Surrender A Section 8 Novel

Chapter Seventeen





Jem got a half hour of sleep at most, worked long after Key stumbled in and began his snoring on the couch.

He woke his brother sometime after noon.

“Get showered and dressed and meet me at the tat shop in twenty,” he told Key, who grunted. “Coffee and breakfast is on the stove. And I’m not your mama.”

“Thank f*cking God for that,” Key muttered, and then continued to mutter, saying something along the lines of never drinking again as long as he f*cking lived.

If Avery was staying with Gunner, it was for protection. Why Gunner had let her out on her own was a mystery. Unless Gunner was losing his touch.

Doubtful.

The door was locked but the alarm system was off. There was a big bodyguard who’d go down like a rock and some celebrity tween of the week lying on Gunner’s table.

Gunner’s back was to him, but he’d know Jem was in the shop in three, two, one . . .

Without turning around or stopping his work, he said, “I’m closed.”

“You need better locks.”

As many times as the men had met over the years, they never talked about the past. It was an unspoken agreement that had kept the men alive in each other’s presence for the past fifteen years.

The bodyguard was up in a second, and Gunner sighed and shut down the tat gun. “Dude, he’s cool. He’s just going to grab some coffee and wait for me. Quietly.”

Jem smiled his best crazy-assed smile at the bodyguard and hoped the guy was smart enough to stand down, because Jem could easily kill him without breaking a sweat.

Granted, so could Gunner.

It took another half an hour for Gunner to finish up with the tat on the young celebrity, then pose for the obligatory picture that would end up on Twitter and bring Gunner more business than he’d ever imagined or wanted.

For Gunner, tattooing was as sacred as anything. As sacred as that f*cked-up reverse-karma thing he had going. Because if Gunner saved your life, he owed you a favor, not the other way around. Jem knew that growing up here was enough to give anyone more superstitions than they could count.

Finally, Gunner let the bodyguard with the stupid hidden gun, too many muscles and not enough range to be good for anything take the tween away. Punk. But the girl was cute and didn’t need much more than the scary-looking man to frighten people into giving her a clear path, and hell, Jem was long out of the hero business.

“Want that coffee Irish?” Gunner asked Jem without turning back around.

“Hair of the dog,” Jem agreed, and Gunner gave him a shot in the steaming mug and served himself the same. After a long moment of silence as Jem let the liquid burn his gullet, he said, “You know you’re housing a multiple murderer?”

“Her money’s good.”

“So’s her ass.”

“Wouldn’t know.”

“Losing your touch?”

“Ah, Jeremiah, you wish.” Gunner slugged down half the coffee. “I don’t need this shit today—what do you want, really?”

Brass tacks, that was what it always came down to between them. “Looking for someone. Dare O’Rourke.”


* * *

Avery tossed and turned for most of the night, finally fell into a deeper sleep as morning came. When she woke, she heard voices downstairs. Gunner had obviously opened her door at some point in order to keep track of her.

She guessed she needed to be grateful that someone else was watching her back.

She moved toward the stairs to hear the voices—Gunner and another guy whose voice she didn’t recognize. Then she heard the door open, and Gunner said, “Key, long time no see. How long you been back?”

Key. Here, in Gunner’s shop. She went down the stairs and waited behind the curtain that separated the kitchenette area of the shop from the main room. Watched as Key shook Gunner’s hand.

“Been years,” Gunner was saying. “You two finally coming home?”

“For now,” Key said. “Jem and I came here looking for someone.”

“Yeah, Jem mentioned Dare,” Gunner said, and Avery’s stomach tightened.

There is no such thing as coincidences.

But Gunner was a pro. “I knew Darius. Haven’t seen his son.”

And God bless him, that was the truth. Now she wondered if Dare had avoided seeing Gunner purposely, and it was looking like the answer to that would be yes.

“I need to see him,” Key said.

“Why?” she demanded, pushing through the curtain. Key’s eyebrows rose, and he looked between her and Gunner. She wondered if his irritation was a mask for jealousy.

“Your new wife?” Key asked Gunner.

“A friend,” Gunner said. “She’s renting upstairs.”

“A friend who knows Dare?” Key asked, directing his question to Gunner but staring at her.

“I never said that,” she answered sweetly.

Key laughed, but it wasn’t free and easy the way it had been the night before. “Sometimes it’s what you don’t say. Got anything you want to tell me?”

“I’m hungover,” she said.

He simply looked away, and she swore she saw a look of disappointment on his face. What did he expect? All she’d done was kiss him.

For hours.

Kissing the same person for that long did something to her brain. Rewired it. She could still taste him, feel the weight of his body on hers.

There was something innately romantic about kissing and only kissing.

Nothing chaste about it. Such a seemingly innocent thing, but far more intimate than it seemed on the surface.

Part of her wanted to take it all back. “How do you know them?” she asked Gunner.

“Gunner and I moved in the same circles for years,” Jem answered instead.

“Jem is twenty pounds of crazy stuffed in a five-pound bag,” Gunner told her.

“And that’s different from you how?” she asked innocently.

“Wiseass,” he muttered, and Jem hooted, said, “I like her, Gunner.”

She noted that Key didn’t echo the sentiment, and that bothered her.

“Trust me—Jem’s in a whole different league,” Gunner said. “Want me to tell her about that time in Prague—”

“Just tell Dare we need to talk to him,” Jem interjected, putting a hand on Key’s shoulder, because Key was suddenly frozen, staring at her oddly. She took a step back, and Gunner pulled her behind him.

The look on Key’s face told her she was about to be used in the same way she and Dare had been told to use Grace.

“Hey, Key, I think it’s time to go—Gunner will call us with any updates on Dare,” Jem said, never taking his eyes off Avery.

“Come on, Avery—we’ll get some breakfast,” Gunner told her, and she finally tore her eyes from Key long enough for him and Jem to leave. “You should’ve stayed out of it. You managed to piss Key off.”

“He’s just upset I walked away from him last night.”

“Why did you?”

“Because I couldn’t exactly bring him back here, could I?”

Wrong answer, if Gunner’s murderous expression was any indication, but it quickly fell away, replaced by his imperturbable mask. “No, chère, that wouldn’t’ve been smart. Next time, f*ck him in the bar’s bathroom and don’t get caught or let anyone take your picture. He ran it and found one instance still hanging around online about your recent infractions of the law.”

So that’s why Key had asked her if she had anything to say to him.

“Avery, you’ve got to stay out of shit like this,” Gunner continued.

“Why are they after my brother?” she demanded.

“I have no goddamned idea, but I don’t like any of this. I’m beginning to feel like we’re all being herded together.”

“By Powell?” The name slipped out, and she cursed herself, especially when Gunner’s glare was secondary to his hand grabbing her. He held her arm, pushed her against the wall much more gently than she’d thought he’d be capable of and still left her feeling threatened.

“You’re gonna tell me everything you know about Richard Powell—and if he’s why you’re here, God help us all.”


* * *

Key made it into the alleyway before retching last night’s liquor and this morning’s breakfast. Jem yanked him up and moved him along, back into their car, and drove them toward the apartment they’d rented in the French Quarter. Didn’t say anything to him until they’d gotten up the stairs and he’d shoved Key into a cold shower.

Jem waited for him in the living room, pacing the small area like a goddamned caged lion and then decided to make his brother some toast to settle his stomach. He knew what Key had thought about in that room with Avery, and the worst part was, she knew it.

Taking her would make Dare pay for everything. And Key had begun to think of himself as a mean old bastard, moving along on the heels of vengeance, capable of anything.

He’d been wrong. He wasn’t Jem—not by a long shot. And thank f*cking God for that.

When Key came out, he looked slightly green but calmer. Jem handed him a Coke and some toast, and Key sat at the table wearing a pair of shorts, trying to work the bread down. The sugar would help. So would turning on the AC full blast, which Jem did to keep Key from falling back to sleep.

The apartment was a nice two-bedroom that he’d paid for—and Key didn’t ask how. Key’s own savings was nil, since he’d paid for an outside lawyer to attempt to help with his defense.

He shouldn’t have bothered.

“You really think Avery’s related to Dare?” Jem asked Key.

“She had that same look . . . the one Dare had when I tried to rescue him. I can’t explain it, but it was like seeing a ghost. I’d bet my life that she knows him. She’s staying with Gunner just when he shows up in town? What are the chances? He’s got no siblings listed, but that doesn’t mean anything. And if she hired Gunner, he’s not saying shit.”

Jem ran a hand through his hair “Don’t think about it.”

“I’m thinking.”

“Then let me do it.”

“You think I’ve gone soft.”

“I think you kissed her. You don’t have it in you to be cruel to a woman you’ve kissed, and there’s no shame in that.”

Jem didn’t know that Key felt shame all the damned time now—or maybe he did. “Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Kiss and be cruel.”

“All the damned time,” Jem said without hesitation. “All the damned time.”