Severe Side Winds Ahead Read online

  “We found something that you need to see,” Drake said quietly.

  Kelly’s eyes popped open and he looked at the man. It took a moment for him to realize that he was waiting for Kelly so, with his heart pounding in his chest, he swallowed hard and dipped his chin in a nod. Drake’s eyes shifted and he nodded to someone, Billy he assumed, over Kelly’s shoulder.

  Kelly heard the tap of some computer keys and then, “Okay, it’s up,” Drake said.

  Connor squeezed Kelly’s hand. He was sure it was to give him encouragement but at that moment it just made him want to peel off his own skin.

  He slowly turned his head to look at the screen.

  The first thing he noticed was the headline of the newspaper article:

  Local teens questioned/released in assault/rape.

  The next thing he noticed was the dateline, it was dated three months after he had run away from home, three months after his father had discovered his secret and threatened to kill him and whatever ‘faggot, fairy,’ he’d been dicking around with. Yep, dear old dad had threatened Kelly’s life, and without knowing it, Cole’s too.

  Kelly’s heart felt like it was being ripped from his chest as he read the words in that article:

  Three local teen boys were held in the local county jail over the weekend after another local teen boy was brought to Good Samaritan Hospital with obvious assault, sexual assault and rape trauma. The boys, well known to local law enforcement and all with long histories of minor offenses, were questioned about the assault and photos were taken of their own obvious injuries (bruises on their fists. And cuts and bruises to their faces from the victim obviously fighting back), but they were never charged.

  Because the victim disappeared.

  Yes, the victim, beaten, battered and with internal tearing, somehow managed to slip out of the hospital unnoticed and against doctor’s advice - and completely disappear.

  His parents, who relocated to this area from the Bay Area of California just some four or five years ago, swear they have no idea where he is but also pulled the, ‘no comment’ card when asked any other questions.

  The paper will not name the victim or the perpetrators due to their age.

  “Jesus Fucking Christ,” Kelly hissed out when he got to that last line and he shoved his chair back from the table.

  He began pacing between the wall and the table, “Won’t name names and yet they blatantly said that the quote unquote victim’s parents relocated from the Silicon Valley? There’s only one family in our small town who did that, those fucking pricks.”

  “I figured as much.”

  Kelly tugged his fingers through his hair as tears began to fall down his cheeks, “Why? Why would they do this?”

  “Do you know who it is, Kelly?”

  “Of course, I fucking know! Those assholes were the town bullies from the day they could stand on two feet. And I have no fucking doubt that they wouldn’t give two shits about gay bashing or gay raping. Because for them it would’ve been a way to exert their power over Cole, to humiliate him and to show me that they were no longer afraid of me. And what better way to do it than in the one way that they would fucking know would shatter my heart. Because even though Cole and I were never out and never a couple, the rumors were out there long enough. There were enough people who knew, Drake. Even if the only person who needed to know had no idea, enough people did.”

  “Who needed to know?”

  Kelly waved his hand at the screen, “Cole, Drake! He had no idea how I felt about him. He had no idea that I ached for him with every cell in my body, that I yearned for him every second of every day, that I loved him with everything that I had. He was supposed to be mine, Drake, he was always supposed to be mine and I killed that. I ruined everything that was good and pure and beautiful about him when I walked away. I thought I was saving him but instead I destroyed him. I should’ve fucking stayed,” he said as he angrily wiped the tears from his cheeks.

  “Why?” JD whispered from his spot by the door.

  Kelly’s glare pinned him, “Why? Why? Are you fucking kidding me? I could’ve saved him, I would’ve saved him!”

  “No, you probably would’ve been in that hospital right next to him, or more likely the morgue.”

  “Are you trying to say that leaving was the right thing to do? Because, fuck you, JD, just fuck you.”

  “No, I’m telling you that what happened to Cole was not your fault. Do you hear me, Kelly? It was not your fault.”

  Kelly’s mouth opened like he was going to argue with JD but then it closed. And then a look of utter devastation filled his face as he backed up two steps, his back hitting the wall with a thump. He slid down to a squat, with his face in his hands as he sobbed out, “Oh Jesus, Cole.”

  Connor rose from his chair, sat on the floor next to Kelly and pulled the sobbing man’s head to this shoulder.

  He fell silent after a minute but stayed where he was until he suddenly popped his head up, “Where are they?” he said, his eyes wide.

  “Where’s who?”

  “Those assholes who did this, where the fuck are they?”

  “Kelly, you can’t…” Connor started to say.

  But Kelly pushed to his feet, “No, don’t you dare tell me that, Dad. Don’t you fucking do that. I’ve been a ghost for you for ten fucking years. I will leave right now. I will walk out that fucking door and go so far off grid, so deep, that even you will never find me.”

  “All for revenge?” Connor said with a gasp.

  “To save him, Dad. And if saving him means taking out the fuckers who dared to hurt what’s mine? Then so be it,” he said as he crossed his muscular arms across his chest.

  There was silence in the room as all the men looked at each other until finally Drake spoke.

  “If we do this, if we tell you where they are, you cannot do anything to jeopardize you or my team, Braddock, am I clear?”

  Kelly’s body shook as he stared at Drake. Finally, he dipped his chin, “Fine,” he snapped.

  “Fine, what?”

  “Look, Kelly, I don’t know you from Adam, and I don’t trust you because you haven’t earned my trust yet. I want to know what you are going to do with this information if we give it to you,” Drake said.

  “I won’t kill them and I won’t maim them. But when I’m done with them, their families, their friends and the entire world will know what they did to Cole because I will have a videotaped confession.”

  Drake stared at him for a while before he said, “The price for this information is you do not work alone. You are going to work with my operatives in Denver.”

  Kelly ground his teeth, “Fine.”

  Drake looked over to Billy, “Get Caleb and Hawke on the line. We need to tell them they’ve got a visitor on the way.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cole blinked as he stared at his computer screens and realized that he’d zoned out yet again. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t concentrate. Hell, he couldn’t do anything right now.

  He should take a leave of absence from his job.

  And do what? His brain said to him.

  What was he supposed to do to fix this?

  Was there a way to fix this?

  You know there is, his brain said again.

  Yeah, fuck you, that is not happening.

  I am not meeting up with him and talking this shit out. Not now, not ever.

  “Son of a bitch,” he growled as he pushed out of his chair and began pacing the room, running his fingers through his hair.

  Suddenly his computer pinged with an incoming message.

  I’m coming Cupid.

  Cole stumbled back a few steps before falling to this ass on the floor.

  “No,” he whispered.

  It couldn’t be.

  There was no way.

  But the only person who had ever called him Cupid was Kelly. It had been their private joke. Kelly had started calling him Cupid because he said his lips were so full they were kiss
able. So, Cole had called Kelly Valentine because of all the hearts he was going to break. But always in the privacy of Cole’s room. They’d never voiced those nicknames outside of that room, never told anyone other than each other.

  That could only mean that….

  “Fucking hell,” Cole said as he pushed to his feet, sat back down in his chair and began running diagnostics on his system. Somebody must’ve planted a virus in his system somehow. As he worked, his mind flicked back over all the meetings he’d had the last week or so. Who had been in his private space, who could’ve infiltrated his…..

  “That escort,” he mumbled as he reached for his phone.

  “Hello Mr. Lette. Are you looking for more company tonight?” Ashley’s cheerful voice said when she answered his call.

  “That last escort you sent me, the one who replaced my normal guy, did you vet him?”

  “Of course, we did, Sir. We vet everyone we hire.”

  “Will you send me the dossier you have on him please?”

  “Of course, but may I ask, is there a problem?”

  “I’m not sure. Just send it over, please,” he said then he hung up the phone.

  He nibbled on his thumbnail as he watched his computer run through its programs.

  The email that he had given to the escort service pinged with an incoming email so he clicked on it and then downloaded the file that Ashley had sent him. At first glance the guy seemed legit, thirty-six-year-old male who had some TV commercials and print ads on his resume, he’d added male escort to his repertoire just…..Cole’s eyes blinked, then they blinked again. He picked up his phone and pressed redial as he put it to his ear.

  “Did you get the file okay, Mr. Lette?”

  “Yes. Ashley, was that really his first day as an escort when you sent him to me? His first fucking day?”

  “Well, um, yes, Sir. But we explained all of your, um, requirements to him and he seemed very well suited to handle them. Were you not satisfied, Sir?”

  “Hmm?” Cole mumbled as he stared at the file. He tasted blood and realized that he had been biting his lip for a while so he released it and tried to soothe it with his tongue.

  “Was there a problem with him?” Ashley said again.

  “No, he was fine. I, uh, I have to go,” he said then he hung up.

  He brought up his secure link on his laptop and plugged in Noah’s name and social security number into two different search engines and sure enough….

  “The man only has a two-year social footprint? That has to be fake,” he said as his fingers flew over his keyboard.

  Meanwhile….in Denver…..

  Chapter Twelve

  Morgan’s phone pinged as he sat at his desk and he frowned at it then dialed a number as he typed on his keyboard.

  “Hey, Morgan, what’s going on?” JD said when he answered the call.

  “Cole’s looking into Noah’s background right now. Are you sure it’s airtight?”

  “He is? How do you know?”

  “Because my system warns me anytime one of my guy’s fake SSN’s is pinged. The question is, why doesn’t your guy know? You asked to borrow my guy, to throw him to the wolves, shouldn’t you be watching him?”

  “Hang on a sec there Morg, give me half a chance to check with Billy and Ben. Hang on a second.”

  Morgan could hear him moving through the house then he knocked on a door and then, “Put some fucking clothes on! Jesus Christ!”

  “I didn’t have time! Cole is pinging Noah!”

  “Yeah, we know,” JD said.

  “We?” a voice squeaked.

  “Yeah, me and Morgan. You’re on speaker, Morg.”

  “I was watching, I swear I was, Morgan! Nothing at all was happening so we, so we, fuck! Damn it babe, why did I let you talk me into that?”

  “Billy?” Morgan’s voice said through the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re allowed to have some snuggle time with your boyfriend. It’s fine.”

  “Fiancé and thanks,” Billy whispered.

  “Really? Congrats. Now what can you tell me?”

  “He’s not looking in the usual places. He’s looking at social media and places like that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s good. It’s easier to determine if a person is fake based on their social media footprint.”

  “Did we cover that?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?”

  “We covered two years, but he’s snooped back farther.”

  “And?”

  “And now he’s looking at other stuff.”

  “What do you think made him snoop to begin with?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Might’ve been the cryptic message he got about an hour ago that I’m guessing was from Kelly.”

  “What?” both JD and Morgan said at the same time.

  “Yeah, it came across his secure server on the laptop and it said, I’m coming Cupid.

  I’m guessing it was Kelly because right after it was sent was when Cole started running system checks and looking into Noah.”

  “Motherfucker,” JD yelled out.

  “Someone get Connor on the phone, he needs to get his son under control,” Morgan said.

  “I’m on it,” Ben said as he yanked on a t-shirt and frantically pulled a pair of shorts on.

  Five minutes later both Cain and Connor were pacing in Ben and Billy’s basement room as Billy continued to try to do damage control while he sat in front of his array of computers.

  “His flight doesn’t land for an hour, he must have his phone off on the plane,” Connor said with a growl as he hit the end call button on his phone…again.

  “Okay, thanks. Hawke, let me know the second he’s with you,” JD said as he ended his call.

  “He’s supposed to be picking him up at the airport but we won’t know if Kelly has skipped out on us until the plane touches down.”

  “I’m checking the passenger manifest, it says he was on the flight,” Billy said from his desk.

  “Okay, good.”

  “Shit,” Billy grumbled.

  “What?”

  “Cole is looking into Noah’s IRS records.”

  “Do those exist?”

  “Sort of. I didn’t go into any detail more than two years because I didn’t think we’d have a problem. Now I have to quickly try to create another three years. Fuck!”

  “This kid of yours is really becoming a pain in my ass and not in a good way,” Drake said from where he and Brent had now joined the room full of people.

  “Yeah, I’m getting that,” Connor said as he raked his fingers through his hair.

  JD pushed to his feet and began pacing, “Okay, I think we need to come up with a contingency plan in case Kelly is not on that plane when it lands.”

  “What are you thinking, babe?” Brent said.

  “I’m thinking we need to take Cole into protective custody. Lay all our cards on the table, let him know we knew he was looking for Kelly and that we need to take him with us, both to protect him and to lure Kelly back into the open.”

  “Shit, he’s not going to go willingly, you know that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know but we need to convince him. Noah had a connection to him, maybe he could do it?”

  “No,” Morgan said.

  “No?”

  “Noah’s got his own problem that he’s dealing with right now and he’s in hiding right now protecting someone. I can’t risk him coming out.”

  “Maybe we could bring Cole to him?”

  “Perhaps but only if we can guarantee that they won’t be followed or leave any kind of footprint at all. What he’s dealing with is bad, guys, really bad. And until I get it sorted out I’m not willing to risk him….at all.”

  “Do you need help from my guys?” Drake said.

  “I might, yeah. I’ll let you know.”

  “Morgan?” Drake said quietly.

  “Yeah?”

 
“Let us help, this is what we do.”

  “Yeah, okay. I need to talk to Noah first, though. This is his personal history. I’m not going to share anything before I clear it with him.”

  “Understood. So, we’ll stick with our original plan for now but put a secondary plan in place in case Kelly is not on that flight?” Drake said.

  “Yeah, I think that works.”

  “Okay, I’ll contact Caleb. He and Dean will be the extraction team to pick up Cole. Who do you want from your team to go with them?”

  “I’ll go and I’ll bring Theo with me. He’s been with me the longest, I trust him,” Morgan said.

  “I’m going to have Cain fly out too. Kelly knows him. It might be good to have a familiar face there,” Connor said.

  “Okay, you two head over to Caleb’s place to wait there just in case and I’ll let the four of you work out the logistics of getting Cole and bringing him to wherever you have Noah right now. For now, though, Hawke and Talon are waiting at the airport for Kelly.”

  “Okay, now we wait.”

  *********************************************

  Kelly’s fingers drummed nervously on the steering wheel. He was trying not to second-guess his decision but, fuck, it was really hard.

  On one hand there was his Dad, the man who had literally saved his life and given him something to live for.

  On the other was Cole, the man who completely owned his heart from the first moment Kelly had laid eyes on him. And someone had hurt Cole, they’d hurt Cole really badly and Cole blamed Kelly for it and that was….unacceptable.

  Kelly Braddock had been through a lot of shit in his life. His own birth father had beaten and berated him repeatedly, for no other reason than the fact that he was born, before threatening to kill him when he was sixteen when he found out that Kelly was gay.

  So, Kelly had left…he’d had no other choice.

  Then, alone on the streets, he’d had to fight off assholes who tried to take what they wanted from him.