Who Knows the Dark (18 page)

“It’s not that hard to figure out if you know what you’re doing,” LJ piped up.

“Fine,” Nox snapped. “Can you tell where the money is from?”

“Yes, Nox, in the little line that says memo on the checks, we can see it’s drug money. Hey, wait, let me see if there are names and addresses there too!” she yelled. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”

LJ made a gesture with his hands—like Moses trying to part the Red Sea. “If y’all could move….”

Rachel got out of the chair, shoving it into Nox’s knees. LJ dropped down in her place, then began to open other documents onto the large screen. The monitor above, mounted to the wall, displayed lines of code, which he began to search.

Cade bit his tongue until he just couldn’t take another moment of incessant clicking. “What the hell did you two figure out?”

“We have a lot more questions than answers,” Nox muttered, then began to walk away—with Cade’s hand still linked to his.

On the other side of the wall, Cade got up close with the new notes.

His palms itched until he grabbed a black marker resting against the baseboard and began to add a few notes of his own.

Nox started to pull away, but Cade held tight.

“LJ asked me who was after us,” he murmured. “And I thought—organized crime and drug dealers, which tells us nothing.”

The point of the marker rested on the wall, the smell pungent. “So let’s get simple. Dead Bolt is only on the island—why? Why the distribution through the casinos?”

Nox pressed up against him until Cade could feel his breath across his ear.

“Control.”

Cade wrote it down.

“If I’m already in the drug business, I have avenues. I have a way to move my drugs, get them distributed anywhere I want,” Nox whispered—but Cade could feel the excitement building.

“Not the Colombians,” Cade answered.

“Not the Colombians.”

“Or the Russians or the Dominicans or the Chinese,” Rachel’s voice called out from behind them. “There wasn’t money to be made on the island for a long time after the storms.”

Cade leaned back against Nox’s body, their breathing in tandem. The puzzle on these walls wasn’t just about breaking the danger following them—it was his future. The prize for solving it meant he got to move on.

“So there’s no money to be made until Freck shows up,” Nox said, resting his forehead against Cade’s temple before moving away, their fingers unwinding at the last possible second. The mayor who resurrected New York City from ruins to Las Vegas’s slutty cousin was lauded a hero, but Nox knew he was only a savior for investors, not citizens. “What were you doing then?”

Rachel made a face. “After I got out of the Red Cross tent, I grabbed someone else’s ID, because they wouldn’t be needing it.” She tossed her hair. “Then I made friends with a nice young man who was doing search and rescue in the city. He got me a job.”

“Why the hell didn’t you run?” Cade asked.

“With what? I didn’t even have anything but the clothes on my back. No insurance policy, no money. I thought maybe I could get into the building, maybe salvage something.”

“You could have come to the house,” Nox started to say, but Rachel just laughed, bitter and loud.

“Uh-huh. Because of that death wish of mine. No, thank you. I realized there wasn’t anything for me to find, no one left who I knew, so… I stayed. I managed until the casinos started building.”

Cade opened his mouth to question, though it was clear “I managed” was all Rachel was willing to share.

“And no one ever came after you.”

“Just you, honey.”

R
ACHEL
REJOINED
LJ at the computer after that, leaving Nox and Cade alone. Cade slid to the floor, his back against the little space not covered with notes and words and diagrams of a mystery that seemed to grow more out of control with each new question. Nox stroked his beard, walking in a circle for a few moments.

“What?”

Nox tangled both hands in his hair and did a step and pivot, then turned to face Cade. “I have to know what to say before Mason gets back,” he said. “He wants to tell Sam.”

“So you tell Sam first,” Cade said gently.

“No.”

“Why? Because it’s terrible? Yeah, okay, it is. Rachel’s right about that. But if you don’t tell him first, if you let Mason….” Cade stopped and took a deep breath. “Sam’s in love with him. And Mason is the big strong knight in shining armor. Your kid trusts you, adores you, but….”

“I can’t compete with Mason.” Defeat seeped into Nox’s words.

“You can’t compete with the guy treating him like a man,” Cade corrected. “You continue to treat him like a child and you’ll lose him.”

“I have spent seventeen years keeping this from him.” Nox sank to the floor, as if pressed down by the weight of it. “I killed….” He caught himself as Cade tilted his head to one side.

“You’re going to have to narrow that down,” Cade said lightly, but the expression on Nox’s face didn’t break even for misplaced humor.

“Mr. White. For what he did to my mother.”

Cade swallowed hard. “What he….” He remembered Rachel’s outburst about not telling Sam the truth, and his gut rumbled, bile in his throat. Mr. White, gentle and crazy, pushing money into Cade’s pockets, the reason he ended up at the door of Nox and Sam….

“Oh God.” The room spun as Cade dropped his forehead against his knees, swallowing frantically. He’d let that man touch him. For all the douche bags he’d fucked over the years, nothing made his flesh crawl like the one who had never wanted him like that. “I’m sorry….”

Cade felt a gentle hand on his ankle, his thigh. Nox touched his shoulder until he tilted his head up, blinking back tears.

“I brought him to your door, to Sam,” Cade choked out.

“No—he sent you there. He already knew where I was, where Sam was living. Someone told him. The fact that he sent you—” Nox shrugged as he ran his fingers across Cade’s jaw. “That’s the only part of this I’m glad about.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Cade counted to fifty before he could speak, his breath coming in ragged spurts.

“You can’t say stuff like that and expect me to let you walk away,” he said finally, averting his eyes to avoid Nox’s reaction.

“I won’t drag you back into that mess.”

“Where do I go? Do I stay here? Me and Sam and Mason and Rachel, bunking down with my family, waiting in vain to hear if you’re dead or not!” Cade kicked his feet, trying to get out of Nox’s hands, but Nox wasn’t having it.

“Yeah. Why not?” Nox argued, pulling Cade closer. Cade struggled until Nox forced him down on his back, then he fought only halfheartedly as Nox pinned him to the ground.

It wasn’t sexual.

It robbed Cade’s breath.

He kicked his feet again, but Nox couldn’t be budged.

Cade turned his head, gaze trained on the wall.

“I have to go. I have to—”

“To what?” Cade surged with anger, fighting to throw Nox off him. “Who are you going to kill? You don’t have a name. You have nothing. You’re running back into that mess, daring them to fucking kill you! You’re running so you don’t have to tell Sam the truth!”

The struggle turned into near violence as Cade’s body reacted like he was back in the closet, back at the Butterfly, trapped under Billy. Frantically he went for Nox’s head, trying to get him to move. In the distance someone called his name, then hands pulled at his arms. His chest seized, and for a second, unable to draw a breath, he thought he must be having a heart attack. He kicked harder as a rushing sound overwhelmed him.

Drowning, he was drowning.

C
ADE
WOKE
up in his bed, stripped down to his underwear and draped with blankets. The flashback to waking up in Nox’s house didn’t escape his groggy mind as he fought to sit up.

“Caden,” his mother murmured as she appeared at his side, her face drawn and worried. “Lie back down.”

“What happened?” he asked, settling among the pillows. He noticed the room was dark—drawn curtains, low lights. And then he spotted Nox leaning against the wall near the door.

“Panic attack, I think,” Amelia said quietly, stroking his cheek with her fingertips. “You blacked out.”

Embarrassed, Cade turned his head in the opposite direction. “Sorry.”

“Stop it. You’ve been through so much, Caden Lee. Close your eyes and get some more sleep, all right?”

Part of him wanted to lie here and hide under the covers, let his mother baby him for a while. He wanted to ignore the room of questions, the millions and millions of dollars filling the spreadsheets on LJ’s computer, the threat circling over them like buzzards over a carcass.

But Nox’s silent vigilance pulled him back to reality.

Not enough blankets in the world to hide him from all of this.

“Give me a few minutes,” he said, stretching under the covers, working out the angry stress squeezing his limbs. “I’m going to take a shower, and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

His mother murmured her displeasure with this plan, but under her breath and as she dropped a kiss on his cheek. “All right, then,” Amelia said aloud. “I’m gonna make you some of my special tea, for your nerves.”

That meant whiskey, and he wanted her to skip the tea part of it—fill up a few tumblers and drop them in a row.

Cade waited until his mother left, well aware of the glance she and Nox shared before she disappeared down the hall.

“I’m sorry I kicked you. And punched you in the face,” Cade muttered as Nox pushed off the wall to saunter to his side.

“I deserved it.” Nox sat down on the edge of the bed. “Sam will probably do much worse when I tell him,” he added, resignation in every syllable.

“He’ll….” Cade stopped himself from lying. He pulled his hand out from under the covers to take Nox’s, tangling their fingers together. “He’ll probably hate you for a while. But then he’ll forgive you—because you raised him right.”

Nox’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded.

“Come here, come lie with me for ten minutes,” Cade whispered, pulling Nox down next to him. “Just a few minutes.”

Nox went willingly, curling around Cade’s blanketed body, his head on Cade’s shoulder. Cade smelled the farm and sweat, the sour tang of fear that permeated his lover’s body. It was only going to get worse, and nothing they did could stop that.

N
OX
SHOWERED
first, leaving Cade to watch him idly through the frosted glass of the door. Cade leaned against his mother’s girly pink vanity, arms crossed, cataloging a familiar body and keenly aware that his first time falling in love was an unmitigated mess. No dates, no getting-to-know-you stage. He couldn’t even blame sex at this point—Nox made him crazy and emotional and angry…

And caught.

A smarter man might be chewing his leg off to escape, but Cade just couldn’t seem to make himself go.

They passed at the edge of the tub, an intimate moment of Cade’s warmth brushing against Nox’s dripping wet skin. When Nox angled them into a kiss, Cade’s heart pounded out a steady beat of acquiescence. There was no walking away from this.

He stood under the lukewarm water, washing everything twice. Clanging and water running alerted him to Nox still being in the room, but Cade concentrated on the water, on the calm before the storm. When he slid back the door, the stall chilled from the last rush of water, he spied Nox at the hair-filled sink.

“You clog the drain, my mom’s gonna be pissed,” Cade said.

Then Nox turned to give the big reveal—and Cade’s knees went a little weak.

If Patrick Mullens from that night in the Butterfly looked like a movie star, a clean-shaven Nox—in just a low-slung towel—looked like a god.

“Jesus, that’s what you’ve been hiding under there?” Cade asked lightly, stepping onto the shag rug.

“I almost forgot what I looked like.” Nox turned back to the mirror, rubbing his palm across his jaw.

“You’re fucking gorgeous.” Cade joined him at the vanity, slipping his arms around Nox’s muscled torso. They were quite the picture in the half-fogged mirror, like the start of a porno as Cade dropped a line of kisses at the back of Nox’s neck. The effects of the cold shower couldn’t stop the ache of his dick pressing against the roughness of the towel and the perfection of Nox’s body.

Nox moaned a little, but Cade didn’t push. They rocked together for a few minutes, Cade finding comfort in the warmth and connection at every point they touched.

“’M gonna get dressed,” Cade whispered, another kiss to Nox’s shoulder. “When this is over, we’ll come back up here and just….”

Nox stiffened a little, nodding as he unwrapped Cade’s hands and arms from his waist.

“When this is over.”

D
OWNSTAIRS
IT
felt like a funeral was in progress.

His father and mother sat at the table with coffee. Mason—his face set in a stern rictus of disapproval—haunted the corner of the kitchen, pacing nervously. Rachel and LJ were nowhere to be found, and Sam—Sam was in the living room, looking half-terrified and faintly ill.

“Dad?” he asked, standing as soon as they entered the room. “Mason said you needed to talk to me.”

Cade touched the small of Nox’s back, willing strength through his touch. Nox didn’t move or speak for a moment, then took a huge breath.