Page 29 of Jace 4Ever
That was his mistake. He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off Smoke or Austin or Uriah.
Uriah leapt forward, grabbing Carly by the waist and pulling her away from her father. Gerry’s gun tracked back to Uriah and I could see him pulling the trigger.
I pulled mine just a hair’s breadth sooner than his, making it sound like they went off nearly at the same time. But Austin had moved like lightning after his boyfriend and jumped in front of the bullet, letting the Kevlar he was wearing take the impact.
My shot went straight into Gerry’s left ass cheek.
The Kevlar did exactly what it was supposed to, and as soon as Uriah saw Austin was fine, they kissed the shit out of each other.
Gerry was screaming as Smoke slapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. “No, no! You assholes! No! I worked too hard!”
The other agent rolled him to his back and Gerry let out a wail of pain and looked in the shadows where I was hiding. “You shot me in the ass!Who the hell are you?”
I stepped into the light and shrugged. “Of course I shot you in the ass. I’m Nelson Fucking Powers.”
“Army Ranger?”Marcus asked, leaning over.
I nodded. “Yup.”
“No one knew?”
“Never thought it was important.” I shrugged. “I wanted to give back to the country we’d adopted when I was a kid. So I joined up and it turned out I had the guts and gumption to go far. Only re-upped once. As good as I am with a gun, I didn’t want to spend my life with one.”
“You were a Sergeant Major, man.” Marcus shook his head. “You were planning the campaigns, picking the squads, and you were only in for five years?”
“I wanted to act.”
“No wonder your movies always look so damn real.” Chase laughed. “You don’t let them get away with shit, do you?”
“Not in the least.” I leaned back on the chair. “Look, just don’t go spreading my secret around, okay? I can’t stand thatthank you for servicestuff, and killing people isn’t something to be proud of. I like being Nelson Powers, Hollywood superstar.”
“No one’s going to say a thing,” he said. “Smoke already cut off the information at Marcus and me. No one else is going to know.” Chase ran a fingernail over the stitching in the leather. “Look, I wanted to talk to you about Jace…”
My interest was piqued. “What about him?”
“We all try to protect him,” Chase said. “He’s the youngest of our group and we took him under our wing when he struck up a friendship with Noah. He came from a shit situation, and we keep trying to draw him out of it. But he’s a proud stubborn little twink, and the best we can do is watch and offer, and hope he’ll take the hand up when he really needs it.”
“Is this yourdon’t hurt himspeech?”
He shook his head slowly. “This is mykeep an eye on himspeech. Watch out for him. Watch out that he doesn’t get hurt by the demons in his life. Don’t be scared off by those. Don’t be afraid to push him to take your help.”
“I don’t want to push him if he’s not—”
Chase shook his head. “Sometimes you have to. I had to ask him several times if he wanted a safety deposit box. Because I half signed for it, I also lied about how much it cost. I’m covering seventy-five percent of it. His brother is a thief and liar and cheat, and he keeps stealing what Jace manages to earn. We’ve offered to let him move into the penthouse, but…”
I pursed my lips. “Chase, I really like this guy. I don’t want to force my way into his life. I don’t want to play at Daddy-little. I want him as a partner.”
Chase nodded. “No, I get that. We don’t infantilize him at all. He’s a smart, capable guy. He just needs time and reasons to trust you. If you protect him from certain situations, it’ll go a ways toward helping. Noah is one of his best friends, talk to him. See if he has advice for you. Keep him close when he’s not on a job.”
I studied Chase, then Marcus for a moment. My eyebrow lifted. “You’re serious. What kind of shit does this guy have following him around?”
“I wish I knew,” Chase said. “He trusts us, but only so far. He clearly got screwed hard before we met him and we can’t really do anything until he tells us.”
“You might be able to piece it together,” Marcus said. “We hope you can. We love him like a brother and wish he felt that way about all of us.”
There was more to his guy than met the eye. The Jace puzzle just got bigger.
I was going to solve it.
