Three the Hard Way (5 page)

The second man he’d ever loved.

The second man who’d ever betrayed him.

Justice looked between Tag and the man who’d just burst in. If the guy was armed, he wasn’t concerned about reaching for his weapon. Instead, he waited, framed by blowing snow in the doorway, as he calmly removed his hat and gloves, even as Justice, in one smooth motion, zipped up and swiped his Glock from his pack. As the intruder kicked the door closed, Justice leaped to his feet and trained the weapon at his broad chest.

But that look on Tag’s face . . . his eyes . . .

Why the fuck was Tag giving this asshole
his
look? Deep inside, his magnetic power stirred on its own. The set of knives on the counter started to inch toward him. Holy shit, he hadn’t lost control of his power in years . . . not since the terrible Christmas when they’d both lost their moms. Their deaths had been devastating . . . and the catalyst for the angry breakup that had sent Justice into an emotional loss of control that resulted in Tag’s mom’s house nearly being stripped of its siding before he could shut down his gift.

Remembering his ACRO training, he inhaled on a slow count of three and cleared his mind. The knives stopped moving, but not before he saw, out of the corner of his eyes, Tag tense up, his gaze on the blades. Wasn’t that just great.

He snarled, “Who the hell is this, Tag?”

“Who the fuck are
you
?” the broad man demanded of Justice, who waited for Tag to say something, to make demands of his own about why this random man was bursting in uninvited.

Justice turned to Tag for a quick second, noting that Tag was still staring at the intruder while he shoved to his feet. He was zipped up but not buttoned, and between that and his torn flannel shirt hanging open on his sweat-coated chest, it was all pretty much announcing
I just got blown
. And then he suddenly snapped to. “Ian, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass,” Ian answered, and Justice noted that Ian’s tone was much gentler than the one he’d used with him.

Oh, no fucking way,
Ian
. “His ass isn’t your concern.”

Snorting, Ian clicked out of his snowshoes, and Tag chose that moment to grab a log from the stack next to the wood stove, and throw it at Ian’s head.

Ian caught it in a motion that was so fast it blurred.

“Ah fuck. Excedo,” Justice muttered. Excedosapiens were among the most versatile of the special agents, with a dominance of either super speed or a super strength, and sometimes mixed with other gifts as well. Even super speed or super strength didn’t make them invulnerable, though. Justice wasn’t Excedo strong, but he’d learned to hold his own in practice with them. He’d learned ways around their speed and strength.

Especially if they had metal anywhere on—or
in
—their bodies.

Ian gave a smug smile . . . until Tag punched him, catching him in a cross hook to the jaw, yelling, “You son of a bitch. You fucking
bastard
!” and following up with a knee to the gut and an elbow to the back of Ian’s pale-blond head, and for a moment, Justice thought the Ian asshole was going down.

But a split-second later, Ian snarled, “Motherfucker,” through the blood coating his teeth, and tackled Tag, pinning him to the floor. Justice moved closer, weapon still trained at Ian’s head.

“He’s Itor,” Tag managed. “He was a honey trap. He’s the reason they captured me.”

Tag had been with Itor? What the fuck?

Guess it explained why ACRO now, though. Check. “You both have some goddamned explaining to do.”

“I don’t answer to you,” Ian growled. “Don’t even know who the fuck you are.”

“You will,” Justice promised Ian—who was still holding Tag down—at the same time the floor shook beneath their feet. In the not-so-distant distance, a loud rumble started, growing louder with each passing second.

“What the fuck?” Ian and Justice asked simultaneously.

“Let me up! Let me up!” Tag yelled urgently, and Ian did. As Justice watched, Tag went around, opening hidden panels in the log walls and pushing buttons. It sounded like a part of the house was . . . shifting. And then there was a boom and then . . .

And then the rumble sounded like a freight train, ready to blow right through the middle of the house.

They all instinctively moved to the center of the cabin—and to each other—their backs touching as they formed a triangle, staring out, waiting for the invisible enemy.

“Avalanche,” Tag whispered.

“There goes my fucking snowmobile,” Justice bitched.

“It was gone before this,” Ian assured him, and Justice narrowed his eyes at the pleasantly assholish way the guy admitted, “It was in my way when I drove mine in, so it met an untimely end.”

“Fucker.” He turned to face Ian, but Tag put an arm between them.

“Could you argue later?” Tag implored.

Justice threw his hands up. “You mean, after the avalanche kills us?”

“We’ll be fine.” Taggart made an encompassing gesture. “I bought this cabin from a prepper who designed doomsday shelters for the government. It can take an avalanche.” He glared at Ian. “But clearly, I need a new lock.”

“No,” Ian drawled, “you need to use the existing lock.”

Justice chose to focus on other matters. “You
bought
this piece of shit? When?”

“After you left me for ACRO,” Tag snapped, as if
he
wasn’t the one who’d refused to go with Justice after years of swearing he would. “Used Mom’s life insurance and the money I earned on a crab boat. So yeah, Justice, glad you approve of my dream home.”

“This is
Justice
?” Ian asked, and Justice almost enjoyed the man’s anger. “
The
Justice? He’s ACRO?” Ian didn’t wait for Tag’s answer, looked over his shoulder at Justice. “So you’re the asshole who fucked up Tag’s head so bad?”

He snarled at Tag and hoped the sound of the knives rattling on the counter was just in his imagination. “You told an
Itor
agent about me?”

“I didn’t know he was Itor at the time,” Tag growled before turning to Ian. “And you . . . you have no right calling the kettle black. I fucking trusted you. I loved you, and believe me, after Justice, I didn’t think that would ever happen.”

And then there was total darkness.

The noise, the blackness, the anger . . . All of it took Ian back to that horrible day Itor was attacked in a coordinated ACRO sweep of every major Itor site of operations on the planet, including the Madrid offices that housed Tag. Ian had been close to the compound—close enough to feel the ground shake and smell the scorched metal. He’d prayed to find Tag alive . . . but he hadn’t found him at all. He’d prayed Tag had survived, but he’d been unable to search him out immediately, for fear of creating suspicion, or putting Tag in danger.

Ian had been patient, waited for Itor to approach him . . . and they had, because he’d been the one to bring Taggart in originally. Itor had told him in the beginning that Tag would no doubt be one of his most difficult jobs.

They were so right, but not in the way Ian had thought.

And then, to discover Tag alive—to walk in on him in the aftermath of fucking another man, only to find out that man was Justice—well fuck, he’d barely been able to breathe.

Just thinking back on it right now was causing the same reaction, but he couldn’t stop his mind from going there, now that he didn’t have the distraction of Justice gunning for him.

Now that the seeming rejection—and anger—from Tag to him was still burning a hole in his chest, even as he remained backed up against Taggart, could feel the heat from his body burning through him.

And they were trapped. Together. With Justice.

Yeah, someone certainly had a sense of humor.

Taggart had fucking ruined him. Broken through every single defense he’d built up over the years, and when Itor took him, Ian hadn’t known what the hell to do with himself. All he could think of was to find Tag, to explain. Try to get him out of Itor. But after ACRO’s attack, Itor’s main buildings were dust . . .

He’d had no way of knowing if Tag was dead or alive, and that’d slayed him. The only saving grace was that during better times, Tag had shared enough about the cabin “in bumfuck Alaska” to give him a starting point of where to look. He’d also shared his feelings for Justice, about how his love and anger and hatred for the man were all twisted and gnarled together . . . although he’d left out the bits about ACRO and Justice having some sort of yet-to-be-determined special ability.

It shouldn’t have come as any surprise that during Tag’s time of need he’d call Justice and not Ian.

Ian had betrayed him. Sold him into the slavery of Itor, even though he’d tried his best to convince them that Taggart wasn’t the best candidate for their purposes. He’d told his handler, “He doesn’t have the makeup for what you want him to do.” And despite the fact that he’d fallen for Tag and hadn’t wanted to see the evil empire anywhere near him, he hadn’t been lying.

Itor hadn’t cared, not then . . . and not now. It was one of the main reasons they’d sent him to retrieve Taggart again.

Tiny round emergency lights recessed into the walls flickered to life, lifting the darkness enough to move around.

“Please tell me you’ve got an underground tunnel or powered heaters or something,” he asked Tag as he kicked out of his boots and wondered if he’d look like an idiot if he left on his snow pants and parka. How did people live in this godforsaken frozen wilderness? His face was
still
numb.

Justice looked at Tag like he was praying the man would say yes to Ian’s question. Instead, Tag rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve got both of those, plus a spaceship to fly us up, up, and away.” He finished by muttering, “Assholes,” as Ian spotted an indoor bathroom.

Okay, well, that was something.

The rumbling eased, and when it finally stopped, Tag strode over to the fireplace, swiped his fingers over a stone midway up the chimney, and a panel slid open. With a few flips of switches, the outside monitors came on. Two of them, anyway.

Ian was pretty damned impressed with how prepared Tag and his cabin both were. Calm, cool, and collected in the face of a natural disaster. Not so much when facing his past, though, but Ian couldn’t exactly blame him.

“Looks like a couple of the cameras are casualties,” Tag said. “But the good news is that the avalanche only sideswiped us.” He hit a few more switches around the room, and the metal shutters on the windows slid open. The ones in the front were clear, but snow completely obscured the windows in the rear of the house.

“I need to check the damage outside,” Tag said, then rounded on Ian. “But first, you gonna tell me what the fuck you’re doing here?”

He gestured at Justice. “You wanna tell me what
he’s
doing here?”

Glaring at Ian, Justice took a possessive step toward Tag, all hackles raised and ready for a fight. “He called me, dickwad.”

“And it’s something I shouldn’t have done,” Tag snapped. Ian smirked, but he didn’t have time to get cocky because, in an instant, Tag was in his face again. “Did you bring Itor? Are they waiting for your signal to attack?”

“I’m on the run from them too, Tag.”

Tag snorted. “You think I’m going to believe anything you say? You’re a Seducer. You’re trained to lie.”

“He’s a fucking Excedo
and
Seducer?” Justice’s eyes were wide, a healthy dose of respect and a little edge of
holy motherfucker
in his tone. “Jesus Christ, Tag. How could you be so stupid?”

“He’s not stupid,” Ian growled, not willing to let the man who’d wrecked Tag do any more damage. “I’m just really goddamned good at my job.”

“Yeah.” Tag’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “You should be so proud.”

Ouch. “I’m sorry—”

“Fuck sorry!” Tag yelled. “I spent a year in hell because of you. Do you have any idea what Itor did to me? Do you know what they made me do?”

Ian knew some of it, had done his best to check up on Taggart when he could, but ultimately, as a mercenary and not an actual Itor employee, Ian wasn’t high on the chain of command, and access to information had been scarce at best. Not to mention the fact that his variety of jobs meant he was rarely even on the same continent as Tag at any given time.