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Gael was sharing a joke with Jacob, and Gregory, Jake, Vance, Adam, and Daniel were on bar and waiter duty. Betty arrived from their favorite diner with even more side dishes.
He grinned as his brother Sam raised a bottle at him in a toast. His mother wasn’t here. She was accompanying the senator on a fundraising trip to Denver. Once she’d found out that they weren’t going to have the fancy wedding and that Sawyer was now indulging in a passion for photography, she’d abandoned the idea of being mother of one of the grooms.
Which was perfect.
He’d casually but dutifully asked Finn if he wanted to invite his mom and brother and Finn had smiled a little, but then told him Connie and the team had already been invited and Talon must have forgotten.
Talon had kissed Finn for quite a long time after that.
He’d heard the expression “found family” before and he wasn’t stupid. He’d known it was about choice. But he liked Finn’s explanation better. “Found” didn’t mean a discovery according to Finn, it just meant no longer lost. It didn’t matter if he’d never met that brother before, or they had grown up in the same house as virtual strangers. Talon was lucky enough to have both.
A cheer went up when the entertainment for the evening arrived. Few people could get teen heart-throb and singing sensation Sebastian Armitage to sing at their wedding, buttheycould. Talon smirked as Gray stood like a sentinel as his boyfriend warmed up for his performance.
He turned when Connie appeared on the patio with Asa and Henry and nodded to him. He glanced over at Gael and caught his eye. Gael stood up and walked over to him. He knew none of his brothers resented him asking Gael to be his best man. He loved every one of them, but Gael would have his back today just as he always had. He knew Elijah was waiting upstairs for them as they’d both agreed. Finn was going all in with his family, just as Talon had expected, and once he’d gotten over the shock of being asked, Elijah had stepped up to be Finn’s best-man.
Not to be left out, Asa was to walk up the aisle first and throw rose petals. He’d watched a lot of You Tube video weddings and said while it was usually what girls seemed to do, Zuri was too young, so he was going to take that job on for her. He’d also wisely added, it was a bit like not liking blue when other people thought he was supposed to.
Henry had the very important job of looking after both rings from the time Talon handed them over to when he took them back. He reckoned Henry could be trusted for the thirty or so yards.
He looked up at the sky. The only thing Finn had wanted for some insane reason was snow. A white wedding except it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. At least it wasn’t raining. Talon turned to head upstairs, remembering their first Christmas. How Finn had cooked for just them, but one by one the team had shown up and everyone had pitched in. He knew this would be just as perfect, but loved the thought of adding in excited kids opening presents. He grinned to himself as he reached the bedroom, pushing the door wide open.
The gunshot was loud and when Talon looked down, he expected to see a hole in his chest. What he didn’t expect to see was Clive Reynolds holding Finn against him, one arm around his throat and the other waving the gun he had just fired into the ceiling.
Without being conscious of the decision, he blocked Gael from walking in behind him and slammed the door closed. He needed Gael to get his ass downstairs and tell everyone so they could come up with a plan to sort this out. He glanced over at Elijah who, complete with split lip and swollen cheek, was sitting on the floor with his back to the dresser. Elijah met Talon’s eyes, and Talon read him in an instant. Fury, most definitely, but no panic. Talon took a second to wonder how this kid was only eleven, before he focused on his man.
“What are you doing?” he asked Clive evenly, unhurried, even though he was trying to feel for Sawyer’s power. Because of another freaky DNA thing his clever boyfriend had tried to explain, Talon was able to mimic the team’s abilities. The trouble was, of all Sawyer’s abilities he’d mimicked before, he’d had the most practice at walking through solid objects. He hadn’t practiced dissolving metal recently. Eli’s fire ability? Talon could do that, but Clive was pressing the gun against Finn’s temple, and he couldn’t rely on being fast enough, and besides Clive was too close to Finn. He couldn’t even slow Clive’s body down without him being aware and there was a tiny chance he might be able to pull the trigger if he sensed there was something wrong.
“Talon?”
He heard Charles’s voice in his head and told everyone to stay back. Anyone coming through that door...Sawyer!“Get Sawyer to come through the door and stay hidden. Clive’s got a gun against Finn’s neck.”Sawyer would know what to do.
“Clive?” Talon prompted. He needed to keep Clive calm, talking. Give Sawyer a chance.
“You stole my family,” Clive screamed and tightened his hold on Finn. Finn’s arms came up automatically, but Clive was crazed, vitriol spitting from his mouth, his face contorted in fury, and his arm tightening.
Talon met Finn’s eyes, willing him to relax.“I love you. Sawyer’s on his way.”He knew Charles would let him “talk’ to Finn, but Finn was struggling to breathe. Clive’s hold was tightening, and Finn was in trouble.
“Clive,easy,” Talon tried to soothe. “You can’t get your family back if you don’t calm down.” But Clive just ranted and backed up to the wall.
He met Finn’s desperate, tear-laden eyes, and in an instant he was back at work the day they’d met all those years ago. He’d done the same to Finn. Cut off his air. Slowed his systems so he couldn’t move. Not more than ten minutes later Finn had stood up to the bullies trying to beat him up. Unarmed and half their size, but Finn hadn’t cared. Talon might have fought it, but he was sure he’d fallen in love with his little warrior right at that moment.
“Clive,” Elijah said, “I’ll come with you. Let him go. I’ll come.”
“Sawyer’s on his way.”
Talon heard Christopher just as Clive turned to Elijah and screamed at him. “How dare you call me by my name? I’m yourfather.”
And then everything happened at once. Elijah seemed to lose it, ran at Clive, yelling, “You’re not my father,he is.” Clive swung the gun at Elijah and a shot fired a millisecond before the gun dissolved and Talon lunged for Clive, and they all seemed to go down in a tangle of bodies. The door burst open and for an agonized second Talon didn’t know where Finn was.
But then a smaller, familiar hand reached for him at the same time as Elijah was lifted out of the pile and Vance and Daniel pinned Clive to the floor.
“Are you hurt?” Talon demanded, his eyes scanning Finn for blood, for bullet holes. A second later Elijah slammed into them both. Talon held on tightly to them and looked up as Sawyer appeared in front of them. Grinning, he opened his palm, tilted it, and a tiny stream of shavings trickled onto the floor.
He’d caught the bullet and dissolved it. He’d caught thebullet.
Joseph had immediately summoned more cops to take Clive away, which they all seemed delighted to do, and were promptly invited back for burgers after their shift finished.
Talon listened to everything, but he couldn’t seem to let go of Finn for even a second. Elijah was also tightly pressed against him. Then as people cleared out, Sam sauntered in and gazed at Finn and the bruises around his neck which were reddening as they sat. “Good thing I brought concealer,” he muttered. Finn chuckled then winced. Charles had taken a look and said he would be sore, but it wasn’t life-threatening.
