Chapter 14

14

A few hours after he left Elena’s apartment, JT heard the knock and knew without looking who it was. He’d been worried about this confrontation since he walked out of her apartment. He had wanted to stay and fight beside Elena, but he knew it would agitate the situation. Plus, Elena knew how to handle her own fights. Especially with her brothers. Prepared for another fight, he approached the door and opened it.

Anthony’s nose was swollen and his eyes were turning black. Regret shifted through him. From the moment he met Anthony on the varsity Quantico team, they’d been friends. Not once had they had the kind of fight that brought them to fists.

Until Elena.

“Damn, I’m sorry.”

Anthony’s expression darkened. “I promise not to hit you if you invite me in.”

JT stepped back and let his friend walk in. He shut the door as Anthony prowled the room. He knew when Anthony was in this kind of mood, it was best to let him keep moving. He’d never known a person who had to be moving constantly when he was thinking something out. If you tried to stop him, he exploded.

“Elena said I had to apologize to you.” Every word was said from behind clenched teeth.

JT shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Okay.”

Anthony glanced at him and his frown turned darker. “I’m not going to.”

“Okay.”

Anthony stopped and turned to face him. “Dammit, quit being so damned reasonable.”

Frustration marched down his spine. He could be understanding. Growing up in the Thomas house, he learned at an early age how to defuse a tense situation. But he didn’t know what the hell to do in this case.

“What do you want from me, Anthony? I stepped over the line. I can understand.”

“Shit.” Anthony shook his head. “I don’t want to admit when Elena was right.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

Anthony paced away again, and looked out onto the patio. He shoved both hands through his hair. “I want to know why. Why Elena?”

There was enough confused irritation in his friend’s voice, JT took pity on him. “She told you how it happened?”

“Yeah.” He looked back over his shoulder at JT and rolled his eyes. “Of course she was the aggressor.”

“She’s a Santini.”

“Why can’t you just leave her alone? You were gone so long.”

So, Elena had told him everything. “You would rather I just slept with her one night and never touched her again?”

“No.” He turned again to face JT. “No, dammit. Why would you say that?”

“You’re the one who said I was gone so long. How would you have felt if I had never called her again?”

“I would beat the shit out of you.”

He threw his hands up in the air. “I can’t win.”

JT loved the man like a brother, but Anthony would make the most patient person want to throttle him. When Anthony was in this kind of mood, it was best to avoid him. Studying his friend’s expression, JT knew that leaving him alone would not be an option.

He sighed. “You know that assignment was…bad.”

Anthony nodded. The one person JT could share things about the job was Anthony. As another NCIS agent with the same security clearance, he could hear the things that most other people could not. He would also understand what undercover was like. Most people thought it was exciting. It had been, at first. Then, the last couple of years, it had gotten really old. A person couldn’t live a true life pretending to be someone else.

“The only thing that kept me going was thinking about Elena.”

Anthony settled his hands on his hips and frowned at him. “What are you telling me here, JT?”

JT drew in a deep breath then released it. “I love her, man.”

The moment he said the words, JT realized just how important they were and how stupid it was to worry about saying them out loud.

“Aw, damn, why did you have to tell me that? Shit.” He was quiet for a second. “Fuck me.”

“What?”

“I can’t beat the crap out of you again if you say things like that. You love her? How the hell did that happen?”

The confused irritation in his best friend’s voice almost made him smile. He knew it had more to do with Anthony not being ready to accept that his sister had grown up.

JT shrugged. “Not sure. I just know I do.”

“She’s just a little girl.”

“She’s a woman, Anthony. You need to start accepting that.”

He was quiet for a second as he continued to look out the window. “I still want to hit you.”

“Get over it. Or at least work at getting over it. I really wanted you to be my best man.”

For a second, Anthony didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

“You’re planning on marrying her?”

JT nodded, warming up to the idea. He had known from the moment he touched her, he wanted her by his side and in his bed. Then he thought about the Santinis and their inability to keep secrets from each other.

“Don’t tell her, because I think she’s a little wary of getting married.”

Anthony leveled his scariest Santini stare. “Can’t you change your mind?”

JT shook his head. “I knew from that morning after. Really our first night together.”

“The morning after?”

“We went to breakfast, and I sat beside her. It was the morning after Madison saw the murder. So, she wanted me to listen to what she said she saw and asked my advice.”

Anthony nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Yeah. Well, I was sitting beside Elena and in that instant I knew.”

“You knew what?”

“I knew I wanted to be there beside her every day. I wanted to have breakfast with her and go to the beach. I wanted to do all kinds of things with her, and I wanted to share so much with her. I couldn’t do anything at the time. I couldn’t tell her I was in love with her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Because you were leaving.” Anthony sighed. “Dammit.”

“I would say I am sorry, but I can’t be sorry. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me, besides being your friend.”

“You’re not good enough for her,” Anthony grumbled as he crossed his arms.

“No one is.”

Anthony made a sound of disgust. “Dammit, stop saying things like that.” He paced away and looked out the window. “She told me you thought I wouldn’t be your friend anymore.”

JT held his breath, unsure of where Anthony was going with this. It was the one thing he would regret. But he couldn’t give Elena up. Not now. Not ever.

Anthony studied him for a long moment. His face was expressionless. Then, he shook his head.

“I told you years ago, you were an honorary Santini.”

The tension in his stomach loosened just a bit. “Guys aren’t supposed to sleep with their friend’s sister.”

“But you love her. Did you know before?”

“I’m not sure. I think so or probably wouldn’t have chanced losing you as a friend.”

“And you love her now?”

“More than anything else in the world. She is my world.”

“I can accept that, but stop talking like that. Damn, man, you’re a Marine and an NCIS agent. I mean, man up.”

He shook his head. “I can’t help it. I know, it’s insane, but I look at her and everything clicks. Everything can go wrong for me, but as long as I know she’s there, I know it will all work out. She’s the one I want to be with in the morning, at night, and until the day I draw my last breath.”

Anthony groaned. “You’re not even a Santini by blood, and you got struck with the curse. This is pretty damned bad.”

“So, are we cool?” JT asked.

“We’re getting there.”

“I guess that is the best I can expect now.”

“Now, the best thing you could do is offer me a beer.”

Something else loosened in his chest. “I think I can help you with that.”

Anthony followed JT to the kitchen. He grabbed a beer and handed it over to his friend. Anthony was looking at the papers on the table.

“What’s up with that?”

“They think there might be another person in charge of the operation. I am going over everything to see if I can figure it out.”

They sat down at the table. “So, Smith is a gopher?”

“Yeah. He is talking a deal with the prosecutor, so we think there is someone on top.”

“Who was the commander?”

“Hickson. We couldn’t believe he didn’t know about it all going on under his nose, but there wasn’t a connection. I mean, nothing. No records of money being transferred. No other contact between Smith and Hickson, other than what was to be expected. There was absolutely nothing to tie him to it. Which meant, he didn’t know what the hell was going on under his nose. How the jackass made O-4, I have no idea.”

“You know how it is sometimes. Hell, I know people with stars on their shoulders who don’t know the first thing about commanding.”

They both continued to look over the evidence. After another half hour, Anthony groaned.

“There’s a pattern here that I can’t seem to connect.”

JT took a long draw on his beer. “Yeah, I agree. I wasn’t satisfied, but the management was happy with it.”

“Meaning, they wanted it to disappear as fast as possible.”

He nodded. “You know how it is. They just want to put a lid on the scandal, but they want to put people away, so they at least look like they’re doing their jobs.”

Before Anthony could respond, JT’s cell rang and he answered it when he noticed Elena’s number.

“Hey.”

“Hey, babe. Have you heard from Anthony?”

He glanced at the man in question. “He’s right here.”

She said nothing for a second or two. “He didn’t hit you again, did he?”

“No. We’re going over something for work.”

“Hmm. Are you planning on spending all day with him?”

There was no annoyance in her voice, but he knew something was bothering her.

“No. Don’t you want to spend time with him?” he asked.

Anthony rolled his eyes.

“Not sure. He hit you, and I am still pissed about it. Plus, he used words like deflower and insinuated that I am not feminine. I really didn’t like that.”

JT chuckled and looked at Anthony. “Deflower?”

“Give me the phone,” Anthony said, motioning with his hand.

“Anthony wants to talk to you.”

She made a rude sound that was very much like the one her brother had made just moments earlier. “Anthony needs to learn when to butt the hell out. I just wanted to know what you were doing because Madison called and asked about getting together.”

“Oh. Well, we’ll probably go over this for the next few hours.”

“Great. I don’t know what is up with Mad, but she said she wanted some girl time.”

“That sounds normal.”

“Not for us. Really, when have you heard me use that term?”

He chuckled. “That’s true.”

“So, that’s the reason I want to see her. I hope everything is okay.”

“Did you want to talk to Anthony?” he asked again.

“Yeah, let me talk to the idiot.”

He handed the phone to Anthony. He took it. “What do you want, runt?”

It was the name he had always called her when she was little.

“I have not threatened him again.”

He listened for long moment.

“You would think you had some family loyalty. Your boyfriend can fight his own fights.”

The word hit him then. Boyfriend . First, that told him Anthony was getting used to the idea. Secondly, JT thought he was a little old for the term. And, the truth was, he wanted to be more than that. He wanted to be hers. Forever.

Anthony shook his head as he smiled. “I promise not to hurt him. Now go do girl things.” More silence. “No, she seemed fine this morning. She took care of me since you kicked me out.”

There was another long moment of silence as Anthony listened to Elena. There was a good chance he was getting yelled at again. “Okay. Do you want to talk to JT?” Then he said something in Spanish to her and handed the phone over to JT.

“Hey, there,” he said.

“Okay, if he gives you any crap, beat the hell out of him and call Mom. I can’t believe he’s being such an ass.”

“You’re his little sister.”

“I am not little.”

“Wait, if I call your mom, then she’s gonna know about us.”

Elena sighed. “First, she probably already figured it out after talking to you the other night. Plus, if she didn’t, one of the guys will tell her. They can’t keep their mouths shut.”

That much was true. Gossiping about each other was a full-time pastime in the extended Santini family. It was one of the things he loved about them. They might be kind of obnoxious about butting into each other’s lives, but they did it out of love. “You’re going out with Madison?”

“Yeah. I think we’re doing a late lunch or something. And girl things. Whatever the hell that is.”

“Be careful,” he said as he watched Anthony roll his eyes.

“I will. You too.”

Then she hung up.

“I can’t believe I’m going to have to listen to that crap for the rest of our lives. Ugh.”

“First, I have to convince her to marry me.”

Suddenly, Anthony looked a little happier. “There is always a chance that she will say no.”

“Thanks, for your vote of confidence.”

Anthony shrugged. “Hey. I’m just telling you like it is. Besides, I figure if there’s anyone who can keep up with her, it’s you.”

That was the closest thing he was going to get to an acceptance from Anthony. Happier now with the situation, he sat back down at the table and started to go over the evidence.

And sometime soon, he was going to have to have a talk with Elena—after he talked to her father first.