Chapter 26

"You deserved that." The nice thing to do would be to stay here and finish Joaquin off, but he had been an ass to Beasty.

Getting to my feet, I pulled out my phone as I walked toward the stairs.

Beasty was in her room, pulling the covers down to climb in. I could watch her for the rest of my life and never get bored. Would she care if I snuck in her room and slipped under the covers with her?

Would she notice if I waited until she was asleep?

Of course she"d notice. There was no way she wouldn"t notice. Everything I"d ever observed about her said she had a light reflex. She was a light sleeper.

Sighing, I returned to our room.

A message popped up on top of the screen.

Lake:

Is Joaquin there with you?

Me:

Yes. He"s on the couch with a bad case of blue balls. Do you want a pic from our security cameras?

Lake:

I"ll be home in five minutes. Get Kim and meet me in the study with Joaquin. CODE RED

What the hell was wrong now? I told him we didn"t need to worry about Valencia"s assistant. If we could figure out what to do with Beasty, I"d say we"d take the job for Parker and let him handle the problem for us.

But there was nowhere I"d trust her to be safe. Not if I couldn"t be with her.

Leaving my room, I knocked on Kim"s door before I opened it. He was asleep in his bed, flat on his stomach.

"Kim," I whispered, bouncing the edge of the mattress. I"d shared a room with him before, and he always needed a soft wake up. Back when we were kids, I was happy to do that for him. He was like the little brother I"d never had.

As adults, I always slept with Joaquin. Lake usually grabbed Kim if we needed him.

He sucked in a breath and his eyes popped open. Then he started breathing normally when he saw it was me. "Hm?"

"Lake needs us in the study." No need to tell him it was a code red. I"d let him have a few minutes before Lake"s stress weighed us down.

"Fine," he grumbled. "But if the lizards bite his ass, it"s not my fault."

I smiled. It had been a hell of a long time since I"d heard those kinds of things from Kim. So fantastical. He was usually more realistic now.

It took him a second to stretch. "I"ll see you in the office."

Joaquin was still on the couch, but he"d at least tucked himself away. He stared at the wall like he was in a trance. Walking around behind the couch, I squeezed his shoulders. "Lake wants to see us in the office. He said it"s another code red."

At first, Joaquin didn"t give me any sign that he"d heard me. Then he tipped his head back, glancing up at me with beautiful brown eyes full of pain that hadn"t been there earlier.

"You know," I accused. "What"s the code red?"

He shook his head. "Atlas..."

"It"s a real code red?" I pushed my tongue into my cheek as I studied him. All it would take was one twitch and I'd know if he was lying. There it was. His cheek under his eye pulsed.

This was real. Whatever it was, he didn"t want to tell me.

"I–" he started to say with a wince on his face, but Kim entered. Joaquin got to his feet and backed up. His eyes widened as he glanced between me and Kim.

"What the hell is it?" I gritted my teeth. I hated fucking secrets. "Spit it out."

"There"s footage. From when we were at Gates" house in West Virginia." He shook his head so violently, his hair whipped around his head. Then he fled to the kitchen.

He was getting a drink. I wouldn"t see Joaquin this sober for days now.

I turned to Kim.

All the blood had drained from his face, making his black hair appear almost blue. He started to go down but I jumped forward and caught him. "It"s okay, Kim. He"s not here. He can"t hurt us anymore."

"I don"t want...I don"t want anyone to see us like that. Beasty was bad enough at the fence." His voice was reed thin as his fingers fluttered over my shoulder.

The room was so goddamn hot and still smelled like Beasty. I needed to get Kim to lay down, but not here where just minutes ago we"d sucked Joaquin off. These memories couldn"t be mixed up together.

It would fuck with my head.

Swinging Kim up into my arms, I walked us to the study, nudged the door open just enough to get through and laid Kim out on the couch. "If Beasty sees, she"s going to see just how dirty we were. We were disgusting."

I should have argued with him. I should have, but I couldn"t.

We weren"t worthy of Beasty. I"d said that from day one. But Beasty wasn"t this perfect hero standing on stage anymore. She was level with us. Fucked up, like us.

It was more perfect this way.

Beasty wouldn"t care about any videos. If Kim asked her not to watch them, she wouldn"t.

If I asked, she would just to spite me, but she"d listen to Kim.

The stomping alerted us to Lake"s approach before his appearance did. No one stomped like that raging bull.

He cut his gaze to me, then Kim before making a beeline right to the desk. This room was dark and full of books and leather. Everything a gentleman"s library should be. But Lake was the only one who used it.

Lake sat his ass on the edge of the desk and rubbed one eye as he crossed his other arm over his chest. He looked beaten.

"Did Joaquin fill you in?" he asked.

"I didn"t fill them in on shit. I was doing my fucking best to manifest it into another reality." Joaquin appeared in the doorway, a glass filled to the brim of vodka and the bottle in the other.

"That"s going to give you alcohol poisoning if you drink all that." Lake raised his brows in warning at Joaquin, but he was so far past giving a fuck, I couldn"t think of a single thing that worked on snapping him out of his head when he was like this.

Joaquin shrugged. "Like that matters to me." He took another gulp while holding eye contact with Lake.

"What was released?" I crossed my arms. I didn"t care if people saw it. The attention would only make Snatched more popular. That was a lesson I"d learned early on.

Scandal was a money maker. A scandal where you were the victim? That was like a golden ticket to fame and fortune.

What I did give a fuck about, was Kim curling in on himself and Joaquin drinking himself to death. He tried to raise the glass again, but I closed the gap between us, and yanked it out of his hand.

The sting of Vodka hit my nose as it splashed over my shirt. "If you take another drink, I"ll beat your ass."

He sneered, his eyes already glassy. "Like you"d risk your money maker."

"It"s not my money maker anymore, you dumbass. And I would risk everything to keep you from killing yourself."

His mouth clamped shut.

"What was on the footage?" Kim asked.

I glanced over at Kim and red colored my vision. His shoulders were hunched and he"d brought his knees up to his face, hugging them. He wouldn"t even look at us. He rested his forehead on his knees.

When Lake didn"t answer, I turned to him.

He was staring at me, an apology written on his face.

"Don"t fucking say it." I curled my lip.

"It was a short clip. Nothing inappropriate on the video that"s circling the news. But you"re on it."

My heart started beating in my throat.

"I don"t give a fuck about this small clip," Lake continued. "I"m more concerned about what else is on that video, and if it will be leaked. I"ve already made calls about squashing it if it appears online. I"ve pulled in favors and made promises. So far, the only thing out there is the clip that the news is showing."

"National?" Kim asked.

"National," Lake confirmed.

Fuck. I didn"t care about this shit. But me? I was on it?

Shaking my head, I set the glass next to Lake on the desk, he wouldn"t let Joaquin touch it, and I fell into one of the leather chairs.

The sound of a cap twisting came from the corner. Joaquin had the bottle.

I jumped up and grabbed that from his ass too. After tightening the lid, I tossed it to Lake, and took my seat. I was woozy and the room started to spin. If I hadn't sat down, I"d have ended up kissing the floor.

We sat in silence, none of us able to look at each other.

Like all these years and distance disappeared, I smelled that nasty couch he had in the living room. The hot summer air that pressed in on us because we didn"t have air conditioning.

We didn"t have any hope and hardly any happiness there. There was nothing to cling to except each other.

"What"s going on?" Beasty asked from the doorway.

Fuck, she couldn"t be here. I was with Kim on that.

"Get the fuck out of here," Joaquin slurred, waving a hand her way.

"Joaquin!" Lake barked. None of us, except Joaquin, missed the hurt crossing her face before she set her jaw.

"You"re an asshole, but something is clearly upsetting you. What happened?" she demanded, stepping inside the room.

Kim just watched her, the pieces of his broken heart in his eyes. Lake"s expression was drawn as he frowned.

Joaquin started to bluster. "No. You wanted to punish me? Then this is my punishment. You don"t get to have any hand in it. You don"t get to see it."

"See what?" Her brow furrowed and she positioned herself between Joaquin and Lake, right in the center of the room.

Fuck it. She could watch it if she wanted to. She could know all my secrets if she never left my sight again. Just drinking her in soothed something in my soul. The new jagged pieces from the news weren"t so painful when she was here.

I didn"t even need to talk to her. Just watch her.

That was all I needed to know everything was going to be okay.

"A video was released to the news," Lake said.

Her mouth popped open as she darted a glance at Lake then Kim.

"It"s real," Kim turned his face so his cheek now rested on his knee.

She nodded and gulped, moving her gaze to stare at the corner of the desk. I narrowed my eyes on her. She didn"t look as in the dark as she should be. Beasty seemed to know exactly what was happening.

"You don"t know who it was?" Rubbing her hand over her chest, she swallowed again.

Was her mouth watering like mine? There was a good chance I was going to be sick.

"No," Lake sighed.

Glancing at Kim again, she pursed her lips. "Do you want me to hold you?"

"You"re not asking to see it?" There was a note of hope in his voice, and it distanced me from the past just enough. We didn"t have hope there, but we did now.

"Not if you don"t want me too."

"Then you can let me hold you." Slowly, Kim rearranged himself until his feet were on the floor. He held his arms open and Beasty sat lightly in his lap. He didn"t waste any time before wrapping her up in his arms, and burying his face in her hair. His shoulders started shaking as he held onto her like a lifeline.

Joaquin stared at them, fury and pain stamped in the brackets of his mouth and the faint lines around his eyes. He was too young to look so old right then.

"Do you want to watch it?" Lake asked me.

I shook my head. "No. There"s nothing on it I need to see."

Joaquin relaxed like that was an answer he hadn"t known he"d needed.

"I"d rather shave my head than relive anything in that house," Kim mumbled into Beasty"s hair.

"Then we"re set? We"re not watching it?" Lake asked, standing up.

"I already saw it when you watched it. I wish I hadn"t." Joaquin leaned his head back to look at the ceiling.

"Then tha–"

Lake"s phone chimed.

He glanced down, then his entire body went rigid.

"What is it?" Beasty asked, innocent to pretty much everything in our lives.

"Someone saw Donnie Pesci chatting up a reporter today." Lake shot Joaquin, then a look.

"There"s no way he had access to something like that," I argued. No fucking way, actually.

"Who knows what they have access to." Lake started pacing back and forth around the room.

Why the fuck was this happening just when Beasty came back to us.

Fucking Stevo. He haunted us from his grave.