“I believe you.” He got up and called into the living room for Jem, keeping his voice low. He wasn’t ready to let the others in on anything. Not until the three of them dealt with this new information.
“Dude, what’s up?” Jem asked, his voice rough from sleep.
“Come in here.”
Jem did and Gunner motioned for him to close the door. Since he held the small surveillance camera in his hand, he did so. Placed it where they could all see it but remained standing.
“Landon’s brother—any way he could be a twin? Identical twin?” Gunner asked, and Jem froze.
“Fuck me,” he said finally, and Avery covered her mouth with her hand. “You think he’s pretending to be Landon?”
“I think he’s been around, watching me for a lot longer than I realized,” Gunner said grimly. “Drew Landon’s a bastard, but he’s not a liar.”
“The question is, if Donal’s pretending to be Drew . . . where is Drew?” Jem asked.
“Last I saw him was right before you grabbed me in Bali,” Gunner told him. “I saw him hours before. No tattoo. He was heading back to his island.”
“So wait, did Donal order the beating?” Avery asked. “Because . . . would Drew’s guards take orders from Donal?”
“No, they wouldn’t have,” Gunner said, looked slightly sheepish. “I might’ve mouthed off.”
“To four men with weapons? And they say I’m the crazy one,” Jem muttered.
“None of them really talked to me,” Gunner said. “I was the favorite. They all resented the shit out of me, mainly because I could beat the shit out of them.”
“And Donal got kicked off the island when you arrived,” Jem reminded him. “That’s a damned good reason to resent you. You cost him the family fortune.”
“How do you know he didn’t have money of his own? A business of his own?” Gunner asked. And then he froze in place.
“Gun? Shit, Gunner, what the hell?” Jem shook him and Avery was grabbing his hand as he nearly fell over as the memories hit him.
“The sun,” he whispered. “It was him. It was Donal the whole fucking time.”
Jem and Avery just sat next to him patiently as the slices of memory crowded his brain like a fast-moving slide show, all the pieces falling into place like so many clicks.
“He . . . When I found her . . . Shit . . .” He rubbed his forearm. “It was carved into her arm. The tribal sun. I didn’t even . . . Fuck. I guess I assumed maybe she’d been tattooing herself or . . .”
“Or there was so much going on that night, you didn’t even give it a second thought,” Avery told him firmly. “Donal had to have gone back working for Drew. Got pissed that Drew gave you a second chance and made sure Josie paid for it.”
“He also fucked the job up so badly,” Gunner said slowly.
“Ensuring Landon’s being pissed at you. He figured you’d stay away from Drew because of Josie and because of the fuckup,” Jem finished.
“Strange fucking bedfellows,” Jem muttered.
“So we find Drew or Donal or both. And they both go down,” Avery said decisively.
Gunner nodded. “It’s time to bring this to the group.”
Chapter Twenty-three
They’d been circling one another for the week, not wanting to rile anything up. Gunner refused to leave Avery’s side and, for her sake, peace was kept. That was mainly thanks to Grace, who kept Dare as calm as possible.
“We keep this about Avery for now,” Jem told all of them quietly that first night. Gunner and Dare shook on that.
But now things were coming to a critical point. With Avery resting in the other room with Drea, and the door partially open, the other members of S8 sat at the table and listened to the story Gunner and Jem laid out.
Gunner felt like he was in front of the firing squad—would’ve been, if Jem hadn’t sat next to him, as if ready to defend him.
Crazy, but loyal to a fault. Even when Gunner couldn’t have blamed him if he wasn’t.
So he laid out what happened to Dare, Grace and Key, pausing in places to keep himself together, especially when he spoke about Avery’s attack. “I shouldn’t have left her alone like that. But I’d always been safe there. No one followed us. I don’t know how in the hell Landon knew about that place.”
Dare was struggling with what had happened to Avery. This was his flesh and blood, his responsibility. She’d been brought into this through no fault of her own.
He stared into the man’s eyes now. “Dare, I’m sorry.”
“And you didn’t call us immediately after Avery and Jem brought you back why?” Dare demanded. Grace put a hand on his arm, her face drawn tight. Then she got up and left the kitchen, the door swinging behind her.
Dare watched her leave, then stood and faced away from the group. Several long moments later, he sat back down, his eyes red rimmed. “She’ll be okay,” he said firmly.
“She will,” Jem echoed, and Gunner knew they were somehow talking about both Grace and Avery. Key was sitting there silently, staring at his hands.
This group had already seen enough for a thousand lifetimes, and somehow Gunner had caused the worst of it all.
“It’s my fault,” he said hoarsely.
“And it’s mine too.” Dare cut him off before he could say anything else.
“Fuck, Dare. I never thought . . .” He pulled himself together. “I love your sister.”
“I know. She loves you too. But the future of this team . . . fuck, this isn’t going to work. Not with what happened to Avery,” Dare told them all.
“I agree,” Gunner said quietly. Jem sat back in his chair, arms crossed, not meeting anyone’s eyes, but Key . . . Key was staring at all of them, his expression tight.
“You can’t take that away from her,” Key said in a low, forceful cut this shit tone. “If that’s the decision she makes, fine. But this is up to her. She is the team. Stop treating her like she didn’t know what she was getting into. Give her some goddamned credit.”
“It’s not that easy, Key,” Dare started, but Grace’s voice cut him off. Gunner didn’t know when she’d come back into the room, but it didn’t matter, not when she echoed Key’s sentiments.
“It might not be easy, but it has to be that easy.”
“Avery’s the reason S8 came together. She’s the reason we all pulled together. She’s the goddamned glue of this team, and she dealt with all of our shit and forced us to pull it together,” Jem concurred. “We can’t let her down now.”
“Give her a chance to heal, Gunner.” Grace’s hands were on his shoulders. “Stop blaming yourself. She won’t be able to heal if she knows you’re doing that.”
Gunner knew she was right, but it was so much easier said than done. For a long while, there was silence in the kitchen. Grace went about making coffee quietly, put the first cup down in front of Dare. When she caught his eye, she smiled and Gunner watched the man’s face light up.
Dare smiled at Grace and said, “Avery brought me back from the edge. If it hadn’t been for her, I don’t know what would’ve happened when I met Grace. I was angry. Unpredictable. Living in solitude and she woke me up.” Dare sounded broken.
Grace put her arms around him, stared at Gunner and asked, “How are we going to take Landon down? Because if we have a plan in place to present to Avery, I think she’ll feel less like we’re doing this for her.”
“I have a copy of Landon’s file from the CIA.” Jem left the room and came back just as quickly, placing the CIA confidential folder on the table between them. “It’s mainly about Gunner—James, actually—his jobs from the past six months. I don’t think there’s anything in there that ties him to Landon.”