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Gabriel
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“Iceman.”
“Saint,” Kane rumbled into the phone.
“I was thinking those mountains of yours might be a fine place to do some hunting and fishing this time of year.”
“That they are.”
“Interested?”
Kane hesitated only a moment, picking up on what Gabe was asking without words. “Hell, yes. Bet my brothers would be, too.”
“The more, the merrier.” And it was. Kane Callaghan was damn good. Kane Callaghan and his brothers? Unstoppable.
“When?”
“The sooner, the better.”
A few days later, Gabe found himself in the Callaghan family compound. Unlike his own sparse, utilitarian cabin, Kane’s place was warm and homey, with framed photos on the mantel and child-drawn pictures on the fridge. Reconciling those with the man he’d known and had the honor of serving with took some doing. Oh, Kane was still the hard-ass he’d always been, but there was an inner peace in the Iceman’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was nice to think his friend had found his happy ending. And maybe, just maybe, it gave him some hope, too.
Kane’s brothers, or at least some of them, were already there when he arrived. Jake, Gabe knew, having crossed paths with him once or twice over the years. Ian, he’d heard of. The guy’s digital skills were legendary. Sean, he’d never met before, but he had the same aura of barely leashed power and aggression Gabe understood so well. The three other Callaghan brothers—Michael, Shane, and Kieran—weren’t there, Kane explained, but were willing and available if the situation warranted it.
They shared the same big builds. The same blue-black hair, some dusted with silver, like his own. The same sharp, assessing, blue eyes. They might not have been career military like he was, but they were kindred spirits. They understood.
Kane’s wife and daughter were spending a few days with family down in the nearby community of Pine Ridge, so it was just the guys. They weren’t big on formalities, which Gabe appreciated. Introductions were made over steaks and cold beer, and Gabe gave them a high-level version of the events of the last few months.
“I heard Crash was all respectable now,” Jake said with a grin. He was nearly as big as Kane and slightly more talkative. “But DHS? What the hell is he thinking?”
“Sucks about Kristikos, though,” Ian added with a devilish glint in his eye. “I wouldn’t have minded offing the bastard myself.”
Gabe agreed with both of them.
“So, what do you need?” Kane asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter. Gabe wasn’t offended; that was just the way Kane was. As nice as it was to hang out with the guys and shoot the shit, this visit wasn’t about that and they all knew it.
Gabe exhaled and told them about Virginia. They listened quietly, occasionally exchanging looks between them. When he finished, no one said anything for several long minutes.
Gabe prepared himself to hear what his own mind had been telling him: that he was an idiot. That he’d made things personal when they were just business. That attempting to find Virginia was a pointless and stupid endeavor.
They didn’t say any of those things, though.
When he looked back up and met each of their gazes, he saw neither pity nor censure, but empathy and complete understanding.
“Hey, man, we get it,” Jake confirmed. “We’ve all been there. You don’t see it coming. It’s like a sniper shot, out of nowhere and right between the eyes.”
“Does this sound familiar to anyone?” Ian said, sitting back. “A woman who doesn’t exist except for an occasional, sporadic footprint? Seamless assumption of alternate identities? Complete and total immersion?”
“Fuck me,” Sean said on an exhale, jumping to his feet and leaving the room. It was the first time he’d spoken.
The brothers exchanged glances but said nothing. A fire crackled in the hearth, adding to the barely-audible, low-level hum of kitchen appliances. They, apparently, understood the significance of what Ian had said, but whatever epiphany Sean Callaghan had had went right over Gabe’s head. He waited for an explanation, but the silence continued.
He met Kane’s eyes, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they knew something he didn’t. Kane shook his head slightly, a silent warning. Gabe clamped his lips shut and resisted the urge to demand an answer. He had been the one to come here and ask for help, so he would have to wait.
A few minutes later, Sean returned, once again cool and impassive, his expression giving nothing away. Gabe, however, felt like he was going to lose his fucking mind if someone didn’t start saying something.
“Well?” Ian asked.
“Nicki’s going to make some calls.” Sean stalked over to the fridge and looked inside. Who wants another beer?”
A chorus of “yos” and “ayes” answered. Gabe couldn’t stand it any longer. “Who’s Nicki?”
“Sean’s croie,” Kane responded.
“His what?”
“His wife,” clarified Jake.
“His better half,” added Ian with a grin.
Gabe failed to see the connection between Sean’s wife and Virginia. “And he called her because . . .?”
Kane gave him a pointed look. “Because your Virginia sounds a hell of a lot like Sean’s Nicki.”
“Even looks like her a little bit,” Ian added, staring down at the tablet that had suddenly appeared in his hands. He turned it around so everyone else could see. It was the photo from the airport security camera that Silas had shown Gabe.
“Yeah, I can see it,” Jake agreed.
“How did you get that?”
Ian grinned. “The rumors are true. I’m just that good.”
It took several minutes of connecting the dots before Gabe said slowly, “Are you telling me that Virginia is not just a rogue sleeper agent? That there’s an actual organization?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Ian smirked, his eyes sparkling.
Son of a bitch. There was. And Sean’s wife was—or had been—one of them.
“Tell me,” Gabe said, but Sean was shaking his head before he finished getting the words out. “If there’s anything to tell, we’ll let you know.”
A fresh wave of frustration rose up inside him. Gabe put his beer down hard on the nearest surface and went outside before he said or did something he’d regret. He breathed deeply, pulling in the crisp, clean mountain air to calm himself. Fred sniffed around, intent on marking everything. Before long, Fred was joined by Kane’s massive black monstrosity, Angus, and the two of them engaged in a friendly but determined pissing contest.
Gabe was suddenly aware of Kane’s presence beside him. For as large as he was, he was a stealthy bastard.
“Fuck, Kane. I need to find her.”
“It’s not our call, man.”
“Need to know. I get it. I do.” Gabe exhaled, so sick and tired of that phrase. “But this waiting, the not knowing, it’s eating me alive.”
Kane’s heavy hand landed briefly on his shoulder in silent commiseration before he turned away and went back into the cabin. Gabe remained outside for another hour, walking around the compound with Fred. It reminded him a lot of his own place. Remote. Quiet. Scenic. A great place to get away from everyone and everything.
Except, unlike him, Kane wasn’t alone. He shared this place with his wife and daughter, with his brothers and their families.
That, in itself, wasn’t so unusual. Lots of guys got married and had kids. As Gabe had found out, though, it didn’t always work out for everyone. For men like them, men who needed that occasional rush that came with doing something extra, settling down just wasn’t enough.
The key, Ian informed him much later that night, was not finding a woman, but finding the woman. A croie. The one who was his perfect mate in every way.
Admittedly, Kane and his brothers seemed to have the best of both worlds, managing to strike a perfect balance between the roles of husband, father, and SEAL. Somehow, they’d discovered a way to find happiness without giving up who they were in the process. They hadn’t lost their edge or gone soft. On the contrary, they seemed just as lethal and effective as always, if not more so.
“I thought only women bought into that soul mate crap,” Gabe scoffed, the fine Irish whiskey warming his insides and loosening his tongue. They didn’t have to know that he’d entertained the notion himself a time or twelve, nor that he longed for the kind of connection a soul mate would bring. Rather than be offended, they simply smiled, their eyes filled with knowledge.
One by one, they shared their stories with him. Jake’s had shown up at his pub one night, on the run from a deranged psychopath. Ian had run into his on a bus when she was returning to Pine Ridge to bury her father. Sean’s story most closely aligned with his own and dealt with his wife’s thirst for vengeance. Even Kane had a tale to tell, starting somewhere in the jungle and picking up again with a local flood.
Gabe listened to all of them. By the time they’d finished, he still wasn’t sure he believed in croies, but it was nice to think it was possible. The things they described—the feelings of contentment, of soul-deep rightness—did make him think of the way he’d felt around Virginia.
And, he thought, maybe the way she’d felt around him, too.
Of course, that was all probably just a carefully crafted illusion. Anyone capable of pulling off a decade-long charade was certainly capable of feigning interest, especially when doing so played so perfectly into the overall mission.
But killing Christos and jeopardizing ten years of work to save his ass hadn’t been part of her mission, had it? Neither had allowing herself to show up on a Korfos airport security camera after Darius’s unexpected death using his name.
Sean’s phone rang. He held it up to his ear, his eyes shooting over to Gabe. “Uh-huh . . . Yep . . . Thanks, babe . . . Love you, too. See you tomorrow.”
“Well?” Gabe asked.
“Now, we wait.”
“Wait? Wait for what?” Gabe’s voice came out as a growl. “Do you know where she is or not?”
“Not,” Sean told him firmly. “But the word’s been put out.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Kane said, leveling him with an icy blue gaze, “that we’ve done everything we can.”