Anti-Hero (Wild Heart Ranch Book 4)

Giving notice to Justin and Nacho was both easier and harder than I thought it’d be. Both had already guessed it was coming, but I wasn’t prepared for how much it would ache to leave behind a great thing for the right thing.

I would have happily worked for them for the rest of my life. Justin and Jason hired some of the folks we’d rescued from trafficking rings, and the work Nacho and I’ve been doing to help them develop their skills is one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.

But I’m meant to save the good people and make the bad people pay. Not dispassionately like Erik said, but with the full weight of every human who’s ever been harmed by another.

It’s my last day, and Nacho insists we go to our favorite coffee shop, even though it’s nowhere near our first client. Willow is run by some of my favorite people and clearly puts an addictive stimulant in the coffee. Zoya, with whom I had a prickly exchange the first time we met, has become a good friend.

I walk in with my usual greeting. “Hey, Z, what’s crackin’?”

She laughs and lifts her chin to the reserved room beside the coffee bar. I walk over and poke my head in the door.

“Surprise!”

My hands immediately go to my face. It’s my family. Old and new. Javier, Charlie, Erik, Anja, Georg, Bram, Levy, Justin, Jason, Sheriff Patrick, and even Señora Rivera, Nacho’s mom. I walk in a little farther, and…

“Gaelcito! Yaya!” I say, racing over to my cousin and aunt.

Gael and I are related, but we’d also been best friends before I was sold off. One of the happiest surprises is how easily we’ve resumed the closeness we had as kids, almost as if no time has passed.

We have a serious, ongoing Mario Kart battle, plus Erik brings him and Yaya up every few weeks to hang out. Wimberley’s working on dual citizenship for both of them—I’m told the details aren’t important, which means they are.

We’re also back to sharing secrets like we once did. Gael’s confided in me that he does not want to take up the family business the way our grandparents hope he will. He’s been secretly apprenticing with a shoemaker and wants to focus on soft, upscale leather shoes.

He’s worried about disappointing our grandparents, but having seen his early designs, I can’t imagine they’ll want to hold him back from his dreams.

Gael bowls me over with one of his over-the-top hugs, bringing me back to the present. Yaya’s hug is gentler but no less full of love. I haven’t shared the full details of my new employment with her, but she understands it has to do with operations like the one that saved my life.

I make time to say hi to everyone, and the number of hugs and well wishes makes me emotional. Fuck, I’m a lucky guy.

Yaya chats up the shy Señora Rivera while Gael drags me to a table full of goodies.

“So…what the hell happened to Erik’s eye?” Gael asks in Spanish, dunking one of Mrs. Castlebridge’s cookies—score—in Zoya’s Mexican cocoa.

“He didn’t tell you?”

Gael shakes his head. “He never talks when he’s flying. Like, ever.”

“Oh. Well, he and I got into a disagreement. I won,” I say, buffing my nails on my shoulder.

“I’ve seen you spar with Bram and Levy. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of that.” He takes a bite and then talks while chewing. “Wait…how’s it gonna work for you two to go on this extended trip together?”

Only a handful of people have been told that this particular op is focused on the worst men, the ones with the most money and power to hurt others. Still, I’m sure no one would be surprised to learn that I’ve shared everything with Gael. He knows more than they do, like which ones I’m looking forward to killing and which I’m nervous about.

I wrinkle my nose. “We live together now. And hell, he and Charlie saved my life. I just had to establish some boundaries.”

“You mean he might actually treat you like an adult now?”

“Yep. Or I’ll break his nose again.”

“Don’t worry. I can learn a lesson,” Erik says, strolling by us with a bear claw in his huge mitt.

Gael and I exchange a glance, and I decide to fuck with Erik a little.

“Wow. Your Spanish is getting better, you Swedish giant.”

Erik stops short. “What did you call me?”

“Oops. Wrong place. I meant Danish. Or maybe Finnish,” I tease, tapping my chin.

Erik’s mouth drops open, offended to the highest degree. “Jeg er Norsk!” he proclaims, looming over me.

My smile is practically feral. Got him.

“Oh. Norsk. Norwegian. Silly me. It’s so hard to keep all those weird northern European countries straight in my head.”

Gael hums in agreement and then goes in for the kill. “Almost as hard as it is to tell the difference between a victim and a survivor,” he says, raising one razor-sharp brow.

Erik turns to stare me down. “You told on me?”

I wink at him and tear away a piece of his bear claw, popping it into my mouth. Gael is—and has always been—my ride-or-die, and Erik will learn exactly how dangerous we are together.

Side note: I’m enjoying Erik’s annoyed glare way more than I should.

When I don’t give him an answer, he turns to Gael and huffs in frustration. “I know I fucked up. I promise. I’ll never use that word again.”

Gael leans in and plucks a bit of bear claw from Erik as well. “Good. I’m just making sure it sticks.”

Gael and I high-five each other, and Erik reaches out, pulling me into an aggressive hug. “Point made,” he says, kissing the top of my head before heading toward Charlie and Justin.

Gael watches him leave, then faces me with his back to everyone else, raising his theatrical brows.

“What?” I ask, licking the sweet drizzle from the bear claw off my fingertips.

“He hugged you.”

“He always hugs me.” I laugh. “Actually, he’s hugged me a ton more times since I broke his nose.”

“He’s a side-hugger. That was a full-frontal hug,” he says, miming the move. “With a head kiss.”

“Yeah, that’s…new,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck as Gael continues to mime the hug. “Stop making it look dirty. Why are you doing that?”

“Because I can, and because maybe your little fantasy scenario is not so impossible after all.”

Like I said, Gael and I share everything, and he is all too aware of my pathetic pining over the Norsk giant. He also knows I’ve put my feelings in a lock box at the bottom of the sea and thrown away the key because there is zero chance of anything ever happening between us.

“He feels guilty because he broke the victim code, and now he doesn’t know how to be around me,” I say, shrugging it off.

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t know he can joke around with me. He’s always got some sort of battle going on behind his eyes—like he doesn’t know which version to be around me.”

“Yeah, but now he’s Affectionate Erik. What do you think about that?”

I shake my head. “I try not to think about it at all, especially with this trip we’re going on.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“We’re still working out the details, but my initial idea is to make this big circle around the country. We’ll hit New Orleans, then southern Florida, then head up the East Coast to hit a few spots, then New York, then we’ll head west. Once we’ve circled back, we’ll hit the island.”

The island where it all began. There’s a nice bit of symmetry to the trip. New Orleans is where the guy who bought my first night on the island lives. I’ve walked through that awful night, and all the awful nights after, in my therapy sessions with Hedy. We even did EMDR therapy to, in her words, re-sort the trauma from an active folder to an archived folder. It’s all still disturbing and sad to think about, but it feels more like a memory than something still happening to me.

“You can still let Anders and Hopper take care of New Orleans, you know.”

Gael and I have been calling these men by their city names, and in places like New York, where there are a few, I’ve been calling them by their boroughs or street names. Gael’s the only one who knows this first one will be the hardest for me, and it was his idea to get him out of the way first so I wouldn’t dread him the whole time.

“I know my friends would take care of him, but I kinda want to do this for myself, you know? Just to say I did.”

Gael pulls me into a big hug. “I believe in you. Now, let’s set that aside and enjoy your going away party.”