Texas Fall (8 page)

But laying that all on
Darren hadn’t gone down well. He’d been entirely honest with his lover about
moving away from Laredo. He wanted Darren to go with him and he wanted Darren
to give him an answer. Vaughn couldn’t spend another day at the Triple K under
Yuri Fensen when he was out from his pathetic sentence after he’d plea-bargained
down. Nor could he in all conscience have anything to do with the Bar Five
where the attacks had happened on the kids. There was hate in the dirt there.
The same hate that had sent Darren off to University and to working away from
the ranch.

“Well?” Vaughn prompted
again. “Will you come with me?”

Darren looked up at him,
and it broke his heart to see that Darren’s eyes were damp. He’d been through a
hell of a day as the brother to a man accused of rape and molestation of
underage kids, but Vaughn had sat through the same thing.

Darren near whispered, “Are
you really going to leave me?”

“I can’t work for Yuri
anymore. I need to have Laredo in my rearview mirror. I have to.” There, he’d
laid it all out again, as clear as he could.

“You could stay and help
me at the Bar Five.” Darren’s voice was small and contained hope, but Vaughn
couldn’t listen to it without cringing.

Vaughn stopped pacing and
crouched in front of Darren. “You don’t want to stay at the Five. It kills you
every day you’re there. Leave and come with me.”

“Where?” Darren sounded
desperate now. “Where can you go?”

Hell if Vaughn knew where
he was going. “Anywhere. We can go anywhere, do anything, together. I could
even talk to Campbell-Hayes, see if he needs a hand.”

“You’d give up everything,
even me?”

Vaughn grasped Darren’s
hand. “I’m not giving you up. I’m starting somewhere else. Sell the Five, come
with me.”

Darren tugged his hands
free. “I can’t.”

“You know I have feelings
for you, that this is more than just sex,” Vaughn pleaded. “I love you,
Darren.”

“But, I have
responsibilities, people who need paying.” Darren wasn’t listening. He looked
at every point of the room except for at Vaughn.

“Hank’s sold most of it,”
Vaughn pointed out. He had to make Darren see what was happening. “You know orders
fell off, he got rid of the horses, and you only have the land and three
hands.”

Darren looked at him
directly. Inspiration had clearly hit him, even if it was inspiration tinged
with that same desperation. “Then come and work for me, with me, make the Five real
again.”

“For him to come back and
wreck it?” Vaughn was shocked at how little his lover was getting this. “Did
you hear me say I love you? Tell me you don’t feel the same way.”

Darren ran his hands
through his dark hair and grimaced. “My brother is on trial, he hurt those kids
and I didn’t see it… Vaughn…”

Vaughn leaned up and
kissed him, and everything in that kiss pleaded for Darren to reconsider.

“Just look me in the eyes
and tell me you love me,” Vaughn pleaded.

Darren looked at him for a
brief moment, then his gaze slipped sideways. “I can't think,” he said.

The knock on the door and
a quiet “jury’s back in” split them apart. Vaughn felt his heart break when
Darren wouldn’t even walk next to him back to the court room. He’d thought
Darren felt the same way as he did. Clearly he’d been wrong.

When the verdict was read
out, it was almost anticlimactic. Within fifteen minutes of sitting down, there
was a guilty verdict handed down from the foreman. Hank cursed and blustered,
but he was led away in cuffs but not before he laid out a tirade against his faggot-ass
brother and how he would destroy the witnesses. The cops guarding him had him
out of the building through another door, and Darren stared at Vaughn with utter
desolation in his eyes.

“I’ve got to go,” he said.

“We need to talk,” Vaughn
pleaded.

Darren backed away. “I can’t
do this,” he said.

Vaughn grabbed at him but
caught nothing more than air. “We’ll talk later.”

“No. No more talking,
Vaughn. What’s done is done. You go your way, I go mine, and we’ll see what
happens.” He turned and left. The cold finality in his words was ice to
Vaughn’s chest. They had never said they loved each other, never made what they
had more serious than friends with benefits, so why was Vaughn feeling so
sideswiped? Darren was set on rebuilding the Five, although why he was, Vaughn
didn’t know. And Vaughn? Well, he couldn’t bear the thought of staying anywhere
near Laredo. They were travelers whose paths had crossed for a while. Evidently
it couldn’t be anything else.

He crossed to where Jack
and Robbie were standing, Liam stood to one side wrapped in his boyfriend’s
embrace, being held and comforted. Vaughn desperately hoped today would be the
first day of the rest of these kids’ lives, and that somehow all four of them
would find peace.

Tipping his imaginary hat
at Jack, he wondered if now was really the time to be asking this, but at the
same time, he had to strike while the iron was hot. Because was the first day
of the rest of his life and Darren didn’t want a part of it.

“I have experience, good
experience, worked out of the Triple-K under Yuri Fensin’s grandfather for five
years. I’m willing to start from scratch, but if you or anyone you know has a
vacancy, I’m a hard worker.”

Jack looked a little taken
aback, but then he and Robbie exchanged looks, before Jack held out a hand.
“Welcome to the D.”

Vaughn never imagined he
could feel two such opposing feelings: relief at having somewhere to go warring
with a heart that seemed to be out of synch somehow.

He and Darren had never
reached the point to promise forever, but hell, that is what Vaughn had wanted.

He didn’t have time to dwell
on his feelings when Liam and Marcus joined the small group and then was the
time for quiet pleasure in the fact that justice had been served. He couldn’t
think about Darren, not today. Darren needed space, and maybe one day his and
Darren’s paths would converge again.

He could only hope.

Riley sat back in the car
and checked his phone for the tenth time. He’d texted Jack and hoped to hell it
went through. He needed to think his stupid selfie had worked even though cell
reception on the border was sketchy. The last time they’d properly talked was
last night, and it seemed that even with all his money to organize anything he
wanted, time was against him and he wasn’t guaranteed contact with his family.
The door opened, and Tom slid into the seat with a grin on his face.

“We got the appointment,”
he announced and offered a fist bump, which Riley matched. They’d slipped
quickly into a relaxed working relationship. Tom showed Riley respect, and
Riley accepted it as graciously as he could despite not feeling that deserving.
The people on the border were working damn hard to get Riley into the area to
test, so obviously someone thought something of his skills.

“You worried about
anything happening?” Tom asked. Outside the car, their security team was armed
and observant.

“Bryan says he has it
under control.” Riley was still nervous, although he said nothing to Tom. He’d
done his bit by agreeing to government-sanctioned security, knowing it was the
right thing to do, and alongside the
policía única
, they were providing
Riley and Tom with clear support.

“Ironic that bringing in
foreign energy companies will cut down on locals being dragged into the
cartels,” Tom commented.

“Yeah.” Offering jobs in
the oil industry to people who might otherwise work for the cartels was
certainly one way of fixing problems. The best way to counterattack organized
crime was by generating jobs in areas that were heavily influenced by criminals,
at least according to what the Mexican ambassador said when they last met.
Riley could see the point of what he was saying.

“Anyway, what did Bryan say
to you?” Riley was quick to ask. The head of their security detail, with four
other men working under him, was point on where and when it was safe to go to
the area they wanted access to.

“Said we had the all clear
for a two-hour window, is all.”

Riley huffed. “We can’t
get what we want in two hours.” He glanced out at the other support vehicle set
up with all the technical supplies they were using. He didn’t mean to come across
as irritable, but he had so much he needed to do and really, he was past all
this on-the-ground stuff now. He wanted to be home with his family, and the
longer they were tied up in red tape, the less understanding he had. “Can’t we
pay someone off? What’s the point of me having all this money and not being
able to get things done?”

Tom looked at him with a
raised eyebrow, and Riley was instantly ashamed of his outburst, which spoke of
a shitty attitude. Tom didn’t have to say anything, and Riley ended up offering
an apologetic smile before checking his cell again for a reply. He wasn’t that
person anymore who had money do everything for him.

The car pulled out and followed
the tech support vehicle. They were only three miles from the main site, and
Riley pocketed his cell after checking it one last time. He pulled open the
last report with the analysis added by Tom and killed the time checking
details.

Then the shit hit the fan.

The whole car rocked like
it was sliding sideways, and his head contacted the window, Tom thrown in his
direction as much as the seat belt allowed. Riley heard shouting—
guns
,
he recognized
guns
—and abruptly he knew this was going wrong. He reached
for his cell, which had fallen from his grip, but it was just out of his reach
at the crazy angle the car had come to rest. He tried to loosen the belt, but
he fell farther when the car slipped. He heard Tom curse. Looking up, Riley could
see blood on Tom’s face.

“What the hell?”

The door was yanked open,
and Bryan reached in, grabbing at Riley and then at Tom, pulling at them before
Tom scrambled out nearly on top of Riley.

“Stay down,” Bryan
snapped. He had them covered with another man, guns out.

“Give me a gun,” Riley
snapped. Bryan tossed a weapon back, but Riley couldn’t reach it as bullets
strafed the dirt and Bryan fell to the floor, his eyes open, his body lifeless.

Riley reacted immediately.
He tossed the first weapon to Tom and then slid on his belly toward Bryan,
grabbing at the guard’s gun and pulling it from Bryan’s grasp. They were behind
the car, Riley couldn’t see a thing, and his cell was somewhere in the car. He
tried to reach in, but bullets hit the metalwork. He shrank back.

“Who is it? Where’re the
others?” Tom asked. Riley looked at his assistant and saw the fear and panic in
his eyes, which he knew had to be in his own as well. The noise was deafening.
An explosion of some kind had both him and Tom scrabbling under the tilted car.
More shouting and they crouched as small as they could. Then the shouting came
closer, and swiftly there was nothing Riley and Tom could do.

Tom yelped as he was
grabbed and dragged back, and Riley pointed his gun at the noise. He saw three
men with masks standing above them, guns pointed at them. Riley’s instinct was
to shoot, and he dropped the first guy in an instant with a bullet to the
chest. The other two were on him as suddenly as the third one fell, and then
more, shouting, men, guns, until Riley had no chance to get any shots off. He
saw one of them with a knife at Tom’s throat, and he didn’t have to hear the
Spanish curses to know what he was being told. “Drop the gun. Do it, or we’ll
gut him.” Riley didn’t hesitate; he dropped the gun to the floor, his hands
shaking. The rest was a blur. Tom was dragged away, then something hit Riley
hard on the side of his head, and abruptly his world was black.

* * * * *

The world was moving,
listing to one side, and then with stomach-churning speed, Riley was flung to
another side, his body in full contact with another. Riley cracked open his
eyes, blinking at moisture that made its way to his lips. Instinct had him
licking, and he tasted the metallic of blood. He tried to move, but his hands
were tied and there was no space to push himself to his back or in any way
upright.

“Stay still.”
Tom’s
voice
.

“Tom…”

Another lurch and Riley
landed heavily on his bound wrists and smacking his head on the metal of
wherever they were. He blinked against the blood again and tried to make out
something, anything, but the pain in his head, a band of steel from one temple
to another, was pounding in time with the vehicle they must be in.

“What happened?” Riley
concentrated on forcing the words out.

Apparently Tom was way
more lucid than him. “Rebels happened. Cartel happened. I don’t know. The
security detail is dead, they’re all dead, but they left us alive and pushed us
in the trunk of some seventies car. It’s brown, but it doesn’t have any plates.”
Riley didn’t say that kind of observation probably wouldn’t help any. He’d read
about the rebels on the border, the ones who held working Americans and locals for
ransom, and the deaths, he’d seen those. But he’d agreed to the security… he
wouldn’t have put Tom in danger…

“Fuck. Sorry,” Riley
rasped, then coughed back the acid sickness in his throat.

“Not your fault,” Tom
offered with a practical tone. “Can you roll to your left a little more? Reach
my wrists?”

Riley was all upside-down,
he couldn’t make out his left from his right, but there was no wiggle room. He
was a big man, and Tom wasn’t little, and the two of them were in the closed
trunk of a car. He tried to move, but every time he did, his wrists twisted,
and his ankle was throbbing. He couldn’t push any weight against it, and the
pain emanating from his foot was increasing by the minute.

Desperation stifled him,
and he heard himself whimper before getting ahold of himself and lying absolutely
still. Panicking was not going to get them out of this, only cool clearheaded
thinking would. He couldn’t move. He was hurt, with a twisted ankle maybe? His
wrists were tied, and he was bleeding pretty freely from a head wound.

“Are you hurt?” he asked
Tom.

“No.”

Riley closed his eyes and
considered the layout of the trunk. Was he at the back well into the depths of
the trunk, or was he closer to sunlight if the trunk was open? He was already
on his side, with Tom behind him.

“Can you feel my wrists?”
he asked a little desperately.

Tom wriggled a little, but
there was no room. None at all. Despair washed over Riley. Then he stopped.
People knew he and Tom were there. Any support team backing the guards would have
raised the alarm. Right? And if this was murder, then why wasn’t he dead? This
had to be a ransom.

Blinding pain reached his
eyes, and he retched, the acid burning his mouth.

“Riley? Are you okay?
Riley? Riley?”

Riley stopped struggling.
It was easier to keep his eyes closed and wait for someone to rescue him.
Didn’t stop his trying to loosen the ties that held him, though.

When the vehicle stopped
moving, it seemed the longest time before the trunk was opened, sunlight
flooding into the space and causing Riley to blink against the pain. Rough hands
dragged and pulled him out first, and the minute his feet touched the ground,
the excruciating pain in his ankle had him on his knees. Something was broken
inside his boot. They left him there on his knees, then pulled Tom out until
Tom was at his side, coughing and leaning against Riley momentarily.

They exchanged glances,
but shouted Spanish and a tug forced them apart.

Riley knew Spanish well past
rudimentary high school level, but he couldn’t understand the slang, the
shouts, and fuck, his head hurt.

They separated him and
Tom, dragging Tom away.

“What do you want!”

No one answered him, then with
more shouting and another hit to his neck and head, everything became a blur.