Mending the Rift (22 page)

“You didn’t know?” Marcus asked.

“No! When did he do that?” He cast a quick glance toward Gregory. “Is that why you summoned me?”

“Yes, I thought it would be easier if you explain it to them. But please hurry, I’ve got a meeting with the president in an hour.”

“In an hour? I thought you’d have to go right away?” Nicholas asked, burrowing deeper into Gregory’s body.

“The president is flying in from London. He’s on his way already, but I’ve got only a twenty-minute drive ahead of me, so there’s time for Kyle to tell you why we’re most likely not going to execute Smith.”

Luca blanched. What was going on? Shouldn’t his father at least try to imprison Smith? Next to him, Marcus bristled at his father’s words. Before he formed a retort, Kyle sat next to his brother, wringing his hands in his lap. They looked so similar and yet not. The same eye and hair color, but where Marcus was heavily muscled and showed determination and confidence, Kyle seemed more delicate, even fragile. How could someone like him have worked as a bodyguard? He looked like someone guys like Ty would eat alive.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Kyle said, barking a laugh that sounded close to hysteria.

“How about you start from the beginning?” Marcus suggested, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kyle startled, and for a moment he became very still. He blinked at Marcus, then set his jaw in what could only be described as a defiant stance.

Luca nudged Marcus’s ribs lightly with his elbow. “Is this going to be a brawl between brothers? You don’t seem to be the type to brawl.”

Kyle laughed out loud, a more genuine sound this time. “He doesn’t brawl because he’s always right. As long as the little brother does as he says, everything’s fine.”

“Obviously everything is
not
fine,” Marcus shot back.

“Marcus! Wow, are you always such a condescending ass?”

Marcus’s head swiveled around. “Excuse me? He’s in some kind of mess and—”

“How about you listen to him first before you judge?”

Marcus pressed his lips in a tight line as he studied Luca. Having those penetrating gray eyes trained on him was unnerving, but Luca kept their gazes locked. He wouldn’t budge on that.

Relief swamped him when Marcus sighed and nodded. “All right, I’ll listen.”

Kyle slid backward on the sofa, bringing as much space as possible between himself and his brother. Marcus tracked the movement with his eyes, a muscle in his right cheek twitching. Luca rested his head on Marcus’s shoulder, wincing at the coiled tension he sensed there.

“I’m sure you remember how many times you told me I shouldn’t work as a bodyguard,” Kyle started, sending Marcus a lopsided smile.

“I told you not to start training for it. If I recall correctly, I told you not even to think about it.”

Kyle cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, we all know I didn’t listen to you. I received the necessary training, and I was even good at it. But… you were right. This line of work isn’t for me. The longer I did it, the more it became obvious that ‘I’m going to show my big brother I’m as good as he is’ or ‘Marcus has no say in what I’ll do with my life’ isn’t a very good reason to take a job.”

“I—”

Kyle held up a hand, stopping Marcus. “No, please, let me talk. I was in it for the wrong reasons, and I know it now. One of my last jobs was acting as security for Smith, on his property in Bergen, Norway. I… I fell in love with Liam, and he reciprocated my feelings. Yeah, I know, how very stupid of me.”

“I thought there was something going on between the two of you, the way he acted around you,” Luca chimed in. “I thought he was going to puke when he saw you bleeding.”

“He’s an overprotective asshole, that’s what he is.” It took Kyle a couple of deep breaths before he continued. “When the female reproductive system began to grow, it made me sick. At first I believed I had a stomach flu, but the nausea and pain didn’t stop for days. Liam had been away at first, but when he came back, he took me straight to a hospital. The doctor that examined me was a Southern Union spy, which I only found out later.”

“You said someone came and kidnapped you,” Marcus said, his voice cracking.

“Yes, they did. It was not a… a nice experience.” Kyle’s gaze veered to the side. “They experimented on me, and they forced me to fight against some of their best warriors. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my entire life, which is why I now know I’m not made for the job. They… they just tossed me around, and nothing I did seemed to have any impact.”

A shudder ran through Kyle’s slender frame, but when Marcus extricated himself from Luca to slide closer to his brother, Kyle raised his hands, palm outward. “No! Please, if you get closer now and, God forbid, hug me or anything, I’ll cry buckets.”

“Kyle….” Marcus dropped his outstretched hands when Kyle curled further into himself. “You’ve been incredibly brave. I never thought you’d be unsuited for the job. I was actually rather selfish—I didn’t want to worry about you getting hurt or worse.”

Kyle lifted his head, his face a mask of disbelief mingled with something else. Relief, maybe? Luca wasn’t sure. “You didn’t want to worry about me?”

“Marcus doesn’t like to worry about the people he loves. It makes him acutely cranky,” Luca chipped in, hoping to ease some of the tension in the air.

Kyle’s eyes glittered ominously, but he chuckled nonetheless. “I always thought you believed me to be too weak for the job.”

A sound resembling a steam kettle tore free from Marcus’s throat, startling everyone. “Just because you’re not the bodybuilder type doesn’t mean you’re weak. Christ, what is wrong with you people?”

Luca rolled his eyes. “Thanks so much, Marcus.”

“You’re welcome.
Both
of you. I’m done with this kind of drama, understood?”

Luca heard himself answering in perfect unison with Kyle, “Understood.”

“I’m sure there’s lots of things you need to talk about, but please go on with your story, Kyle. I need to hit the road shortly,” Gregory said, the sofa creaking under his weight.

“Of course, sir. Where was I? Ah, yes, my kidnapping. Well, at one point I was brought to a visitor’s room, and there was Liam, waiting for me. Somehow he’d found out where I was, but he didn’t have the means at hand to get me out without causing a war. To cut things short: he demanded the doctors let me go since I wasn’t there of my own free will, but that wasn’t happening. During one of the times they experimented on me, they forced me to sign a paper that I agreed to be their guinea pig for an indefinite time frame.”

“Those bastards,” Marcus growled. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? You’ve always been vague or claimed you couldn’t remember.”

“At first I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d really experienced what I had, and then… I was ashamed.” Kyle swallowed before he went on. “Liam argued with them, and someone higher up decided they’d allow me to go if Liam brought them a fully equipped breeder. An exchange, so to speak.”

“That’s where I come into play, right?” Luca asked.

“Yes. Liam agreed to this plan, even though I told him not to, because how could I ever look at anyone again if I knew what someone else had to go through because of me?” Kyle shook his head. “No matter what I said, it fell on deaf ears. Liam bribed someone to put him up on the waiting list for breeders and then bribed someone else to push him to the top position. You were in the same position as a breeder, and not even the fact that you’re the vice president’s son changed Liam’s plan.”

“How often did you see Smith during your imprisonment?” Marcus asked.

“Every other month or so. He kept close tabs on everything. His plan was to bring Luca in to get me back. He’d assumed he’d be married to Luca by then and would’ve demanded Luca’s immediate release. He’d started infiltrating the Southern Union’s government and other strategic positions with his own people to ensure he’d be able to retrieve Luca. He’s not dumb. He knew he couldn’t return to his life here, with me, if anything would happen to Luca.” Kyle raised a pained gaze to his brother and Luca. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into all of this, just… just because I’m some kind of genetic abomination.”

“If I said something like that, Marcus would be all over me,” Luca said, shivering as he tried to digest everything Kyle had told them. “I’m guessing something didn’t go according to plan?”

A wry smile appeared on Kyle’s face. “Yes, your marriage got postponed, and then you decided to marry Marcus. It threw Liam for a loop, and I think he became desperate. I had a bit more freedom at the hospital. I was allowed to walk around in a designated area without an escort all the time, but their experiments….” Kyle halted, searching for words. “Let’s say they worsened. I almost died once when they misjudged a newly developed drug. Liam decided to kidnap you, get the exchange over and all that.”

“But that wasn’t successful either,” Luca said.

“No, it wasn’t. The Southern Union didn’t adhere to their end of the bargain, and Liam and his men had to flee in order to save their own lives.”

“But he came back for you,” Luca said softly.

Kyle’s voice broke when he agreed, “He did.”

“We’re assuming he’s the one who somehow got the information about your whereabouts through to your dad’s informant,” Gregory added. Nicholas cringed and curled up sideways under his husband’s arm, clearly avoiding any kind of eye contact.

“So it looks as if Smith only wanted to rescue Kyle, but he made a big mess out of it,” Marcus stated.

“Hey, he had good intentions,” Kyle protested. “I don’t agree with the way he went about it, but he didn’t mean to cause all that trouble, and now…. Now it seems as if he’s become the leader of the Southern Union. He’s such a fucking asshole.”

The sofa groaned when Gregory rose to his feet, tugging Nicholas with him. “I certainly don’t agree with his methods, but I’m willing to listen to his side of the events. He brought my family into danger, and that’s nothing I’m going to take lightly. However, no matter how much I want to kick his ass or throttle him, I have to keep in mind this might be a chance for steadying the Southern Union, for employing safety measures for their breeders, and to change so much for the better for so many people.”

THE SILENCE
that stretched out after Gregory and Nicholas’s departure nagged at Luca’s insides. He glanced from Marcus to Kyle, who’d dropped his gaze and fiddled with a loose thread on his green cotton shirt.

Luca cleared his throat. “So, this is really awkward now. Don’t you want to hug your brother or something?”

Kyle’s head jerked up, and his eyes widened to almost comical size. Holding up his hands, he said, “Ah, not necessary, really. After all, I’m the reason you got kidnapped, and you must be really special to Marcus since he always claimed he’d never marry.”

“You didn’t want to marry?”

Marcus shook his head. “Don’t turn it into something it isn’t. I never thought I’d find someone I could love as much as I love you, and that’s the only reason I’d marry. And you”—he pointed at Kyle as he rose to his feet—“if you ever keep secrets from me again, I’m going to throttle you.”

Luca snickered when Marcus grabbed his brother and yanked him to his feet before he crushed him to his chest. He couldn’t help but point out, “Kyle was kidnapped. How was he supposed to tell you about anything?”

Marcus secured Kyle’s head on his shoulder, not leaving him any leeway. His voice lowered to another of those growls that sent tingles up Luca’s spine. “I received messages from you. Infrequent as they were, I always believed you were okay, just mad at me because of our last argument when you took on the job at Smith’s.”

“Liam sent those messages. He didn’t want you to go looking for me, or his plan would’ve been discovered.”

“He didn’t think I might’ve been able to help? After all, I was already working for the vice president and had good connections.”

Kyle shifted his weight from one foot to the other, relaxing in his brother’s embrace when it became obvious Marcus wouldn’t let him go anywhere. “He was worried about an international incident. Well, in the beginning he was, obviously he’s past such scruples now. I can’t believe he’s swung himself up to become the Southern Union’s leader. I thought….”

“What? That you’d get your happily ever after with him?” Marcus barked.

Kyle shoved with enough force to compel Marcus into loosening his hold. He stepped out of his brother’s personal space, glaring. Dread settled into Luca’s stomach when Kyle’s hands clenched into fists. Would they fight?

“Stop it! Both of you,” Luca cried. The Gray brothers stared at him, both of them directing a dirty look his way. He hauled himself up, annoyed at the lack of understanding on both their parts. “I certainly don’t agree with Smith’s method, and I think he should’ve asked for help, but it’s obvious he did everything out of love for Kyle. He must be absolutely smitten with you. I mean, he took on a whole country.”

“Question remains whether they can be together after all these sacrifices on both sides.” Marcus sucked in a deep breath before he added, “Plus, I still think it was wrong of him not to ask for help. There was no need for you to suffer for so long or for Luca to get involved at all.”

“I’m sorry.” Kyle’s voice rose in distress. “I don’t know what else to say. I never wanted Luca to get involved, you have to believe me.”

“Why didn’t you urge Smith to contact me after you’d been kidnapped?”

“Marcus,” Luca cut in, “I’m sure he did that. If you want to be angry at someone, direct it at those responsible for his kidnapping.”

“Liam isn’t a bad man, he just… it’s as if his brain short-circuited. You should’ve seen his face when the doctors explained I was going to become a breeder. At first I thought he’d be disgusted and drop me, but he didn’t. He was so excited and talked about us building a family. He was already thinking about the legal procedures to ensure I wouldn’t be given away to someone else.” Kyle shook his head, but a small smile played across his face. “Don’t you get it? I love this man. He drives me nuts with his overbearing ‘know-it-all’ attitude, but I do love him. I haven’t seen him in weeks, and I haven’t been really close to him in months. Now I don’t know if I’ll be able to be with him because of everything that happened.”