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As Kai had said, everyone was here. Puck, Zep, Magnet, Ares, and his four guys, Blackjack, Tank, Atticus, and Kodiak. Even Mayhem and Wilder had come out. Fucile wasn’t here, but I vaguely remembered someone saying he and Sognatrice were called to return to Italy.
“Here’s to Cayman. Cheers!” shouted Magnet, the fifth or sixth—maybe more—to buy a round. With each, they toasted me. The drunker they got, the more emotional what they said after became.
“I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done,” I’d said time and again.
“The hell you say?” slurred Zeppelin. “I would’ve swum to shore and let the rest of you fend for yourself, not put myself between you and a bloody bomb.”
I raised my hand in the air. “Enough. You keep this up, and I’ll be even more of an arsehole than I have been.”
“No one wants that,” said Wilder, sitting to my right and nudging me. He leaned closer. “You know where she is, right?”
I turned to face him. “Bexli?”
He nodded. “Staying with Delfino.”
I wanted to snarl and say it figured, but none of what had happened was the woman’s fault. In fact, I owed her as much of an apology as I owed Bexli.
As soon as Wilder broached the subject, everything I’d held inside came pouring out of me. “You know I joined SIS for her? I wanted to prove I could be more than a rich bastard who’d never worked for a living.”
Wilder raised a brow and grinned. “As a rich bastard, I take exception to that.”
“You did the same thing I did.”
“Perhaps, but my older brother shamed me into it.”
Shiver Whittaker was the Duke of Bedfordshire. However, he hadn’t been when he joined SIS. Like me, he was a marquess at the time.
“Go on, you became an agent to prove to Bexli you weren’t a bastard.”
“A rich bastard.”
“Right.”
“It was all for her. Everything. Whenever I received good marks or graduated to a new level of training, she was the first person I wanted to share it with. More than my mum and dad. I wanted her to be—” My words caught in my throat. “I just wanted her to be proud of me.”
“Understandable.”
“When Marchand suggested me as task force commander, all I could think about was telling Bex. I wanted to race straight upstairs and call her privately. I did, but she didn’t answer.” I shook my head and wiped at the tears threatening to spill onto my cheeks. “Mithras had her.” My voice sounded as anguished as I remembered feeling.
“You rescued her, Cay,” Poseidon said from across the table. “She’s safe, thanks to you. She’s proud of you too. She knows what you did in Sharm el-Sheikh. We made sure of it.”
“I could’vedied. One wrong move, and…”
“We all would’ve died if it weren’t for you,” said Zeppelin.
“It’s why I can’t be with her.”
Wilder’s head cocked. “Not following, mate.”
“What would’ve happened to her if I’d been blown up? She has no one to take care of her.”
“Exactly,” said Poseidon. “No one but you. That’s why you have to be with her.”
“I can’t. I can’t do that to her.”
“You’re not making any sense,” said Zep. “Although it could be the pints talking. We’ll give you a pass tonight.”
“She thought she couldn’t stay on the estate without me. She said so before we left for Egypt. If I’d died, where would she have gone? Back to her dad?” I realized I hadn’t talked to my parents as intended. I pushed away from the table. “I need to call my father.”
