“Oh my God.”
“Do whatever you have to do to get Cross here alive.”
Ty was mutinously silent. Finally, Burns heard him exhale, a bid for calm. “Yes, sir,” he said in a soft, composed voice.
ZANE sat watching Julian, waiting for him to wake and thinking about Ty and what had just happened. Zane had never seen his partner, his lover, react to violence in such a cold and calculating way. It was a new side to Ty. Was that how he’d been able to handle himself all these years, by simply turning off his emotion and essentially finding a happy place when he worked? Zane shook his head. He tried not to dwell on what it would take to do that.
When Ty came back from making his call, he found Zane in the bedroom and stood at his side, looking down at the two men on the bed. They had used the twisted bungee cords to tie Julian down and handcuffed Cameron to him to give them just enough contact to keep them from trying to escape when Julian awoke. Not that they’d go far in a blizzard.
Cameron had his nose buried against the back of Julian’s shoulder and was looking up at them with one eye and hiding the other.
“Every time you two try something, it’s one more bullet I put in his head in my dreams,” Ty told Cameron. This time, Zane knew he wasn’t acting.
Julian groaned. Cameron nodded, eyes wide. He scooted closer to Julian, looking genuinely upset.
“He’ll be okay,” Zane felt compelled to say. “He’ll wake up in a few minutes.”
Ty was already moving away from the bed and into the outer room. Zane stopped to turn the television to a different channel for Cameron before he followed, wondering what sort of damage control was needed here.
“I thought you were going to kill him back there.”
Ty turned to face him. “Next time I will,” he said, his voice cold and determined.
A shiver ran down Zane’s spine, and he had to admit, a part of him liked it. “What is it about him that gets you so riled?”
“It’s not him, Zane. It’s you.”
“Me? What’d I do?”
“He is a threat to both of us. You’ve seen what he’s capable of, and I have to tell you, I don’t think he’s trying yet. I think he’s just a f**king raptor testing the fences. When I look at him, I see him hurting you.”
Zane’s chest twisted in a way that wasn’t unpleasant. He knew that feeling, being so protective and so desperate to keep his loved ones safe that it clouded his world. “I’m not worried.”
“No?”
“I’ve got you here watching my back,” Zane said with a serene smile. He didn’t think he’d felt so calm inside in years. “And I’ve got yours.”
Ty took a deep breath as he looked into Zane’s eyes. Zane wondered what Ty saw when he looked into him like that. One day he would ask him.
“Okay,” Ty finally said on a deep exhale.
“We’ve got a couple hours to wind down, get some real sleep.” Zane waved his hand at the pullout couch.
Ty nodded, his movements not nearly as jerky or tense. He seemed to be coming to terms with what Zane had said, trying to assimilate it. “I’ll be there in a minute. I just need a quick shower,” he said as he pulled off his shirt and headed for the bathroom. The shower began running a moment later.
Zane turned and shut the bedroom door behind him. There was no telling when the storm would break. More privacy and space was better than less with the combined personalities in this little escapade.
He took the time to pull the couch out; then he went to the bedroom and stood beside the bed, looking down at the two men. Julian was awake, and he stared up at him evilly, his dark eyes glazed. Zane reached to take his pulse, checking it against his watch to make sure it was fast enough.
“You’ll live,” he muttered.
“He won’t,” Julian whispered.
Zane stared at him, investigating the feeling the threat gave him. He found himself smiling. “I look forward to your next attempt. He’ll tear you apart.”
Julian didn’t respond, and Zane couldn’t read him. He left the prisoners, closing the door and balancing one of the glasses from the small wet bar on the doorknob. Then he sought out his partner in the shower.
After watching Ty through the wavering plastic for a long moment, Zane reached out and pushed open the curtain. Ty jerked when the shower curtain squealed on its hooks. It was obvious that Zane had startled him, which was an unusual occurrence in itself. Zane stripped as Ty watched him, then stepped inside and closed the curtain behind him. Moving close, he raised a hand and slid it through Ty’s hair, sluicing the water drops away.
Ty raised his head and lifted his face toward the ceiling. “Hey.”
Zane didn’t want to talk about what had happened. He didn’t want anything but his lover to be relaxed and normal—as “normal” as Ty got, anyway. “Are you really okay?”
“Yeah, just… there are some things I need to tell you, Zane. And I want you to know from me, not by finding out from someone else like this. But I can’t… I’m just wrestling with what’s more important to me, my integrity or… you.”
Zane blinked at him, taken aback by the subject. He’d thought Ty had been bothered by the fight. He’d had no idea this was what Ty had been thinking. But then, Zane supposed that was part of Ty’s charm, the jumbled ball of yarn inside his brain that no one could unravel.
He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I think you need to go with what you can sleep with at night.”
“It’s you, Zane.”
Zane smiled wanly as he reached for the soap. “I don’t mean f**k at night, I mean sleep with. Whatever keeps your mind at rest.”
“I know what you meant.”
Zane’s heart did a happy skip as he met Ty’s eyes. He would never get tired of moments like this, when Ty proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Zane was the most important thing in his world. “Tell me?”
Ty licked his lips, watching Zane even as the water beat down on them both. For once his expression wasn’t guarded when Zane started asking questions. “Burns uses me on jobs he can’t put the Bureau on but the CIA doesn’t list as priority. We call them Misfits.”
Zane nodded, licking his lips.
“And I know that he used to use you the same way.”
Zane’s eyes shot up to meet Ty’s, wide and shocked. Ty was looking at him, holding his breath. He nodded. “How?”