Page 28 of Dangerous Secrets

Nick heard tapping sounds and smiled. Jake had undergone the last of eleven operations over the past ten years to straighten out his spine and being able to walk without pain and move quickly were both huge victories.

Wait a minute.

“Whoa.” Nick finally focused on what Jake was saying. “Hit rewind, would you? What was that again? I thought I heard you say that?—”

“That you’re a millionaire. Rich, big guy, you’rerich. Absolutely. Welcome to the club.” Jake laughed. Actually, Jake was a billionaire, many times over, but Nick appreciated the thought. The Millionaires’ Club.

“Jesus.” Nick took a deep breath, then another. “Jesus, I’m rich.” His mind whirled. “I’m rich.” He gave a breathless laugh.

“Yep. Don’t spend it all in one place. Tell me I’m good.”

“You’re a genius,” Nick said, meaning every word.

“Damn straight.” Jake laughed again.

Nick swallowed. He flashed on the first time he’d seen Jake.

He’d been eleven and looked sixteen and Jake had been nine and looked five. Jake had suddenly appeared in the orphanage, a shell-shocked, whey-faced, odd-looking little boy with a crooked back and toothpick legs. His family had immigrated from Israel the year before and his parents had just died in a freak accident. There were no other family members the state knew of, and they couldn’t immediately find a family willing to take on a cripple, so he’d been dumped in the orphanage, where he was immediate prey.

He barely spoke English, was badly underdeveloped and scoliosis had turned his back into a huge crooked S. The death of his parents had traumatized him so much he couldn’t talk.

It had been like dumping a crippled guppy with a BEAT ME UP sign pinned to its fin into a tank of piranhas. Five minutes after arriving, Jake was bleeding.

Nick had been outside shooting hoops when he saw the biggest bullies in the orphanage kicking something small and white on the ground. A minute later, he was pulling thefuckers off, breaking an arm and a nose and was carrying an unconscious Jake to the dispensary. He’d weighed nothing.

The dispensary, necessary by law, was staffed by an indifferent nurse Nick suspected was dealing pain-killers. She had no desire to look Jake over and did so only when Nick got right up into her face.

She patched Jake up and Nick made sure he was around Jake most of the time and that everyone knew messing with Jake meant messing withhim. Jake was prey but Nick wasn’t. Nobody fucked with him or with those he protected.

For the next few years, Nick had a pale, silent shadow. Jake never spoke, hardly ate, and could sleep only if Nick was in the same room.

They bounced from foster home to foster home. The first time Nick was dumped in a foster home, the social worker refused to place Jake in the same home. The social worker, an obese lady with a honeyed southern accent and mean eyes, raked in ten percent of the take from the foster homes she placed kids in.

She wanted to split them up. Jake was to go to a home that specialized in mentally and physically handicapped children. There was a 50% bonus for those kids. Nick had heard tales about that home that made his skin prickle. Two kids had died there over the past couple of years.

Nick pushed the social worker against a wall with a knife to her side and told her he’d cut out her kidney if Jake didn’t go with him. They were never separated after that.

When Nick was seventeen and Jake fifteen, some sociology students came to the foster home they were in at the time. The students were conducting a survey of children in foster homes who had spent time in an orphanage. The survey consisted of an IQ test, a Rorschach and interviews. Jake refused to answer the questions and was silent when administered the Rorschach.

The IQ test was another story.

The survey team refused to believe the initial results and had Jake take the test again. And again. And again.

Each time, the survey group grew, until finally, a professor from MIT came and took Jake away.

Jake’s results were off the charts, particularly in math. Genius didn’t begin to describe it. From then on, foundations vied for the privilege of educating him. He had a masters in economics and math by the time he was eighteen. A PhD in economics by twenty-one. By that time, too, he knew what he wanted. Money, and lots of it.

He had it too, Nick thought in satisfaction. Piles of it. Tons. Boatloads of the stuff. Good for him. He’d earned every penny.

“You’re rich, now, buddy,” Jake said quietly. “So what are you going to do about it? No sense dying young when you’re rich, is there? Rich guys die of old age. In their beds. With a couple of hotties.”

Nick winced. Once, between missions, he’d gotten shit-faced with Jake. Four men under his command had died and he saw their faces nightly in his dreams. Nightmares.

Jake had sat and listened quietly to him, nursing one drink to Nick’s ten until Nick had been rendered down to rock bottom. There had been nothing left in him, an exhausted, heart-broken mess of a man. And that was when he confessed to Jake that he was convinced he would die young.

After that, Jake refused to let it go, like a dog with a bone. He said he would make it his life’s work to get Nick out of the military. When Nick was wounded and resigned his commission, Jake bought a whole vineyard in Champagne to celebrate. And then got angry as hell when Nick joined the Unit and went undercover.

Suddenly, Jake’s voice roughened. “I’m not going to let you die young, Nick. I simply won’t allow it. You’re going to die in your bed, a rich old man and that’s that. Get used to it.”

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