Page 55 of Renegade
“For fuck’s sake,” I say, ready to take a swing at him again. “Of course I’m trustworthy. I put my ass on the line every day for people like you. Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Gemma moves from behind me to step in between us. “This is Valor. I knew it was him the second I saw his tattoo when we sat back down at the poker table after the break. It’s the same design as the one on the necklace Liam gave Dr. Morris to give to McKenzie.” Turning to tattoo guy, she says, “Walker is Liam’s best friend, and mine, and he’s like an older brother to McKenzie. I swear you can trust him. He didn’t recognize your tattoo because he hasn’t seen the necklace. Our friend Charlotte borrowed it, and now she can’t find it.”
“How do you know Liam?” I lower my arm but I keep Gemma close to my side. I still don’t trust him.
“We were fraternity brothers in college. We stayed in touch over the years. We didn’t talk much, but we’d meet up to dive every once in a while. We had the kind of friendship that you just pick up wherever you left off, no matter how much time has passed. Liam always said I had so many secrets, I was the one he’d trust if he ever had any of his own.” He smiles at the memory.
“That sounds like Liam,” I say drily. But what kind of secrets could this guy possibly have? He looks like the quintessential all-American guy, the kind I used to equally hate and envy, who had everything going for them—looks, brains, athletic ability, and a family that loved and encouraged them.
“He knew about this one.” His gesture encompasses the equipment in the kinky playroom. He pulls out his phone, taps a few times, and hands it to me. “This is one of my favorite pictures.” I stare at nineteen-year-old Liam’s face, his arm slung around the shoulder of a younger version of the guy standing in front of me. On the other side of him is another guy. At first glance, they look like three buddies hamming it up for the camera, but on closer look I can see both Valor and the other guy are wearing headbands with the gay pride rainbow. I look back at Valor questioningly. He nods.
“He knew about that one, too, long before I was brave enough to tell anyone else. I was the golden boy, the starting quarterback at USC, the guy whose dad was a conservative minister in Iowa who preached that the only relationship that wasn’t a sin was the one between a man and a woman. I wasn’t supposed to be gay. But Liam never judged me. Never treated me differently. Never told me a badass, SEAL-bound, man’s man like him couldn’t be friends with a guy like me. He always said, ‘You do you, man. Who cares what other people think. Don’t ever underestimate the power offuck it.’”
Gemma and I share a smile at the mention of Liam’s trademark phrase.
“He was the one who came up with the idea for this tattoo,” he continues, gesturing at his forearm. “When I finally came out, he said it was the bravest thing he’d ever witnessed. That meant a lot coming from him, considering all the shit he’d seen. When I told him I wanted a tattoo, he suggested I get some sort of symbol for valor, or bravery. So I did. After that, the nickname sort of followed.
“Liam called me up a few months back and asked me to meet up with him in Malaysia to go diving. I didn’t think much of it; we both love to dive, and as I said, we’ve done it a couple of times since we graduated. But as it turned out, he had a secret of his own.”
I look at Gemma. Like me, she’s hanging on his every word.
Valor takes a deep breath. “This is going to sound crazy, but I know Liam trusted you with this, so I’m just going to tell you what he told me. About a month before he met me to dive, Liam was contacted by the CIA, but he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. It was very Jason Bourne–ish.” He smiles grimly. “They contracted him for a top-secret, highly classified sting operation to take down the largest drug-trafficking cartel in Mexico—a cartel by the name of La Frontera. They wanted a SEAL and they wanted the best marksman they could find, and that was Liam. He was supposed to broker an arms deal with El Gato, the head of the cartel, smuggle some guns out of Iraq, which the CIA promised the government would turn a blind eye to, and when Liam delivered the guns to El Gato, he was supposed to assassinate the drug kingpin. It had to be covert, because while everyone wants the flow of drugs into the U.S. to stop, the U.S. would never get the approval or cooperation of the Mexican government. According to Liam, an American strike would blatantly violate Mexican law, which prohibits foreign military and law enforcement from operating on Mexican soil, except under tightly controlled conditions, and even then, never armed. It would be devastating to our relationship with Mexico, and as our neighbor to the south, we need to remain allies. I’m an attorney in my regular life. Trust me. Targeted killings make any international law specialist uneasy.
“They offered him a shit ton of money if he could pull it off. Liam was in a lot of debt from taking care of his mom during her long illness and paying for his sister’s college tuition. He took the job, but you know Liam. He’s smart as hell, and while he comes across as the nicest and most laid-back guy ever, he doesn’t really trust anyone, so he wasn’t about to accept the assignment blindly. He recorded his conversation with Martin Grayson, the CIA official who hired him, and gave it to me for safekeeping if they double-crossed him or killed him. He also had a necklace made with the same design as my tattoo. He said if anything happened to him, I’d know who I could trust, because they’d find me because of the necklace.
“I heard about his death on the news.” His voice cracks, and he stops for a minute, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I’ve been waiting. I figured it would be someone on his SEAL team, or maybe his sister who found me. But instead, you guys showed up at this club that no one from my other life knows about except Liam, saying you knew him, and you knew about the necklace.” He turns to me. “When you didn’t recognize my tattoo, I thought maybe you were on the CIA’s side, or maybe just investigating the incident. But then she mentioned being in Vegas with McKenzie during the poker game.” He nods at Gemma. “I quit as soon as she was out so I could talk to her without you around and find out what she knew. She recognized my tattoo immediately, and she knew about the necklace, so I knew I could trust her.”
I’m silent, trying to absorb it all. Not Gemma. She’s practically vibrating with excitement next to me.
“Do you know what this means?” she says, gripping my arm tightly. “You can clear Liam’s name! You were right. He never illegally sold guns. The tape that Valor has proves it! That’s why Liam told Dr. Morris to give McKenzie the necklace and said it was so she’d know for sure the kind of man he really was. It had nothing to do with his bravery in saving the doctor. He wanted her to know he wasn’t illegally selling guns. He knew all along that the necklace would lead her to Valor, who’d tell her how to clear his name. And she’d know the rumors of him illegally running guns wasn’t true.” Her eyes fill with tears, and I want her in my arms. But this moment is for Liam, not for me and Gemma.
“You have the tape proving the CIA’s involvement?” I ask him.
He nods. “Two copies. Just in case.”
“And the guns? Where are they?”
Valor frowns. “I have no idea. You don’t know?”
“How would I know?”
“Because Liam said his SEAL brothers would be able to figure out, from his bucket list, where the guns were hidden if he didn’t get them out in time to finish the job.”
…
It’s almost three in the morning when Gemma and I get back to the hotel, and she can barely keep her eyes open. She goes into the bathroom to change, but she doesn’t close the door all the way, and I try—God knows, I try—not to watch as she peels off the skintight dress. Just as she’d said, she’s not wearing anything underneath. My cock responds accordingly. I quickly turn around, strip down to my boxers, and climb into bed before she can see the effect she has on me.
She emerges from the bathroom wearing a thin T-shirt and a skimpy pair of panties. I groan inwardly.
“It’s cold in here.”
I nod at her casual observation. As if I couldn’t tell by the way her nipples are poking against the thin fabric of her shirt, making me think of the intoxicating way they instantly harden when I take them in my mouth.
She slips under the covers and snuggles into my side. “What a night, huh?” she says sleepily.
“Yeah.” I wrap my arm around her and pull her close. She lays her head on my shoulder.
“At least we solved part of the mystery. If nothing else, the world will know that Liam was an honorable man and SEAL. You were right all along,” she adds softly. “What now?”
