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  Shay’s inhalation was long and heavy. “‘Beginning’ is a relative term here.”

  “Well aware of that.” Ghid’s expression barely changed, though his wry inflection couldn’t be missed. “Let me see if I’m right on the episode recap. You finally went through your dad’s old things, and they pointed toward your mother’s affiliation with Stock. You followed up on the lead, bringing in your CIA friend here for the fun, knowing he was already hot on Stock’s trail. That was when you realized the only way to figure out the guy’s game and find your mom was going at it from the inside out.”

  Both Shay’s brows arched. “That’s damn impressive.”

  “And right on the money,” Ghid returned.

  “And right on the money.”

  Like everyone else in the room, Zoe turned her attention to Tait. The shock on his face had deepened with every word exchanged between Ghid and his brother. Now, with forehead fully furrowed and eyes hardened like gold spears, he attempted to work his mouth around words. “You were with Stock and his gang…because you were undercover?”

  Zoe whooshed out a breath of relief. She was stunned when Shay didn’t do the same, until she realized the source of the pain still carved across his face. His brother finally had the truth but had trouble biting into the elephant of it.

  “Yeah, T.” His voice was soft, almost apologetic.

  “Why?”

  “That’s the part of the story best told from the beginning.” Shay straightened. “About six months ago, I approached Dan about transferring me from the Seventh SFG to the CIA special detail. We kept it far under the radar. My cover story—”

  “I know your cover story,” Tait grated. “I’ve memorized every goddamn word of it.” He leaned forward and let his head fall between his shoulders. “And drove myself crazy trying to convince myself it wasn’t the truth, even when all the evidence—and all the suits clear to DC—told me otherwise.”

  Tears pricked the back of Zoe’s eyes as she watched Shay close his. A strange beauty took over his face, reminding her of the saints she and Ava had studied in Sunday School, newly delivered from earthly torture on their way to celestial deliverance. “Well, your gut was right,” he murmured.

  Tait’s hands balled into fists. “Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me? You had the damn chance, on the beach that night in Kaua'i—”

  “I couldn’t, T. And you know the hundreds of reasons why.”

  “I’m your goddamn brother.”

  “And you think if Stock or any of his guys came up the sand and found us cavorting like Frank and Joe Hardy, I wouldn’t have been made in two seconds? After that fun plot turn, they’d carve my balls out with dull fishing knives and then feed them to you and Kell while Lani watched.” His posture coiled tighter with every word, but he released the tension for a quick smile. “Congratulations, by the way. Lani’s a damn good woman. I at least had the time to see how happy she makes you.”

  “Thanks. You’re still a fucker.”

  “Right. The fucker who found our mother.”

  “Another fact that parks my ass in the weeds again.” Tait twisted, staring like Shay had revealed he’d applied for a mission on the moon. “So you wanted to search for the woman who left us…why?”

  Shay’s answering smile flowed with unmistakable joy. “Because she didn’t leave us.”

  “Pardon the crap out of me?”

  “You remember when I came out to LA during the week after your adventure there? And how I asked all those questions when you mentioned Stock?”

  Tait threw his wincing gaze toward the window. “I don’t remember a lot from those days, dude.”

  Zoe smiled with pride as Shay rubbed a reassuring hand to his big brother’s back. “That’s all right. I remember for both of us.”

  Tait nodded. “I know you do. And thanks.”

  One long moment extended into the next. To an outside viewer, the room seemed to fall into stillness. Zoe knew better. A glance at Dan told her he did too. Together, they watched a pair of brothers begin to cut back a forest of misunderstanding and anger, rediscovering each other on a path of healing.

  On a quiet murmur, Shay went on. “After leaving LA, I went back to Florida by way of the storage unit we put Dad’s things in. By that time, Stock’s name was burned in my brain. I didn’t have to look long to find it in a big stack of correspondence to Mom.”

  That made Tait surge off the couch. As he paced between the couch and window, his eyes conveyed the violence of mental links slammed together. “What kind of correspondence?”

  “Well, they weren’t love letters. But it wasn’t hate mail, either. It seemed like some kind of amicable business deal.”

  “So what the hell does that mean?” Tait fired. “Mom left Dad…for Cameron Stock?”

  Shay took another deep breath. “Hopped on that same ox cart too. At first.”

  “Until he came to me.” Colton offered the declaration as he slid off his barstool. “Obviously Shay’s inquiry roped me by both horns out of the gate,” he continued while approaching them. “By that point, your brother was a little obsessive about the subject.”

  Zoe was glad Tait let out a laugh, making her giggle less conspicuous.

  “Him?” Tait drawled. “Obsessive? Nah.”

  Shay rolled his eyes before persisting, “Something really didn’t feel right about the story to that point. We were missing chunks of the picture. When Colton’s search results proved that out, I seesawed between elation and nausea.”

  Tait cocked his head and narrowed his gaze. “Nausea?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Do the math. If we learned that Mom didn’t necessarily go to Stock on a willing basis…”

  “Shit.”

  “Bingo.”

  Tait swung his scrutiny to Colton. “You unlocked intel to back this up? That she was under duress? Even taken?”

  Colton’s response wasn’t what Zoe expected. His Texas swagger had turned into a weird falter. While kicking a cowboy boot at the carpet, he offered, “Wish it were as cut and dry as that, T. Would’ve made things a lot easier to approach, especially from your brother’s point of view. Simple human-abduction charges? We could’ve just found her, rustled up a team, and extracted her.”

  Tait sagged against the armoire, indicating he understood Shay’s nausea tag now. “And it wasn’t that easy…why?”

  “The facts we had were pointers to abduction, not hard evidence. Your mom didn’t leave the house kicking and screaming. She sneaked out on her own, in the middle of the night. The trail fell cold for about six months after that, especially because your dad never filed anything formal about it.”

  “What happened after six months?”

  “She resurfaced to apply for a legal ID in Reno using false docs to indicate her name was Melanie Smythe. That name also shows up on tax records for Cameron’s old film development company out of Hollywood, as well as Benstock, the corporation he formed with Gunter Benson.”

  “Yeah,” Tait cut in. “I know all about Benstock, remember?”

  When he slouched over and literally looked green, Ghid stepped to him. “You all right?”

  “Hmmm.” Tait braced his hands on his thighs. “That’s a damn good question. Just had my brother inform me that the mom who deserted us didn’t really mean to do it but paid for her Louboutins with paychecks from the shell corporation owned by the terrorist who killed someone I deeply loved. So am I all right? Why don’t you answer that question?”

  Ghid stiffened—to the point of looking like his spine was fused together by molten fury. “Damn good idea,” he uttered, “since you’re pretty much wrong.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re excused,” Ghid returned. “But you’re still wrong.”

  Colton, centered again on both feet, angled hands into his back pockets. “Paychecks were cut to Melanie Smythe from both those companies,” he supplied, “but they never showed up in any bank accou
nts for the woman.”

  Tait scowled. “What do you mean?”

  “Not sure I can be any plainer. We crosschecked the issue every damn way we could. Used your mom’s real name, middle names, and variations of each. Played with both social security numbers. All the paperwork on the front and back end was legal; there were just no transactions in the middle.” He pointedly cleared his throat. “No wild shoe-buying sprees.”

  “Back end?” Tait queried. “What back end?”

  “Taxes were filed every year on the money,” Colton explained. “Everything was legal; no red flags.”

  “Filed by who? Were you able to trace something there?”

  “There’s a tax preparer’s name on the documents, but the physical address is a vacant lot out in Henderson.” Colton grimaced as if he knew how lame the action looked. “It’s been like looking for a ghost before the funeral.”

  Ghid made a clicking sound with his teeth, jerking the agent’s attention back up. “Maybe this is where I step in again.” When Dan didn’t argue—Zoe doubted Attila the Hun himself would cross the man—Ghid nodded to the couch, directing the brothers to sit once more. As soon as they did, he reestablished his wide stance minus the hands locked behind his back. It occurred to Zoe that he might be trying to appear more relaxed. Thank the saints she was getting proficient at holding back giggles.

  Shay, noticing the guy’s massive fail at trying to be more roadster and less tanker, wasn’t so amused. “Sure you don’t need a drink, dude?”

  Ghid gave two gruff jerks of his head. “I’m an ugly fucker but even uglier when I drink. Just get me some more water, would you?” By the time he finished, Zoe was halfway across the room with the ice water pitcher from the table. After he nodded in thanks, he gulped deeply and then exhaled with equal purpose. “What I’m about to say is the truth. It won’t feel like it when I’m done, but you need to promise me you’ll stay open.”

  Tait lifted a wry brow. “I think I’ve had the crash course in ‘staying open’ today.”

  Shay squared his shoulders and positioned his hands atop his knees, a sitting version of a full-attention stance. Zoe studied him with a twinge of concern. He looked like a guy about to receive his dishonorable-discharge papers. Given everything he’d been put through in the last week, she didn’t blame him. And yearned to be next to him even more.

  Ghid gave them both another extended look before going on. “What you said, Shay? About missing pieces of the big pie? Good call. Thing is, you’re still missing a few chunks of the thing. I’ve got them, but they taste a bit bizarre.”

  The man’s brilliant green eyes darkened to the shade of a troubled ocean. Zoe wasn’t the only one who picked up on the strange change.

  “A bit?” Shay rebounded. “Why does that sound like the world’s biggest understatement?”

  Ghid exhaled through his nose. “Because you’re damn good at discerning that kind of shit.”

  “He always was.” Tait’s tone was full of the years he’d been on the receiving end of Shay’s perceptive abilities. Zoe could sympathize. She’d only been exposed to hours of the stuff and had come out of the experiences in a tangle of awe and annoyance.

  After ticking a brow at his brother, Shay turned again to Ghid. “So where does this story start?”

  Ghid’s awkward posture still prevailed, so he finally decided to sit. “Where most of the good ones do,” he told them. “At the beginning. So…you guys remember your buddy Homer?”

  “Nuclear bomb Homer?”

  Tait’s quip had Shay throwing a glance to Zoe. A new giggle sprang to her lips at his I-told-you-so smirk, suppressed by pressing a hand over her mouth.

  “Yeah.” Ghid leveled another stunner by sliding in half a smile over the end of it. “Mel told me about your little fun with that theme.”

  Tait’s eyes narrowed. “‘Mel’?”

  Shay shifted a little. “It’s what he calls Mom.”

  “Why?”

  Shay backhanded his shoulder. “Why do you think?”

  Tait stabbed a new glare at Ghid. Then viciously twisted his lips. “Are you fucking kidding—?”

  “Lock it down.” Shay turned his move into a steeled grip. “Dad’s been dead for a long time. Ghid just risked his ass in a big way to save mine. And he’s got pie, even if it’s bizarre.”

  None of them gave the comment even half a laugh. As Ghid pushed his fingers together in a taut steeple, Zoe bit her lip hard. Mierda. The man actually appeared like a self-conscious CO himself, about to hand walking papers to a couple of his guys. Her gut twisted in sympathy for him too. “You two never really knew what they were working on, did you?”

  Shay looked at the man with extended contemplation, perhaps trying to tell what the angle was on the question. “I know she was a bio-scientist and so was he, so that dictated the focus of their work. We had a damn zoo of research animals at the house for a while.”

  Tait broke into a dazzling grin. “Shit. The zoo. Now that part was fun. Mom let us keep the iguana in our room at night, didn’t she? We called him Messy.”

  “Original,” Ghid muttered.

  “What? He was.” Tait openly moped. “But Homez took Scout back to his place most days, and I wasn’t a happy camper about that.”

  Shay shrugged. “But when Homez left, Scout stayed.”

  “Barbecue bonus,” Tait concurred. “Of sorts.”

  “Sure.”

  “I fucking loved that dog. Nearly as much as you loved the horse.”

  “Yeah.” Shay’s return to boyhood joy brought dimples she’d never seen to the corners of his mouth. “Hercules. He deserved that name too. Fucking awesome animal. An Arabian of some sort. Homez would let me sneak in to feed him carrots. I definitely had a guy crush.”

  Ghid’s stare at Shay grew more intense. “Hmmm. That’s probably a good thing.”

  Shay’s response was equally as forceful—with discomfort. “Why?”

  Zoe was glad to see she wasn’t the only one unnerved by the man’s vibe of cryptic and creepy. The impression gained strength as Ghid pushed back to his feet, arms angled back as if he aimed to go find a street brawl. But surprisingly, his comeback was built on solid composure. “The animals in your zoo…weren’t test subjects. They were Melanie and Homer’s inspiration. And…DNA sources.”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  Ghid stopped in front of the window. “You two might be proud to know that in her way, your mom was a member of a unique Special Forces team of her own.”

  Shay scowled. “At the risk of sounding redundant, huh?”

  Ghid squared his stance, leveled his jaw, and fixed them with the fresh laser focus of his gaze. “The research she performed in your garage was part of a very special project, jointly embarked on a top-secret basis by twelve of the world’s leading nations. The initiative was given ten years of funding and was simply called Big Idea. The sole goal was to combine the knowledge of the planet’s greatest scientific minds to craft innovative solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.”

  Tait let out a low whistle. “By ‘challenges,’ I’m assuming you don’t mean shit like the soccer-football discrepancy and asshats who won’t pick up their dog’s crap.”

  “Both valid points,” Ghid returned, “but no. Big Idea was about addressing shit like the ozone layer…world weather patterns…poverty…”

  “Oh.” Shay snorted. “Just that kind of stuff.”

  Ghid didn’t mirror the sarcasm. Still serious, he stated, “Some pretty amazing shit came out of the project. Though it was all streamlined to the public via different avenues, you can thank Big Idea for biologically enhanced vegetables that resist pesticides, most materials that recycle besides tin cans, and lifesaving improvements in how tsunamis and hurricanes are tracked.”

  Tait spread his hands. “So how does this circle back to the work Mom and Homez were doing?”

  During his question, Zoe’s heartbeat leaped by at least twenty beats per minute. Then t
hirty. Two words from Ghid’s explanation slammed like a lightning bolt and then fused with another blow—memories as vivid and disturbing as the minutes that formed them, in the hallway back at the base.

  Biologically enhanced.

  Biologically enhanced.

  She’d still held the water pitcher. It slipped from her numb hand now, crashing to the hardwood floor near the table. “Por Dios,” she rasped.

  “Zoe.” Shay rushed over. “You okay, dancer? Did you—”

  “I saw them.” She gripped Shay’s arm but blurted it straight at Ghid. “In…in the hallway. At the base. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? They’re what you’re talking about.”

  Her mind raced, shoveling Ghid’s pie pieces into all the logical slots. But it still made no sense. It didn’t come close.

  Ruthless shivers roared up and down her spine. She’d dismissed all those poor creatures as an illusion of her exhaustion, stress, and fear, or at the worst, an evolution of humans forced to mate with the aliens that so many assumed were housed in Area 51.

  Not government-sanctioned science experiments.

  Not products of some idealistic “project” for mankind.

  Not the brainchild of Melody Bommer—the mother of the man who’d wrapped himself around her heart. The man she pressed more tightly to now, who swore softly in his distress for her.

  “Zoe, what the hell are you talking about?” Shay finally murmured. She felt him turn his head, probably to look at Ghid. “What the hell is she talking about?”

  Ghid’s labored sigh turned every air molecule in the room into a cactus ball. “Come sit down again, Shay. Bring her with you.”

  Zoe’s knees felt like rubber. Just how correctly had she pieced the pie together? And how thoroughly would she want to throw up after being forced to eat it?

  “Forget the weeds,” Tait professed as Shay eased her to the couch. “I’m wandering the goddamn forest now.”

  “Make room because I’m right there with you.” Shay dropped next to her with stiff movements. “DNA sources? Ghid, what the fuck?”

  Zoe joined them in scrutinizing the man. As she expected, Ghid didn’t even try for a fashion-model pose anymore. His posture was firm and his face the same tough mask—though his eyes, searching all three of them now, were a thousand sharp green shards apiece. What he had to tell them wasn’t easy. Not by a long stretch.