Cam frowned. “Of course I do. You’re my brother. It’s yourjob.”
“Nah,” Bas said. “Not just because you’re my brother. I admire the hell out of you. I’d want to be your friend even if we didn’t shareDNA.”
Cam looked surprised, stunned even, and Bas realized that, like so many things, he’d waited too long to saythis.
“Mom and Dad would be so fucking proud of you,” he said, smiling just a little as Cam’s eyes filled with tears. “At the confident guy you’ve become. You’re the best thing they ever did for me, and that’s thetruth.”
“Oh, shut the fuckup!” Cam complained, thumping Bas in the thigh with his fist. He swiped at the tears that rolled down his cheeks. “God, I have cried enough tears today to last me for the rest of theyear.”
“No shit,” Bas said, taking a deep breath. A knot in his stomach loosened. “The rest of my damnlife.”
Cam gave him a soft smile. “You wanna talk aboutit?”
Bas nodded and looked up as the kind agent reappeared. A man wearing the same elegant blue scrubs as Bas trailed behind him. “But not toyou.”
“M’kay.” Cam stood and stretched. “I’ll be with Cort if you need anything.” He winked the man in scrubs, and gave the agent a thankful smile as they walked outtogether.
The man in the heinous blue scrubs walked forward until he stood directly in front ofBas.
“Are you speaking to me yet?” hewhispered.
Bas looked up, past the borrowed clothes, past the white bandage on his cheek, to the brown eyes - strong as whiskey, sweet as honey - he’d spent precious minutes thinking he’d never seeagain.
“Always,” he told Drew. He stood up and Drew fell back a pace, but Bas grabbed his hands and yanked him forward. “I will always speak to you, even when you piss me off and terrify the shit out of me. I will always want you, even when you absolutely destroy me. And you will always be my bestfriend.”
“Even when you hate me?” Drew teased. “Seriously, who thinks their boyfriend is dead and whispers ‘I hateyou’?”
But Bas wasn’t ready to joke about it yet. Wasn’t sure he ever would be. “Maybe the kind of guy whose boyfriend pushed him aside and was ready to take a bullet?” he growled. “Andrew McMann, you have no idea what I thought when I looked at you, when I saw you covered, head-to-toe in blood. My life ended in that minute, and I…” He choked on the words and shook hishead.
“Hush,” Drew said. “Hush, baby. It’sokay.”
Bas blew out a breath and wrapped his arms around Drew. “Yeah. It is. But Jesus Christ, that was a close call. If Ilya hadn’t gotten Cort’s gun inthatsecond? If he’d hesitated before pulling the trigger?” The very thought still made shivers dance up hisspine.
“But he didn’t,” Drew said soberly. “I feel so awful for him,Sebastian.”
Bas coasted a hand up and down Drew’s spine, thrilling at the warm solidity of the man in front of him.Alive, alive,alive.
Unlike Alexei, whose blood had been spattered all over the tiny supply closet… all over Drew. Drew had walked away with nothing more than a cut on his face from scratching his cheek on the shelving when Bas had yanked himdown.
“I do too, baby. I can’t imagine having to make a choice like that. He loved his son more than anything, but he killed him to prevent him from doing any more evil.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I could be asstrong.”
The look on Ilya’s face, when Sean Cook and his team had burst through the door a few moments later, would haunt Bas for the rest of his life. “I killed him,” Ilya had sobbed. “Shoot me,please.”
“Gary said Ilya has a concussion, and some kidney damage from thebeating.”
“He came?” Basasked.
Drew nodded. “Said he was going to visit Ilya’s nephew, too. Dmitri. Apparently, he’s not doing verywell.”
Bassighed.
They were both bloodstained and disgusting, exhausted and strung-out, with scars that might never heal, but at least they were together. That was theonlything thatmattered.
