Raiden
Raiden’s headswam as he tried to process the information Cash had unloaded on him. After not trusting the guy for so long, though, he couldn’t deny the truth of what he’d heard. Of course his father’s heart attack had been caused by the factory. He hadn’t drank, hadn’t smoked, hadn’t done anything but take good care of himself and his family. Raiden grew up thinking that the heart attack was a freak accident, but now that the truth was in front of him, it seemed bare and obvious.
And that meant all the rest of his shit teenage years could have been avoided, too. He shouldn’t have been left with his homophobic mother or beaten by her new boyfriend. He shouldn’t have been forced out of the house and into a life where the only thing he knew was fighting to keep himself safe.
He shouldn’t have been alone all those years, scared and lashing out because he didn’t know any other way to keep himself safe.
But sitting on the couch in his apartment, watching Cash unload the contents of the hard drive onto his laptop, Raiden didn’t feel alone, not really. It was like Cash had said: the three of them had more in common than Raiden realized. And if Cash really was trying to take Lawrence’s father down, his life wasn’t that different from the life Raiden lived back in Albany, chasing down local assholes with his friends and taking revenge for the innocent when he could find it.
Lawrence returned from the other room, where he had gone to compose himself. His pink tie was loosened and the top button of his shirt undone, and his eyelids drooped. He crossed straight over to the couch, then plopped down by Raiden while Cash squinted at the computer.
“You doing okay?” Raiden asked.
Lawrence nodded, a few of his curls bobbing. “I’m okay. Are you?”
Raiden shook out his fist. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
Lawrence rested his hand on Raiden’s bicep, and Raiden felt his breath hitch in response to the gentle touch. “I didn’t mean your injuries. Are you handling the information about your father okay?”
Another surge of conflicted emotions went through Raiden, but he gritted his teeth and nodded. “I’ll feel better when I clobber whoever was in charge of that factory.”
“Here we go,” Cash said, turning the laptop toward them. His hair was tousled, and the left side of his face was scraped and red. Raiden figured the guy had a decent chance of developing a black eye, although he couldn’t tell if he felt guilty about that or not. “Lawrence, has you ever met someone named Senator Dooley through your father?”
Lawrence blinked, then rose back to his feet. “Of course. They’ve known each other for years. He’s always hanging out with lobbyists.”
“The senator from Pennsylvania,” Cash said, and Raiden rose to his feet, too. “He got his start in politics as the State Treasurer, back when your father was accepting his first executive gigs with Horizon Zed. They’ve been working together for years. Here, check it out.”
Raiden stepped over, glancing at the screen while Cash scrolled through scans of contracts, old email communications, and other records. Most of it didn’t make a damn bit of sense to him, but he got the point. “Lawrence’s dad and this senator are old buds,” he said. “That’s what you were looking for in his office?”
Cash shook his head. “I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I did know that men like him tended to keep their best secrets at home, instead of at work. The files went deep, but I didn’t want to take so much that it aroused suspicion, so when I spotted Dooley’s name, I grabbed it and ran. I’ve had my eye on the senator for a minute, but I could never really get to the bottom of what he was doing.”
“What is he doing?” Lawrence asked.
Cash shrugged. “It will take some time to tell, and I’m sure the most damning information has probably been erased. But I’ve got a second half to this puzzle, some files that I pulled from the senator’s office. I know from my research that he’s working on something big with a few executives in Horizon Zed, a new project that should go live soon, and based on their history, something big for them is bad news for the rest of us.” He clicked around through the files for a minute, then turned the screen toward them again, displaying a spreadsheet. “One thing is clear—they’re planning to build a hell of a lot more factories.”
Raiden and Lawrence turned to each other, and Raiden searched Lawrence’s face as though he might find an answer there, some clue to what he was supposed to do next. It was one thing to guard the kid when he was out drinking and dancing. Now that they were talking about crooked senators, he felt the ground shift beneath his feet, and he began to doubt his ability to keep Lawrence safe.
“If there’s a way to stop them,” Lawrence said quietly, “then I think I have to help.” He lowered his hand onto Cash’s shoulder, and Cash winced, jerking in the chair. “Oh!” Lawrence yelped, stepping back. “Sorry.”
Cash put his hand on his shoulder with a wince. “It’s okay,” he answered.
“No,” Raiden said. “It’s not. Take your fucking shirt off.”
Cash titled his head. “Raiden, I’m flattered, I really am. But as I keep insisting, this simply isn’t the time for hanky-panky.”
Raiden shot air out his nose and resisted the urge to shove Cash out of his chair. “I’m not coming onto you, you twerp. But I know how badly I beat you up. Let me get a look at those injuries and make sure you don’t need medical attention.”
“I wouldn’t say you beat me up badly,” Cash muttered. “Had I not been distracted, in fact, I probably would have—”
Raiden cleared his throat, then pointed at Cash. “Off.”
It was kind of fun, actually, ordering the guy around. Especially once he started to obey. Raiden tried not to take too much pleasure in watching Cash unbutton his shirt. When he seemed to struggle to move his arm at the right angle to take it off, Lawrence stepped forward and helped him slide it back.
The extent of the damage was about what Raiden expected, with heavy red markings that would bloom into blue, purple, and green bruises over time. Cash’s body was slim but muscular, and he packed a lot more strength into his compact frame than Raiden had thought. What really struck him, though, were the scars, including two thick marks that must have come from a knife and one old bullet wound in his side.
Raiden took Cash’s arm, then slowly lifted and rotated it, feeling out the tension and pressure as it turned.
“I take it you know what you’re doing?” Cash asked, then groaned softly as Raiden pressed on his back.
