Page 80 of Gunpowder

“You’re wrong,” he whispered, as loudly as he could when he felt like there was a hand wrapped around his throat, cutting off his oxygen.

“He showed up the same time we started fighting Phantom. Funny, ain’t it, how the closer you two got, the further ahead of us Phantom seemed to be?” Felix said.

Come to think of it, Doc had been there that night, too, but Blair didn’t think it would help his situation to mention that. Not that he thought Doc betrayed them—neither of them did. Blair knew they didn’t. “Wren wouldn’t, he—”

“One of ours would never do this,” Spencer interjected.

Blair whirled toward him. “He is one of ours! He got the shit beat out of him for us!”

“You really don’t think somebody wouldn’t take a few bruises to keep their cover?” Felix asked, knuckles going white where he held the wire.

Blair slammed a fist down on the coffee table. “You’re wrong!”

“And you’re blind!” Felix roared, standing up so fast that the coffee table rocked onto two feet, sending the ashtray clattering to the hardwood and Blair staggering back. He grabbed a stack of paper off the couch and shoved it against Blair’s chest. “Read them.”

Blair looked down at the document on top of the stack. In the top left corner was a grainy picture that looked like a driver’s license photo. It was Wren, but it also wasn’t. His hair was too short, his jawline too sharp. Blair’s eyes drifted to the first line of text. Eli Vincent Masters. Wren was an only child, which left only one person who could bear such a striking resemblance to him. Anger shot through Blair, seeing the face of the man who had tormented Wren, so much that he almost forgot he was supposed to be reading this shit for some reason. He recognized the format as one of Spencer’s background checks. The name, place of birth, date of birth and… date of death. Almost four years ago.

Wren’s father is dead? Wren talked about him like he was still around.

That wouldn’t warrant Felix’s insistence for him to read these, though, so he kept going. There was a list of warrants that had been out for Eli’s arrest before he died. Embezzlement, grand theft auto, larceny and more, but most notably of all, thirty-six counts of first degree murder.

“Holy shit,” Blair whispered. “What… how the fuck did he ever get out of LA? How was he not in prison?”

Felix scoffed disdainfully. “Being a world class assassin gives you friends in high places. Who the fuck knows.”

Blair wanted to argue the point, but he’d already started to read the next page, and there were heaps of reports to confirm what Felix was telling him. Police reports, the accounts they uncovered with payments that matched to the time of the previously unsolved murders, even information about the city’s mafia that had long since been looking for a way to take Eli down.

My father was paranoid. He always said they would come for us.

Wren’s words echoed in his head, intertwining with the building headache threatening to split his skull open. Blair looked up from the papers. “But this is Eli, not Wren.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Kennedy, he was raised by a goddamn assassin!”

“Wren’s not his father!” Blair snapped, balling the papers in his fist.

Spencer’s calm voice cut between them. “So you knew? He told you?”

“No, but—”

“If he was keeping a secret like this, he wouldn’t bat an eye at using you to get to us. Nobody inherits a legacy like Eli Masters’ and doesn’t end up a criminal,” Spencer said.

“Blair, we know you care about him. I’m sorry,” Julian said.

A piercing sting formed behind Blair’s eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

Felix circled the table to stand in front of him. “You don’t have to.” He shoved the wire at Blair’s chest. “You’re one of us, Blair. You’re part of this family. Hate me for it or not, I’m gonna protect us even if it means you give up your pretty little boyfriend. So, here’s your options.”

“Boss,” Blair said, knowing from the hard set of Felix's jaw that this was going bad, quick, and he had to do something. Wren wouldn’t have betrayed them. He wouldn’t have lied to Blair all his time. Surely Wren had his reasons for not telling Blair about his father. Blair knew that, he just had to make them understand because they didn’t know Wren like he did.

Felix towered over him. “You break it off and tell him to stay the fuck out of my city—and don’t think for one second I won’t know if you try to keep talking to him, or—”

Blair’s hands had gone cold and too numb to grasp the cord Felix had been shoving at him so it hit the ground between them when Felix let go to reach under his coat. He snapped the MAC-10 together in a flash and Blair’s heart clattered against his ribs as metal touched his temple.

Felix brushed Blair’s hair off his forehead with the muzzle. “I’ll take care of him myself.”

Wren wouldn’t betray me, Blair thought desperately, but all he could see was the same gun pressed against Wren’s head, with Felix’s finger on the trigger instead of resting harmlessly to the side as it was now.

Blair distantly recognized what he had to do, but he’d forgotten what his nights were like before spending so many of them at Wren’s apartment, what his arms felt like without Wren in them. How was he supposed to go back to that?

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