Jag flinched, and his eyelids fluttered open, showing eyes that instantly met Dane’s.
Frank gently pushed Jag down when the idiot attempted to rise. “It’s fine, he’s here and going nowhere. Rest.”
Shane nodded. “Yes, Dane. Please. Do tell us the whole story.”
But Dane was already at Jag’s side. “You’re such an ass! You could have died!” he whispered through the rock in his throat and grabbed Jag’s hand.
“I love you, and you just left me,” Jag uttered, squeezing his fingers without much force.
Mark snorted. So much for secrecy.
Heat consumed Dane’s face, but he pressed his forehead to Jag’s, overcome by a wave of fearful tenderness. How was he to respond to this confession when his feelings for Jag were so messy. “I wrote you I’d come back.”
Shane cleared his throat, but Frank spoke first.
“The hell? How was he supposed to read your message? He’s illiterate!”
Jag let out a heart-breaking whine and looked away, triggering an avalanche of emotion deep in Dane’s chest. He wanted to pull his beast close, and let it carry him to their den, so that his body could become the nourishment Jag needed to get back to health. Jag’s confession was like a deep gulp of sweet wine, but was Dane ready to accept the entire bottle?
Mom raised her voice. “You were going back to wherever you’d been without telling us?”
“It’s not like that,” Dane said in desperation and took in all the faces turned toward him. His throat dried from the heat of their expectations, but he couldn’t wiggle out of this questioning, so he took a deep breath and spoke. “I accidentally got entangled with the wrong people, and my friends here kept me in hiding.”
Dad exhaled and leaned back in the old leather armchair. “Sit down. Tell us the whole story.”
Mark handed Shane a coffee, and since there wasn’t enough seating in the small living room adorned with family photos and artificial flowers, he sat on the floor and watched Dane with eyes wide as saucers. It was time to come clean. With Jag now awake, Dane didn’t want to leave his side, so he remained by the sofa and delivered a sanitized version of his affair with a biker, who then used him to hack his club’s computer to delete some security footage, only to leave him to certain death. In his version of the story though, Rob had left him at the junkyard, and Jag was the hero who had saved and nursed him to health, as Dane came to the conclusion that mentioning the chains and collars might have given his family the wrong impression.
“You should call the police,” Mom said once he was done with his story, heavily flushed.
Dad shook his head. “The man’s a biker. His club’s gonna support him. This really is a damn tricky situation.”
By this point, Frank was also slurping coffee, and the two shady men looked so out of place Dane was itching to get the wolves out of this rabbit burrow.
“You're right,” Frank said to Dad with an expression made of stone. “But his club won’t be on his side once they find out what he was doing behind their backs.”
Shane sighed. “Rob can’t find out Dane’s alive.”
“Until we can make sure the truth comes to light, that is,” Frank added.
“And how… involved are you exactly?” Mom asked, crossing her arms over her chest
“That’s a good question,” Frank said before Dane could have turned to ash, smoldered by her gaze. “But I don’t think you want the answer.”
Great.
Shane shook his head. “The safest way forward for everyone involved would be for Dane to come back with us and lay low until we contact the club and work out what kind of footage was deleted.”
“Rob made us believe it was club business, but all of this stinks from miles away,” Frank said without mentioning that the business he spoke about involved making a dead body disappear.
“Wait, so you work with those criminals?” Dad asked.
“Not closely, but it’s unwise to reject lucrative opportunities in this economy,” Shane said as if it was all perfectly understandable and normal.
“I think they can be reasoned with if there's proof of Rob’s misconduct. I’m sure he’ll incriminate himself again, and once he’s gone for good, Dane will be able to go out into the world as normal,” Frank added in a calm voice.
“‘Gone for good’?” Mark repeated, his mouth slack as if he wasn’t sure whether to be scared or awed. He shouldn’t have been part of this conversation in the first place, but it was too late for that.
Dane cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s time for bed? School ni—”
“Oh, no, brother, you will not tell me what to do after disappearing on us for a month,” Mark growled in a tone that made Dane flinch.
“Most importantly, we want you safe, Dane,” Mom said in a weak voice. “If that… bastard can find you here, you can’t stay.”