Page 48 of Escape into the Night

Amongst this controlled chaos, the Gendry brothers created their own storm. Lance came and went like a specter, reappearing with new gadgets every time he made himself visible. Honestly, Cay assumed most of them were highly illegal, but he knew better than to ask questions he didn't want the answers to. Liam and Leon, the inseparable twins, thrived on the chaos. Every single time he turned around, one or both of them were up to their elbows in the shit show while wearing Cheshire grins that trended manic each time a new gadget appeared on a table. And on the sagging couch in the sad fan room, Luke hunched in on himself, barely holding it together. Frankly, Caleb was in his element. He barked orders to the hapless team of campaign workers he’d dragged along with him for this clandestine war conference like a maestro conducting his swan song. With one phone tucked against his shoulder, he typed out a message on a second at a speed that should qualify as a superpower.

“Yes, Senator. I'm fully aware that it is a delicate situation,” he soothed as his fingers continued tapping out his directives to their social media team, headed by an old White House staffer he’d eagerly poached into their employ. “Let me be perfectly clear—if you don't want your name dragged through the mud alongside the rest of these traitorous bastards, you're going to listen.”

The Senator on the other end of the line blustered and stammered and ultimately caved. Everyone always caved to Caleb Cohen-Williams. He chortled with glee. “That's what I thought. Ta, love. We’ll be in touch.”

Hanging up, he immediately switched gears. “Connor, my darling. My love. Where are we on Todd’s devices?”

He found the man in the kitchen, right alongside Bella and Theo. “Reckon it's almost done. We got into most of’em. Teddy’s working on the last hard drive now. There’s a lot here.”

“Please define ‘a lot’ for those of us without microchips for brains.” Caleb looked up long enough to make eye contact before responding to another message from the security team with Elias. His husband’s absence from their quasi-Situation Room was a calculated one. It was a lot easier to claim plausible deniability if he were nowhere near this circus.

“Enough to keep me busy for a few days,” Theo answered, his voice raspy and wrecked with exhaustion. Cay paused again to take in the poor man’s appearance. It was easy to forget how utterly fucked it all was when it wasn't staring him in the face with sunken, haunted eyes in a gaunt face. Theo was alarmingly skinny and even more noticeably exhausted. Yet another reason it was best for Elias to be elsewhere.

“Talk me through it, my pasty little emo boy.” Caleb settled a hand on Theo’s too-bony shoulder. He didn't squeeze. Honestly, he worried the man would crumble under too much force.

“Encrypted messages, data transfers, money trails, a handful of deleted files I'm still piecing together. I don't think he was working alone. Y’all might want to consider the possibility of a second entity.”

“Fuck me sideways. No. Nope. Don't even say it.” Caleb pantomimed plugging his ears with his fingers. “La la la. The term is ‘breeding like rabbits’ not ‘breeding like moles.’ No more moles. None. I refuse to hear it.”

Bella stifled a snicker. Her expression was fraught with tension, but she was much like Caleb in that respect—humor helped lessen the intensity of any blow. “Lily is with T. I’ll keep watching the media.”

“Good. Yes. Brilliant. If anything leaks, we need to control the narrative before anyone else does.”

She flashed a mock-salute before hunkering down over another laptop. So many fucking laptops. Caleb puffed out his cheeks before releasing a slow breath.

“Bowtie! How soon can your contacts meet with the Gendry contacts?” Caleb hollered loud enough to get their attention in the adjacent space. Beau appeared in the doorway looking utterly unflappable. He was honestly a little jealous of the man’s constant cool.

“Already mobilized, frère.” Beau leaned against the doorframe and smirked. “Nightfall at the latest.”

“Good. Great. We need to be prepared for potential fallout.” With another sigh, he scanned the home and caught a glimpse of Luke folding in on himself. His hands clutched at his hair hard enough to quake with the effort. Cay grimaced and shut his eyes.

“What are we going to do about Luke?”

“He’s—” Bella started to answer before the man in question cut her off.

“I can answer for myself!” Luke’s head snapped up, his gaze wild-eyed and glimmering. “We need to focus on Taz.”

Switching gears, Caleb ducked through the hall and snuck closer to the harrowed man becoming one with the couch. He didn't begrudge him his misery. It had taken three of them to drag him out of the bedroom he shared with Taz. He knew if the shoe was on the other foot, he would have burned the world down to be close to Elias, but Luke wasn't in the right headspace to be of any help with someone who was effectively catatonic and liable to off himself if the opportunity presented itself.

“I know, Luke. I know. We're on it. Lily's with him right now, and that's the best we can do right now. I need you with us, okay? I need you here, for him.” Caleb swept a hand over Luke’s ravaged hair and impulsively bent down to plant a kiss on hisforehead. “Be strong for him. Be strong because he can't be right now, got it?”

Luke swallowed as his eyes took on a renewed glimmer of unshed tears. He’d seen war, death, destruction, and misery, but apparently that all paled in comparison to the horror of seeing his lover barely hanging on. Caleb held his breath, only releasing it when the older man mustered a nod and pushed himself to his feet. With a rough pass of his hand over his face, he wiped away the tears and nodded again. That, at least, was one less fire that needed putting out.

The evening stretched into night amidst a blur of action, strategy, and sheer force of will. Caleb kept the wheels turning until his voice grew hoarse. Take out appeared, disappeared, appeared again, and subsequently disappeared until mountains of styrofoam threatened to become a tripping hazard in the crowded home. One glance into the backyard became a big nope. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him, and he definitely didn't need to know why there were four different Army-issue tents cluttered around the bonfire pit. He finally snuck away to use the restroom and again noped right the fuck out when he found a woman in head-to-toe tactical gear fully asleep in the tub. It was far preferable to mark the landscaping than drop his trousers in GI Jane’s bunk room. By midnight, his eyes were sandpaper and the lull in the activity was a blessing he grabbed onto with both hands.

The hallway on the second floor was eerily quiet, the darkened doorway at the end opening like a black void. He crept through the opening and let his eyes adjust to the shadows until the light of sodium lamps bleeding through the curtained window brought vague shapes into focus. Lily sat perched on the edge of the bed, her face cast in strange shadows from the glow of a Kindle. Beside her, Taz was a motionless lump buried beneath a mountain of blankets with a rigged up IV stand crafted fromliteral duct tape and wire hangers hanging from the headboard of the bed.

“Hey, Lil. Want to swap out?” He kept his voice hushed. Anything louder than a whisper felt too aggressive, and that was saying something since he prided himself on being a wrecking ball of energy more often than not.

“Mm. You’ll stay with him?” She stirred with a wince before slowly standing. God, he hadn't realized until this very moment that she’d kept vigil for nearly twelve hours.

“Of course. Go rest.”

“I just changed his IV. It's a rally bag. Vitamins, minerals, hydration. Don't let him walk without assistance, please?”

Caleb stepped closer and slipped his arms around the taller woman's body before squeezing for all he was worth. Lily, always their angel in the wings. He walked her to the door, kissed her cheek, and then quietly shut it behind her. Once they were alone, he scampered to the bed and promptly kicked his shoes aside before inviting himself into the mountain of bedding and pillows. A soft sound of protest was the only indication that Taz was even conscious.

“Hello, my Tazzy baby.” Caleb shifted and squirmed and eventually settled into the role of comical big spoon to a much taller little spoon. He was careful to move slowly. Todd had really fucked Taz up, physically and emotionally. It felt a lot like handling a bomb that would detonate if he moved too quickly.

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