Maniac - Necessary Evils #7 - ch 18-ending (Patreon)

ARC's will be available in the next day or so. 

Chapter 18

Aiden

Breakfast was organized chaos. Per usual, an army of staff members descended on the house to make breakfast before Thomas dismissed them once more. As soon as the food was set out, Jericho’s boys and half the Mulvaneys fell on it like ravenous vultures, piling food onto their plates then disappearing down into the basement. After watching them all pushing and shoving, jockeying for position in line, it occurred to him that maybe Mac and Jericho were right—maybe toddlers were the way to go.

Outside was cold and miserable, but inside was toasty warm, making it easy to forget it was still winter. As Aiden helped himself to food, he watched Thomas, who was sitting between Ada and Ari, cutting up strawberries and dropping them into their plates. They snatched them up greedily with their tiny sticky hands and popped the offerings into their mouths. They looked like angels compared to the horde of heathens who’d just demolished a buffet in less time than it took a school of piranha to eat a fish.

Lucas had said they seemed to shoot projectiles from both ends, but he was still about to have a third. It couldn’t be all bad. What was a little puke from something that looked like a tiny version of the person you loved? Hell, Archer had puked on Aiden more than once—something they were going to have a very stern talk about now that the truth was out. It couldn’t be worse than that.

Lucas and August sat on opposite sides of each child, feeding them eggs and tiny bits of vegetables. Noah sat in Adam’s lap at the end of the table, essentially doing the same to him, forking random bites of his own breakfast into his mouth. Archer and Mac were having a conversation amongst themselves by the fireplace. They’d opted for black coffee in lieu of real food. Lola and Calliope were also at the table with Cricket, talking in low tones about something to do with proxy servers. Girls were weird.

When Thomas glanced up and saw Aiden watching him, he smiled. It felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach. He really had loved that man most of his life, from the moment he’d laid eyes on him. Christ. He was so far gone on Thomas. He always had been, but he’d never let himself have this before. This sense of…ownership. Aiden wanted the world to know Thomas belonged to him, something that was less tacky and more permanent than the hickeys he currently sported, peeking out from beneath a pale blue button-down that made his eyes as silver as his hair. Would their kids have Thomas’s blue eyes or Aiden’s?

He shook the thought away. He was getting far too many ideas watching him with the girls. He took his food and sat opposite Thomas, whose bare foot was suddenly snaking up Aiden’s pant leg all while he pretended nothing was happening.

When the plates were empty and Cricket had taken the girls to the nursery, Thomas finally asked, “Did you find anything helpful in the files? Anything that might lead us somewhere other than Shane?”

August shook his head. “No, unfortunately not. I went over the case files, had Calliope run down every person who had so much as touched the case. Even the politicians Shane’s mom had used to force the locals into silence. There are no red flags.”

Jericho threw down his napkin with a sigh. “I was sure it was going to be Holly’s secret love child,” Jericho said. “It made perfect sense.”

“Yeah, until she didn’t have one,” Lucas lamented.

August twisted his fingers, something he rarely did as an adult but had done frequently as a child. “I find it hard to believe that someone just randomly stumbled onto Dad’s family secret and then sided with Shane, no matter how much of a psychopath this random stranger might be. If it was about money, he would have already outed Dad when he didn’t pay, or he would have kidnapped the girls to force his hand…but he didn’t. It’s almost like he wants a confrontation. He wants us to find him. That screams personal and that screams some kind of attachment to Shane.”

It was infuriating. If the guy wanted something, why didn’t he just make his move already? Had he not anticipated Thomas would tell his family? Had he not anticipated him closing ranks? If he didn’t want revenge, what the fuck did he want?

Aiden sighed. “It’s staring us right in the face but, somehow, we still can’t see it.”

Thomas took a sip of his orange juice, then glanced down the table to Calliope. “You didn’t manage to find anything on any additional family Shane may have had?”

She gave him a pained look. “Now that we know his stepbrother is definitely in Japan and his sisters are living their best suburban mom life on the opposite side of the country, I’m out of options. I mean, short of a DNA sample that I could run through a database that may or may not pinpoint some random secret family members we don’t know about, Shane’s family is a dead end. Literally.”

Like Jericho, Aiden had been banking on it being Shane’s secret child. It made the most sense. Well, it made no sense, really, in the grand scheme of things, but it did in the fucked-up mind of a psychopath. And nobody knew psychopaths better than the Mulvaneys. All roads had led to Shane.

Aiden had seen first-hand how his brainwashing could leave someone with mixed feelings about what had happened to them. While Thomas would never paint Shane as a hero, he still frequently made excuses for his actions and worked hard to put the blame on them both equally. As if they’d both been in the wrong. It wasn’t hard to imagine Holly spinning a fairy tale for her baby to try to fool herself. Denial like that was common.

Aiden was temporarily pulled away from his thoughts when Asa and Zane appeared, both of them looking smug enough for everybody at the table to know exactly what had kept them from breakfast.

Atticus rolled his eyes. “Where’s your doppelgänger?”

“Avi?” Asa asked reflexively.

“No, your other twin brother,” Atticus quipped.

Aiden felt his whole body go hot then cold as the answer he’d been searching for crashed into him like a big yellow school bus. Jesus. He was right, it was staring them in the face the whole goddamn time. “It’s the other one.”

They all turned to stare at him, their confused expressions almost comically similar. “What?” Mac asked.

“It’s the other one,” Aiden said again, nodding as he got more confident that he was correct. “We were right. Well, not a hundred percent right. Right theory, wrong fucking person. It was the fucking other one.”

“What is he babbling about?” Avi asked, entering the room with Felix.

“He does this,” Lola said with a wave of her hand. “He’s had some kind of epiphany but you’re just gonna have to let him talk it out.”

Aiden was right. He knew he was fucking right. “Shane. Fucking Shane. We were right, but we were wrong.”

Lola twisted in her chair, giving him a dubious look. “Are you trying to say that Shane had a twin or something because that’s a little too fucking soap opera if I’m being honest.”

Aiden huffed out a breath through his nose, trying to gather his patience and his thoughts so he could explain it to them. “No. Not another Shane. Another Holly.”

“Holly had a twin?” Felix asked, looking at the others like it was news to him.

“Another victim,” Thomas said, finally seeming to catch on.

“Yes,” Aiden said, a little too triumphantly considering it was just a theory. “There was another girl who reported being raped by Shane after Holly, right?”

Thomas looked dumbstruck. “It was the reason I broke things off with him. How could I forget about her?”

“Because of the fucking handle on the internet. AlwaysChristmas equaled Holly, but what if it didn’t? What if it’s just a significant date to this guy? Something that mattered only to him? We had the right concept, we just had the wrong victim.”

“Well, shit,” Jericho said. “Do you know the girl’s name?”

Thomas frowned. “No. The school protected her identity because she was a minor. I don’t know if she ever went to the police.”

Aiden made a frustrated noise. “Fuck. I cannot believe we don’t have her name.”

“I do,” Lucas said. “At least, I think I do. When I was going through the boxes last night, aside from this guy’s hatred of Thomas and women in general, I was getting a T name.”

“That’s about as helpful as a psychic hotline,” Asa said, earning a dark glare from August.

Lucas sighed. “Terry? Tara, maybe?”

Thomas rocketed forward. “Theresa? Could her name have been Theresa?”

Lucas nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Shane was constantly staring at this girl on the quad. Whenever I would ask about it, he would just say she was some girl he’d been asked to tutor but had refused. It always bothered me how he never stopped…tracking her with his eyes.”

“Do you know her last name?” Calliope asked.

“No, but I’d probably recognize a photo,” Thomas said. To Calliope, he asked, “Is it enough?”

“In the hands of a lesser man, no. But for me, definitely.” She stood, chucking Aiden under the chin as she passed. “Let’s go see if you’re right.”

They all filed down to the war room, falling into whatever chair they came into contact with first. Except Aiden. He couldn’t sit down. He needed to move, needed to do something with the adrenaline coursing through him. Thomas gave him a worried look but said nothing, opting to sit beside Calliope as she worked.

Aiden passed behind her, glancing at the screen, but it was all hieroglyphics to him. There was no way anybody would understand the streams of code flying past but Calliope, so he continued his pacing. After about fifteen minutes, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Did you find anything?”

“If I had, don’t you think I would have said something?” she chided. “I’m using the same data frame as I did to pull Holly’s police report, but I’m not getting anything for a Theresa.”

Aiden hit the table with his fist. “Shit.”

Thomas gave him a patient look. “She may not have gone to the cops. She may have just reported it to the school. That’s what Holly tried first, too. But the school protected him. Just like people always did, I guess.”

“I won’t have access to those files,” Calliope said, tapping her nails on the desk.

“What about yearbook photos?” Lola asked. “If the school is still open, most of them have digitized and archived their old yearbooks. Surely, you could hack into a school’s system.”

“Of course, I can,” Calliope said, giving Lola a smile that they most definitely didn’t have time for in Aiden’s mind.

“Flirt later,” Aiden muttered.

“Boy, if you don’t sit down and stop pacing, I’m going to tie you to a chair,” Lola said. “And I will do it.”

Aiden opened his mouth to speak, but Lola raised a brow. Whatever, it wasn’t worth arguing over. He sat in the chair closest to him, folding his arms across his chest as he waited impatiently.

Calliope’s nails on the keys were usually a soothing sound to Aiden, like shit was getting done, but right now it was nails on a chalkboard, working over every nerve ending until he wanted to fucking scream. He just needed a name to put with the face of this motherfucker so he could kill him once and for all.

“We’ve got three Theresas in the school during that time,” Calliope finally said, throwing up three photos of girls that looked far too young to ever be mothers. Do you know which one she is? Do you have anything that might help us?”

“The second photo,” Thomas said, voice dull.

It was likely jarring for him to see how young they’d all been when Shane had happened to them. It was jarring for Aiden. It made him want to go back somehow and protect Thomas from all of it. Even if it meant they never would have met.

Calliope nodded. “We have a winner. Theresa Jeffries.”

“What do we know about her?” Asa asked.

“She didn’t finish high school. She’s listed on the birth certificate as the mother of Nathan Jeffries. Father unknown. The time frame adds up, age wise. Definitely could be Shane’s kid.”

“Do we know anything else? Can you find anything on this Nathan character?” Avi asked.

Calliope typed for what seemed like another hundred years. “Police reports,” she said, sounding sad. “CPS was called to her house several times for child neglect and endangerment. Seems she had a drug problem. The boy was removed from her care when he was eleven on…”

“On…” Aiden snapped.

“On Christmas day.”

“Always Christmas!” Avi yelled like it was the final answer on a quiz show.

Aiden’s tension left him in a whoosh as he fist-pumped mentally. He’d been right. This had to be it. It couldn’t all be a coincidence.

“So, we have an abused and traumatized child with possible genetic markers for psychopathy undergoing years of chronic abuse before losing his abusive mother to go into a foster system which probably only abused him further,” Lucas said. “I’m going to say this is our guy.”

Thomas clasped his hands together. “Tell me the system didn’t lose track of him, Calliope.”

Calliope went back to her lightning-speed typing. “Nathan Jeffries was in and out of the system, managed to finish high school—good for him—did two years of community college before he dropped out to…start his own business.”

“Doing what?” Mac asked.

Calliope sat back in her chair. “Construction.”

“Ah, yes, the preferred cover of both the mob and killer clowns,” Avi said.

“So, this is our guy, right?” Adam said. “Now we can go fucking kill this guy?”

“But how do we know for sure?” Thomas asked.

“Why don’t I just ask him?” Calliope said.

“You want to just tell this guy we’re onto him?” Noah asked.

Adam nodded. “Yeah, doesn’t that seem counterintuitive to us murdering this dude?”

“He wants this confrontation,” Calliope said. “I get it now. It’s all been a game. Some culmination of a master plan. Possibly even a suicide mission. He wants to see Thomas face to face. Let’s just invite him for a sit down.”

Aiden snorted. “You think I’m sending Tommy in to face down a serial killer alone? Besides, what if you’re wrong about his motives and you tip him off?”

“What if you’re wrong and he’s not the right guy?” Felix asked. “Then we just all but admitted to a stranger who might also have beef with Dad that the family is being blackmailed.”

“What if you’re right and he kills us all?” Adam offered.

“Send it as Thomas but don’t frame it about the blackmail,” Zane said. “Just tell him that you have information about his birth father and want to meet. If he’s the guy, he’ll know what it’s really about. If he’s not, it seems like a harmless enough message.”

“We’re not wrong,” Aiden said. “Lets just go fucking kill this guy.”

Calliope looked at Thomas. “What do you want to do, boss?”

Thomas sighed, leaning back in his chair, fingers steepled. When he looked at Aiden, he shook his head. It was a bad idea.

Thomas gave Aiden an apologetic smile. “Send the message.”

Chapter 19

Thomas

Thomas hadn’t been expecting an expedient reply from the blackmailer, but as the hours stretched with no response, he started to think they had it all wrong. The others moved about the house, hovering near enough to respond immediately to any news. But Aiden stayed glued to Thomas’s side as if Jeffries might appear like the boogeyman and snatch him away.

“I’m fine, you know,” Thomas told him when he followed him into the kitchen.

“I know,” Aiden said, a little defensively. “I just want to be near you.”

Thomas turned on him, backing him into the counter. “We were very near each other just a few hours ago.”

Aiden hopped onto the counter, opening his legs and drawing Thomas forward. “I just want to make sure you’re okay. You know…mentally.”

Thomas gave a small laugh. “I’m as okay as I’ve ever been.”

“Not a ringing endorsement,” Aiden said, kissing his forehead.

Thomas tipped his head up, running his hands along Aiden’s jean-clad thighs, sighing when Aiden kissed one cheek and then the other, then his chin, his nose, and finally his lips. Nothing soothed like Aiden’s touch.

“Oh, God,” Noah yelped, entering the kitchen then promptly turning away as if he’d caught them naked. “This will never not be weird.”

“Noah,” Thomas said patiently. “We’re just standing here. It’s not quite the scandal you think it is.”

“Talk to me when you find your brother kissing your father,” Noah said, flushing to the tips of his ears.

“Former brother,” Aiden teased. “Soon to be your stepfather.”

“Affection, gross,” Adam said, entering the kitchen, hooking a brow upwards when he saw Aiden perched on the counter, Thomas between his knees. “Are we interrupting something?”

Only a conversation Thomas feared he and Aiden would be fielding for the rest of their lives. They would have to publicly address it eventually, but they’d jump off that bridge if they survived this one last trial.

Before Thomas could reassure him that he was not, in fact, interrupting something, Calliope made a strange noise from the living room like someone had just stepped on a cat’s tail, then called out, “He responded. He responded.”

It was a mad dash to the war room with everyone doing their best to get there first. Nobody even tried for seats, all of them standing as Calliope double clicked on the message.

Dear Thomas,

Looks like you were as smart as my father thought you were. You’re right. I think it’s time we meet. How about at the lake house? Where it all began…or ended, I suppose. Either way, it has a nice symmetry to it. I’d tell you to come alone, but I know you won’t. So, bring who you like. I do so love the attention.

Nathan McAvoy

Thomas stared at the message, a thousand questions running through his head at once.

“I thought the lake house blew up,” Adam said.

“I thought his last name was Jeffries,” Arsen added, confused.

“I thought you guys were smart enough to recognize a trap when you see one, so clearly we’re all wrong,” Calliope barked, fuming. “Fuck this guy.”

While Thomas agreed with the sentiment, it wasn’t conducive to fixing the problem. His insides shook at just the thought of setting foot on that property again. “I had the remains of the lake house razed and another home built there. But I could never bring myself to sell it. It’s just a rental property now.”

“Who’s renting it?” Noah asked.

Calliope worked her keyboard magic, then shook her head. It’s empty. It’s listed as for rent.”

“Using his father’s last name in the message is a bold move,” Asa said. “I don’t like it. It screams end game.”

Thomas had picked up on that, too. Blackmailers—especially ones who appeared to also moonlight as serial killers—didn’t sign their name to things. Nathan had a plan and they were playing into it somehow.

Avi nodded. “This is a suicide mission.”

“But for him or us?” Felix asked.

“I think I should go alone,” Thomas said. “It’s safer for you all.”

His sons began to angrily talk over each other until Thomas had no idea what they were saying. It was only when a loud whistle shrieked through the space that they all fell quiet, looking at Calliope with wide eyes, August particularly irritated.

“One at a time. Arguing helps nobody,” Calliope instructed.

“There’s no way he’s going alone,” Noah said.

Before Thomas could respond, Aiden was nodding. “Yeah, no, that’s not even remotely a possibility.” He pointed a finger at Thomas. “I’ll tie you to a fucking chair first.”

Thomas didn’t bother to argue. There was no point. He might have been able to convince them one on one, but as a group, he was clearly outnumbered.

“Well, we can’t all roll up on this lake house, twenty plus men deep. It will trigger whatever final sequence this guy has planned, and like he said, he loves an audience,” Mac said.

“If we could just figure out his motive, maybe we’d know how to prepare,” Noah muttered.

“He wants to put on a show,” Lucas said. “This whole thing has been…performative. He’s trying to prove something, either to you or himself. He’s a narcissist. He wants you to know he’s smarter than you are. He wants to show off. If he is a serial killer, as Calliope expects, he’s going to want to show Thomas what he’s done.”

“But why?” Zane asked. “Why go through all of this just to confess? He has to know he’s not getting out of this alive.”

Lucas shrugged. “Like Avi said, it’s a suicide mission. There’s a very good chance he’s going to have an exit strategy. The kind that involves bodies. Mostly ours.”

“How would he accomplish that?” Zane asked.

“Blow us all up in the same house his dad died in?” Archer suggested. “Symmetry, remember?”

Was that really Nathan’s end game? If so, Thomas couldn’t, in good conscience, let them go with him. He wouldn’t allow his family to die for him. That just wasn’t going to happen. Even if he had to sneak off when they weren’t looking. He just had to find a way to slip free of Aiden.

Noah shook his head. “How do we combat dynamite? It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing we’d have just lying around.”

“C4 most likely,” Archer said offhand. “TNT is far too unstable.”

Noah frowned. “It alarms me that you know that off the top of your head. And it still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Depends on how he plans to detonate said bomb,” August said. “If he’s wearing it and holding a trigger, we have a better chance of surviving the blast, but fewer chances of stopping it.”

“Is that what you would do?” Felix asked August. “‘Cause I’d plant the explosives around the house at key joists to cause a collapse and I’d detonate with a cell phone, something remote on the off chance I make it out.”

“Felix has a point,” Asa said. “If he wants to take us with him, he’s going to leave that house as rubble.”

“A cell phone to detonate would be ideal,” Archer said. “Easy fix.”

“How so?” Arsen asked.

“Signal jammer,” Mac said. “If he plans on using a cell phone, it would block the call until we could disarm the bomb, supposing there is one.”

“Who knows how to disarm a bomb?” Atticus asked. “Dad taught us a lot of things but not explosives.”

“I can do it,” Mac said. “I’m trained in explosive ordnance disposal. Building and deactivating bombs is part of my military training. It’s also one of the many skills we teach at the Watch.”

“I’m starting to think the Watch isn’t a real place, like Hogwarts, or Dr. X’s academy for mutants,” Adam said. “Tell the truth, you’re just living in the desert getting high all the time and spinning these elaborate fairy tales about psychopathic Gen Zs.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Archer said, blowing him a kiss. “You can come visit whenever you want.”

“He’s just sad he didn’t get his owl,” Noah said, patting Adam on the head like a puppy.

Thomas would never get over the way Noah handled his son. Of all of them, Adam had been the hardest. He was the baby, the spoiled one. The one who had a hair trigger and the least control of his murderous impulses. Yet, Noah treated him like a dog who’d been beaten, combating his blustering by reacting to him like he was an adorable infant.

Adam was like a German Shepherd that had traded in dog fighting for duckie pajamas and flower crowns. Noah had just…quieted something in Adam and Thomas was beyond grateful to him. For that and a million other things he could never fully articulate.

“So, what’s the plan then?” Asa said. “And who gets to go? ‘Cause I really don’t want to miss out on the violence. Lucas said we can try to skin him. Like all of him, like Fukushi Masaichi.”

“Who?” Aiden asked, frowning.

“He would skin people of their tattoos when they died then preserve them in a museum,” Avi said, barely containing his excitement.

This was the part of the job Thomas hated. Early on, he’d had a certain cruel streak he’d passed on to his children. Not just the need to kill those who were a danger to others, but to punish them in the most heinous ways possible before their deaths. Asa and Avi had taken to it with a relish that Thomas had never been able to quell.

“Yeah, do we draw straws?” Avi said.

“You promised me I’d get to torture this man for going after our kids,” Lucas said. “I’m holding you to it.”

Thomas took a deep breath and let it out. He didn’t want to endanger any of them. Lucas was right. Thomas could feel it. Nathan Jeffries or McAvoy or whatever he was calling himself was on a suicide mission and he wanted to take at least Thomas with him.

“You can’t both walk into a trap,” Thomas said to August. “You have children to think of.”

“Well, you’re not leaving me behind,” Lucas said.

August scoffed. “And I’m not letting my husband walk into an ambush alone.”

“Okay, then we do it in waves,” Thomas said. “I go in alone—”

“No fucking way,” Aiden snarled, taking a step towards Thomas.

Thomas raised a hand. “Fine. We go in alone. The rest of you can be outside on standby. We will bring the signal jammer because it does seem like a power move to try to take us all out in one go. Once we’ve subdued our friend, the rest of you can come in and do what you want.”

They all looked at each other in confusion.

“You don’t want a piece of this guy?” Noah asked. “After the stress and torture he put you through over the last few days?”

Thomas shook his head. He truly didn’t. It wasn’t that he had any sentimentality towards this man. He didn’t. He needed to be put down. But all the fear, all the grief, all the secrets and lies he’d lived with for the last twenty plus years…that was all Thomas. He’d tortured himself. That had nothing to do with this Nathan person or even Shane.

Thomas had been running from a ghost for so long, he didn’t even realize nobody was chasing him anymore. He was tired of running. He was tired of it. He just wanted…peace.

Finally, he said, “No. I’m done with Shane. I’m done with the bitterness. Nathan Jeffries went after the children. He likely is a serial killer. He needs to be put down. But he also forced me to finally deal with the ghosts of my past, with my family’s secrets. It brought all of you home.” He looked at Aiden, taking his hand and squeezing it. “It brought Aiden home. This needed to happen, but now, it needs to end. So, let’s go end it.”

Chapter 20

Aiden

Aiden kept a close eye on Thomas the whole drive to the lake house. He was looking for some sense of strain or anguish—some semblance of the fear he’d displayed less than a week ago. But there was nothing. Thomas was fine. Eerily calm, even. It scared Aiden. Like Thomas had made peace with dying or something. He didn’t like it.

“Tell me you’re not going to do something crazy,” Aiden pleaded.

Thomas looked over at him and smiled. “Like meet a serial killer in the house where he thinks I killed his father?”

“Like sacrifice yourself for your children,” Aiden said, not finding any of this fucking funny.

“I’m not suicidal, Aiden. I’m just…at peace with whatever happens next.”

Aiden’s heart plummeted into his shoes. What the fuck did that mean? Aiden was not at peace. He would never be at peace while this piece of shit was threatening his family, his future husband, the future father of their children. He needed to know Thomas wasn’t going into this willing to die.

“Fuck that,” Aiden said. “Fuck all of that. I don’t want you at peace. I want you ready to fight.”

Thomas took Aiden’s hand, threading their fingers together. “I’m not that self-sacrificing. I just have faith that the entire Mulvaney family versus one mediocre serial killer is a fight already won. He’s lost his power over me and doesn’t even realize it.”

Why was he so fucking zen about this? Aiden’s insides were shaking. In all his life, he’d never been so scared. He couldn’t lose Thomas. Not when the fucking universe had taken twenty fucking years to finally let him have him.

“I need you to take this seriously,” Aiden said as they pulled into the long curving driveway that led to the home looming in the distance like something out of a gothic novel.

Thomas gave him a patient look that was so much like the old Thomas he was tempted to slap him. “It’s going to be okay, Aiden. I promise.”

This was a stupid fucking plan. The stupidest. How could any of this be okay? They should have just had Mac take the dude out with a rifle. What were they trying to prove? Why did they need to torture everyone? To prove a point? They should have just shot him and been done with it.

“You realize you’re talking out loud, right?” Thomas said, amused but now also looking a little concerned.

What was wrong with him? He didn’t fold under pressure like this. He was the one everyone came to when they needed help, when they needed someone killed. He didn’t freak out like this.

“Take a deep breath,” Thomas encouraged, still frustratingly calm.

Aiden glowered at him but did as he asked. It didn’t help a lot but his heart was no longer slamming against the walls of his chest. It was fine. It was all going to be fine. They were not going to get blown up into tiny little bits. The rest of the Mulvaneys were parking nearby, then cutting through the woods on foot per Thomas’s instructions. They didn’t want to spook this Jeffries guy.

Aiden rolled to a stop, putting the car in park and scanning their surroundings. They were in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t another soul for miles. Everything was so…still. Even the trees weren’t swaying. It all just felt so ominous. He couldn’t shake the feeling something bad was going to happen.

There was a late model Ford F-350 in the driveway. When they approached it, Aiden put his hand on the hood. It was cold. Jeffries had been there for some time. He wasn’t even attempting to hide his presence.

Hide it from who? he asked himself. There wasn’t a soul around. There was no reason to hide his vehicle. Or even his logo on the side. The man was in construction, and that probably gave him all the credibility he needed to be almost anywhere. It had likely helped when stalking his victims.

They approached the house, Aiden peering into the panes of glass on either side of the door to make sure no surprises awaited on the other side. If Jeffries was suicidal, there could be a shotgun or something pointed right at them. But there was nothing. Everything inside seemed cast in shadow, even though there was plenty of light in the sky.

Aiden entered first, keeping Thomas behind him. From the foyer, there was a clear view to a large sitting room with floor-to-ceiling windows, much like the house Thomas and Aiden had stayed at earlier in the week.

But unlike that house, someone had painstakingly blacked out those windows with paper that cast strange shadows on the wall as the sun began to set. They had also pushed all the furniture against the walls, leaving a big empty space in the center. Thomas stopped short. Is this what it had looked like when Shane killed his family?

Lights blazed on all at once, causing them both to lift their hands, blinking rapidly. They weren’t particularly bright but surprising in the swirl of shadows. There was a single chair in the center of that room, facing the wall of windows. Aiden could just make out the arms on either side of the chair. One of which dangled a revolver from his limp hand.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” the man said, his voice sounding almost…frail. Aiden frowned. He and Jeffries had to be around the same age, but he sounded…weak. “You’ve come all this way. Come on in.”

Aiden crept closer, scanning his surroundings, holding Thomas’s hand but doing his best to keep him somewhat shielded with his body.

“We’re alone,” Jeffries assured him. “I am armed, though,” he said, holding the gun up so they could see he wasn’t bluffing. I assume you are, too.”

They were armed. Could Aiden just draw his weapon and fire a bullet into the man’s head?

“You could shoot me. Of course, you could,” he said, like he was reading Aiden’s mind. A shriek sounded faintly from somewhere in the other man’s vicinity and then a phone screen was held up showing a girl bleeding and screaming in what looked like a pine box. Jesus, had he buried someone alive? “But then that poor girl I left out there…somewhere…bleeding in the woods will likely run out of air before you find her. The wilderness is…” He waved a hand. “Vast.”

Was he bluffing? Christ, this just got ten times more complicated. Once they stepped fully into the room, they got their first real glimpse of what it was that lined the walls. Pictures. Women screaming. Women bleeding. Women dying. Hundreds of them. On the sofa beneath those photos were dozens of tools, cast red from blood or rust. There were also sealed boxes on the floor.

“What the hell is this?” Aiden asked, his pulse pounding in his throat.

The man gave a wheezing laugh. “My work. Artists like to show their work. I’m quite proud of it. I’ve been at it for quite some time, as you can see.”

They finally came to stand in front of the man for the first time and Aiden saw Thomas stiffen. He didn’t blame him. He was what Aiden imagined Shane would have looked like had he been allowed to grow older.

It made Thomas stumble back a few steps, which made Jeffries smile. “Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the couch pressed against the window directly in front of him. “Let’s chat.”

Thomas didn’t move, just stared. Aiden could feel his palm dampen as he held it. He squeezed it, hoping to keep him from sliding into a full-on panic attack. All that false bravado in the car had just been for Aiden’s benefit. He knew it.

Jeffries gave him a frigid smile. “Uncanny, isn’t it? My mom hated it. Would tell me every day that I looked just like him. Like the monster who attacked her, impregnated her, ruined her whole life just like me.” When nobody responded, he shouted, “Sit down!” Then, in a softer tone, “Don’t be impolite.”

They did as he asked, sinking down onto the sofa. Doing so let Aiden see him better. There was something wrong with him. His skin had a strange almost grayish cast to it. His eyes looked hollow. The man was sick.

“Your mother was likely suffering from trauma,” Thomas said softly.

“Trauma! She was suffering from trauma? She suffered through one assault from a boy she was crushing on and I paid for it every single fucking day. Every day. Beaten. Burned. Hell, one time she stabbed me. That was the day they took me away from her for good. But just when I thought she was the worst, then came the men. My ‘foster fathers.’ She was the real fucking monster. That’s why she was my first victim. I don’t think anybody even knows she’s dead. By then, she was just another junkie whore.”

Christ. This guy was getting it all out. This was his final fucking confession before he did something drastic. “And because of that, you…what? Are somehow justifying all this?” Aiden asked, sweeping his hand around the room.

“No need to be judgey. We’re all killers here. Aren’t we, Thomas?” Jeffries said. “Sometimes, we let others kill for us, but, sometimes, we do it ourselves. Sometimes, we set up the ones we love to kill for us and then shove a shotgun under their chin and blow their faces off.”

“I didn’t kill your father. He killed my family and then he killed himself,” Thomas said. “He was sick. He needed help. Your grandmother could have helped him—”

Jeffries brandished the gun, silencing him. “I’m sure that’s what you told the police. I might have even believed it, if you hadn’t then gone on to become a killer yourself. That was when I realized the truth. He killed your family for you and you murdered him to keep it quiet. You wanted your family out of the way so you could take all that money for yourself.”

“None of that’s true. We were little kids. Your father was sick. He was sick and he killed my family and when I wouldn’t kill his, he killed himself. It’s as sad and tragic as it is simple,” Thomas said.

Jeffries snickered. “Are you telling me your sons don’t kill for you?”

“No, I’m not saying that,” Thomas said. “But some people—people like you—are too dangerous to live and need to be put down. My sons do that.”

Jeffries sneered. “Who died and made you judge, jury, and executioner? Who are you to say who deserves to live and die? The high and mighty Thomas Mulvaney can pluck people from this world at will—people who do the same thing he does. Don’t you see what a fucking hypocrite you are?”

Thomas shook his head. “We are not the same. You kill for sport. I kill for necessity. I kill to make sure people like you can’t do…this.” He waved his hand around.

“We’re not that different, you and I,” Jeffries assured him. “You’ve just found a way to transfer your homicidal impulses onto your children and make it seem justified. It appears my father did the same. Too bad he never got to see it.”

“We’re very different,” Aiden said. “You’re slaughtering innocent women. We’re slaughtering men like you.”

Jeffries scoffed. “There are no ‘innocent’ women,” he said. “They’re all whores and liars who constantly play the victim. I’m the one doing the public service. Consider it population control.”

“Is this why you brought us here? To show off your collection? Your trophies,” Aiden asked.

Jeffries smirked. “It’s not the only reason, no.”

“So, this is some kind of suicide mission then? You don’t look well,” Aiden said.

Jeffries waved the gun around. “Good eye. I’m dying. Rare genetic disorder. Also inherited from my mother. Nothing good ever came of that bitch, I swear it.”

Aiden stared intently at the phone in his lap. So, they had been right. They knew his next move. “So what? You wanted to show us your collection before you blew the three of us up?”

“No, I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving a legacy of my own. I have my own sons, trained to kill, just like yours. And they’re out there, right now, hunting. Maybe hunting your sons.”

“If they’re stupid enough to come after my sons, they’ll get the same thing you’ll get. A slow, agonizing death,” Thomas growled.

Jeffries studied him then looked at Aiden. “But this one…this one is special, no? This one you definitely don’t view as a son. Is he important to you?”

“This isn’t about him,” Thomas said, swallowing hard.

“Let’s not,” Jeffries said, hitting the call button on the cell phone. Aiden’s blood rushed in his ears when nothing happened. Thank fuck, the signal jammer was doing its job. For now. Jeffries looked up, irritated. “How clever.”

With that, he lifted the gun and fired a shot directly into Aiden’s chest. It wasn’t the first time Aiden had been shot, but he didn’t remember much of it. He didn’t remember the searing pain or the feeling like he couldn’t breathe.

“Aiden!” Thomas shouted.

Aiden felt himself sliding off the sofa just as the window fractured beside them. He heard it more than he saw it. There was a scream, then the gun in Jeffries’s hand clattered to the floor next to him, but Aiden couldn’t move. He could do nothing but lie there.

He heard everything but couldn’t see it. The door bursting open, his brothers’ voices.

Aiden fought to keep his eyes open. There was blood everywhere. Christ, this hurt. Someone rolled him onto his back. Archer. He ripped his shirt open, grinning down at him like an idiot, slapping the bullet proof vest right over where the bullet struck. “Hurts like a motherfucker, don’t it? Wait ‘til you see the bruise you’re gonna have.”

“I can’t breathe,” Aiden said. “What’s happening?”

“Mac shot the gun out of his hand like something out of an old western,” Archer said, looking at someone—he assumed Mac—in the distance. “That bullet knocked the wind out of you. It’ll come back in a minute, just ride it out.”

“How?” Aiden wheezed. “The windows…”

“We brought all the toys, including our x-ray vision,” Noah said, dropping down beside him. “It was so fucking badass. I told you to wear the vest.” With that, he was gone once more.

Aiden assumed he was talking about the thermal imager. It wasn’t the first time they’d used it. Aiden sucked in a huge breath as his lungs finally stopped seizing. Sitting up, he looked for Thomas, who stood, hands in his pockets as Asa and Avi trussed Jeffries up by his hands, one of which was missing three fingers and a large chunk of palm.

Once he was secured, Thomas strolled forward, stopping inches from the man, giving him a chilling smile. “Now, shall we get started?”

Goddamn, that man was sexy.

“I told you we weren’t that different,” Jeffries said, tone smug even as he heaved pained breaths.

“This dude looks like shit,” Avi said, disappointed. “Is he even going to survive torture?”

Jeffries made a disgusting sound at the back of his throat. “You brought your whole family to torture me. Tell me again how we’re nothing alike.”

Thomas shook his head. “No. I’m not wasting my breath on arguments I’ll never win. So, how about we turn our attention to the girl you have buried out in the woods somewhere. Tell me where she is, and if she’s safe, I won’t let my sons skin you alive.”

“Ah, man,” Avi said, sounding like a kicked puppy.

“Suck it up, babe,” Felix murmured, patting him on the head. “There’s plenty of time to skin someone later.”

Jeffries looked at them all like they were the crazy ones. Thomas supposed they were. He glanced around the room at his children, both patiently and impatiently waiting to find out if they got to torture a man before they killed him. Perhaps Thomas should have been horrified. Disgusted, even. But he wasn’t. He was proud of his children, his family. They were everything he’d hoped they’d be and more. And looking at someone like Jeffries just drove home for Thomas the life that might have awaited them had he never found them.

The thought left a pit in his stomach. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing a single one of them. He looked at Aiden, still rubbing the bruise on his chest. Jeffries could have shot him in the head. He could have killed him. If he had, this would have gone much differently for Jeffries. It would have been Thomas holding the scalpel.

But Aiden was fine. He was right there. Healthy. Perfect. His. He turned his attention back to Jeffries, who glared at him.

“Do I need to ask again?” Thomas pressed, boredom seeping into his tone.

“Fuck you,” Jeffries spit, his ashen skin turning an even more unflattering shade of gray.

“Fuck this guy,” Adam said, searching Jeffries for the phone he’d shown Thomas and Aiden when they’d entered. He found it lying on the floor. A different phone from the one he’d planned on using as a detonator. That one was safely out of reach…of anyone. At least until Mac and Archer disarmed the bomb. Once they found the bomb.

Adam picked up the phone, pointing it at Jeffries’s face, then tossed it to Noah. “Look for anything that might help us pinpoint where she is.”

Thomas bit back a smile as Noah cocked his head, leveling a flat stare at Adam. “A please would be nice.”

Adam’s eyes went wide and he gave Noah an exasperated look. Noah stood firm. Adam’s shoulders slumped. “Please? Please, would you look for anything that could help us save a girl’s life?”

Noah flushed, muttering, “Like you even care about some girl’s life.”

Asa snagged the phone from Noah’s hands, playing with it for about sixty seconds before giving a triumphant cry. “I fucking knew it. That video is months old. The sick fuck just wanted you to hear him out and he knew this would be a way to hold your attention.”

“How did you know it was old?” Lucas asked.

Asa sneered at Jeffries. “Look at him. You think he could subdue anyone? He doesn’t look like he could hold down a full meal, much less a fully grown woman.”

Well, that did simplify the task at hand somewhat.

“Excellent. Shall we get on with it?” Lucas asked, wandering along the row of tools laid out on the sofa. He stopped, picking up a tool with a sturdy handle and a lethal-looking spike. An ice pick or an awl maybe.

Lucas stopped before Jeffries, dragging the end of the tool along the squishy underside of his chin. It was clear he’d lost weight, leaving some sagging behind. Thomas might have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t surrounded by his victims, if he hadn’t gone after his grandchildren, if he hadn’t shot the love of his life.

“You. You went after my children,” Lucas said.

“You’re the psychic, right?” Jeffries said with a pained laugh. “Didn’t you used to be in the FBI? You know, before they branded you a lunatic?” If he was hoping to strike a nerve in Lucas, he was in for a surprise. Jeffries leaned in, swaying on his tiptoes. “Let me ask you. If you touched me right now, could you see every girl I murdered? Could you hear their screams, smell their blood, could you feel how much I fucking loved every second of it?”

“You went after my children,” Lucas said again, enunciating every word, voice eerily calm.

Drool leaked from Jeffries’s mouth as he said, “All I did was give them a little gift. You should be thanking me. I could have gutted the little brats.”

Lucas drove the tool into the fleshy part of the man’s jaw, piercing his tongue and lodging it into his soft palate. He began to make a sickening rattling sound, like something out of a horror movie.

“Hey, we were gonna skin him,” Avi whined.

Lucas drove the tool deeper, then spit in Jeffries face. “He’s not dead. He’s just fucking quiet.”

He left the tool where it was, walking away. “He’s all yours,” he said to the twins as he passed.

August came up and hugged Lucas from behind. “Feel better, my love?”

“I’ll feel better when he’s dead,” Lucas confirmed but gripped the hands around his waist briefly as if to assure him he was okay.

“That’s our cue, right?” Asa asked. “Shall we take it from here?”

Atticus grimaced. “I hate this part.”

Zane shuddered. “Me too.”

“Oh,” August said, as if remembering something. “Here.”

He handed Zane a set of ear plugs. He gazed at August like he’d given him a kidney. It was rare for him to consider the needs of others, rarer still for him to offer to accommodate those needs. Thomas smiled. His boys were nothing like Jeffries or his…sons as he’d called them.

The boys stood around as Avi and Asa squabbled over what tool to use, how to approach the task, and whether he’d survive long enough for them to enjoy it. Thomas left them to it, finally going to sit beside Aiden, who was slumped into the couch. Thomas brushed his hair from his eyes. He was sweating. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Aiden said. “Just having a rough day. Are you okay?”

“I’m not the one who got shot,” Thomas reminded him, staring at the bullet lodged in Aiden’s vest, imagining the worst.

“The Kevlar did its job, Tommy.”

Thomas tried to ignore Avi when he said, “Who gets to start?”

“I’m older,” Asa reminded.

“By, like, minutes at best,” Avi shot back. “Besides, it was my idea.”

Thomas had half a mind to snap at them, tell them to get it together, but before he could say anything, Felix stepped between them, his voice soothing. “Why don’t you just do it at the same time. There are two sides of him.”

“You’re right, kitten,” Avi said. “He’s always the voice of reason.” He turned to Asa. “Should we take the ice pick out of his mouth?”

“No,” Aiden said. “He wants to talk. He’ll use his last rattling breath to brag about his kills. No matter how much you torture him, he still thinks he’s won. He had some grand idea that he was going to go out in some kind of blaze of glory, leave bits of files and photos of dead girls like confetti, create some grand mystery of who killed Thomas Mulvaney and why.”

Thomas smiled. Aiden really could read people.

“Can we do it fast, then?” Noah said. “The weird gurgling sound he’s making is kind of making me want to barf.”

“No,” Avi said. “We’re going to savor this. Think we could get his skin off in one solid piece?”

“And do what with it?” Felix asked, frowning.

“Yeah, you’re not bringing it home,” Zane said, pointing a finger in Asa’s face.

Asa kissed Zane’s cheek. “Easy, Lois, nobody wants to take this guy’s skin home. Look at it. It’s not even a good color. Besides, like Felix said, what would we even do with it? We’re not into arts and crafts like Ed Gein. We just like to try new things.”

“Is this what they do at every job?” Thomas asked Felix and Zane.

“Yeah,” they said in unison.

“No wonder they always take so much time getting home,” Thomas muttered, shaking his head. To Aiden, he said, “I told you he was no match for the Mulvaneys.”

“I’ll feel better when we’re no longer sitting on a fucking powder keg.” Aiden winced as Jeffries started emitting a sound like some kind of supernatural creature, letting them know the twins had begun.

Thomas grimaced at the sound of something heavy and wet hitting the floor. “Fuck,” Avi whined. “I fucked up already.”

“Oh, no,” Atticus said, affect flat. “Whatever shall we do.”

Jericho chuckled. “Easy, Freckles. Let them have their fun. Why don’t you go sit over there? I brought you a granola bar. It’s in my bag.”

“You treat him like a toddler,” Adam said.

“Your boyfriend still has to remind you to say please and thank you, pretty boy, so who’s the real toddler?” Jericho shot back.

Adam shot him the bird. Jericho pretended to catch it and stuff it in his pocket. Christ. What the hell was he going to do with these boys?

Archer and Mac appeared from somewhere deep within the house, dirty and sweaty. “So, do you want the good news or bad news?” Mac asked.

“Good?” Thomas said, feeling like neither was going to be encouraging.

“We found the explosives,” Archer announced, a huge fake smile on his face.

Thomas’s heart sank. “And the bad news?”

“We cannot touch them without blowing us all up in the process.” Archer fell back onto the couch dramatically, causing Aiden to list into his side.

“Shit,” Aiden muttered. “What do we do, Tommy?”

Thomas looked at Jeffries. Even writhing in pain, his eyes gleamed with triumph. He thought he was going to get his wish. He thought he was going to end up famous one way or another. They either had to alert the bomb squad to the threat or detonate it themselves and give him the show he wanted.

Fuck that. This guy wasn’t going to die famous.

“Adam, Jericho, take all of this—the boxes, the tools, all of it—and stow it in the car, everything you can carry. Zane, Felix, get these pictures down, make sure not a single one is left. They’re coming with us. Archer, get the tarps out of the back of the truck. We’ll need to take him with us and dump him somewhere along the way.”

“Dad, what’s the plan?” August asked.

Thomas sighed. “We’re gonna blow the place ourselves.”

“What?”

“We don’t have any choice. It’s safer than trying to explain why someone broke into our abandoned property and set up explosives around our house, and oh, yeah, they happened to be a serial killer.”

“Still, there will be an investigation,” Aiden said, looking at Thomas like he was crazy.

Thomas shook his head. “No, there won’t be. I’ll do what I always do. Call in some favors with Kendrick.”

“And say what? Another gas leak?” Asa asked.

Avi nodded. “Yeah, who has that kind of bad luck?”

“We don’t have any choice. I refuse to make this shithead famous and we can’t take a chance of them starting to put the pieces together. We clean up like we always do, we leave nothing behind. Then after some time has passed, we’ll decide if we want to make the real story of my parents’ deaths known. But not now, not like this.”

“What do we do about the others?” Aiden asked. “His ‘sons’?”

“We’ll deal with them later. They’ve been hunting all this time. They’re bound to have left some calling cards. We’ll dig into Jeffries until we find something.” He looked at Jeffries. “And then we’ll hunt them down, one by one, and put them down. Just like him.”

He snatched the scalpel from Avi and jammed it directly through Jeffries’s eye socket. He watched as the man twitched a few times, then sagged.

“Let’s get this cleaned up. Clock’s ticking.”

Chapter 22

Aiden

Aiden and Thomas were back in the bath, this time with Thomas sitting between Aiden’s open legs. There was nothing sexual about it. They were both exhausted. They’d managed to stand under the scalding hot shower just long enough to clean away the dirt and sweat from digging the hole where they’d dumped Jeffries.

They’d been sitting in the tub for the last hour, letting the water grow tepid, then adding more, neither of them in any hurry to leave each others’ arms.

Thomas was drifting, his head lulling on Aiden’s chest in a way that made him smile. “You were such a badass today,” Aiden said, combing fingers through his damp hair. “I’ve never really seen you in action in the field,” he teased.

Thomas snorted. “I didn’t do anything.”

That wasn’t true. Thomas had been in control of that situation from the moment they’d entered. He’d been so calm because he’d already worked through a dozen scenarios in his head before they’d breached the premises. It was impressive. It was hot. Thomas Mulvaney when he was in business mode was a sight to behold.

“You created a plan and an exit strategy for us in ten minutes without giving Jeffries what he wanted. He’ll die nameless and faceless. And Calliope will find a way to anonymously make sure the victims didn’t die the same way and that their families have some kind of closure. You blew up a fucking house and covered it up with two phone calls. On our terms.”

Thomas shook his head. “Yeah, but I had to call in favors with your dad. You know how much I fucking hate that.”

“That man is not my father,” Aiden said, though not with any particular heat. “Don’t call him that.”

It wasn’t as if Kendrick had ever even attempted to be Aiden’s dad. Even as a child, he was never there, far more devoted to his career than his children. Aiden had raised himself and it had been lonely. Until he became a Mulvaney.

“Sorry,” Thomas muttered, soothing his hands over Aiden’s thighs like an apology.

“It’s okay,” Aiden assured him. “But what happens now?”

Thomas turned, craning his head back to look up at him. “With what?”

“With us?” Aiden asked.

Thomas studied him for a long moment, like he was trying to gauge what Aiden was really asking. Finally, he said, “Like I said before, you come home…to me. For good.” He took Aiden’s hands and threaded their fingers together.

Aiden’s heart pounded. Those were the words he’d wanted to hear forever. Thomas had said it the other day, but he’d said a lot of things over the years, had run hot and cold a million times. Some part of Aiden needed more than just words. “And then what…”

Thomas kissed the back of each of Aiden’s hands. “And then you marry me.”

Aiden sucked in a startled breath. “Are you sure? You know the scandal it’s going to cause. We’re already going to be dealing with a shit storm if you do decide to tell the truth about your family’s deaths.”

“I don’t give a shit anymore,” Thomas said firmly. “I just don’t. I am not going to live my life without you. I don’t care what the press says, I don’t care what the papers say. I’m done putting my life on hold over something that happened when I was a child.”

“Okay.” Aiden chewed on his lower lip, unsure of what to say next.

Thomas sat up, turning in the tub so the water sloshed over the sides. He was on his knees before Aiden. At first, he thought maybe this was some kind of official proposal, with both of them naked in the bathtub.

Until he grabbed Aiden’s face, holding him so he met his gaze. “Can you forgive me?”

Aiden frowned, trying to force his brain to keep up with the shifting conversation. “What?”

“Can you forgive me?” Thomas said again, tearing up.

“For what?” Aiden asked, suddenly lost.

Thomas shook his head. “For everything. For driving you away. For pulling you back in. For using you every time I had a crisis. For calling you every time I was drunk and alone?”

“I—” Aiden started, only for Thomas to cut him off.

“There’s no excuse. None. I had no right to hold your life hostage like that, but I need you to believe me when I say that you’ve had this hold over me for so long, I don’t work without you. When things go wrong, you’re the first person I think to call. And I know it wasn’t fair to you. It’s probably not fair now, after wasting most of your life to ask you to marry me, but I’m asking anyway. Please forgive me. Please marry me. Please let me spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for all the shit I put you through.”

Aiden couldn’t breathe. How many times had he imagined this conversation? He blinked back tears of his own. “You’re right. You did hold me hostage.” Thomas’s shoulders sagged. Aiden grabbed his face and forced him to look at him. “But not because you called me in the middle of the night or because you were lonely. I told you the other night. I fell in love with you the day I saw you and nobody but you would ever do for me. Even if you hadn’t called. Even if you’d banished me and cut me off from the family. I would have still loved you. I would have still waited for you. I’ll never stop waiting for you.”

Thomas slammed their mouths together in a sloppy kiss, holding Aiden’s head with both his hands. They were both crying, both a mess, both clinging to each other while snot ran down their faces. It was hardly romantic. They must have looked ridiculous.

When they finally released each other, Thomas said, “I need to hear you say you forgive me. If you do, that is.”

Aiden sighed, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. “I forgave you the day you told me to come home for good. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We’re here.” He cupped his face. “But if you ever try to leave me, Thomas Mulvaney, I will kill you. Slowly. Painfully.” He punctuated each word with a kiss on his lips. “Do you copy?”

Thomas smiled, capturing his mouth in a much longer, much filthier kiss, before saying, “Yes, sir.”

Epilogue

Thomas

Thomas was still in bed when he heard Aiden enter the room. He wouldn’t normally have slept quite so late, but today was his birthday and Aiden had insisted. He stretched, listening to his bones crackle and pop as he watched him approach, hands behind his back and a mischievous look on his face.

Thomas pulled himself up until he reclined on the pillows but made no effort to sit up. “Whacha got there?”

Aiden presented him with a pink bear with hearts stitched onto its stomach and the pads of its feet. Another Care Bear. Thomas laughed, catching it when Aiden tossed it to him, before falling on the bed, laying his head on Thomas’s belly.

“Another Care Bear? He’s not even born yet and you’re already spoiling him,” Thomas teased.

“Not a second too soon,” Aiden said. “I heard Calliope swearing a blue streak because her laptop doesn’t sit right on her belly and she can’t wrestle her chair close enough to the desk. He’s going to come out with an extensive vocabulary of swear words,” Aiden said.

He took the bear from Thomas then pushed it into his face playfully. “Besides, it’s not for him, it’s for you. From me. For your birthday.”

Thomas laughed softly, then leaned down, cupping Aiden’s head to lift him for a kiss. “You spoil me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” Aiden asked.

“Your job is a private investigator,” Thomas reminded him.

“It’s pro bono,” Aiden countered. “Is it even a job if you don’t get paid?”

When Aiden had come home, he’d brought Lola with him. He’d been unwilling to give up his friend and she was happy to skip town and start a new life, though Thomas suspected that had more to do with Calliope than it did Aiden. The two had been living together since she’d arrived.

It had taken Aiden a couple of months to settle their affairs in Washington and close down the PI practice there. Two long months of Thomas talking to Aiden on FaceTime as he did his best to get his own shit together so they were ready for the inevitable scandal that would be Thomas’s and Aiden’s official nuptials.

“It’s our job to spoil each other,” Aiden said. “It was in the vows—”

“No, it wasn’t,” Thomas reminded.

Aiden ignored him. “It was, I remember. Our vows said I’m going to spoil you and when the baby comes, I’m going to spoil him, too. We both are and you know it.”

There was a mini-baby boom in the Mulvaney family over the last few years and Thomas couldn’t have been happier. Lucas and August had a son now, Alastair, and were already discussing having one more. Thomas would have never guessed in a million years that August would be the one who took to fatherhood so well, but he should have. The boy had never failed at a single thing.

Avi and Felix were eagerly anticipating the arrival of their twins. Also boys. Also identical. Lola had graciously agreed to donate her eggs, though not her body. They had hired a surrogate for that. A lovely girl named Genevieve, who was blissfully clueless about the Mulvaneys’ secret life of crime.

Asa and Zane said there was no need to have children of their own just yet as they lived with Avi and Felix and were happy to be a second set of hands. Thomas suspected there was more to it than that but didn’t look too closely at the relationship between the four. They were all happy and it was really none of his business.

Jericho and Atticus had their hands full with the boys at the shelter next to the shop, but it hadn’t stopped them from adopting a four-year-old boy with red hair and freckles named Jett, and a three-year-old boy with brown hair and brown eyes, who they’d renamed Jagger. With the boy’s permission, of course.

They hadn’t sought out the children, but through some twist of fate, they’d found their way to them anyway. Atticus had insisted on continuing the Mulvaney family naming tradition, but with the twist of all their children having J names like Jericho. It was the best present Atticus could have given Jericho.

Thomas choked up whenever he thought of it. Atticus had been the one who worried him most. The one who was so fussy and particular and determined to be different from his brothers. Yet, somehow, Jericho had found him and had seen all of Atticus’s perceived flaws as attributes. And Thomas had never seen his son so domestic and so content with the messes that came with having two small children.

Mac and Archer were determined to be nothing more than the fun uncles, but Thomas was fine with that. The work they were doing for the Watch was important and, somehow, despite everything Thomas had gotten wrong, the kids there seemed to be thriving.

The government was happy with how the pilot program was working and had even installed a full-time sociologist to study the way the students interacted with each other. Her name was Dr. Sasha Mackey and she said it was fascinating work.

Adam and Noah had finally married in an affair fit for royalty. It had provided a nice distraction after Thomas’s book was published, drawing the eye from past family scandals to current family events. While there had been a feeding frenzy after the book went live, reporters lost interest when they realized there was no scoop left.

Especially when the Mulvaneys were willing to feed them a steady diet of weddings, babies, and minor scandals to make it feel like business as usual. Zane had refused to write the book, saying it would only make reporters more curious, not less, thinking that Zane had been coached through the piece. Instead, Thomas had reached out to a world-renowned journalist who just happened to have a child in Project Watchtower. His reputation was impeccable and nobody dared question the book once his name was attached.

Adam and Noah had talked about children, but Noah wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bring himself to do it. The constant stress of worrying something might happen to his child like it did to him would be a near constant strain on his mental health. The boy’s scars ran deep. But he was young. They both were. They had plenty of time for babies if they decided they wanted them.

Look at him and Aiden. They were far too old to be raising a child but there they were, waiting for the birth of their son. Calliope had agreed to be their surrogate, though unlike Cricket, she did not provide her eggs. She said she was done parenting kids and if Thomas and Aiden were raising her baby, she’d feel obligated to be more than just Aunt Calliope.

Thomas and Aiden had both understood. Instead, they’d paid for an anonymous donor and fertilized eggs with both their sperm. Three eggs had implanted but only one survived. Their son. Theodore. Theo for short.

Some small part of Thomas had hoped for two, a boy and a girl, like the siblings he’d lost. But real life wasn’t like that. And he refused to let any of his children live in the shadow of the Mulvaneys who came before them. Not anymore. Theo would be his own person, even if he was named after his uncle.

“Kendrick asked for a meeting at the end of the week to discuss the project,” Aiden said. “Archer asked me to mention it to you since he knows we had plans.”

Kendrick. That was how Aiden referred to his father now. No attachment, no anger, no anything. Just Kendrick. In a way, it was the ultimate revenge. Though Thomas’s first official meeting with the man after their wedding had been tense, it was Mac and Archer who’d taken the brunt of his fury. But they were used to being yelled at. Angry was his default setting.

“I’ll let Noah know to get in contact with him and find a time. I’m not putting off our trip to Bali. It will be our last vacation before diaper duty and formula runs become a thing.”

“You sure you don’t want to hire a nanny?” Aiden asked again, taking Thomas’s hand and playing with his fingers.

“What was the point of retiring if I’m only going to hand over the baby to someone else? Then what will I do all day?”

“I don’t know,” Aiden said. “What do other retirees do?”

“Move to Florida and die on a golf course. No, thank you. I can take care of Theo and focus on the charity.”

“Sorry, I forgot you’re a strong independent man,” Aiden teased.

Thomas had taken a step back from his company, preferring to work more on his philanthropic goals. The board had appointed a perfectly adequate CEO until Noah was old enough to decide if he wanted to take over those duties himself. But until then, Noah had his hands full coordinating the family’s extracurricular activities. There was no shortage of terrible people out there needing to be put down.

Luckily, their network had expanded. Dimitri now worked for them. Jericho’s boys, too. It had taken a year for them to hunt down all of Nathan Jeffries’s associates, but they’d done it, taking them out one by one, quickly and quietly without anyone knowing there had been numerous active serial killers on the loose for several years, acting as one cohesive unit.

“What are you thinking about?” Aiden asked, turning so he was on his side, eyes falling shut when Thomas combed his fingers through his hair.

He wore it much shorter these days, but he still had the scruffy chin that Thomas couldn’t get enough of. “Us. The family. The usual.”

“You’re getting sentimental in your old age.”

Thomas smiled. “I’m just…happy. Aren’t you happy?”

Aiden kissed Thomas’s stomach. “I can’t imagine how I could be happier.” He smirked. “Well, I could imagine one way…”

Thomas snorted. “Uh-uh, Casanova. We have too much to do today. We have to deal with that serial predator, meet Lola and Calliope at her doctor’s appointment, then we have to swing by school to pick up the girls from Lucas and still be ready for the party tonight by eight. No sex until afterwards.”

Aiden huffed, expression adorably pouty. “That’s not fair. It’s your birthday party. Shouldn’t I be able to bed you whenever I want?”

Thomas chuckled. “No, that’s on your birthday. And only because you never let me throw you a party.”

“Yeah, because it gets in the way of me getting you naked,” Aiden insisted, sliding his hand up under Thomas’s shirt to tease his fingers over his nipples.

“You get me naked almost every day,” Thomas reminded, batting his hand away.

“Yeah, almost,” Aiden lamented. “How am I supposed to live under these oppressive conditions? As your husband, shouldn’t I be able to get you naked every day if I choose?”

Thomas laughed. “If I was a woman, I’d call you a misogynist, but I’m not, so I’ll just say you’re acting awfully entitled.”

Aiden buried his face in Thomas’s stomach. “I just want to be inside you on your birthday. Or let you be inside me. I’m not picky. I just want orgasms.”

Thomas tugged Aiden’s hair until he looked up at him. “After the party, you can do anything you want to me.”

“Anything?” Aiden asked, narrowing his eyes like it might be a trick.

“Mm, anything. Anywhere—provided we’re alone,” he added, giving him a pointed look.

Aiden flushed. “How was I supposed to know the housekeeper was cleaning the bathroom?”

“The poor woman was traumatized,” Thomas muttered, recalling the look on her face when she’d walked in to find them naked and very much in the middle of sex.

“I think she was turned on,” Aiden said.

“Her scream would suggest otherwise,” Thomas countered, shaking his head. “Now, come on. Let’s get up and go get breakfast somewhere.”

Aiden made a face. “Do you really want to be hounded by reporters today? Every time we go out in public, there’s another cheesy headline about the billionaire who married his own son. It’s obnoxious.”

“It gives them something to focus on other than our murdering people. So, I’m all for it.”

Aiden huffed out a sigh, letting Thomas know he’d won. “Fine. But I’m holding you to your promise for tonight.”

Thomas gave him a dirty smirk. “I certainly hope so.”

###

They were more than a tiny bit tipsy when they fell through the door of the war room, barely managing to close it behind them before they were kissing again, tugging at each other’s clothes as Thomas backed Aiden up against the table. “You sure this is where you want it?” he asked against Aiden’s lips.

“Yeah, right here, on this conference table. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about you fucking me on this table.”

“You can tell me if you want,” Thomas coaxed, his hands loosening Aiden’s tie and yanking it off before tossing it behind him. Aiden didn’t even bother unbuttoning Thomas’s shirt—just yanked it open, buttons flying across the room. They’d definitely be noticed later. Most likely by one of the boys. Loudly. In the middle of a meeting. But that was future Thomas’s problem.

Thomas did his best to undress Aiden while kissing him but gave up once his shirt was open. He couldn’t help it. Aiden had been toying with him all day, starting with a handjob he didn’t finish in the shower and a blowjob in the car on the way to the venue. He’d been edging Thomas all fucking night, and now, it was time for his payoff.

“Lube?” Thomas asked.

“Check behind the whiskey bottle,” Aiden said. “I may or may not have stashed some there earlier in anticipation of this event.”

Thomas shook his head, retrieving the bottle then returning to push Aiden back on the table, climbing onto it and hovering over him. He looked so goddamn hot like this, like something out of one of Thomas’s wet dreams.

He attacked Aiden’s lips once more, fucking his tongue into his mouth as he forced his legs apart to settle between them. “This what you wanted?”

“Mm,” Aiden said, fingers catching in Thomas’s hair as he dipped his head to lick over one flat nipple, biting in a way that made Aiden growl, “It’s a start.”

Thomas laughed, letting himself taste whatever skin crossed his path. Aiden’s jaw with its scratchy stubble, his ear, his throat. “You smell so fucking good,” he muttered, nuzzling deeper into the scent.

He teased at Aiden’s nipples until he was squirming beneath him, swearing and cursing at Thomas. “Do something before I take over and do it myself.”

“Hush. It’s my birthday, remember?” Thomas said, sliding off the table and going for Aiden’s belt. “Lift up.”

Aiden complied, letting Thomas slide his pants and underwear down then off. Thomas made a noise of appreciation for Aiden’s cock, already hard and leaking. He kissed his inner thighs, his hip bones, everywhere but his cock, choosing instead to nose at his balls before yanking him down the table. Once his ass was off the table, Thomas spread him open, burying his face there, tonguing at Aiden’s hole with the kind of abandon he only had when he was a little intoxicated.

Aiden was moaning like a whore, his hands all but tearing at Thomas’s hair as he tried to ride his face. Christ, he was perfect. He pulled back just enough to press a finger in, watching it disappear, before licking around it.

“Oh, fuck,” Aiden whispered.

Thomas laughed, twisting his finger until he found that bundle of nerves that turned his husband into a babbling mess, glancing across it just enough to make his breath hitch before going back in with two fingers and massaging the spot.

“Oh, Jesus, fucking fuck, Tommy. Stop playing, I’m ready. Do we really need the foreplay?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. Drunken Thomas was bold, but drunken Aiden was impatient. Thomas ignored him. He could do this all night. Watch Aiden ride his fingers, feel him contract around his tongue. He ignored his own erection, straining against his zipper, teasing him until Thomas worried if he didn’t fuck him soon, it would be over before it started.

When Thomas stood, Aiden looked at him with hazy eyes, lids at half-mast. He watched as Thomas opened his pants, sliding them down and off. When he saw how hard he was, he licked his lips, making eye contact. “What are you waiting for?”

“So bossy,” Thomas chided, slicking his cock and settling it against Aiden’s hole, giving him a look before slamming home. Aiden sucked in a breath, face contorting. “Better?”

Aiden ignored his question. “Hard. Fuck me hard. I wanna feel it tomorrow.”

“Christ, if you keep saying things like that, it will be over before it starts.”

Still, Thomas did as he asked, gripping Aiden’s legs and bending them back, driving him farther up the table with every thrust.

“Oh, fuck, yeah, like that,” Aiden said, eyes closed, lips parted.

Thomas watched as Aiden fisted his cock, jerking himself in time with Thomas’s thrusts. When Aiden slipped too far out of reach, Thomas simply climbed back onto the table once more, folding Aiden’s legs back and pounding into him hard enough to make Thomas’s eyes roll back from the pleasure rolling along his spine.

Once upon a time, Thomas would have tried to go slow, be gentle. But now he knew what Aiden liked, what his body could take, and Aiden liked it hard and fast. He liked to feel used when Thomas was done with him. And Thomas was happy to accommodate.

Who wouldn’t be?

Every fucking movement sent heat along Thomas’s nerve endings until the base of his spine felt hot and his body spurred him to go faster, harder. Aiden cried out, spilling over his fist. Thomas took his hand, sucking his cum-soaked fingers into his mouth before licking his palm clean.

His orgasm hit hard, waves of pleasure sucking him under until he collapsed on top of Aiden, breathing like he’d just run a half marathon.

“I might be getting too old for this,” Thomas said against Aiden’s shoulder.

Aiden scoffed. “Sure doesn’t feel like it to me.”

Thomas slipped free of his body but made no move to get up. “Are you okay? Am I too heavy?”

Aiden’s hands combed through Thomas’s now sweaty hair. “I’m good. This is good.”

Thomas nodded. “This is good. This is the best. This is the best fucking life I could have ever imagined.”

“Alcohol always turns you into such a romantic,” Aiden murmured, then kissed Thomas’s forehead.

“I just want to sleep right here,” Thomas said, rubbing his cheek over Aiden’s chest, then letting his eyes close with a heavy sigh.

“Okay, but you have a meeting with the boys at seven a.m. Don’t blame me if we’re still here, naked and covered in jizz when they show up,” Aiden muttered, sounding half-asleep.

“Eloquent,” Thomas teased, making no move to get up.

He was almost asleep when Aiden murmured, “Happy birthday, Tommy.”

“It really is,” he murmured.

The End