Chapter Six

The inside of the deli was cool and comforting, and he thought he and Hayden could stay for an early lunch.

Jesse stood behind the counter helping a customer and when he glanced up at the jingle of the small bell at the top of the door, his friend’s eyes widened with surprise and then delight at recognizing him.

Actually, there was too much fucking surprise and confusion on Jesse’s part and the hairs on the back of Jaxon’s neck stood up, but before he could even process anything further, the room exploded.

A loud sound cracked the air and the front of the deli window blew out, sending a force punching Jaxon in the back. The pressure sent him flying and he lost sight of Hayden when his vision went black.

His back slammed on the ground, sending shooting pain through his spine and his body sent tables smashing out of his way. Glass shattered around him and smoke billowed thick gray and black. Screams pierced the air and were soon followed by sounds of crying and confusion.

He couldn’t get his limbs to work, nor his lungs to draw in air.

Jaxon tried to speak, to call out to Hayden, but only managed a coughing gag along with several dry heaves before he sucked in a gulp of air, one after the other.

Lifting one arm that felt like lead, he kept reaching until he gripped the butt of his gun, but he didn’t have the strength to pull it and that was concerning.

“Jax! Hayden!” Gunner hollered, barreling through the gutted-out front.

Blinking through the haze that filled his vision, he saw blue sky overhead and he rolled his head to the side. The spot where Hayden had stood was empty.

Where the fuck was Hayden?

A dull sense of panic bloomed in his chest and he made a sound as he gasped for air. The blast seemed to have come from behind him, so Hayden should have been protected by his body. But then Hayden was slimmer and way slighter, so maybe not.

The room lay in shambles. Devastation surrounded him with not only the room, but victims of the blast. The whole front of the deli and the glass cabinet that separated the front from the back had been blown all to hell, hitting several people in the process. He didn’t see Jesse because the counter was gone and that worried him.

“Help me,” a woman whimpered.

Gunner’s big body came crunching over what remained of a section of the roof.

“Go see her,” Jaxon yelled at Gunner, but it came out a raspy whisper so he waved a hand toward the woman and Gunner immediately turned that way.

Groaning, Jaxon forced every muscle in his body to move and rolled from his back and onto his stomach with monumental force before he managed to get to his hands and knees.

“Hayden,” Jaxon groaned.

“You okay, buddy?” a male voice asked, glass crunching beneath his sneakers, and a stranger approached through the blown-out front of the building.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Check the owner. Check the others.” He said the words to the floor and then lifted his head.

“Hayden?” he rasped again, coughed, and said louder, “Hayden!”

Nothing.

The lack of response to his frantic calls brought him up to his knees and scrambling. Panic lent him temporary strength and he lifted tables, chairs, and fallen ceiling tiles like a madman.

“Hayden, talk to me.” He yanked several heavy pieces of metal from a large section of tile and gave a sob of relief when he spotted the top of Hayden’s blond head buried beneath.

Shaking, Jaxon crawled the distance between them and pushed the rest of the debris from Hayden’s prone body.

Shaking fingers found a pulse in the man’s neck. It was weak…but Hayden’s heart was beating. Ignoring the way his eyes watered, Jaxon dropped to his ass on the floor and pulled Hayden up to rest across his thighs.

More people spilled in through the front of the destroyed building and started moving things to get people out.

Jaxon moved hair from Hayden’s face and then sat gazing blankly at his own hands. They were covered in gray dust, like a dead man’s hands. He took short, shallow breaths to stave off the piercing pain in the left side of his chest, and he combed his fingers through Hayden’s hair, slowly brushing it away from the man’s face.

“Hayden, can you hear me?” he whispered.

The man coughed and sputtered and Jaxon was so fucking thankful, he didn’t care that the tears leaked, putting tracks down his cheeks.

“Yeah,” Hayden coughed. “Yeah, yeah.”

Jaxon huffed and pulled Hayden tighter into his arms. The man’s face was covered with gray dust, but those damned adorable blue eyes were gazing up at him and that was all that fucking mattered.

The ceiling above them cracked and shuddered with a loud groan.

“Fuck!” Jaxon growled and bent forward to protect Hayden’s face and head with his own chest with seconds to spare as another large piece of tile fell and crashed down on them both.

People yelled and someone screamed, and in the distance, Jaxon heard the wailing of sirens growing closer.

Gritting his teeth through the pain, the world darkened out and then refocused.

He tucked his lips against Hayden’s temple and prayed.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard Gunner cursing and shouting. He could only imagine the big man yanking debris off of them because he couldn’t see anything at that point.

Within a minute, Gunner had yanked the tiles and chunks of the roof from on top of him and Hayden.

Jaxon looked up and it was on the tip of his tongue to thank Gunner, but the room went dim.

The last thing he remembered was snarling when someone tried to take Hayden from his arms.

Fog…

Yeah…his brain was all fogged up and so were the voices whispering in the room.

Did Jaxon and Logan think they could speak too softly for him to hear?

Hayden would have laughed if every bone in his body hadn’t been hurting.

“The backpack was left beneath a table,” Logan said.

“What are you saying?” Jaxon’s voice sounded raw.

“It was intentional. It looks like we were set up,” Logan growled. “I talked to your friend’s manager and she said that whoever called Cobalt security for this job wasn’t Jesse Freeman.”

“So, all they had to do was wait until we walked in.”

“Did you see anyone leaving?” Logan said.

“No, I didn’t. It was crowded though.” Jaxon’s sigh sounded heavy.

A bomb. That was what they were discussing. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to get the gist of it. Who had set them up? Was it someone from his or Jaxon’s past? Or was this someone out to get Cobalt Security? Like, take them out one at a time?

The team did have a lot of bitter people according to the hate mail Logan regularly received at the office. After all, they had prevented criminals from killing people and some of those crooks ended up in jail, so it stood to reason they could have a psycho on their hands.

“Hayden?”

Jaxon’s voice was much closer. Had he made a sound? Hayden cleared his throat and a straw was placed at his lips. He took a tiny swallow and then squinted, opening his eyes.

The room was shadowed with the overhead lights switched off. He lifted his lids higher and found his gaze caught by Jaxon’s storm cloud gaze.

Whoa…he’d never seen that look in Jaxon’s eyes before and he wasn’t sure what it was.

Unsure of how long he’d been here, he glanced around and then down at the gown he was wearing before turning his attention to the hospital bed he was in.

“Hayden…” Jaxon said, but the breathy way his name came out with that long, soft sigh caused his stomach to jump.

“You look like shit,” he breathed through the pain, running his eyes over the cuts on Jaxon’s forehead and one cheek.

“It’s nothing.”

His eyes moved from Jaxon’s to the man hovering behind him and he met Logan Cobalt’s worried frown. From the look of both of them, he thought maybe he’d been hurt badly. Rather than ask, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know right at that moment, he looked around the room and spotted his clothes sitting in a bag on the chair.

“That bastard ruined my best shirt,” he grumbled, gazing down at the hospital gown and his laugh came out jumpy.

Jaxon’s answering bark of laughter was thick and clogged, but then the man’s breath caught and etches of pain lanced across his face.

“Are you hurt?” Hayden asked, and he couldn’t help it that his voice sounded like a frantic frog.

“Just some bruised ribs.” Jaxon shook his head.

Not believing Jaxon’s glib and rather quick response, Hayden finally began testing his own limbs for any breaks, bruises, or worse, and after wiggling all of his fingers and toes, he found that the only pain remaining was the throb in his head.

“How long have we been here?” He slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position.

“You were brought in yesterday,” Jaxon said, hurrying to push the button to raise the head of the bed.

Had he been out the whole time? He eased back against the mattress and let Jaxon reposition the thin blanket and sheet around his waist.

“What’s the prognosis, Doc?” Hayden smirked, slanting a glance at Logan.

He’d been surprised to see Logan there, but he shouldn’t have been. Logan Cobalt was one of the best bosses Hayden had ever worked for, and he felt a momentary twinge of guilt that he’d quit on the guy.

“You suffered a mild concussion that knocked you out for way too long.”

“Mild, my ass. It’s severe,” Jaxon said, arguing with Logan—which was dangerous in Hayden’s opinion. Logan wasn’t one to be fucked with, but apparently, by the look on his face, Jaxon didn’t care.

“The doctor said it’s mild,” Logan assured him and sent a dark look at Jaxon.

A slight knock had both men turning toward the door. Logan slipped a hand into his coat and Hayden knew his boss was ready to pull his weapon if whoever came through the door was a threat.

Jaxon, on the other hand, went full-on tactical bear and pulled his weapon before stalking over to yank open the door.

“What the fuck do you want? You can’t see him,” Jaxon said, sounding all growly and possessive, and Hayden’s stomach clenched.

Ice pushed past Jaxon, which wasn’t easy to do, and entered the room.

Jaxon stepped up and body-checked the guy. Oh, it wasn’t hard, but it was a don’t fuck with me move and Ice froze.

Hayden met Ice’s frosty-colored eyes from across the room and made himself not read anything into Jaxon’s Neanderthal bristling. That was Jaxon’s way. It was actually the real reason why Jaxon had left Erebus years ago—the man was too damned caring. Hayden knew all about Jaxon’s time with the assassins even though they’d never talked about it. He’d heard about it through the grapevine over the past several weeks.

Jaxon West had been one of their best assassins before he’d abruptly thrown in the towel and left it all behind. And Hayden had no idea of why exactly, because the others in Erebus didn’t know either, so he figured it had to do with Jaxon’s protective nature. If Jaxon leaving Erebus was for any other reason, Hayden knew nothing about it.

He stared at Ice. Technically, he still worked for Erebus and Ice was his co-worker for want of a better label.

“Hey,” Hayden said still in that froggy voice and Ice frowned at the bodyguard still trying to block his way from advancing.

“Jaxon, let him through,” Hayden said, and the much bigger man moved his body so Ice could approach the bed.

Of course, Jaxon didn’t give a shit about their privacy and came to the other side of his hospital bed and lifted his hand.

It was a dick move on Jaxon’s part because the move sent the wrong message to Ice, who had narrowed his eyes and Hayden almost snickered. But right then, the spit dried into his mouth when Jaxon linked their fingers together and it was all he could do to concentrate on Ice’s words and not the thumb that was running over the top of his fingers.

“Hey.” Ice gave Logan an up nod.

Logan squinted at the assassin and returned Ice’s nod.

“Solomon sent me to see if you’re okay,” Ice told Hayden. “He gave your phone and ID to Ryder.”

“Fuck Solomon,” Jaxon growled.

Solomon was the head of Erebus, who in the food chain was just beneath Dave, and Hayden wasn’t sure Jaxon should be cursing the guy.

“So? Are you okay?” Ice ignored Jaxon’s outburst.

“Well, they fucked up my best shirt, so no, I’m not okay.”

“I’ll buy you a new shirt,” Ice said softly.

“The fuck you will,” Jaxon snarled.

“Wait!” Hayden said, his eyes bright on Jaxon and he smiled. “What if I want him to buy me a new shirt?”

Jaxon looked like a thundercloud took up residence on his handsome face. “I’ll buy you any fuckin’ shirt you want.”

“Even if it’s pomegranate?”

Jaxon looked confused. “Is that even a color?”

“It’s a fruit.” Hayden’s smile widened.

Logan groaned and shook his head. “I’m stepping out. I need to talk with you before you’re discharged, Hayden.”

“I’ll let my secretary know,” Hayden quipped.

Logan couldn’t hide his chuckle and left the room. The silence was sticky and Hayden was just about out of jokes to take his focus off his throbbing headache and the hand Jaxon refused to release even when he’d tugged at it.

“What do you want?” Jaxon stared at Ice with a flat, deadly expression.

“I’m just following orders, Jax. Solomon sent me to check in on him.”

“So you’ve checked.”

Hayden thought he should put Jaxon in check, but he kind of liked this badass protective side. He hadn’t seen it since Jaxon had a hand in removing his brother Wyatt from his life.

It was nice.

“Looks like you two need a babysitter,” Ice said, returning Jaxon’s alpha aggression head-on.

“Ohhhh.” Hayden laughed and then groaned from the slight pain lancing through his head. He shrugged off Jaxon’s concerned look.

“Isn’t that cool? The bodyguard needs a bodyguard.” Hayden waved a hand and Jaxon’s scowl deepened.

“Why in the world would you think this is about me?” Jaxon growled.

Hayden blinked. Yeah, okay, he probably looked like an owl, but this couldn’t be about him.

“It can’t be about me. You fixed that problem.”

Jaxon glanced away.

Was that guilt? Hayden slowly pulled himself up, sliding his fingers out of Jaxon’s hold. Where before, Jaxon had gripped his fingers tightly, now they let him slip away.

“Jaxon…you did fix the problem, didn’t you?” he said, gripping the sheet tightly.

“It’s…complicated.”

“Complicated like constipation? Or complicated like diarrhea? Because they are two very different levels of complicated. One has you sitting and the other has you running.”

Jaxon looked at him like he was out of his mind. And maybe he was. His head throbbed.

Maybe that was it!

This was a dream and he was going to wake up any minute and Jaxon was going to tell him that his brother was still dead.