Page 21 of My End (Iron Fiends #10)

Stretch

Jim didn’t even look up from his clipboard when I walked into the command room. The early morning sun had fully crested the trees, and the air was already heavy. Thick with tension. I knew something was up. I just hadn’t expected it to hit this fast.

“You’re on gate duty starting today,” Jim said and scribbled something down.

I blinked. “Gate duty?”

“You heard me. Full shift. You and Freddie. Get moving.”

“Since when?”

Jim finally looked at me, and his lips twisted into something close to a smirk. “Since Boone decided to make a switch. Kevin’s back on his detail. You’re at the gate.”

“Right,” I muttered, trying not to bristle. “Any reason why?”

“I don’t ask. I just relay the orders.”

His eyes said more than his mouth did, though. He was watching me. Measuring. Like he was waiting for me to push back and give him a reason to dig deeper. I didn’t bite.

I nodded slowly, my jaw tight. “Copy that.”

I headed down the driveway, my boots kicking up dust along the packed path. Gate duty. The furthest point from the mansion. Away from Boone. Away from the center of things. Away from Tilly.

My fists curled.

I hadn’t seen this coming.

By the time I made it to the gatehouse, Freddie was already halfway through a stale bagel and halfway through a crossword puzzle.

“Well, shit,” he said with a grin. “They finally decided to grace me with Jake.”

I dropped onto the stool beside him and ignored the plastic chair’s groan beneath my weight. “Seems that way.”

“Any idea what you did?” he asked and tossed the bagel back into the crumpled wrapper.

“Not a clue.”

Freddie gave me a look like he didn’t believe a word of it. I didn’t blame him. I didn’t believe it either.

But I wasn’t about to lay it all out for him.

Instead, I focused on the passing cars. The guard logs. The mindless rotation of faces and vehicles. My ears tuned to every radio transmission. Every bit of chatter that might hint at what was going on.

Boone didn’t make moves without reason. If I was off his detail, it meant one of two things: he was getting paranoid, or he was about to make a move and didn’t want me close when it went down.

Neither was good.

The hours dragged. By early afternoon, the sun had turned the inside of the gatehouse into a goddamn oven. Freddie snored softly from the back corner while I leaned on the windowsill, my eyes scanning the curve of the drive.

No Tilly.

I hadn’t seen her all day. Not even a flash of wild hair or those soft, flowy skirts she liked to wear.

Last night, I’d shown up ready to spill whatever version of the truth I could manage, and she’d looked at me like I was exactly the man she’d been waiting for. She opened her studio to me, showed me that damn painting. A piece of her soul, really.

And I’d kissed her. Touched her. Made love to her like she was mine.

I had managed to tell her a little bit of truth about me, but she still saw me as Jake.

Jake was the man she trusted. The man she wanted.

Stretch was the one lying to her. Stretch was the one waiting to take down Boone and Gibbs to burn their whole operation to the ground.

If she ever found out the full truth of what I was doing and why I was here, she might never look at me the same way again.

I couldn’t lose her.

Which meant I had to finish what I started.

And fast.

By dusk, the air had cooled just enough that I could finally breathe without feeling like my lungs were boiling. Freddie passed me a lukewarm water bottle and let out a long sigh.

“You hear anything?” I asked casually.

“About what?”

“Just... anything new going on with Boone or Gibbs?”

Freddie raised a brow. “I hear a lot of things, Jake, but I don’t remember any of it. That’s part of our job, right?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I guess it just irks me that I’m out here and don’t know why. You sure you don’t know why?”

Freddie snorted. “Only thing I heard today is that Kevin’s been glued to Boone like white on rice. And Gibbs has been locked in the office making calls all damn afternoon. Something’s up, but it ain’t got nothing to do with us and this gate.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “You’re probably right.” I couldn’t press him anymore without raising suspicion. I was just going to have to figure out how to get back in the house and get my ass in gear before it was too late.