Page 73 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
Mitch was shaking his head. “It is, but also, it isn’t. It makes a lot of sense. But as your Almost-But-Not-Really-Attorney, I have to tell you that bigamy is illegal in every state, even Utah.”
She waved a hand at him. “I know that. We’re a family. A unit. I love each of them in the same—and yet entirely different—ways. They speak to my soul. Hendrick shouts at it, shaking it up, Otto whispers love and reason, Evan protects it and supports it.”
“And Sampson?”
Chaos’s grin widened. “He tells it what a Good Girl it’s been.”
The man in question downed the rest of his drink. “On that note, it’s time to go,” Sampson said gruffly.
Aviva just laughed. She knew—hell, we all knew—that she had him in the palm of her dainty hand. He didn’t fight it, though I had a feeling he gave all that sass right back to her.
Mitch stood, coming around the table to shake Aviva’s hand. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve said that yet. Thank you for giving his last few years meaning and purpose, even if he never saw it.” He let out a shuddery breath. “I can’t imagine what headspace a person would have to be in to think traipsing around the world on a wild goose chase was a good idea, but I hope you found whatever it was you were looking for.”
Aviva reached out and wrapped her arms around Mitch, and the man just melted. While a part of me was jealous as fuck, the other part of me knew that men like me and Hendrick—and probably Nemo—took drastic measures, because of this this weirdly toxic, masculine belief that touch and vulnerability made us weak. Aviva was teaching us that being weak for a moment was okay. She was there to hold us up until we could be strong again.
If she could give Mitch Goetz that for a short time, I wouldn’t begrudge him it.
I’d never tell the guys this, but it was what I’d envied the most when I was guarding Sampson, the connection that the three of them shared. They didn’t fist bump or shake hands—they hugged. They didn’t tell Hendrick to suck it up when his demons were running around in his head—they stood at his back and helped him battle them.
The military had this same ideal of brotherhood, or a version of it. You couldn’t nearly die next to a man, and then judge him when those memories overwhelmed him.
But civvies like Mitch? When did they ever get the chance to make those connections outside of a girlfriend, or maybe their parents? Never, because friendship was a delicate dance of showing affection, but never too much, just in case the world judged you.
No, they went through life isolated because society told them that it was gay to hug your friends, that it was weak to cry. That your worth was rooted in how tough you were.
So I let Mitch Goetz steal some of Chaos's strength for a moment; she was tougher than us all anyway. She was saying something softly to him that I couldn’t hear, but judging by the shining wetness in his eyes, it was probably profound and fucking earth-shattering.
Finally, she stepped away and moved back between me and Sampson. She leaned into my side, but I could see her holding Sampson’s hand. Mitch looked at us one more time with that inquisitive lawyer look, before his eyes went comically wide.
“Oh shit, I nearly forgot. Let’s head to my office.” He strode out of the conference room and down the dimly lit corridors of the firm. Everyone else was gone, though there was a cleaner at the other end of the hall who looked like she was doing the macarena as she dusted.
Mitch strode into a corner office with a beautiful view of the bay. “I don’t know if you read this part of the will but—” He rummaged around in his desk drawer before finding what he wanted. He grabbed an envelope, ripping it open and pulling out a key. “You’re now the proud owners of a bookstore here in San Francisco. The Lead Balloon was Will’s dream, but he just never got into the right frame of mind for it. Now it’s yours. I thought you might want to check it out before you went home.”
Aviva looked up at me, shaking her head with a bemused, if kind of sad smile on her face. “Going down like a lead balloon.”
“Fucking Nemo,” I huffed with a laugh. Even now, he was giving us damn clues. I fucking loved that ghost.
Chapter36
Otto
Honestly, I was no longer surprised by our life, but waking up to the Feds politely knocking on the door was a new one, even for us.
Unlike Sampson and Hendrick, I hadn’t had much to do with the Feds. My job had always been hiding the evidence, and holding Hendrick together as much as I could. Gold star, job well done to me.
So when Fabio turned up at our hotel suite, everyone was automatically tense, especially Evan. He didn’t trust the Feds, not really. I wasn’t particularly sure of Evan’s history—none of us were, though Sampson would have done a thorough background check on him. Whatever he found, he kept to himself out of respect for Evan’s privacy. But you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that Evan had been screwed by the Feds in the past, because he barely kept the sneer off his face.
Agent Fabio Rossi did not live up to the blond, buff cover model on my grandmother's historical romance novels. He was a squat, unassuming-looking man, the kind you’d walk past without looking twice at, or like the guy sitting on the couches in front of the department store, holding his wife's purse. Not a ranking FBI agent anyway.
By the time I stumbled out of the bedroom, Aviva behind me, everyone was standing around. Hendrick looked pissed as he ranted about having his assets frozen, though Fabio seemed pretty unsympathetic. Rich kid problems. You could almost read the thought on his face.
It had nothing to do with fucking injustice of Hendrick still being punished by his father, even after the man was scrabbling around on his hands and knees in the shit he’d been shoveling for years.
“Look, Hendrick—I get it, I do. You just need to come down to the San Fran field office, make an official statement for the case, go through the accounts with the numbers guy and then I’ll, as you so eloquently put it, take my ‘Payless loafers off your balls.’”
“And then that's it? It’s over for me?”
Fabio nodded. “You have my word.”
