“Because you ended up blowing him instead?”
Shit. Gray grabbed a Coke from the tray and felt his ears getting hot.
Ryan chuckled. “Next time, close the door unless you wanna give everyone a show.”
Good God, how mortifying.
“Noted,” he coughed. “I’m just gonna move past this quickly as hell and ask why you PMC soldier grunts don’t feel the need to process everything you go through.”
“Huh?”
Gray took a swig of his Coke and dared a glance at Ryan. Thankfully, confusion had taken over from the amusement.
“Everyone left so fast,” Gray stated. “We haven’t discussed the operation whatsoever.”
“Ah.” Ryan leaned back in his seat and took a drag from his smoke. “The reason we’re leaving today is to put distance between us and Vegas. This isn’t an official gig—we didn’t get orders from one of the agencies in DC, so we can’t relax as soon as the job is done. We gotta go home and secure our alibis.”
“I get that part, but still. You barely discussed it today either,” Gray replied. “You and River talked, what, ten minutes?”
Ryan grinned a little. “That’s what Connor’s place in Colorado’s for. I mean, if someone needs to talk, we have one another’s numbers. All you gotta do is call. But otherwise, we wait for a safe time and place to swap battle stories and theorize about motives and unanswered questions. And after an op like this…?” He let out a low whistle. “We’re definitely gonna need a reunion—and approximately two cases of whiskey.”
What a brilliant, not problematic idea at all. To go back to the place with the woman who was desperately in love with Darius.
Gray smiled ruefully. “How great it’ll be to see Darius’s ex again.”
Ryan let out a carefree laugh. “Oh, boy. There are a lotta things you gotta worry about where my brother is concerned—such as him turning your life into a reenactment of Little House on the Prairie, him building an apocalyptic bunker under the house, or him showing up at Jayden’s school for Bring Your Dad to Work Day with a scripted speech for the kids on how to fuck the government—but exes? Not in a million years.”
Gray couldn’t help but grin at all that because he loved those things about Darius.
Ryan’s smile turned softer, and his expression grew pensive. “I didn’t believe him when he first told me you were different. Because all I had was his history to go on. He didn’t know how to commit for shit—to anyone outside the family. He’s treated everyone for what they were, temporary features until he had to go away again. But then you came along. And I didn’t… I just didn’t believe him.” He shook his head, obviously thinking back. “In retrospect, I should’ve seen it. It didn’t happen that quickly after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was right after we got off the island,” Ryan recalled. “We talked. It was clear to him that you were something else, unlike the other clients he’d formed unhealthy attachments to. And attachment is the wrong word.”
Gray knew that part. For years and years, Darius had clung to innocence to show him there was still good in the world. And over the span of his career, he’d returned home several young men and women, and some children, and it’d been his goal to keep their innocence intact. Then, at the end of the assignment, Darius had walked away without looking back. Every mission became a memory, and they earned a mark on his body.
“Attachment is what he formed to you,” Ryan went on. “Which I didn’t understand, because it’d happened so fast in my head. He boarded the yacht, completed the transaction, all hell broke loose, and then we got stranded. In that mayhem, he was telling me you were different?” He shook his head again. “But I forgot the fact that he’d just spent two, three months living and breathing all things Gray Nolan. Before he met you, he’d already gotten to know you through those who love you the most. He spent countless hours with your mother and your brothers, your stepsister, your best friend—he went through your social media, your photos, your playlists, and he mapped out your entire everyday life.”
Christ. Gray had never thought of it that way.
Ryan took a final drag and leaned forward to put out his smoke in the ashtray. “I’m not sure you were just a case to him when he boarded the yacht. Looking back now, I think he saw something long before that.”
Something fluttered in Gray’s stomach, and he couldn’t describe how badly he wanted to run to Darius right now and just hug the hell out of him. These next couple of days were going to suck so hard. All he craved was being back home with Darius and the boys.
“I don’t see why else he would choose to mark you with those numbers under your barcode tattoo,” Ryan finished.