Prologue
JONAS
“Welcome home, Mr. Davenport.”
“Thanks, James,” I murmured as I gave the pilot a quick nod. Even after more than four years of flying back and forth from Paris to the States via the luxurious private jet, I still hadn’t managed to get the pilot, co-pilot or flight attendant to call me by my first name. It was always Mr. Davenport…a name I still hadn’t gotten used to using again after so many years of not needing it. In truth, I hadn’t been a Davenport in a very long time – not since the day my father called me a faggot and gave me five minutes to pack my shit and get out. I’d only been fourteen at the time but luckily I’d been smart enough to leave things like my comic books and video games behind in favor of a few changes of clothes, my savings account passbook, the twenty-three dollars in quarters I’d been stuffing into my Spiderman piggy bank for the better part of a year and of course, my sketchbook. I’d hated leaving behind my carefully mixed paints and brushes but I’d had hopes that my parents would ultimately store them, along with the dozens of paintings littering the walls of my room, until I could come and get them. They didn’t.
Being a Davenport had never been easy but I’d done it surprisingly well. Probably because I’d learned quickly that if my parentswere pleased with how I came off to those in their social circle, I was more likely to get something out of the deal. I traded in my good grades, perfect manners and unfettered obedience for art supplies and classes and nearly weekly excursions to every art museum throughout New England. That is, until I turned thirteen and my parents decided my genius IQ should be nurtured at an elite boarding school in Switzerland. Which had nothing to do with the fact that they were planning a yearlong excursion traveling the world on their friends’ yacht, they’d assured me repeatedly in the months and days before I left.
Exactly one year later I was back home in my parents’ stately Beacon Hill penthouse trying to explain why I’d been expelled for kissing the son of a very wealthy British Ambassador. The obvious explanation that I’d kissed said boy because I’d wanted to hadn’t netted me the lecture I’d thought it would…it had earned me a one-way ticket out the front door with my mother looking on, tears streaking down her perfectly made up face. I’d felt an obscene surge of hope at the sight and waited for her to step in to stop the whole thing, but that had only lasted as long as it had taken for me to hear her ask my father whyI’ddone this tothem. It was then that I’d finally understood that the tears weren’tforme, they werebecauseofme.
After that, home stopped being a physical place for me and it wasn’t until almost a year later that I found out that home didn’t always mean a roof over your head.
“Jonas!”
I nearly tripped on the top step of the stairs leading down from the jet to the tarmac when I heard the high-pitched squeal and I couldn’t help the broad smile that spread across my face at the sight of my family standing in front of the Suburban SUV, a huge paper banner that readWelcome Home Jonasstrung out between their hands. My eyes fell on the two children who were bouncing up and down, skimmed briefly over the tall, dark-haired man desperately trying to hold on to the giant Mastiff tugging to escape his hold and then finally settled on the young woman in the middle. Even from where I stood in the doorway to the jet, I could see tears spilling down hercheeks. She was my home. She had been from the moment she’d saved my life eight years earlier.
“Uncle Dev!” the little girl shouted to the man behind her and I could see he was holding her by the collar of her dress to keep her from charging me the way she clearly wanted. I guessed he didn’t want her anywhere near the jet’s engines as they wound down, so I quickly hurried down the stairs and toward the car. Once I crossed whatever invisible line the man had set in his mind, he let go of the dog and the little girl at the same time. Amazingly, the little girl got to me first but the dog wasn’t far behind.
“Hi baby girl,” I said as I gathered the child’s body in my arms and lifted her just as the Mastiff slammed into me. I was used to Sampson’s tactics though, so I managed to stay upright as I gave him a quick pat.
“Mama says you’re not leaving again,” the little girl said as she grabbed my cheeks and held me still as if needing to look me in the eye to determine if I was telling the truth when I answered.
“Your mama is right, Izzy,” I said. Her ear-splitting shriek had me biting back another smile as the eight-year-old threw her spindly arms around my neck. Hearing Isabel Prescott refer to my best friend as her mother was still an oddity for me. Not because I doubted the relationship Casey had with the little girl who was actually her niece, but because Izzy ironically still called Devlin Prescott, Casey’s husband, her uncle even though he wasn’t related to her by blood, but had been in her life longer than even the mother who had died shortly before Isabel’s fourth birthday. But I’d seen enough to know that Devlin and Izzy’s relationship was that of a father and daughter and the lack of using a certain title or shared DNA wouldn’t ever change that.
As I crossed the tarmac with Izzy rattling off questions in my ear, I hugged twelve-year-old Ryan Prescott who looked more and more like his father with each passing year. “You staying out of trouble?” I asked, as I ruffled Ryan’s hair.
“No!” Izzy answered for him and Ryan actually blushed. “He likes a girl,” Izzy announced and poor Ryan looked mortified.
I chuckled and bumped his fist with mine. “Nice,” I said.
“We’re just friends,” Ryan said sheepishly.
“Nuh-uh,” Izzy said, to which Ryan’s blush grew considerably.
“That’s my cue,” Devlin Prescott said as he reached out and took Izzy in his arms. Then his big arm was wrapping around me and even though we were nearly the same height, I couldn’t help but feel the warmth spread through me at the contact. Not only had this man changed Casey’s life for the better, he’d done the same for me and he’d gone a step further and become a surrogate father. “Welcome home, Jonas,” Devlin said softly in my ear.
I found myself overcome with emotion, so instead of answering, I just hugged him tighter. But as soon as I turned my attention to Casey, I lost it and began crying as I tugged her into my embrace. The fact that her slim arms wrapped around my neck like a vise had me closing my eyes, because it was something I would never get used to. In the three years that Casey and I had spent on the run together, she’d rarely hugged me and on the few occasions I’d touched her in an effort to provide comfort, she’d always flinched and pulled away. But Devlin had somehow fixed that too.
By the time Casey finally released me, we were both a mess and she laughed and reached up to wipe at my face with the edge of her sleeve before doing the same to her own. I, in the meantime, let my eyes drop to her very prominent baby bump. I lifted them back up to meet hers as I let one of my hands rest on her belly, but neither of us spoke. We didn’t have to. We both knew that we’d been incredibly lucky to end up here in this place. The scar that I could feel through the thin fabric of her shirt was a reminder of how close I’d come to losing her and the slight flutter of motion against my palm was proof that she’d found the life she was meant to have.
Now if I could only figure out how to do the same.
Chapter 1
MACE
For what was probablythe thousandth time, I looked through the scope of my rifle and rested my finger on the trigger as I drew in a breath and held it. The dank smell of mold permeated my nostrils as I focused on the scene before me, and I cursed the fact that the only window that had a good view of the building across the street was in the cramped bathroom. I supposed I could have gotten used to the mold if that had been the only issue with the confined space but it was the stench of rotting eggs wafting out of the broken toilet that really did me in. I’d made the mistake of lifting the plastic lid on the very first day as I’d scoped out the place to figure out the different views the two-bedroom apartment offered, and now every time I jammed my body into the narrow space between the toilet and the leaky shower, I had to bite back the revulsion of knowing the nastiness that was just inches from me.
The prudent thing to do would have been to call the maintenance guy to come fix the shitter but since I’d already made an impression with paying three months of rent up front in cash, I wasn’t exactly looking to become memorable in any other way. And since there was a second bathroom in the place that didn’t actually rival the portable toilets you only used when you absolutely had to,I’d figured I could live with the noxious smell and God-awful image that was burned into my brain long enough to do my job and get out. That had been my thought three weeks ago when I’d first spied my target through the scope on my M23 semi-automatic sniper rifle. Yet here I was, twenty-one long days later, my burning muscles protesting the same unnatural position I had forced them into and my tortured nose sending a reminder to my tired brain to get some fucking nose plugs or grow a pair and finally pull the goddamn trigger.
I’d like to say that my phone ringing at that exact moment was the reason I let up on the trigger and flipped the cover down over the scope, effectively obliterating my target from view. But I knew that was complete shit because I’d already made the decision long before theBlue Oyster Cultringtone started playing on my phone. I lowered the rifle and leaned back against the wall as the sounds ofDon’t Fear the Reaperchimed through the small room. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the phone and swiped to answer it without looking at the caller ID because I already knew who it was.
“You fucking changed my ringtone?” I snapped as I dropped my head back against the wall and turned so I could keep an eye on my mark.
“It’s a classic,” the voice on the other end said. “And it beats the hell out of that classical shit you listen to.”
I didn’t bother arguing because I’d likely end up with a boy band song next if I made too much of an issue out of it. I also didn’t ask what the caller wanted because I already knew that he wouldn’t bother wasting my time or his if he didn’t have something of value to share. It was one of the many things I respected about Mav. It was also the reason I chose Mav as my second whenever he wasn’t out on his own assignment.
