“Who knows?” Rowe answered. “It could be anything. They’re still out there.”
Hollis cleared his throat. “They are, Ian. I saw one of them not too long ago while on surveillance with Shane.”
“You did?” Ian frowned as his gut began to churn. Anger pierced his belly. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
Hollis reared back at his tone. “Because I didn’t want to worry you.”
Ian shut his eyes and counted to ten while his fury grew into something that blacked out the corners of his vision. “I’m never going to be safe, am I? Never going to be free. Here I am working on building this life with you and my restaurant and…kids.” His eyes opened as he focused on Hollis, and he knew his expression was bleak. “How do we bring foster kids into our lives if we’re still dealing with this shit?”
Hollis grabbed his shoulders and squeezed. “We don’t know this is coming from one of Jagger’s men. Like you said, that’s a long time to carry a grudge, and why have a grudge against you to begin with? You were a victim.”
“Maybe because I killed him?”
“It’s been years.” He tried to draw Ian into a hug, but Ian pulled away. He was still pissed Hollis hadn’t told him about seeing someone from Jagger’s crew. He was pissed over the entire situation, and he stalked away from everyone and ran his hands through his hair.
“I can’t bring kids into my world. I should have never thought I could.”
Rowe came to him and cupped his face. “If anyone in this world deserves to have kids, it’s you, so don’t you dare give up on your dreams over this. We’ll figure it out.”
But Ian was inconsolable. He stepped away from Rowe and returned to the computer screen. He looked at the hooded figure and tried to make out anything familiar about him, looking for tattoos, a glimpse of a face. Whoever it was, he wasn’t really that much bigger than Ginger, but he agreed that it was a man and a drug user. He’d seen marks like that in the past. “Can you run this back a bit? Does his face show up at all?”
“No,” Gidget answered. “I’ve slowed it to a crawl and watched the whole thing. He’s extra careful, like he’s aware he’s being filmed. What did the graffiti say?”
“Homophobic slurs. But I can’t imagine someone being so upset that I’m gay, they’d go through all this. I mean, that kind of hate can’t still be real, right?”
“Hell yeah, it could be.” Rowe scowled. “All this started right after the magazine article came out, you said?”
Nodding, Ian hugged his arms around himself because he still couldn’t believe someone would hate who he was enough to try and destroy him. “Then this could be anyone. We have absolutely nothing to go on. No leads at all.”
“We know it’s a man, and we know he’s a drug user.” Hollis walked to him and again tried to draw him into a hug, but Ian tensed up, causing his husband to frown.
“That’s not enough,” Ian said, drawing in a shaky breath. “It’s just not.”Chapter ElevenIan shrugged off his jacket and hung it in the hall closet. The trip to Ward Security had been more painful than he’d been expecting. He’d thought they’d be able to walk away with some lead or clue as to why he was being targeted. But the information that came out of the meeting had left him feeling sick to his stomach and so damn frustrated.
Jagger.
No matter what he did. No matter what he achieved. No matter what he tried. It all came crashing back down to Jagger.
The fucking bastard had been dead for almost three years, and he was still interfering with Ian’s life in some way.
It wasn’t fair.
He hated to think of it that way. He knew that life wasn’t fair. That it wasn’t supposed to be fair, but there had to be a line where things sort of evened out or there was some kind of balance that kept people from running through the street screaming.
Since Lucas, Snow, and Rowe had saved him, Ian had worked hard to live his best life. The guys had given him countless opportunities to pursue his dreams. He’d studied the culinary arts, opened an amazing restaurant in downtown Cincinnati, moved out on his own, taken down a crime boss’s operations, dated, found the love of his life, and gotten married.
Now he was on the cusp of starting a second restaurant and becoming a foster parent with the hope of one day starting his own family with Hollis.
But it all felt like it was on the brink of falling apart because of something to do with his stupid past and Jagger’s organization.
Hollis walked into the living room with his phone in his hand, scrolling through something as he flopped down on the sofa. “Don’t forget that we’ve got another foster parent class tomorrow night,” Hollis murmured. “It’ll be good to have those done.”