"And you were on the roof. Where you're supposed to be untouchable." Jack's voice cracked on the last word. Just barely.A hairline fracture in the granite facade of a man who expressed everything through humor and violence and never, ever let the third thing, the tenderness, show through. "You got shot because I didn't clear the sight line."
"I got grazed because a guard got lucky. That's combat. You know this."
"I know that you were bleeding and I couldn't…" Jack stopped. Swallowed. His hands, resting on the hood of the SUV, curled into fists and then uncurled. "If it had been six inches to the left. "
"It wasn't."
"But if ithad -"
"Then I'd be dead, and you'd be blaming yourself, and that would be exactly as useless as what you're doing right now." Elijah crossed the three feet between them. Stood in front of Jack. Close. Closer than Seth had ever seen Elijah stand to anyone voluntarily. "I'm here. I'm fine. Stop."
Jack looked at him. The look was…
Seth turned away.
He'd seen a lot of things in his life. Violence and cruelty and the full spectrum of human darkness. But what he'd just seen on Jack's face wasn't darkness. It was the opposite. It was a man staring at the person who was everything to him and being unable to say it because the saying would make it real, and real things could be lost, and Jack had already lost too much.
Seth understood that look. He'd worn it himself, on the gym mat, in the kitchen, in every charged and aching moment since Zain had walked into his life and taken up residence in the part of himself that Seth had thought was permanently condemned.
He went back inside. Found the tactical vest in the front closet instead. Didn't mention the garage to anyone.
But later that evening, when Jack cooked dinner and Elijah sat in his usual spot and Jack set Elijah's plate down with a care thatwas almost reverential, placing it precisely, the way you placed something fragile, what mattered. Seth caught Zain's eye across the table.
Do you see it?his look said.
Zain's look said:I've always seen it.
And they both understood, without speaking, that Lakefront was full of men who loved each other and couldn't say it, and that maybe, just maybe, the bravest thing any of them could do was try.
CHAPTER 20
The gala was obscene.
Not in the obvious way. not violence or exploitation, nothing Seth could point at and saythat, that's the thing that'swrong.The obscenity was subtler. It was the champagne that cost more per glass than Seth had made in a week at the temp agency. It was the dresses and the jewelry and the laughter, echoing through the Westin's grand ballroom like the sound of people who had never been hungry and couldn't imagine what it felt like.
It was Clayton Mercer, standing at the center of it all, shaking hands and accepting praise for his commitment to fighting the very thing he profited from.
Mercer took the scotch without looking at Seth's face. His fingers brushed Seth's as he accepted the glass, brief, accidental, the casual contact of a man who was accustomed to being served and didn't register the person doing the serving.
Seth registered everything.
The weight of the glass leaving his hand. The temperature of Mercer's fingers, warm, soft, manicured. The cologne, sandalwood and something darker, what smelled expensive and wrong. The way Mercer's eyes stayed on the woman he was talking to, never dropping to the server, never acknowledging the human being standing three feet away with a tray and a hidden device and the muscle memory of four months in a cage that this man had built.
You don't see me,Seth thought.You've never seen me. I was invisible in your warehouse and I'm invisible in your ballroom and that invisibility, the thing you used to erase me, is the thing that's going to destroy you.
Next guest. Poured. Smiled. Invisible.
Seth watched him from across the room and felt something cold settle in his stomach.
Mercer was smaller in person. That was the first surprise. The photos had made him look imposing, the silver hair, the tailored suit, the smile that owned every room it entered. In person, he was five-nine, maybe five-ten. Soft around the middle. Thehands that shook donor after donor were manicured and pale, a man who had never done his own dirty work.
Those hands had never touched a chain-link cage. Had never swung a pipe. Had never dragged a worker back from a collapsed heap and forced them back to the line. Mercer didn't do those things. Mercer paid people to do those things, and then he came to galas in ballrooms and raised money to pretend they didn't exist.
"You okay?" Zain's voice, low, close. He was beside Seth in a tuxedo that Jack had been entirely right about. Zain wore formal clothing like a soldier wearing civilian dress, correct but uncomfortable, the violence underneath visible to anyone who knew what to look for.
Seth knew what to look for.
"I'm fine," he said. His catering uniform, white shirt, black vest, borrowed from Ghost's contacts, fit well enough. A tray of champagne flutes provided cover and purpose. He was invisible in the way that service workers were always invisible at events like this.
