I had this feeling before. When I was in the military I always wondered if I would be the one who didn’t get their back covered, just because I was gay. That never happened, whether luck or changed minds, I didn’t know. But Levi, without saying it outright, had made it clear he didn’t appreciate my leadership. He had also barely contained his disdain for Jack, even as the guy stumbled in everyday looking more and more haggard, worried about the goddamned love of his life.
Who evenfoundthe love of their life?Jesus, who even had one to find?
Levi had barely been able to contain his dislike for the whole set up. That included Jack’s brothers, who had treated us with nothing but kindness for the months we were there.
I don’t have the words to describe what it was like to be in that conference room next to Jack Mann as he watched Perrin and Holden Davis on surveillance. It was something burned onmy mind forever, though.
I never saw someone have to watch something that hurt their very soul until that moment.
Over the months of this operation, I had often thought how much I would give for someone to look at me the way Jack and Perrin, separately, looked when they thought of the other. It was enough to make you believe that soulmates might actually be a thing.
I sure put priorities in a different order - and that had led me to let Levi do the arrest, and me to make sure that Jack got to Perrin as soon as was possible. Despite the years I had on this case, making sure Holden was arrested and reuniting these two were now equally important objectives of the mission as far as I was concerned.
Perrin had sacrificed more than should have been asked of him for this to be over. That was on me, because I had done the asking.
As soon as I saw that Levi had actually done his goddamned job and had Holden in custody, I grabbed Jack and got him to the hospital as fast as humanly possible. I still didn’t know what Perrin had been injected with, but Jack was going to be a whole other issue until he saw Perrin.
My radio was on, and two guys big enough to stop Jack if needed were beside him, so I got regular updates on what was happening just a block away.
By the time we arrived, Holden was already taken into custody, something I had made damn sure of before letting Jack on the scene. I had also coordinated the otherteams, and warrants were in hand before Holden was even back to Denver to be booked. I wasn’t taking chances with Holden Davis remaining another moment in Bear Valley - not with Jack’s connections.
I liked Jack more than I liked most people, but sometimes he scared the shit out of me where Perrin was concerned. I didn’t want Jack to have the option to do something anywhere close to what he wouldwantto do if he could get his hands on Holden Davis. For Jack’s own sake, it was better to remove even the possibility.
Now it had been three hours.
Perrin had been given a high dose of ketamine. It was a dirty and brutal way to take someone down. His body was handling it as well as could be expected, and he finally had been trying to come out of it for the past several minutes. Bannon had stitched Perrin up, and temporarily set his broken arm and bandaged fractured ribs.
Jack hadn’t left Perrin’s side for any of that, and Bannon just told them to work around Jack so they did. So, I watched through the window to Perrin’s room, glad Levi was back in Denver now with the transport team and I had stayed behind. I was pacing, trying to shake off my own exhaustion, watching Perrin become more and more lucid as he fought through the pain of such a drug being used, when my phone lit up with a call from Minn.
“Minn? What you got?”
He wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. His task would be to look through what they found at the apartment, but we expected most of it to be digital, and that would take a while to catalogue. I hadn’t expected to hear anything from him this soon.
“He’s got files on every person that died in his OR, Bish,” Minnsaid with a rush. “In paper - in an exceedingly neat file cabinet. You were right. Even some that had complications but didn’t die on the table.”
I felt the breath I was holding rush out of me.Thank God. I had rolled the dice pretty hard with this one, and it paid off.
“What else is it?” I asked, feeling there was something else Minnwanted to say.
“I’m sending you a picture,” Minnsaid. “He was obsessed with Perrin.Obsessed. This is straight serial killer/stalker shit. Scary as fuck,”Minn continued, and I knew it was bad if the normally clean Minn cursed like I usually did. “He would have killed him, Bish,” Minn said flatly, confirming what I had suspected.
“Jack’s with him now, Minn, and I got the confirmation from the bureau in Denver that Holdenhasarrived and being processed. Just make sure we get all that evidence collected correctly.”
By the time I finished up with Minn, Mannsstarted to arrive. Thankfully, Bannon was some sort of Mann-whisperer and had them seated in a conference room before there was an issue about seeing Perrin.
I joined them as quickly as I could, surprised that although they had to imagine Perrin was putting Jack through hell for some relationship reason, they still looked at Perrin as a brother.
“I take it you are not a field agent,” Matt, I think, said flatly.
“Not an EPA field agent, no,” I confessed. “I’m Agent Bishop Frost, FBI.”
I told them what I could about the investigation, but Bannon had already filled them in on Jack and Perrin’s roles.
Due to the amount and severity of the evidence Perrin had given us, I was hopeful for a resolution that was swift and just. I explained that Jack’s placement in helping us allowed him to come to Perrin’s side immediately, although I fell short of actually telling them he had been there to see and hear it all.
I wasn’t that fucking brave.
“Can we see him?” the large quiet one, Baylor,asked me immediately when I was done giving them the best overview I could.
