Chapter Twenty-Four

“You didn’t know, did you?” Hayden said, and slowly lifted his eyes from his twisting fingers to gaze at the man, who by all accounts, appeared to be glued to the door.

“That he was innocent? No,” Jaxon said, and because he had his complete attention on the man’s face, he didn’t miss the slight grimace and squaring of Jaxon’s shoulders before he continued. “But I knew he wasn’t dead.”

“It’s an odd situation, isn’t it,” he murmured, not really a question, but more of a statement. His words brought Jaxon one step away from the door.

“What’s that?” Jaxon said softly.

Hayden began trying to work the whole thing out in his head and in doing so, he had accidently spoken the words, so he continued mulling things over out loud.

“You didn’t tell me Wyatt was alive because you knew I hated him for what he’d become and wanted me to let go.”

Jaxon’s throat moved and the bodyguard’s gaze burned with what, Hayden wasn’t sure.

“If you had known that Wyatt was innocent, would you have lied to me?”

“No, I wouldn’t have done it,” Jaxon replied, and Hayden believed him.

“What was your first instinct when they told you the truth, when they told you that Wyatt was undercover?” And because he now knew the details of where Jaxon and Ryder had gone, he had to know.

“I flew straight back to the safe house to tell you.” And the honesty in the man’s voice was not hard to miss and that was because Jaxon West, ex-assassin, former Marine, was an honorable man.

“But I,” Hayden whispered, “had already found out and left.”

“Yes.”

“Wyatt’s message was like a punch to the gut, but you keeping the truth from me has been devastating.”

“Understood,” Jaxon said, his voice low and devoid of emotion. “I don’t blame you for not forgiving me. What I did was unforgivable and I’m sorry, Hayden.”

“Is it true?” he said, simply looking at Jaxon. “Did you not know that Wyatt was undercover?”

“I did not know that until the marshals told me yesterday.”

“And why did they tell you?”

“Because there’s a good chance Wyatt is still alive.”

“What?” Shock dropped his jaw open.

“It was one of the things I was going to tell you when I got back. Wyatt’s safe house was hit, but he’s gone. We don’t know if he’s still alive or dead, but when I got back…”

“I was gone,” Hayden finished when Jaxon’s voice trailed off, and the man nodded.

Gazing down at his hands, Hayden locked his fingers together. “We’ve been best friends for forever, it seems like.”

“Yes,” Jaxon croaked.

“You can never lie to me again, ever.”

“I won’t.” Jaxon’s hands fisted at his sides.

“This thing growing between us,” he unlocked his fingers and gestured with one hand, “is that just a ‘friends with benefits’ to you?”

“Is that what you want?” Jaxon asked hoarsely, carefully.

He never got the chance to answer when a knock sounded on the door. With a sound of frustration, Jaxon whirled and yanked it open. Ryder stood in the hallway.

“We’ve got a situation.”

Gripping the “oh shit” handle near the top of the door, Hayden braced his foot when Felix took the corner fast and gunned the Suburban down the busy Denver streets. Ahead of them was SWAT with their sirens blaring and the honk, honk of the massive vehicle’s horn clearing the way. As long as Felix stayed behind the police force, he could easily keep up.

When he and Jaxon had been interrupted, they’d been told there was a situation at one of the Moss crime family’s dining establishments. The restaurant was in a nicer part of town and located on the bottom floor of an expensive hotel. Supposedly, and this was only because the team had heard secondhand through an anonymous source, Wyatt was at the hotel’s restaurant and shooting up the place.

Hayden suspected the source behind the phone call had been Wrath. The man had promised to find his brother for him and Hayden suspected that if anyone could do it, it would be the assassin.

Pulling up to the scene with every agency available, including local Denver PD, SWAT, the DEA, FBI, and US Marshals was mind boggling. And it dawned on him that they’d been waiting a long time to take down Andrew Moss. Each branch of law enforcement had a beef and a stake in taking him down.

The evidence Hayden had given to Logan on the flash drive was enough to send Andrew Moss and his gang of thugs to jail for life, and since Colorado enforced the death penalty, the man was history.

If Wyatt was inside doing what Wrath said, then his brother was going to be in big trouble. There was no way in hell Wyatt, innocent or not, could get away with killing people of the Moss crime family in front of the public. He could, however, change his name and become one of Dave’s assassins.

First, though, it appeared they had to talk Wyatt down. The SWAT commander had taken up the bullhorn and stood calling out in a deep, booming voice to drop the weapons and surrender.

Hayden finished clipping his bulletproof vest in place and loaded up his weapons; a Banish 45, the Sig Sauer P365, as well as an assortment of knives and ammo clips.

“I’m going in,” he said and watched as every pair of eyes on their team turned in his direction. None of them spoke, which was surprising because he’d thought they would argue. Instead, as a collective whole, they turned to Jaxon, who was in charge at the moment, because their boss was en route.

The man finished sliding on his own vest, snatched up his weapons, and then spoke.

“I’ll back you up.”

A snarky comeback was on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back. They weren’t at that place yet and he wasn’t sure if they’d ever be. He’d gotten Jaxon’s promise to never lie to him again, but the pain of betrayal still lingered.

The rest of Cobalt Security said nothing, but every single one of them pulled on vests, gear, and weapons.

“We’ll need a distraction,” Gunner mumbled, and gestured slightly at the array of agencies.

“Oh, you let me handle that,” Felix grinned before turning to Hayden. “You get inside and save your brother.”

Hayden nodded and as he began walking down the block in order to skirt around the building and come in from the opposite side, he heard Felix yell.

“What is this? I say we take them by storm!” Felix whooped and approached the SWAT commander with the bullhorn.

Walking backward, Hayden saw Felix pull his gun and point it in the air before every agency standing nearby converged and the slighter man disappeared.

“Fuck,” Ryder gasped. “I didn’t think he was going to do that.”

Hayden laughed. “Seriously? That shouldn’t have surprised you.”

“Yeah,” Ryder huffed out a breath and followed as they stepped around the corner.

It took Ryder distracting a few more police in order for them to slip through a loading dock and inside the hotel.

Now, they needed to find Wyatt before his brother truly got dead.