Page 20 of Zeus

I flip open the laptop on the table in front of me, eager to get this video call done.

I have no idea when Frankie plans to come out of his room. I didn't hear so much as a peep from him after he left the kitchen last night. Not that I expected much from him anyway, but the house is so small that moving around would alert anyone to your presence.

What I can't tolerate is him not showing up and being present when it's required. He knows we have this meeting, and yet we're minutes out from connecting the call, and he's nowhere to be found.

I fight the urge to bang on his door and demand he take an active role in this job. Not doing what's expected of him can get us both killed, and I've already suffered enough where that damn man is concerned. I'll be damned if my parents get another call about the loss of a child because he isn't interested in handling business. If the man isn't going to even show up for a scheduled call, it makes me doubt he can handle being undercover with a group of men who could easily put a bullet in one of our heads and eat dinner with a smile, unfazed by their actions.

I startle when the front door swings open, knowing just how stupid it was for me to even come out of my room without my gun. If I can't keep my shit together for even twenty-four hours, it doesn't bode well for the outcome of this job.

Frankie looks directly at me as he steps inside the house, and I grow even more distracted at the sight of him. I didn't even know the front door was unlocked or that he had left the house, and that's just another thing to worry about. Safety first has always been my motto. I know that I can't be successful in my job if I'm hurt or worse, killed.

The house's security isn't great, and I'm sure a toddler could break in if they wanted to. But at least a locked door would alert me and give me a few seconds to respond.

I'm too damn distracted, and half fucking tempted to call Hemlock and let him know that this shit just isn't going to work.

I watch, my mouth hanging open, as the man lifts the bottom hem of his shirt to wipe sweat off his face.

He's got muscles for days, the kind of valleys and ridges you see on the front of fitness magazines. My eyes travel along each and every one, mesmerized and torn between asking him what his exercise routine is and begging for permission to lick them.

I look up, my eyes meeting his, and for half a second, I swear he looks tempted to act. His tongue skates over his lower lip. I feel the attention right at the nape of my neck, half expecting to hear a whisper of need in my ear, even though we've never kissed or had any level of real intimacy. Maybe he thought at the time it made what we were doing "less gay," and that's the only way he could accept what was happening between us. I knew for the longest time that blowjobs didn't make us a couple, but it never kept me from hoping that something more would eventually happen.

I fought the urge a million times to ask him for more, to tell him that what we were doing was chipping away at my sanity and my self-esteem. However, I knew it would end the second my mouth even formulated those words. As much as I hated not being his and him not being mine, I also didn't want it to end. So I kept my mouth shut unless he was filling it with his cock, waiting patiently for him to look at me with anything less than disdain once those interactions were over. The tears I've cried over this man were endless.

Seeing his bare chest and abdomen now is more than I ever got as a teen. Back then, he didn't even take his clothes off. He simply unzipped his pants enough to give me the access needed to get him off. This sight of him feels like a gift, as if he's offering me something he never has before.

I pull my gaze from his stomach and look up at him once again, a little expectant and hopeful, but instead of the desire in his eyes moments ago, his gaze is blank.

He drops his shirt and clears his throat.

It's only then, with my attention snapped back to reality, that I recall seeing the wounds Ace had talked about the other night, proof that he really was a god when he saved his men.

The pain he must've felt, the life he was so willing to sacrifice to keep them safe.

I fully understand now why he has the nickname he has, and I internally vow to never make fun of it again. He deserves the credit. He has earned it fully, every wound marking his skin proving it.

"Video call in, umm, five minutes," I say rather than hitting him with all the anger I felt earlier for presuming he didn't care about this job.

The evidence of how much he cares about his work mars his skin, and I have to have faith that the dedication he had to his men in the Marine Corps will carry over into everything that he does now with Cerberus.

Instead of taking the handful of minutes he has before the call to clean up, he walks closer and takes a seat right beside me on the small sofa.

The scent of clean sweat mixed with whatever soap he uses fills my nose, and I swear I grow a little dizzy from it. The warmth of his thigh against mine is almost enough to send me over the edge, but I've gotten a slightly better handle on the way I react in the years since we last saw each other.

I don't back down. I don't shift my weight and put a little distance between the two of us, and I know that's what he was expecting when a rumble of a laugh bubbles out of him. He used more than one form of intimidation tactics when we were teens to get his way, to feel like he had the upper hand, but that shit doesn't work with me any longer.

"You gonna answer that?" he asks after what feels like a millennium of us sitting here next to each other.

I clear my throat, pull in a deep breath, and reach over to open the call coming through.

As expected, the video call shows Hemlock and Casper. What surprises me is that the second screen up shows Kincaid, Tug, and Max have also joined the call.

"Morning," Kincaid says. "Do you guys feel ready?"

We both verbalize our agreement, but I don't feel as deeply as I usually do on the day I start a new job.

"Let's begin," Kincaid says. "Casper?"

"Right," the acknowledged man says. "We got confirmation that there's an impromptu rally happening tomorrow in the Harbor Freight parking lot across from the Sevier County courthouse."