Kyan raised a brow as if to say, Called it, didn’t I? To Kyan’s credit, Sandy was exactly Liam’s type—tall enough that she could almost look him in the eye, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, and, given the right atmosphere, generously submissive.
Kyan put a palm on the table, signaling his intent to leave Liam to his guest.
Liam slid his fingers across the edge, an answering request for Kyan to stay put. Great as everything about Sandy was, Liam just couldn’t bring himself to be interested. He smiled and stood to kiss Sandy’s cheek. “Good evening, Sandy. Can I get you a drink?”
Sandy’s smile faltered. She knew Liam well enough to know that if any sexual play was in the cards for the evening, he’d never be offering her alcohol. It was a hard-and-fast rule he never compromised on.
“There’s a get-together at Gordon’s this weekend,” she said, clearly switching tactics. “You’ve been missed.”
Gordon lived at the edge of Denton Valley and hosted kink-based parties about once a month. Liam had stopped going over six months ago, a few months after he’d stopped hosting his own on special evenings at the North Vault. He was tired of playing—which frustrated him more than anyone else. Yet for some godforsaken reason, perfectly gorgeous women like Sandy, who genuinely enjoyed his taking charge, no longer aroused any interest from his mind or body.
“I’d love to, but unfortunately, work is keeping me here,” he told Sandy, who hung around for a few more moments before making her way back to the expansive dance floor. As she was leaving, Liam signaled the bartender for a Grey Goose vodka straight up and left the drink at the edge of the table, where everyone could see. If Kyan noticed the move, he gave no sign of it.
That was one of the reasons Liam loved him.
When Liam left North Vault to take the monthly family Zoom call his mother insisted on, he wished he’d drunk more of the Goose. But it wouldn’t really have helped. Nothing helped. Resigning himself to the inevitable, Liam dropped into a leather wingback chair beside his bedroom window and powered up his laptop, his gaze lingering on the outside. This room faced out on the Denton Valley park, so a section of meadows and trees ringed by businesses appeared like an illusion from his twelfth-story view. Add in the crown of the Colorado Mountains as a backdrop and the place was the perfect mix of nature and civilization.
“Liam, good evening.” A familiar middle-aged face filled the screen, tugging at Liam’s attention. Before he could answer, Patti Rowen turned away and yelled into the background. “Liam’s on Zoom, Lisa.”
This was how the call typically went. His mother coming online first, then demanding his sister jump on too. He suspected Patti thought he and Lisa would never speak otherwise. And she was probably right. Much of the distance between Liam and his family had been put there by choice.
First by their choice, when Patti and Lisa sent him away to military school. And now that he was grown, his.
“I’m on, Ma.” Lisa appeared on the screen, splitting the Zoom session. Despite living with their mother, she was connecting from her own room.
A beat of uncomfortable silence passed. Then his mother forced a smile. “How is everything in Denton? I see you’ve started to expand internationally?”
Apparently, Patti was keeping up with Trident Security’s website. She didn’t need to have bothered. A parent either cared about her kid, or she didn’t—and she’d made herself clear when Liam was twelve.
“It’s all fine,” he told her.
“Are you sure it’s not too early for the international angle while you’re still adjusting to incorporating the search and rescue into Trident Security? I still don’t see why you took on that project. The Rescue was just fine the way it was.”
“The Rescue needs more people,” Liam said with exaggerated patience. “And having people, requires infrastructure.” When Cullen Hunt had originally set up the Rescue, he, Eli, Kyan, and Liam had all taken a couple of shifts a week to keep up their skills. Now, with the guys starting families, they could no longer dedicate the kind of time a consistent search-and-rescue outfit required. Not that he wanted to get into the details of that with Patti. “How are you?” he asked instead. “Are you going to do the Charlevoix this year, Leece?”
The Charlevoix Marathon was a ten-kilometer course that tracked along Lake Michigan. His sister had been competing in it over the past three years, and while she’d finished, she’d never won any of the top prizes. She lacked the drive.
A familiar pang of guilt raked through Liam’s chest—getting assaulted at fifteen did that to a person. Worse still, he was there when it happened and could do nothing to stop it.
“Fine.” Lisa’s voice was polite but tight. It was a subtle thing. Something others might find difficult to detect but Liam picked up anytime he spoke to her.
“Ann Arbor is beautiful in the spring. You should come see it.” This was his mother’s latest refrain. He’d been raised in poverty within the confines of Flint, Michigan, but paid to move Patti and Lisa to the much more desirable Ann Arbor as his first major undertaking once his business took off. The mortgage and utility bills went directly to his credit card. “We could hike together. You still like hiking, don’t you?”
“We may all be hiking soon,” said Lisa. “The car needs new tires.”
“We’ll replace the tires, dear,” Patti assured her.
Lisa snorted. “With what money?”
Liam kept his face impassive. He sent his mother and sister a monthly stipend, but Lisa had never seen a dollar that she didn’t immediately spend.
“The car is fine,” Patti said soothingly. “We can take care of—”
“She means we can leave it as is,” Lisa cut in. “Do you want your mother driving with dangerous tires?”
Liam sighed. “Send me the bill. I’ll take care of it.”
“You just had to make us beg, didn’t you?”
Liam ignored that. His mother did too. In fact, she pretended that everything was wonderful and launched into a general monologue of some sort. Maybe because he’d already used his patience quotient up with Jaz or maybe because dealing with these two was perpetually stressful, but Liam muted the sound and stared out the window for a few heartbeats. His family was a complicated thing. Liam’s father had walked out on Patti when Liam had been a toddler. As a single mom, Patti worked two jobs to keep Liam and Lisa fed, and the three of them had been close until that time when Liam was eleven and Lisa fifteen. When he’d been unable to stop the drunken rich kid who’d barged into their house thinking Lisa owed him something.
The kid’s parents threw money at Patti. She took it. Told Lisa and Liam to shut up about what happened. Lisa did. Liam didn’t. So at twelve, he got sent off to military school, with the rich kid’s parents covering the tuition. So long as he didn’t come back. Not even for vacation.
Though he’d found his calling in the SEALs, the bitter taste of an eleven-year-old’s failure and a twelve-year-old’s betrayal always returned to sour his tongue during these weekly calls. Letting out a lengthy exhale, Liam clicked the sound back on to catch his mother’s clumsy rambling midway through.