Cold Hard Truths 1: Vices (22 page)

“I’d report to Ros once or twice a year, collecting all the information I could on ENAD, the programs, the government, whoever was running the state. It helped. It helped Ros gain political leverage over other candidates, and finally, it felt like things were going to change, that things were going to be different.”

“Things are different,” I snapped. He watched me through his dark eyelashes. “We lost good members of our team; we’ve killed people for God knows what reasons; we wasted time on pointless missions; and we have nothing to show for it, all because of Roscora fucking Deleviv.” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “When you said you couldn’t be mine…I never thought it would be because of a man like him.”

Carver stared up at the gigantic tubes of wiring that were covering the sky. “The first time Ros and I were together was when I was seventeen. It was my decision and it’s one thing I’ll never regret. He gave me a purpose in life, made me feel welcome and warm and loved. And he does, Jones. He does love me. But he’s turned me into the person I am today. He’s turned me into a man who can never go anywhere without looking over his shoulder, a man who’s fucked other people to move his way up the food chain, a man who can barely stand to look at himself in the mirror.”

I turned to him, expecting, only momentarily, to see some flicker of pain on his beautiful face. But there was only resolve, and I felt like a fool for anticipating anything different.

“Roscora Deleviv is a good man. He’s going to be everything this city needs. He’s going to fix its problems and make it into something alive again, someplace where people can live without fear. He has blood on his hands. We all do.”

“I’m surprised your hands aren’t permanently stained red.”

Carver said, “They are. I did what I had to do for Ros.”

“That won’t make you a martyr or a hero when you die.”

“I’ve never wanted to be either. All I ever used to want was to repay Ros for the bit of mercy he’d shown me. When our old team was broken up seven years ago, I arranged that. Ros needed me by his side, to do all the things that no one else could do for him. He needed me at his disposal, but I couldn’t risk leaving ENAD entirely. I knew I’d need to use their resources again.”

All of the things Carver was telling me, none of them surprised me. I knew he was the type of man who would stop at nothing to achieve whatever goal he’d set his mind to. I just hadn’t had any idea that Deleviv was the puppet master.

“That candidate that you and Tanis found, that woman,” Carver said. “Ros hired a hit man to take her out. She was corrupt too. We thought if we could take down Otk’s right-hand men and women, ENAD soldiers, then soon Otk would fall behind. If ENAD was linked to Otk, the scandal would propel Ros up in the voter polls. You weren’t supposed to be involved. I didn’t know anyone would be waiting at your safe house.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Why would he keep something like that from you?”

Carver’s cold eyes met mine. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I swallowed hard. “What about that mission with T8? Did T8 and Deleviv really have some sort of connection?”

“T8 had no relationship with Ros, professional or otherwise. The two of them had never even met. Ros needed him out of the way because T8 was associated with Otk, peddling drugs for him and keeping both of their pockets full of so much money, it would make you cry. All the money goes into campaigning and paying off people, like cops and other politicians around election time, so we figured if we could get rid of T8, that would put a kink in Otk’s funding. I never had any intention of letting T8 leave that building alive.”

“So the fact that I made the kill shot on T8 and you didn’t have to suffer the consequences yourself was just icing on the cake?”

“Basically.”

“Lucky me.”

“I still managed to convince Corp of a lesser punishment for you with the recap simulator.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Lesser punishment? Some nights I wake up screaming, sweating bullets in my bed. Some nights I think it might’ve been better to have been kicked out of ENAD.”

“Toughen up, Jones.”

I huffed. We were silent for another few moments before a thought occurred to me. “That woman doctor who came to check on me once while I was in isolation. During my recap simulations. She gave me some cryptic, bullshit message about you. What did she mean?”

“Dr. Keeri has been with Otk for years. She’s been helping Ros for the last few of those with medical information or whatever else she can scrounge up. I’ve never trusted her, but Ros said she was a valuable resource, and I had to try to believe him on that front. But Ros is a likable man. The main reason Keeri is helping Ros out with his campaign is because she’s holding a torch for Ros. I’m guessing that’s why she’s not my biggest fan.”

What a fucked-up situation that was.

“Jones, the only real victims of this are the soldiers. They’re led from day one to believe that ENAD are the good guys, fighting for the better good of the city, helping out where others can’t. It’s all bullshit. I lived for years faking that I believed it too. It was hard the first few years, but it got easier. It’s easier to stay away from people when you’re worried that a wrong twitch of an eye will give you away. But those are the sacrifices Ros is willing to make, trading the lives of a few decent men and women to save millions.”

Carver paused. He turned his head slowly toward me.

“I’m never going to change, Jones. I’m never going to regret any of the decisions I’ve made to get where I am. I’m never going to be capable of the kind of compassion you are, or the morality you seem to keep just below the surface of your skin.

“Most days, I don’t feel anything. Most days, I dream about overdosing and dying in my sleep. But the times when you’re around, the times I’m looking at you, the times I’m touching you, I feel awake. I feel like you wake me up from a sleeping state that I’ve been in all my life.”

I swallowed hard. The lights from the billboards were casting glowing patterns on his pale skin and hair, dancing with colors on his cheek and the scar on his face.

“I can’t offer you more than what I am, Jones, and maybe that’s just offering you this dead shell of a person, but it’s all I have. It’s all I am.”

And there it was—all of Carver splayed out in front of me. Could I forgive him? Could I forgive him all the pain, anguish, and hurt he’d helped cause? For getting Bruno thrown into the Bazaar, for being a traitor against ENAD and his team, for getting our unit disbanded seven years ago? More importantly, was this about forgiveness?

I didn’t think I could breathe anymore without Carver in my life. He’d made decisions that I couldn’t have made if I were given a thousand years. He’d done things to people that I hated him for, but did that mean I could stop myself from feeling for him the way that I did?

I reached out and traced my thumb along his busted lip and jaw. For the first time ever, I watched Carver melt in my hand. He sighed gently, closing his eyes and leaning into my touch. I knew Carver wasn’t some timid house cat that would suddenly become domestic and purr in my arms each night, but even men like Carver had a weakness, a softness to them, even if they only let people see it once every hundred years.

“I might know a way to get him out. Bruno,” Carver said quietly. “I’ll get him out for you. I never meant for him to get thrown in the Bazaar in the first place, but I needed him to stop delving deeper into the hole he was digging for himself, and for us. He was going to fuck everything up that we’d been working toward for years. I don’t have any regrets about stopping him, but I didn’t know at the time that the decision against him would be so…harsh.”

I reached out and grabbed the collar of Carver’s shirt and pulled him into me. I wrapped my arms around him and eased my mouth against his. He closed the few extra inches between us by pressing his swollen lips against mine.

He kissed me. He kissed me like a thousand promises were being exchanged through that one kiss. And maybe a thousand promises were exchanged in that one kiss. He moaned softly and bit at my bottom lip with his sharp teeth. I reached back to lace my fingers through his blue head of hair, entangling them gently.

When Carver pulled back, he had the same look in his usually vacant eyes that he’d had one other time. I didn’t know what it meant, and I thought better than to ask. Whatever it was, it was mine.

Neither of us was perfect. Like Carver had said, we all had blood on our hands. But now things were different. The only place I’d ever felt at home was the last place I could go, and the man I’d been in love with for years had poured whatever contents of a heart he had on me. I’d been beaten, battered, bruised, and maimed, had my heart torn out from my chest, just to have Carver shove it back in again. I had no idea what the future held for Carver and me, but the way my heart skipped when he was around was enough of a signal for me to take a chance. I would put Bruno’s life in his hands, along with my own, and show Carver trust where he’d never shown me any. I would fight this war beside him, or wherever else he needed me to be, as long as it was with him.

So we sat together on the rooftop ledge, watching the changing ads on the brightly colored billboards, and the electric trains on their tracks running in the distance. We listened to the low hum of the city and the quiet sounds of each other’s breathing. We inched closer together until our sides were pressed up tight, and pieces of Carver’s blue hair flickered against my shoulder in the wind.

And when the light of the morning sun began to shine through the tubes and pipes and wires above us, we watched the rays of sunlight try their best to beam through the decay and into our city.

I took Carver’s hand in mine without saying a word; I wrapped our fingers firmly together and held them tight, hoping that he knew I’d never let him go.

At the same moment, we looked at each other, and it was then that I knew I’d been given something special, something perfect that men like me were rarely given.

Carver smiled at me.

…for now

Loose Id Titles by Nash Summers

The COLD HARD TRUTHS Series

Vices

Nash Summers

Nash Summers is a fanatical, fantastical, completely impractical writer of M/M Romance, and a lover of wise talkers and things that go bump in the night.

Find out more about Nash at
http://www.nashsummers.com/
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