Absolution (The Protectors, Book 1) (18 page)

I nodded because I was too overwhelmed to speak. I’d meant to tell Jonas about my past when I was stronger…when I no longer had to worry about losing him over the betrayal I’d inflicted on him.

“He used you, Mace! He used your grief and turned it into something cruel and ugly. Because the man I’ve come to know and love doesn’t enjoy going around killing people! If he’d cared for you even a little, he would have helped you find a way to live with your loss instead of exploiting it!”

I hadn’t missed Jonas’s indirect admission of love but I couldn’t focus on it so I said, “Jonas, I knew what I was signing up for-”

“How could you? You were so filled with hate and anger and pain that you couldn’t have known what it would do to you.”

I felt my whole body go tight at Jonas’s words. He couldn’t know the toll my work had taken on me over the years. He couldn’t know the same darkness that had consumed me after Evan’s death had started to bleed back into me little by little with each life I took.

But he grabbed my face and said, “I get it, Mace. You wanted to protect kids like Evan and you did it the only way you knew how. But you’re not like that monster who took Evan from you. You don’t take pleasure in taking a life…any life!”

“I need you to be safe,” I whispered.

“And I need you to be whole.”

I closed my eyes to try and get my bearings but all I saw was the red laser sight bouncing on Jonas’s chest as we’d stood in the gallery. If I’d been looking somewhere else or if my reflexes had been even a millisecond slower…

I steeled myself as I opened my eyes. I closed my hand over one of Jonas’s wrists where he continued to gently cup my face. “I love you too much not to do this,” I finally said.

Jonas’s face fell and he dropped his hands. “And I love you too much to let you.” With that, Jonas left the kitchen and I heard his footsteps retreat up the stairs.

Cole

I only half listened as Mace and Ronan discussed the plans for finding Eduardo. While I was glad to finally have a name to go with the threat against Jonas, I couldn’t help but wish the three of us could stay in our little bubble for a little while longer.

I knew I was in love with both men. I’d suspected it when Mace and I made love to Jonas and I’d known for sure the second I saw the unknown car driving up the driveway. Mace had been doing a perimeter check and I’d been torn between checking on him and making sure Jonas was safe. I’d managed to do both but it was my fear that had made me realize that what I felt for Mace and Jonas went beyond attraction, beyond just being thrown together by highly charged circumstances.

For every mission I’d ever been on in my eleven-year career in the Navy, I’d never once let my emotions control anything I did in the field. The moniker of Ice Man had been borne of my complete and total focus, decisiveness and self-control. But they were the same qualities that now eluded me as I considered the pain and hurt Jonas and Mace were inflicting upon each other. As devastated as I was at the prospect of my sister’s murderer going free, I was more worried about the impact it was having on Jonas and what would happen if Mace followed through on his plan to kill Eduardo and Mateo.

Because I knew deep down that Jonas was right. You never walked away unscathed after you ended a man’s life. Never. It didn’t matter who the man was.

As I got up from the kitchen table, Mace gently grabbed my wrist to stop me from leaving. I saw the unspoken question in his eyes and I nodded. We were okay.

“I’m just going to take Jonas the phone so he can call Casey.”

Mace nodded but he held my hand for a second longer before releasing me. I grabbed the burner phone off the counter and went upstairs. I expected to find Jonas in the small bedroom that he’d spent the first night in but he wasn’t there. He was in our bedroom.

Ours
.

God, I needed that in my life. I needed to share everything with Mace and Jonas. I didn’t want to ever go back to it being just me. And as much as I loved each man individually, I needed it to be all three of us. I knew logistically it would be a challenge for the three of us to build a life together. People would pass judgement on us and even the most open minded ones would question how three men could have what we did. And if by some miracle I managed to get my father back to a lucid state, I wasn’t sure he would accept my men. Hell, I didn’t even know how he’d react to me being with even one man. My parents had always been accepting of homosexuals and had supported their fight to be treated as equals, but it was different when it was your own son.

The door to the master bedroom was closed, but I didn’t bother knocking. Jonas was sitting on the edge of the far side of the bed, staring out the window.

“Here,” I said as I handed him the phone. “Make sure your friend is okay.”

“Thanks,” Jonas murmured as he took the phone. I was glad to see he hadn’t been crying but he looked so heartbroken that he may as well have been.

“He’ll be okay, Jonas.”

“I won’t,” Jonas whispered.

I tilted his chin up to force him to look at me. His eyes were shrouded with so much pain that I knelt down in front of him and put my hands on his hips. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I can’t be the reason he loses a little more of himself,” Jonas said. “I want Eduardo and Mateo to pay for what they did. I want them stopped. But I don’t want him to be the one who does it.”

I didn’t really know how to respond since I understood what Jonas was saying. But I also knew that even if Mateo and Eduardo both ended up behind bars, they could still reach Jonas.

Jonas must have sensed my hesitation because he said, “I need to call Casey.”

I nodded and released Jonas and stood. I told myself all this would right itself once Mace had eliminated all the threats against Jonas, but as I looked over my shoulder and saw Jonas still sitting exactly as I’d left him, head hung, phone lax in his hand, I started to seriously wonder if any of us would be able to come back from this.

By the time I got back downstairs, Ronan was gone and Mace was sitting in the same spot at the kitchen table. But I stilled when I saw the bottle of beer sitting in front of him on the table. It was still full and capped but the way he was looking at it…

I sat down in the chair next to Mace and watched him as he studied the bottle of beer.

“My friends used to make fun of me in high school because I refused to even take a sip of alcohol at parties,” Mace said quietly. “I saw what it did to some of them – how it made even the smartest guys do the stupidest things. I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize my chances of getting into the academy so I never even tried it.”

“The police academy?” I asked.

Mace nodded. “I knew when I was a little kid that that’s what I was going to be when I grew up. Perfect childhood, perfect job, wife, kid…I did everything right and it paid off.”

“How did you meet your wife?”

“I arrested her,” Mace said with a chuckle.

“Really?”

“Yeah. She was part of an animal rights protest outside this lab where they did animal testing. She and a bunch of others had chained themselves to the front door so no one could get in or out. When I arrested her, she called me some pretty choice names. Even took a swing at me. I knew right then that she was the one for me.”

I laughed at that. “What happened?”

“She came by the precinct to apologize. She actually asked me out before I even got the chance. A year later we were married and Evan was on the way.” Mace looked up at me. “What about you? Was there anyone special?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “A couple girls here and there in school. Lots of women between deployments but those were more about convenience,” I admitted.

“No guys?”

I laughed. “No. This” – I motioned between us – “was a complete surprise. What about you? Did you always know?”

Mace nodded. “I knew when I was maybe twelve or thirteen that my attraction to guys was just as strong as it was to women, more so even. I fooled around with some guys in high school but it was always in secret. I finally told my parents when I was eighteen and I wanted to bring my first serious boyfriend home to meet them. We’d met in the academy. The relationship didn’t last but my parents barely even blinked. They were just as welcoming to him as they’d been to the girls I’d dated.”

“And Shel?”

“She knew I was bi. It didn’t bother her – she knew she was it for me.”

I hated even needing to ask but the not knowing was killing me. “Are you still in love with her?”

Mace didn’t even hesitate when he said, “I still love her but I’m
in
love with you and Jonas.”

I sucked in my breath at that because I hadn’t expected the admission. At least not for me.

“It’s the same, if you’re wondering,” I heard Mace say and I forced my eyes up, not even realizing I’d dropped them.

“What is?”

“What I feel for you. It’s just as strong as what I feel for Jonas. I wouldn’t be able to choose between you. I won’t,” he added firmly.

Something tight deep inside of me released. I
had
been worried that I was the odd man out in our relationship.

“Me too,” I said and then I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you too,” I said against his mouth.

A pent up rush of air fled Mace’s lips and I realized he’d been struggling with the same feelings. I sealed my mouth over his and kissed him until we were both breathless before I released him and sat back down. As much as I would have liked to revel in this new development, I knew I needed to try and figure out how to mend the rift between Jonas and Mace.

“Mace, how did you meet Ronan?”

Mace began toying with the bottle of beer. “It was a year after Evan’s death before the cops finally found the guy who did it. I’d taken a leave of absence from the force after we lost him and I’d started drinking every day to try and deal with it. The news that they had him helped snap me out of it but when the trial finally rolled around, everything went to hell and I just lost it.”

“Was he acquitted?” I asked.

Mace nodded. “His attorney got this rookie cop to admit he’d fucked up the chain of custody with the DNA evidence. Fucker smiled at me and Shel when he walked out of the court room a free man. Told us he was sorry for our loss.”

“I’m sorry, Mace,” I said as I covered his hand with mine.

“Nothing mattered after that. Not my marriage, not my job, nothing. I drank until I blacked out. I fucked anything that moved and didn’t even try to hide it. I stole money from Shel and my parents to buy booze and if anyone got in my way…”

“Your dad?” I asked, remembering Mace’s admission about striking out at his father.

“He tried to take my keys away from me after he came to my house to check on me. Shel had already left me by then and I was stumbling around in the garage trying to get in my car.” Mace choked up and his fingers laced with mine and squeezed hard.

“I left him there on the floor of my garage covered in blood. I didn’t even remember doing it until I saw him the next day, his face all bruised up. I left after that. Never spoke to him or my mom again. I started staying in shitty motels and drinking myself into a stupor every night. When it got to be too much, I bought a gun off the streets. I met Ronan a couple weeks after I was released from the psych ward.”

“How’d you meet?”

“He found me. No idea how. I was just sitting in this bar and there he was. He asked me all sorts of questions about my past, my job as a cop. I finally told him to fuck off. When he wouldn’t stop hassling me, I took a swing at him. Then the cops showed up and I spent the night in the drunk tank. A cop I used to work with told me the news the next morning when he released me.”

“What news?”

“My son’s killer was murdered the night before. Shot execution style in his own house.”

“Fuck,” I murmured.

“The cop said if I hadn’t been in the drunk tank, I’d have been their first suspect.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Ronan set you up so you’d have an alibi.”

Mace nodded. “The guy raped another boy a few months after he was acquitted. The kid survived but had brain damage from lack of oxygen. The fucker had strangled him and left him for dead but some hikers found him in time.”

“So Ronan took him out.”

“He approached me a few days later. Offered me a chance to make sure what happened to Evan didn’t happen to other kids. He got me sober and then gave me a reason to stay that way.”

Mace looked at the beer in front of him. “I like testing myself,” he said as he fingered the label. “I like knowing I’m still stronger than it.” Mace twisted the top off the beer and then rose and went to the sink and dumped it out.

“Jonas was right, wasn’t he?” I said.

Mace leaned against the counter but didn’t look at me. “They were just monsters to me at first. I only saw the face of the man who killed my son when I looked through the scope of my rifle. I only heard Evan calling out for me when I pulled the trigger. Then I started seeing everything else. Their wives, their kids…the people who loved them because they didn’t know the evil that lay beneath the suit and tie or the high powered job or the charming smile. The way my parents and Shel and Evan loved me.”

“You’re not like those men, Mace,” I said.

“You sure about that, Cole? Because I wonder every time I pull that trigger if I’m doing it to protect future victims or if I’m doing it to avenge one past one.”

I got up and went to stand behind Mace who was still leaning over the sink, his fingers gripping the edge. I wrapped my arms around him from behind and said, “Then don’t do this, Mace. We’ll find another way.”

Mace’s hand came up to cover one of mine. “He’ll never be safe, Cole. You know that.”

Mace turned around to face me. “One last job and I’m out.” Mace kissed me before pulling free of my hold. “I’m going to go get some air.”

I watched him leave the kitchen and heard the front door open and close. I went on autopilot after that and started preparing the dinner that I knew no one would eat.

* * *

When I opened the door to the master bedroom, I was pleased to see two things. One, that Jonas had eaten a little bit of the dinner I’d left on the nightstand while he’d been in the shower and two, that he’d found the sketchpad and pencils I’d left on the bed for him. He was so engrossed with whatever he was sketching that he didn’t even notice me until I stopped next to the bed.

“Thank you,” he said as he lifted the sketchpad just a little. I nodded and climbed on the bed next to him and leaned back against the headboard. I’d bought the sketchpad the day before when I’d gone to check on my father. With all that had happened, it felt like a lifetime ago.

“The guy at the store picked out the pencils since I didn’t know which ones would work.”

“They’re perfect,” Jonas said and he leaned over and kissed me. I could tell that drawing had relaxed him because his whole body seemed more at ease. Unfortunately, his eyes still looked haunted.