

“The emails between Jonas and Devlin?” I asked.

“Also fakes. He spoofed Devlin’s email address to make them look real and he hacked his expense reports to get information about what hotels he stayed at and when and then he dated the emails to line up with those hotel stays.”

“Why?” I bit out.

Ronan shifted his gaze to Jonas. “Did you know Mateo Santero was appealing the plea deal he made in the murder of Cole’s sister?”

“What? No…no, the D.A. said he wouldn’t be able to do that once he took the plea deal,” Jonas said quickly.

“He’s arguing ineffective counsel.”

“Ineffective how?” Cole asked, the anger clear in his voice. He obviously hadn’t been kept in the loop about his sister’s case either.

“He’s saying his lawyers failed to discover that Casey Prescott’s biological father is a U.S. Senator who used his political connections to influence the investigation into the attack on Casey, as well as Carrie’s murder.”

I glanced at Jonas who was shaking his head. “He didn’t!”

“Whether he did or didn’t is irrelevant,” Ronan explained. “It’s the perception that matters. And it seems to be working because the judge in Wisconsin already threw out the plea deal. But he went a step further and dismissed the case with prejudice – that means the D.A. can’t charge Mateo again for the attack on Casey.”

“But he did it,” Jonas whispered.

“What about Carrie’s murder?” I asked Ronan.

“The hearing is scheduled for next week. Chances are high that the plea deal will be overturned but because of the seriousness of the crime, the judge probably won’t dismiss with prejudice like the one in Wisconsin did. That means the D.A. can re-file charges…”

“And Jonas would have to testify,” I said grimly as it all came together.

Jonas was visibly upset, so I ushered him to one of the kitchen chairs to sit. Like me, Cole had sensed that Ronan was no longer a threat to us and he joined Jonas at the table and covered his hand with his.

“What was Benny’s role in all this?” I asked.

“There’s a contract out on Jonas,” Ronan announced.

Cole tensed up and Jonas looked like he was barely holding it together.

“Benny found the contract but instead of reporting it to me, he accepted it and then set Jonas up to make it look like he was a pedophile. My guess is he knew you’d get the assignment and that you wouldn’t see past your hatred to notice what was really going on.”

I swallowed hard because I almost hadn’t. If Jonas hadn’t been who he was or if I hadn’t been drawn to him for some inexplicable reason, I would have done exactly what Benny had expected me to do.

“Why did he do it?” Cole asked.

Ronan shifted his attention to Cole and said, “The contract is worth a quarter of a million dollars. Benny’s excuse was that he had gambling debts.”

An excuse that had fallen on deaf ears if I knew Ronan.

“Where does a lowlife pimp get that kind of cash?” I asked.

“Mateo didn’t put out the contract. His brother did.”

I heard Jonas gasp and I took my attention off of Ronan long enough to lean down and put my lips next to Jonas’s ear. “It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “He won’t ever touch you again.”

Jonas nodded but then his fingers bit into my hand where I’d draped it against his chest. Instead of straightening, I took the chair Ronan offered me after he stood up. I saw a flash of something go through Ronan as his eyes studied Jonas but it was gone just as quickly.

When Jonas had settled, I gave Ronan a quick nod.

“Eduardo took over things when Mateo went to prison but he’s doing more than just dealing in drugs and prostitution. He’s built quite a name for himself in the world of human trafficking and it looks like he wants his baby brother back to help him run the business.”

“Does Casey know?” Jonas asked.

Ronan actually seemed reluctant to answer Jonas’s question and when he glanced at me first, I knew whatever he was going to say was going to make things even worse than they already were.

“I called Devlin after I learned about the contract on your life. Although we didn’t find one for Casey, there’s the possibility Eduardo will put one out on her if the D.A. decides to call her as a witness in Carrie’s death. He may have held off because Mateo’s lawyers could easily discredit her based on who her father is and the fact that her own case was dismissed.”

“Oh God,” Jonas whispered.

“Devlin had just learned about the dismissal. They were preparing to come back to the States when Casey…”

Jonas straightened and released my hand. “What? She what?”

“There were some complications with the pregnancy. She and the baby are fine but the doctors are worried about the stress she’s under so she’s on bed rest. Probably for the remainder of the pregnancy. She can’t fly home.”

Jonas paled. “I have to talk to her,” he said, automatically jumping up.

Cole grabbed him gently and said, “She’s okay, Jonas. We’ll call her as soon as we’re done here.”

Jonas hesitated and then nodded and lowered himself back down. I could tell he was checking out so I turned my attention to Ronan.

“They need protection.”

“Devlin’s already hired some people. I sent Hawke to keep an eye on things.”

I nodded. Michael “Hawke” Hawkins was one of Ronan’s best men. I knew next to nothing about him but I’d seen him in action on more than one occasion. All of Devlin Prescott’s wealth couldn’t have found him a better man.

“What happens next?” Cole asked, though his eyes were on Jonas.

“If the plea is overturned next week, the D.A. will seek to re-indict and he’ll want Jonas to testify in front of the Grand Jury. That’s probably why Eduardo hired other guys to go after Jonas the other night…Benny was taking too long to get the job done.”

I nodded and then stood up and moved closer to Ronan. I spared Cole a glance and saw understanding in his gaze. He knew what needed to happen. My eyes shifted to Jonas who seemed to be in a daze.

“Can you get me whatever you’ve got on Eduardo?” I said to Ronan.

Ronan didn’t question my request. He simply nodded. “I’m looking into what can be done about Mateo.”

“What?” Jonas said, his voice uneven. I heard his chair scrape back and then he was shoving between me and Ronan. “What are you doing?”

“Cole,” I said but as soon as Cole stood, Jonas put his hand out to stop him.

“No!” he said firmly. “No, you are not doing this. I won’t let you.”

I settled my hands on Jonas’s upper arms but he shrugged them off. “I said no!”

“Jonas…”

But he whirled on Ronan and shouted, “Do you even give a shit about him?” Ronan looked caught off guard by the attack but he didn’t even get a chance to respond. “Did you really think you were saving him when you offered him a job where he fucking killed people?”

“Jonas,” I said, grabbing Jonas’s arm.

Jonas shoved me off but turned back to me. “I heard you and Cole last night. He’s the one, isn’t he?” he asked as he slashed his finger at Ronan. “The man you said offered you something you wanted more than anything else.”