Chapter Twenty-One

Jaxon remained sick to his stomach the whole way back to Denver the next morning.

Christ, how the fuck had everything gotten so screwed up and how the hell could he explain all this to Hayden? He tried the man’s cell phone again, but it went to voicemail and he didn’t leave a message.

He wanted a face to face with Hayden when he explained what he’d learned. Hayden’s instinct would be to run, after all, the man was good at it, but Jaxon wanted to be able to hold him tight. So tight, in fact, that he would have to stay and hear him out.

Hayden had to learn the whole story about Wyatt being one of the good guys and in WITSEC from him. Nobody else would do, it had to be him because he’d been the one to lie to Hayden in the first place.

But he’d never got the chance.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” he’d said in a ragged voice after arriving at the safe house and removing his coat.

He stared almost stupidly at Brick, who was looking kind of pale after telling him that Hayden was no longer safely tucked inside waiting for him.

“He snuck out while they were sleeping last night. He got by me, I suspect, from timing my rounds,” Brick said, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck.

Ryder had folded a very distressed looking Harrison into his arms and Jaxon heard the man assuring his husband that none of this was his fault.

Fucking hell.

Call it a gut feeling, but somehow, Hayden had found out about Wyatt.

Dread churned in the pit of Jaxon’s gut.

While he hadn’t known everything that was going on with Wyatt, he still felt responsible. Logan, nor the marshals, had bothered to fill him in on the fact that Wyatt was undercover before placing him in WITSEC, and he suspected they’d left the details vague on purpose. So, not only had Hayden believed his brother to be a criminal, but so had he.

None of that mattered now.

The only thing that mattered was finding Hayden and getting him to listen as he explained what had happened.

“What are we going to do?” Gunner asked, standing from where he’d sat on the couch.

Jaxon shook his head and gripped the phone in his fist. He tried Hayden’s number for the tenth time and finally, it was answered.

Only, the voice on the other end wasn’t Hayden’s.

“Who the fuck is this?” he growled.

“Wrath.”

“Put Hayden on the phone.”

“He said no. He doesn’t want to speak with you.”

“Fuck,” he muttered thickly and his eyes burned as he ran a hand through his hair, jerking at the tie that held it back so he could free the mass.

“He wants something from you, though.”

“Anything.” Jaxon froze as hope bloomed only to be crushed by Wrath’s next words.

“The location of a safety deposit box that Wyatt said you know of. Hayden has the key.”

The box’s location Wyatt had given him had been during the last contact he’d ever had with the man. Jaxon thought that maybe it was stolen funds tucked away in the event that Wyatt had needed them. It had turned Jaxon’s stomach at the time when he’d given the key to Hayden per Wyatt’s instructions. Jaxon had even lied about that.

Now that he knew Wyatt was innocent, the box made sense. It was a way for Wyatt to leave something behind for his brother.

“I’ll take you there,” he told Wrath.

“No, Hayden only wants the location.”

Jaxon clenched his jaw so tightly, his jaw ached.

“Give him this. You owe him that much,” Wrath murmured, and then his voice dropped to a whisper. “Give him time.”

“How much does he know?”

“Everything.”

“Fuck,” Jaxon said in a hoarse voice and gave the safety deposit box’s location to Wrath.

“It’s in Denver?” Wrath sounded surprised.

“Yes.” It appeared that Wyatt had thought of his brother the whole time and rather than inconvenience Hayden with getting a flight to Oklahoma, Wyatt had paid for a safety deposit box in a local bank.

“Keep him safe,” he croaked, because that was all he could manage through the lump growing in the back of his throat.

“I will,” Wrath promised and ended the call.

He stood in the middle of the common room staring into space, not seeing anything but Hayden’s beautiful face and imagining every bit of painful betrayal the man was feeling.

“Jaxon?” Gunner murmured, bringing him back to the room and the group of men all looking at him.

Felix stood, worried eyes on him, and Brick still looked guilty.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gunner said.

Jaxon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and quickly filled the team in about Wyatt, Hayden, and the connection of the threat to all of them by Andrew Moss.

“What’s the plan?” Ryder asked after he’d responded to Gunner. Ryder stood next to Harrison with one arm slipped over his husband’s shoulders.

“Hayden is going for a safety deposit box that Wyatt left him a key for,” he said gruffly. “And we are going to be there as backup.”

They didn’t question him. Instead, they gathered in the tactical room.

Giovanni Rossi had left nothing to chance in this safe house. The man had thought of everything with his team in mind when designing this place. Jaxon hurriedly dressed in tactical gear and selected an FNX 45 tactical handgun with a suppressor before tucking it and extra ammo away along with a six-inch Claymore sharp blade, which he tucked into the sheath strapped to his thigh.

They met out in front of the building and Harrison waved as he pulled away with Ryder in the silver SUV. Ryder was taking his husband to the Cobalt building for safekeeping and would then join up with them as soon as the man was safe.

Brick set the alarm before the rest of them loaded into a black Suburban and pulled out of the parking lot with Felix behind the wheel.

In one last ditch effort to get a response from Hayden, Jaxon sent a text.

I’m sorry.

Silence was his only response, but he’d written the words and now he needed to get Hayden to slow down long enough to hear him say them.

His phone rang and Whip’s name flashed on the screen.

“What did you find?” Jaxon asked, answering the call.

“Hey, so, we tested the blood we found and it’s a mix of Wyatt’s and someone else’s, so we figure there was a scuffle. Both Wyatt and his attacker were wounded,” Whip said.

“I doubt they sent only one man to take out Wyatt,” he said, staring out the window at the passing city.

“You’re correct, there appeared to be two…” Whip said, his voice trailing off.

“What?”

“Wyatt’s blood trail went one way, but we lost it a few blocks over.”

“And the attackers?”

“From the blood trail, it appears that the one guy helped the one wounded get away in a car. I followed the attacker’s blood trail to the street where it disappeared,” Whip said.

“Who followed it?” Axel called out, the man’s deep voice coming clearly through the phone.

“Yeah, okay, Axel followed the trail.” Whip gave a heavy sigh.

“What have I told you about lying?”

Jaxon could still hear Axel clearly and Whip’s groan of annoyance.

“What have I told you about interrupting me?” Whip snapped.

“Don’t lie and I won’t.”

“Jesus,” Whip hissed. “Give me strength.”

“Hey,” Jaxon cut in before the pair could ramp up their bickering. “Let me know if you find anything else.”

“We will,” Whip assured him and ended the call.

“Who was that?” Gunner asked.

“US Marshal Tauber. They think there’s a possibility that Wyatt is alive,” he said, and while Whip hadn’t said those exact words, Jaxon knew there was a chance that Wyatt could have survived the jump because there hadn’t been a body.

And yet, the Moss crime family thugs could have disposed of Wyatt’s body. But with the blood trail leading off to the street and Wyatt’s trail leading off the other way, it gave him hope.

If Wyatt was alive, Jaxon would find him and bring him back to Hayden.

If it was the last thing he did.