Rowe clenched the back of Lucas’s neck, lowering his head so that his forehead hit Lucas’s. “Then why are you pushing us all away?” Rowe’s words came out as little more than a rough whisper. “Snow, Ian, me, you know we’d all die for you.”
Lucas shuddered and he could feel cracks forming in the wall he had built around his emotions to keep them at bay so he could simply function each day. He longed to step back and let the wall fall, but he couldn’t. He had to keep holding the wall up, to hold himself together should something go wrong. He had to be the strong one. He had to be the one to hold the line and protect his friends…his family.
“Maybe I don’t want anyone dying for me.” Lucas pulled away.
Rowe released him and straightened, frowning at his friend. “Is this about Andrei?”
“The guy is risking his life for me. He’s risking getting beaten to a bloody pulp in those damned fights. Even without that, if this asshole discovers that he’s a fucking spy, he’s dead.” Lucas could feel the tension ramping back up in his frame with each word he spoke. He suddenly felt trapped in his own office. He needed to be out, doing something, taking some action that would get him closer to having this whole thing finished so no one else would end up hurt or dead.
Rowe shrugged. “It’s his job.”
“It’s not his fucking job to do this!” Lucas roared before he caved to the need to move and walked over to the windows, massaging the muscles in the back of his neck. His entire body was one tense muscle and he could only find relief when he was fighting with Rowe or deep in a bottle of alcohol. But the next morning he always woke hating himself, knowing that if he’d been needed, he would have been unable to help anyone.
“Luc?” He turned back to find Rowe rubbing his right hand nervously through his hair, looking incredibly uncomfortable. “Is there more going on with you and Andrei?”
“You mean, am I fucking him?”
Rowe gave him a dirty look, dropping his hand to his side. “That’s not what I mean. It’s obvious to even me that you’re fucking him. Which I totally blame you for since I was pretty damn sure that he was straight when I assigned him to you.” Lucas opened his mouth to defend himself but Rowe threw up both hands, halting the words in his throat. “Don’t want to hear it. Really. I don’t.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Is it…is it more than fucking?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Lucas glared at Rowe, but the man didn’t flinch and didn’t yield. “He—” Lucas started and suddenly found that he simply couldn’t continue the sentence. What the fuck was Andrei? No, the man wasn’t just some random fuck that he’d never speak to again and be happy to forget. But he couldn’t be more because there wasn’t room in Lucas’s life for more. There was his family and then there was the rest of the world.
But he wouldn’t be feeling like this if that were the case.
“I just don’t want him dead because of me,” Lucas finished lamely, inwardly cringing at his own words. He sounded so fucking weak. And it felt like a damned lie. Shaking his head, Lucas let his shoulders slump, copping to the one truth he could deal with. “This whole situation…Andrei in the fights…it’s out of my control. I’m just sitting here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for other people to cover my ass. I can’t take this helpless bullshit.”
Rowe slipped his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans, shifting from one foot to the other. “Trust me, I know. I’d rather be in those underground fights with him, but if this guy knows you, then he fucking knows who I am. There was no way in for me.”
Lucas watched Rowe for several seconds, fighting another frown. Yeah, the ex-Army Ranger would understand. Rowe loved being in the middle of the action. He lived for the hunt, that middle of the night sneak into enemy territory with only your brothers. The man would still be a Ranger if it hadn’t been for the injury to his heart. He’d been forced out far sooner than he’d planned and now he was stuck as a civilian, constantly on the lookout for the next adventure to get his blood pumping.
With a sigh, Lucas looked over at one of his oldest friends, wondering not for the first time why the man put up with his shit over the years. “Do you think Candace will come back?”
Rowe grinned. “Sure. But you’re going to need to offer her a seriously fat bonus for coming back. And lots of vacation time. Maybe you should send her to that island with all the hot, half-naked guys serving drinks with those little paper umbrellas.”