Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

PATCH

" S o I told you about my job before?" Each word came out a little slower than the previous. More out of disbelief that I would confess those facts to anyone much less these three.

"Be hard for us to know the details, Sugar Bear, if you hadn't told us." McQuade gave me a wry look.

"Unless you worked for them and this was a ruse of some kind to pull information from me." Even giving voice to the idea didn't really sell the concept to me. Escaping the concern in their eyes, I looked down at my arms.

I'd been in sweatshirts or sweaters since waking at this cozy little cabin in the far reaches of Michigan. It was Michigan. That sounded right. With the fire burning merrily, hot coffee in my cup and all three of them surrounding me like a sexy wall of testosterone, I'd been far too warm in the sweater so I stripped it off.

There were circular scars all over my arms. Scars that hadn't been there before. I traced one of them with a fingernail that wasn't particularly attractive. I'd had longer nails before. Not super long or anything fancy, but long enough that I could shape them.

It wasn't like I'd been able to go get a manicure in years. So I made do with giving them to myself. I'd gotten pretty good at it. Most of my nails were either ragged down to the base or lower.

One had been ripped right down into the quick and there was a cut that circled the finger. My fingers ached and there was definite stiffness around the joints. The headache pulsing behind my eye seemed to increase in its tempo.

Lifting the hand in question, I rubbed at my forehead just above my eye. The area was still tender so I had to be careful. The bruise there had faded to a sickly greenish-yellow, and the lump had begun to decrease in size.

"You don't believe us," Locke said, disappointment salting the neutrality of his voice. Or maybe I was imagining it.

"It's not that I don't believe you," I said, testing every word. "I'm just trying to figure out why I would…"

"Why you would tell us secrets you haven't told anyone else." As unexpected as having one of them finish my thoughts was, it was more than a bit discomforting to hear it detailed in that distinctly sexy as fuck British accent.

Remy folded his arms as he leaned back against the counter. It was the first defensive posture I'd seen him—or any of them take—since I woke up here. His steady gaze held me captive as I tried to figure out what thoughts were rolling through his head.

"That's part of it," I admitted, despite the absolute truth in the statement. The last thing I wanted to do was insult them. They didn't deserve that. "The other part is—I'm used to talking to you on the phone not…"

"In person where we can enjoy a little old-fashioned face-to-face interaction?" Was McQuade taunting me? The hint of sarcasm underlining the last few words of his question seemed a warning.

"Before two weeks ago," I said, picking my words carefully. "We'd only ever spoken on the phone. You didn't know me. You could have walked past me on the street and not noticed me."

"luv," Remy sounded disappointed. "I would definitely have noticed you."

I sighed, then rubbed a hand over my face. We were going in circles.

"Now, if you meant we might not have recognized you as Patch, the glorious goddess on the phone who has saved my life more than once…"

"And mine," Locke and McQuade said in one voice.

With a wry wave of one hand, Remy gestured to them. "We know you, Fallon. We're aware you don't remember our first meeting or everything that happened. We also know how difficult this is…"

"Or maybe we don't," Locke added on with a shrug. "I can't say I'd be happy to be missing any moments in my day, much less my weeks and months."

"The point, Sugar Bear," McQuade half-growled with a roll of his eyes at the others and the corners of my mouth twitched despite the sobriety of the moment. "We know you're learning to trust us again. You trusted us enough to tell us before. Or maybe you accepted that we were the best of a bad situation. That's possible. Either way, it worked because you read us into your recruitment and then your subsequent realization that maybe you weren't working for the people you thought you were."

The sinking feeling of that reality threatened to drown me. I worried at the nail on my thumb. It was already beaten and broken down to a bare nub. It wasn't like I could make it worse.

"I hate this," I said, closing my eyes even as my heart started to race. Every single time I tried to dredge those memories up, pain drove a spike through my brain.

"We know," Locke said and he was suddenly a lot closer. When I opened my eyes, he was crouched in front of me and he had one hand on my knee. "We really do. Now, all of this other stuff aside. You don't remember what happened between the last calls you had with us and then waking up here two weeks ago."

It wasn't a question.

I resisted the urge to shake my head in answer. At the moment, it would probably leave me nauseated and I'd had enough of that.

When Locke didn't withdraw, I focused on him. He seemed to be waiting on me to acknowledge the statement. Fair enough. "No, I don't remember."

"Okay," he said, giving me a small smile. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"It sucks." I wasn't sure whether it was my words or my tone that made McQuade chuckle. At my glance, he just shrugged and folded his arms. Like Remy before him, he seemed to be adopting a more defensive posture.

To be honest, that was weirder coming from Crazy McQuade than it was from Remy. The latter had always been more guarded and infinitely patient. The former? Well, I doubted if McQuade had ever met a risk he wasn't ready to take.

"Agreed," Locke said, recapturing my attention. "So since we can't just decrypt your memories at the moment or load up what is missing, let's tackle what we can do."

"What can we do?" Remy asked, a sudden sharpness in his tone. "We want her to rest and continue to heal."

"No kidding," Locke said, giving Remy a dirty look over his shoulder. "Pretty sure we're all on the same page, Lord Obvious."

Lord Obvious?

I had to bite the inside of my lip. Talk about giving a promotion to a captain. A little bubble of laughter escaped before I could contain it. "Yes, what can we do?"

That snared all three of them once more. Three weighty gazes pressed in on me. The air seemed too warm and the room too small. These guys all possessed such large personalities.

One corner of his mouth ticking higher, McQuade made no effort to suppress his smile. The light squeeze to my knee from Locke pulled my gaze back to him.

"Tell us what you need from us to prove you can trust us." Locke raised his brows, the offer as much a dare as it was a request. "While we can make it work without the trust, I think we'll all feel better about it if you know you can believe what we say."

Remy blew out a harsh exhale. "Bloody thief has a point."

"Thank you," Locke commented with a smirk, but he didn't take his gaze off of me. "Talk to us?"

Another burst of laughter tinged with hysteria escaped. I pressed a finger against my lips in an effort to stifle the inappropriate humor. It really was very warm, and I couldn't seem to lock my gaze down on any one of them.

"I don't even know where to start." That admission cost.

"Go operational," McQuade suggested. "You had to vet us when we became clients. I know it was more than a deep background. In theory, you saw something worth investing in with each of us."

"Huh." He had a point. I tapped a finger against my lips. It was as much a reminder to give the idea a chance as it was to think it through. "I did… Yes, I was probably a little more thorough with the deep background than I used to be. But I needed to make sure that not only were you who you said you were, but that you had no ties to my former employers."

"So, we all passed?" Remy confirmed, his cool eyes rock steady on me. "No hiccups?"

I opened my mouth to respond then closed it as I considered the question. Finally, I nodded. "Everything I can recall says you passed my first vetting, then the second where I watched you for a few days."

"Watching us?" Locke asked, both brows up as he leaned slightly away from me and studied me. "Were you playing the spy, Fallon?"

I didn't quite flinch when he used my name. It had been so long since I'd been around anyone who even knew what my name was, much less used it to speak to me.

It was odd.

"Yes," I said, not bothering to sugar coat it. "You're all very dangerous people. I'd have been a fool to be the one who would open doors and clean up behind you without knowing more about you."

"Smart," McQuade said, approval radiating through that word. "Though it begs the question, how did you manage to ‘spy' on us before we finalized the contracts?"

With a wince, I lifted my shoulders. "I sent you a deconstructed worm over the course of three emails that only activated when I sent the last one asking for a few days."

The simple fact was, I wouldn't take on every single person who tried to hire me. In fact, I answered only about five percent of the requests in those first weeks. Of that five percent, it was less than point zero zero four that earned a place on my roster.

"You infected our computers," Locke said, the half-twist of his smile betraying his amusement despite the attempt at a stern tone.

Licking my lips, I nodded. "All of your devices. Pretty much anything that shared data. Most people link their email on multiple devices, so it gave me a good snapshot."

It let me access their equipment remotely. I could turn on their cams, scan the area around them. Location services could be turned on if they were off and it let me track them locally.

"You know where we live," Remy said abruptly, the surprise on his face turning troubled. "You know a great deal more than you've ever admitted."

"Guilty," I said. "So maybe you three should decide if you can trust me too."

"I don't need to decide," McQuade said flatly. "You've saved my life, Sugar Bear. I'm here for the long haul."

"Same," Locke said. "Though now it makes me think I'm going to need to be more clever about birthday presents."

Unlike the others, Remy wasn't as quick with his assurances. His eyes narrowed as he studied me.

"I'm sure that's discomforting," I told him by way of an apology. "I needed to know. That doesn't mean you aren't going to be happy that I know your secrets. It's making me crazy that I don't know how they found me."

He nodded slowly but still said nothing. My stomach bottomed out. If the deep dives turned their trust, then I had no one to blame but myself.

"For what it's worth, I disabled the worms after we decided to finalize the contracts. Everything else I sent you, I told you about." They each had devices I could access remotely, and I'd always told them to make it a secondary one. It protected their privacy and it was easier to ditch and destroy in the event they were compromised.

Scratching his jaw, Remy looked more thoughtful than annoyed. I could almost read the unasked questions in his eyes. He wanted to talk to me. He did not want to talk to me in front of them.

I nodded to him and some of the stone seemed to ease out of his expression. "I'd apologize," I said slowly. "But to be perfectly honest…"

"You had a job to do and protecting yourself is the first step." Locke gave my leg another gentle squeeze. The contact had been a little uncomfortable at first. The feeling proved fleeting the longer he rested his hand in place. "Never going to complain about that, Fallon. You should never apologize for it, either."

"What he said," McQuade grunted. "But he wants to know if you saw him naked already because it might cost him some points overall."

"Fuck off," Locke said, cutting him a look. "You best hope she hasn't seen me naked. You're already running behind in the points department."

McQuade snorted, but Remy just rolled his eyes even as I tried to keep from laughing

"The point," I pressed on, lips twitching. We needed to get back on topic. "Yes, I did research you and investigated you to make sure you were who you said you were. Some of your career choices were colorful. I needed to know you weren't… horrible people." I winced. "Do you have some questionable career choices? Maybe."

It was my turn to shrug.

"My hands aren't exactly clean. But I wanted to know…" How did I phrase this that didn't sound condescending or shitty?

"That we were honorable," Remy said, the lilt to his words softening the implication that I'd questioned the fact at all. "That you could trust us."

"Yes."

"So," McQuade said, pouncing on that fact. "If you could trust us then, don't you think you can trust us now?"

Lips parted, I studied him for the longest moment, then looked to Remy, and finally down to Locke. While I detected no signs of malice or dishonesty, it was still uncomfortable.

"In theory," I began slowly. "Yes, I should be able to trust you now."

"Except?" Locke prompted.

I licked my lips again. The answer was right there on the tip of my tongue, but it was a terrible confession. My heartbeat seemed almost too loud, too fierce. If I admitted it to them, I was also admitting it to myself.

Closing my eyes, I blocked them out. I concentrated on regulating my breathing and bringing the sudden gallop of my pulse under control. Locke flexed his hand on my knee again. I covered his hand with mine more on impulse than anything else.

He was offering comfort and I wanted to accept it. Forcing my eyes open, I said, "I'm scared. If I'm wrong… it's not just me, I'm risking."

Understanding crystalized in Remy's eyes even as McQuade frowned, but it was Locke who blew out a slow whistle. "If one of us proves untrustworthy, you're worried about what he'll do to the other two?"

"Yes." As much as I hated to admit that, I hated thinking it more. "I want to trust you. I think… on some levels I do. But so much of this is confusing. It's all messy and strange. Like I said before, I still don't know how they found me. Or how you guys found me wherever I was and you've been very circumspect about the details."

"You're right," Locke said. "Then this is what we do. SITREP, gentlemen. Let's brief her on how we discovered she was missing, when we met, and how we found her. I would prefer, however," he continued, gazing up at me, "to avoid the specifics of where you were and how you were when we found you until you're ready to process it."

A careful recitation of the details without exposing the memories that had apparently been excised thanks to a bullet glancing off my skull.

It was a compromise, but a good one.

"Yes, please."

Locke shifted his grip to take my hand as he stood and then he tugged me out of the chair. "We're going to do this somewhere more comfortable. Who wants to go first?"

"Me," McQuade and Remy said in the same breath.

"Well, as long as we're clear on that." Locke's droll tone pulled another laugh from me and he grinned.