Page 6 of At Their Mercy: Part I

Queasiness built up within me, making it difficult to swallow.

It hurt.

That was why the anger had hit so forcefully and suddenly. They’d fucking hurt me.

I wasn’t completely blinded by the sting; I knew they hadn’t intended to hurt my feelings, but fucking come on. We’d been together almost a year. By now, I should know their goddamn birthday. I’d thought I’d known. They both had similar tattoos with the same birth date; it was the day their closest friends dared to celebrate them very quietly. Macklin once told me he’d put together a birthday dinner for River and Reese, and they’d been grateful and all, but they’d also said, “Let’s never do this again.”

As soon as things got personal, River and Reese couldn’t be more private.

It’d taken them months to open up about the true nature of the work they’d left behind as private military contractors. They’d peeled that fucker like an onion, one thin layer at a time, divulging a story here, sharing an anecdote there.

I couldn’t help it. I didn’t wanna be one of those loved ones they shared a fake birthday with. I wanted to know the real date. It wasn’t as if I’d go around and tell everybody. If they wanted that date secret, I was fine with it. But I should fucking know!

Also, what did the tattoos represent if not their birth date? Why was that 1978 date important enough to put it in ink?

I couldn’t even know for sure they’d ever intended on telling me the truth, ’cause I’d fucking caught them talking about it. I’d overheard them. They’d probably thought I was upstairs or outside, not in the laundry room sorting their motherfucking socks.

“There’s always June first.”

“Funny.”

“Why the fuck not? Come on, Reese. Just because we don’t celebrate our birthday doesn’t mean we can’t do shit.”

“I don’t think we should make plans that day. We know who’s gonna call, but we don’t know when.”

“What do you… Oh. You mean Danny and Em.”

It’d taken me a few seconds to piece things together. They’d been discussing a date for when to sit down with the planning committee for the next Game, and weekends were pretty much out. Everyone was busy. Then I’d connected the dots, realizing that their birthday wasn’t a couple weeks later. It was June first. And for the past couple of weeks, they’d listened to me throw out ideas for how we could celebrate their birthday. If they wanted cake, what food they wanted, if they wanted to go out or stay in, who they wanted to invite—if anyone.

Not a damn fucking thing about, “Actually, baby, our birthday isn’t on that date.”

Part of me was mortified. I felt stupid for thinking I’d been accepted into their innermost circle.

They loved me. They evidently wanted to live with me. They planned road trips and vacations with me. They shared their dreams with me. But as soon as I looked backward and asked questions about their past, internal walls came up. Not to the same degree as they had in the beginning, when they’d preferred to sprinkle white lies all over the place, but enough for me to take notice.

One day, I wanted to meet that Danny guy. And that Emerson guy. They clearly knew a lot more about the twins than I did.

Such as their fucking birthday.

I cringed to myself as I remembered the other day when I’d circled June fourteenth on the calendar in the kitchen. Reese had just smiled and hugged me to him.

“We’re gonna celebrate big, Daddy. But we’re gonna do it the Tenley way. You know, hardly any people around and the best gifts.”

I clenched my jaw and picked up the pace.

Maybe Danny and Emerson could celebrate them instead.

All I knew was that Emerson had once trained River and Reese. He’d turned them into private military contractors. They’d worked together. And Danny was Emerson’s husband. They were both former military. But, as River and Reese always added, they’d left all that behind when they’d retired.

Excuse me, but there was no reason to leave people behind if you cared for them, and I knew they cared. River and Reese couldn’t hide everything from me. The few times Danny and Emerson had been brought up, I’d seen the connection the twins had to certain memories. Emerson, in particular, appeared to have been almost like a father figure.

If I remembered correctly, River had mentioned them to me first. Before Christmas or something like that. Yeah, because I recalled asking how they usually spent the holidays—and he’d said that two men they’d worked with would usually open up their home to “the strays.” As in, coworkers who didn’t go home for the holidays—or had no home to go to.

Something told me River and Reese were more than strays, though.

For instance, they were also lying shitbags.

I stiffened when I heard a car approach behind me, so I turned around and—thank fuck. It wasn’t them.