With Jem, that was easy. Somehow his bent to crazy calmed her. When he would get drunk, dance on tables, ride the bull, drink the worm, she would be the one dragging his ass out of the bar and into bed.
"Sometimes I think you're doing all this shit to keep my mind off the fact that we haven't found Gunner yet," she'd muttered to him one night.
He'd laughed drunkenly, touched his nose and then pointed to her. Yeah, bingo, she thought dryly.
In the morning, they'd take a small plane two islands over. Gunner was rumored to be doing a job for Landon, and that information was leaked from one of Landon's own men in return for the sole purpose of chartering a boat for said job.
Tomorrow, she'd be closer to Gunner than she'd been in months. She said a small prayer that they were doing the right thing and braced herself for everything to go wrong that possibly could.
Chapter Ten.
The guards positioned on the beach were taken care of. The house loomed in front of him. He wiped the blood from his knife along the grass and shoved it back into its sheath. He secured it around his arm and continued along the dark beach.
It had finally happened. He'd stopped feeling. Again. He'd known it would happen, wasn't sure if he should welcome it or hate it.
This time, it had only taken five months. Five months of hell, in order to prove himself to a taskmaster he'd never wanted to impress in the first place. Five months to get back into the man's good graces.
He pushed forward like a machine. Couldn't remember the last time he ate or slept and he really didn't give a shit. All he needed to do was the job-this one and the one after it, get the people moved where they needed to be moved to and take out anyone Landon deemed unworthy.
Landon had made him the star of his show, Let's Play God, Judge and Jury, all in his quest to take down human traffickers. The satisfaction he gained by helping the women and children go free after killing men who'd imprisoned them would wane quickly with every criminal he'd helped to sneak out of countries, across borders and away from justice.
It wasn't like the first time. Would never be like that again.
He glanced up at the light in the window ahead of him. It blinked twice and as he moved forward, it went dark.
When he blinked again, he was no longer standing on a beach looking up at a house where he'd seen the signal.
He was in a room that looked like a police station. Bare cement walls, what he assumed to be a two-way mirror and him chained to a metal chair in the middle of the room. The chair was semichained in place too. It had a little give, but there was no way he could get up and tackle anyone without slamming himself down to the floor in the process.
Motherfucker.
He tested his hands to see if there was any give. Legs too.
"Wouldn't bother, you asshole. I know how to keep someone from getting away."
Jem's voice. He stilled as he heard the man approach him from behind.
"I wouldn't count on it," he said, and for a moment, there was silence. Until he found himself with his cheek on the bare floor, his head aching from the blow, his body following suit on the unforgiving tile. "I will fucking kill you," Gunner promised.
Jem righted the chair unforgivingly, stood in front of him and taunted, "I'm right here, big boy. Come on."
He couldn't believe he'd let the former spook get the better of him. He'd gotten too comfortable, had immersed himself back into the life. He'd assumed S8 had let him go.
Instead, Jem had used a dart filled with sedative and now he used chains with prongs inside the wrist and ankle bands, which Gunner grudgingly admitted was a nice touch. He shifted his weight slightly. Being slammed to the floor had cut the shit out of his skin. Blood trickled down his fingertips, dripped to the cement floor. He'd been drugged, so he hadn't been able to count the miles or know how long he'd traveled to get here. Wherever here was.
He had no doubt they'd ditched his phone and his bag.
That was both good and bad. Meant Landon couldn't find him. Which meant he couldn't find Avery or Jem.
At least not yet.
He heard Landon's words, whispered in his ear. "If you go missing, I'll hunt you down. And you'd better pray I find you captured and not running. . . ."
He had to get the hell out of here. Even if he had to kill Jem to do it. Which needed to happen as soon as he regained full consciousness.
He didn't know how soon after that thought it happened-Jem pouring water over his head. He sputtered. Spat. Cursed.
And then Jem did it again and again. What the fuck? Was the asshole trying to re-create hell week?
"I will kill you," he told Jem when he was allowed to breathe air instead of water for a full minute.
"You try, Gunner." Jem poured the water again. "Who're you working for?"
Gunner. Fuck. He'd managed to keep that name out of his mind for months, didn't slip when asked his name any longer. And in one breath, Jem brought Gunner back to life.
He choked out, "It's James. You're a failed agent, Jeremiah. Are you trying to get reinstated?"
"Fuck. You." More water. Never-ending fucking water as his chair was tipped back and the spikes bit into him and he welcomed the pain and the light-headedness.
As if Jem knew that, he stopped, dead. Demanded, "Answer me one question-did you set her up?"
"No clue what you're talking about."
"The flowers with the bomb-you sent them?"
There were two ways to answer that. Gunner chose the one that would make Jem hate him. "I did. Did it work?"
The backhand Jem cracked across his cheek didn't hurt as much as the pain involved in not knowing if Avery was hurt. And Gunner deserved it. He spat blood and smiled. "You didn't answer my question."
A glint in Jem's eye told him the test he was about to endure.
But that's what Gunner goddamn did. He endured.
He endured for hours. Days. However long Jem kept at him. The man didn't give Gunner any real way out-there were no right answers he could give. It was only torture. Meant to break him. Bring him back.
He refused to let it. Refused to ask about Avery, even though with every fucking beat of his heart he wondered if she'd been killed.
That didn't stop until Avery walked in, unharmed. Angry. Beautiful.
His chest tightened. He couldn't keep this up, not if she was here. But for her sake, he had to.
"You seem surprised to see me," she said, and fuck, he needed to learn to school his expectations around her. To date, she seemed to be the only woman he hadn't been able to lie to.
Scratch that-he had lied to her and somehow she called him on his bullshit every single time. He thought about the orchids he'd sent in a moment of weakness, hoping they'd gotten to her before S8 moved out. He'd called from the truck as it barreled out of the city. And two hours later, he'd called to cancel the order, spoken to the wife of the owner who'd promised not to deliver them.
"You're working for Drew Landon. Again," Jem said.
Gunner shrugged. "He keeps me busy. Pays me well. What more do I need?'
Jem stared at him, the crazy man completely lucid, leaving Gunner to feel like he was the one who needed the mental institution. The higher the walls, the better.
"It's a job, Jeremiah. I'm good at it. What do you give a fuck what I do for the rest of my life?"
"Because you're not the same guy I knew."
"That guy never existed."
"Bull. Shit. And your running didn't help us. Landon's trying to kill us anyway," Jem spat. "Or maybe you knew that. Maybe you want us out of the way, since we know your secrets."
Gunner smirked again and Jem smacked him hard across his face, splitting his lip.
"Jem, I need to talk to him alone," Avery said.
Jem gave the chair one final kick for good measure and Gunner cursed a blue streak at him. His lip was split again, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. His body ached and he wanted to kill the crazy asshole who'd been torturing him for the past forty-eight-plus hours.
What was the fucking point? He was done with S8. Jem was telling him that Landon had tried to kill Avery and Billie Jean as a trick. Gunner knew tricks when he saw them, because he'd used them before.
But Jem was leaving and Avery was staying. He steeled himself against her, because nothing could've prepared him for the jolt he'd felt.
You thought you were dead inside. And just like that, Avery's presence gave him the jump start to his heart.
He hated her for that, and that hate was what he focused on. "Why don't you follow your friend and get the fuck out of here?"
Her mouth fell open, but only for a second. It was like steel grew in place of her spine, and when she straightened, her eyes snapped angry fire. "What have they done to you?"
He stared at her as obscenely as possible, refusing to break the gaze first as he spat blood in a straight line through his teeth. "They didn't do anything. This is me, Avery. I told you-go to Key and stay the hell away."
"I'm not with Key."
"You're fucking someone else, then? Good for you. I told you to leave me alone. What don't you get about that?"
Avery's chin raised defiantly. Instead of making her angry enough to walk out, he seemed to be succeeding only in making her will stronger. "There's a lot I'm not getting about you. Where've you been?"
"Around."
"Doing what?"
"Stuff. Christ, who the fuck are you, my mother?"
She ignored that, countered with a stack of files she held so he could see them marked "I know exactly what kind of stuff you've been doing."
"So why ask?"
"Because I want to see if you have the balls to admit it."
He gave a short, dirty laugh, rocked his pelvis into the air. "You want to see those balls, go right ahead. Doesn't mean I have to make you wife number-"
"Five?" she finished, moved close enough to touch him and leaned in. "Wouldn't I be wife number five, Gunner?"
"James," he bit out. "And fuck you."
She reached out then. He thought she would slap him, but what she did was worse. She ran her hand through his hair, a gentle touch that honest to God nearly broke him.
He wanted to lean into her hand, rest his head on her, let her take care of him. Confess things she already knew and some she didn't.
"Talk to me, Gunner. Come back to me."
He closed his eyes, took a breath. He opened them, the fantasy ruthlessly pushed aside. "I was never yours to begin with."
"I'm not letting you go," she said, but she had to know that some part of him was already long gone. She held up the sale papers he'd left for her months earlier. "We bought it all back-the tattoo shop, the garage, the bar. All of it. And we're fixing it back up."
"Then you're stupider than I thought."
She picked up the files then and flipped through them. "The El Coyote was the first job you did after you left me," she said. It seemed like years ago that he'd done that. "And then we traced a line of crimes along the Ivory Coast and through the Sudan."
Brutal jobs. His bank account was fat with blood money. But Avery and Jem had been standing here safe in front of him, and he had to assume the same of Key, Dare and Grace. It was all he'd asked, and in turn he'd separated himself from them.
Fuck, being back here in Avery's presence was wiping away his carefully built resolve. He didn't want her to know all this shit. Didn't want her seeing into his past, his present, especially when she couldn't be a part of his future.
She tipped his chin up so he was forced to meet her eyes. His chin brushed the file she still held, until she climbed into his lap, holding the file behind the back of his chair. His dick was hard and she ground against it while he ground out, "Simple biology, baby. You want to fuck me, go for it. Don't expect it to change anything."
"It already has, Gunner." She leaned in, licked his earlobe. He fought a shiver, tried to stay cold as fuck, but she was so goddamned warm. He wanted to thrust against her, let her come against him, calling his name. "I'm going to fight dirty. And I'm not stopping until you give in."
"Why?" He heard a trace of despair in his own voice.
"Because you wouldn't stop for me. Because I don't think you want me to stop."
He looked up at the ceiling. She took the opportunity to kiss his neck. Run her hands over his chest. "Come back to me, Gunner. Please, come home."
"I don't have a home, Avery. Especially not one with you."
She blinked at him.
"You told us we have to make our own decisions. I've made mine. You need to accept it."
"I won't."
Infuriatingly stubborn. He stared into her beautiful eyes-she had an old soul and he'd noticed that from the moment he'd met her. She could always see right through him. "Let me go."
"I can't."