Page 6

GRAHAM

“So, I looked into Northern Tactical,”

Kaelin said.

She dragged her brush through a deep blue and applied it to the canvas in front of her. She’d been working quietly on the sky for the better part of an hour. I’d come to see her at her studio and after fucking her on her paint table—one of my favorite things to do—I’d relaxed on the couch with my computer, doing some work while I watched her work her magic.

“You know it’s a global enterprise, right?”

“Yeah,”

I said warily.

She turned to look at me. “Did you know Theron isn’t mentioned anywhere online in association with NorTac? It’s all very vague. In fact, Theron North technically doesn’t exist.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” I said.

She made another few adjustments to the painting before starting on another color combination, tweaking the blue already on the pallet.

“Why the sudden interest? You know North won’t like you snooping around.”

“I didn’t hack into anything—”

she said dryly, flashing me a quick smile. “Nothing West would notice anyway. I’m just curious. Who is Theron North, you know? He hasn’t really told us anything about himself and it's been over a year. Shouldn’t I know more about him by now?”

“I mean, we know each other pretty intimately don’t you think?”

She laughed. “That’s true. I don’t know, I know your skeletons, and I guess I just hoped he’d want to share his by now.”

“Not everyone wants to talk about their past,”

I said gently. “You and I just went through some traumatic survival shit which expedited our sharing.”

“True,”

she said, tilting her head at the painting but her brush had stalled, indicating she was lost in thought. “I think he’s hiding something.”

I barked out a laugh, and when she turned, she raised her eyebrows.

“What’s so funny?”

“Sweetheart, of course he is. Men like that have secrets.”

“I don’t like secrets,”

she grumbled.

I stood up and came over to her, wrapping my arms around her. She set down her paints and turned into my arms, looking up at me.

“He cares about you and would do anything to keep you safe,”

I said. “Isn’t that enough?”

She sighed. “He’s just never who I think he is. One minute he’s aggressively taking what he wants from me in the Warren—and then the next, he’s in my kitchen, making me coffee just the way I like and asking me how I like my eggs—I don’t know. He’s just so confusing sometimes.”

I chuckled. “Our relationship isn’t normal. I mean, if it was, I probably should be more upset about what he did to you in that place. Instead all I can think about is how he kept you safe. In his own way—but safe all the same.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “He’ll share when he’s ready.”

North was a mystery but you could always tell a lot about a person by the people they surrounded themselves with and North’s men were top tier. Their skills alone would have been impressive, but it was the loyalty they demonstrated that was next to none and unlike anything I’d ever seen. They looked at North as though he was a god and if I was being honest I was starting to look at him like that too, and I hadn’t even known him for very long. There was a ruthlessness and precision about him that demanded you sit up and take notice.

I knew from bits and pieces of conversation that Nyx and Atlas had been with him the longest. I didn’t know their story, they were tight lipped about it and would say only that they met under dark circumstances. But that was pretty much all of our stories—if I knew one thing, it was that darkness followed all of us. As much as I wished that didn’t include Kaelin, I knew the shadows followed her too.

“We’re going to go through some CQB drills today—”

I stood in front of a group of ten men, ranging in age but all military. North had made me an instructor at Northern Tactical so I spent my days teaching NorTac contractors everything they needed to know to be successful out in the field. North owned the entire building which meant he’d outfitted it to his specifications. This included several floors of just kill houses where the floor, ceilings and windows were all bullet and sound proofed for live ammunition drills. The building also included floor plans ranging from clearing houses and office buildings, all the way to even a full setup of a desert town—sand included. It was a marvel I’d never seen before and the soldier in me still geeked out every time I got to run drills on any of those floors.

Then there were the gun ranges, both for handguns and rifles, classrooms and of course the offices which sat on the top floors of the building and held panoramic views of the city and the bay beyond. Basically, North had more money than god but that was to be expected when you ran one of the largest military contracting companies in the world and a bit of legal, and also illegal, arms dealing on the side. The entire basement of the office building was an armory that would put most military stockpiles to shame. Nyx and Atlas had walked me in to show me around and I’d been struck speechless so badly Nyx hadn’t been able to stop laughing.

The three of them had slowly been inviting me deeper and deeper into the fold but it was still frustrating to know in my gut Kaelin was right—North was hiding something—I just didn’t know what it was and I didn’t like not being prepared for something that would probably impact me, and definitely Kaelin, when it all came crashing down.

After class, I hung around and talked to a few of the guys and then headed off to the gym showers—because of course he also had a full gym and locker room too—and ran into Nyx finishing up a workout.

“Hey man,”

Nyx grinned. “A few of us are going to Elysium tonight if you want to join.”

I groaned. “Last time I tagged along I was hungover for days afterwards.”

“Yeah, Lach never knows when to stop,”

Nyx chuckled. “Damn Austrians.”

“Is Atlas back?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m dragging him along too,”

Nyx grinned.

“Good—I’ve been meaning to tell him how insufferable you’ve been with him gone,” I teased.

“You too?”

Nyx groaned. “Traitor. Lach already tattled on me. You guys make me sound like some lovesick puppy.”

I raised my eyebrows, a grin pulling at my lips at the apt description.

“Okay, okay,”

Nyx laughed. “So maybe I don’t know what to do with myself when he’s gone—whatever.”

He threw his gym towel at me before putting on his shoes.

“So you coming tonight or what?” He asked.

“Nah, Kaelin is making dinner—I think she wants a date night with the three of us because we’ve been so busy over the last few days.”

“Ah, to be a fly on that wall,”

Nyx smirked, winking at me as he grabbed his gym bag and slung it over his shoulder.

I laughed. “Hey, you just have to ask the boss, and I don’t mean North.”

“Funny, North said the same thing.”

I’d gotten the feeling they’d all shared women before, although Nyx and Atlas were in a relationship with each other—cue the lovesick puppy reference, even though that failed miserably to describe the way they looked at each other. It was more like two gods sending smoldering waves of passion crashing between them at any given moment. It was enough to knock anyone close to them off their feet—even someone as straight as me. Maybe because they were both two extremely masculine men—rugged, violent and vicious—and it was fascinating to see them come together with all that power—I shook my head. North and I weren’t bi but there was no denying we loved the power exchange we got during sex and part of me wondered just how hot it could get if the five of us were in a room, maybe with North directing—fuck.

“It’s hot to think about isn’t it?”

Nyx smirked, and I looked over to see him watching me with a smug expression on his face. He headed towards the door. “Say hi to Killer for me,”

he called over his shoulder, using the nickname Knight had coined for Kaelin when he’d come along with Cal to rescue us in the woods.

Neither of us had realized it in the beginning, but having North around also meant we’d see a lot of his personal TAC team. Some of them were quiet and evasive, like the Russian Volkov Brothers, but others like Nyx, Atlas and Lachlan were really hard not to like. Even West, North’s tech genius, was fun to be around—that is whenever he decided to come out of his cave.

But I knew Kaelin was right—North was hiding something—something his entire team knew about and was executing behind the scenes. I was okay with not knowing, for now, but when shit got hot—and I knew it would because it’s North—I was going to need to know. I just hoped he’d be forthcoming but again, knowing North, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that easy.