“I’m not going to kill him, Zane, just threaten them both until I feel better.”

“That’s a relief, but please listen. You would have to shoot his ass to kingdom come to scare him when he wakes up, and then we’d have a worse mess. Can’t we just… settle this first, and then you can deal with him about the other? Hell, maybe that’s why Burns wants him to begin with! Maybe that’s why he sent you.”

Ty stared at him mutinously for a long moment, long enough that Zane began to suspect his gentle persuasion might not work.

But then Ty rolled his eyes and sighed, sliding his gun back home. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbled. Zane felt his heart start back up, and he sagged against the wall as Ty glanced around the room and spoke. “I need to put a call into Burns. This just went over our pay grade.”

“Okay,” Zane said, regretting the need for Ty to go anywhere right then. “Say hi to him for me.”

Ty turned away from him with a nod, going to grab his coat off the bed. He was almost to the door when he stopped and turned. “Zane. Nothing else has been a lie.”

Zane nodded. He wasn’t sure he’d say Ty had lied to him at all—Zane didn’t consider lies of omission lies—but he didn’t want to get into a long, circular logic puzzle with Ty, of all people. His head would explode.

“Be careful.”

Ty stood there for a heartbeat longer; then he advanced on Zane just like Julian had on him earlier. He took Zane’s face between his hands and he kissed him, pushing him back against the wall and holding him there, his lips demanding against Zane’s. Then it was over as suddenly as it had begun, Hurricane Ty passing by. When he stepped back again, he jerked his head in a nod. Then he turned and headed for the door.

“WHAT do you mean you know he knows me?” Ty asked Burns in outrage.

“Of course I know he knows you! Why do you think I sent you after him? He’s listed as a possible contact on one of your old jobs.”

Burns could hear Ty making a sputtering noise on the other end of the line that may or may not have been a minor hissy fit.

“You dealt with him in France!”

“No.”

“Yes. I have the reports. His name was different, but this is the same guy. Julian Cross is a CIA codename. You worked together!”

“No! Dick! I have never seen this man in my life! I would remember that!”

Burns frowned, confused. Ty sounded genuinely upset and offended. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.

“Well join the fucking club!” Ty hollered on the other end of the line. “The guy from Paris that I worked with, the guy in that report, was a French guy, six one, white-blond hair. He was not a six-foot-five asshole Irishman!”

“That complicates things.”

Burns could hear another series of sounds, culminating in a string of curses.

“Are you sure the man you have is Julian Cross?”

“I don’t know, Dick, he doesn’t have a fucking bar code I can scan!”

“This doesn’t change your objective,” Burns tried in a loud, authoritative voice, trying to pull Ty back on point. “You still need to get him to DC, understand?”

“Why?” Ty demanded in frustration. “What’s this really about?”

Burns hesitated. “Need-to-know.”

“Oh my God.”

“Do whatever you have to do to get Cross here alive.”

Ty was mutinously silent. Finally, Burns heard him exhale, a bid for calm. “Yes, sir,” he said in a soft, composed voice.

ZANE sat watching Julian, waiting for him to wake and thinking about Ty and what had just happened. Zane had never seen his partner, his lover, react to violence in such a cold and calculating way. It was a new side to Ty. Was that how he’d been able to handle himself all these years, by simply turning off his emotion and essentially finding a happy place when he worked? Zane shook his head. He tried not to dwell on what it would take to do that.

When Ty came back from making his call, he found Zane in the bedroom and stood at his side, looking down at the two men on the bed. They had used the twisted bungee cords to tie Julian down and handcuffed Cameron to him to give them just enough contact to keep them from trying to escape when Julian awoke. Not that they’d go far in a blizzard.

Cameron had his nose buried against the back of Julian’s shoulder and was looking up at them with one eye and hiding the other.

“Every time you two try something, it’s one more bullet I put in his head in my dreams,” Ty told Cameron. This time, Zane knew he wasn’t acting.

Julian groaned. Cameron nodded, eyes wide. He scooted closer to Julian, looking genuinely upset.

“He’ll be okay,” Zane felt compelled to say. “He’ll wake up in a few minutes.”

Ty was already moving away from the bed and into the outer room. Zane stopped to turn the television to a different channel for Cameron before he followed, wondering what sort of damage control was needed here.

“I thought you were going to kill him back there.”

Ty turned to face him. “Next time I will,” he said, his voice cold and determined.

A shiver ran down Zane’s spine, and he had to admit, a part of him liked it. “What is it about him that gets you so riled?”

“It’s not him, Zane. It’s you.”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“He is a threat to both of us. You’ve seen what he’s capable of, and I have to tell you, I don’t think he’s trying yet. I think he’s just a fucking raptor testing the fences. When I look at him, I see him hurting you.”

Zane’s chest twisted in a way that wasn’t unpleasant. He knew that feeling, being so protective and so desperate to keep his loved ones safe that it clouded his world. “I’m not worried.”

“No?”

“I’ve got you here watching my back,” Zane said with a serene smile. He didn’t think he’d felt so calm inside in years. “And I’ve got yours.”

Ty took a deep breath as he looked into Zane’s eyes. Zane wondered what Ty saw when he looked into him like that. One day he would ask him.

“Okay,” Ty finally said on a deep exhale.

“We’ve got a couple hours to wind down, get some real sleep.” Zane waved his hand at the pullout couch.

Ty nodded, his movements not nearly as jerky or tense. He seemed to be coming to terms with what Zane had said, trying to assimilate it. “I’ll be there in a minute. I just need a quick shower,” he said as he pulled off his shirt and headed for the bathroom. The shower began running a moment later.

Zane turned and shut the bedroom door behind him. There was no telling when the storm would break. More privacy and space was better than less with the combined personalities in this little escapade.

He took the time to pull the couch out; then he went to the bedroom and stood beside the bed, looking down at the two men. Julian was awake, and he stared up at him evilly, his dark eyes glazed. Zane reached to take his pulse, checking it against his watch to make sure it was fast enough.

“You’ll live,” he muttered.

“He won’t,” Julian whispered.

Zane stared at him, investigating the feeling the threat gave him. He found himself smiling. “I look forward to your next attempt. He’ll tear you apart.”

Julian didn’t respond, and Zane couldn’t read him. He left the prisoners, closing the door and balancing one of the glasses from the small wet bar on the doorknob. Then he sought out his partner in the shower.

After watching Ty through the wavering plastic for a long moment, Zane reached out and pushed open the curtain. Ty jerked when the shower curtain squealed on its hooks. It was obvious that Zane had startled him, which was an unusual occurrence in itself. Zane stripped as Ty watched him, then stepped inside and closed the curtain behind him. Moving close, he raised a hand and slid it through Ty’s hair, sluicing the water drops away.

Ty raised his head and lifted his face toward the ceiling. “Hey.”

Zane didn’t want to talk about what had happened. He didn’t want anything but his lover to be relaxed and normal—as “normal” as Ty got, anyway. “Are you really okay?”

“Yeah, just… there are some things I need to tell you, Zane. And I want you to know from me, not by finding out from someone else like this. But I can’t… I’m just wrestling with what’s more important to me, my integrity or… you.”

Zane blinked at him, taken aback by the subject. He’d thought Ty had been bothered by the fight. He’d had no idea this was what Ty had been thinking. But then, Zane supposed that was part of Ty’s charm, the jumbled ball of yarn inside his brain that no one could unravel.

He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I think you need to go with what you can sleep with at night.”

“It’s you, Zane.”

Zane smiled wanly as he reached for the soap. “I don’t mean fuck at night, I mean sleep with. Whatever keeps your mind at rest.”

“I know what you meant.”

Zane’s heart did a happy skip as he met Ty’s eyes. He would never get tired of moments like this, when Ty proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Zane was the most important thing in his world. “Tell me?”

Ty licked his lips, watching Zane even as the water beat down on them both. For once his expression wasn’t guarded when Zane started asking questions. “Burns uses me on jobs he can’t put the Bureau on but the CIA doesn’t list as priority. We call them Misfits.”

Zane nodded, licking his lips.

“And I know that he used to use you the same way.”

Zane’s eyes shot up to meet Ty’s, wide and shocked. Ty was looking at him, holding his breath. He nodded. “How?”

“Jack Tanner.”

“Jack Tanner told you?” Zane asked, aghast. Jack Tanner had been one of his instructors in the academy. He had single-handedly prevented Zane from dropping out and turned him into the agent he had become.

“No,” Ty said. “You told me he used to eat dinner at your house.”

“Yeah?” Zane said, confused.

“That’s how he pulled me too. And then knowing what I do about Burns and the way he treats you… I put two and two together.”

Zane’s mouth was dry as he stared at Ty. “How… Jesus, Ty. Why didn’t you say something?”

Ty shook his head. “You’ve had so much trouble with your past and getting over it,” he murmured as he let his hands snake around Zane’s back. “I’d rather you live in the present.”

Zane swallowed hard. Ty was right, for the most part. Those were days he didn’t want to relive.

“I’m not asking to talk about it. I just figure it’s out there now. It’s not something we need to hide or skirt around anymore.”

Zane nodded, feeling dizzy. He couldn’t believe Ty had put that together with so little to go on, but then he supposed Ty never did get enough credit for being as smart as he was. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Zane leaned over enough to catch Ty’s lips in a gentle kiss. It didn’t last long. “I know you love me. And you know I love you. The rest will wait a little longer.”

“Feels good to say that, doesn’t it?”

Zane dragged one finger along Ty’s lower lip. “Yeah. And I intend to keep saying it. Often.”

Ty smiled wanly, but then he looked away as if he was struggling with what to say next. Or perhaps wrestling with a difficult decision.

“Tell me?” Zane murmured as he rubbed Ty’s back, trying to soothe him. It was like working with a spooked horse, and it had been decades since Zane had tried to rein one in.

Ty hesitated before sighing. “Burns sent me—us—because he thought I knew Cross,” he said in a low, tense voice. “It was in a report that he was a contact from a Paris job six years ago.”

“Yeah?”

“He wasn’t working under the name Julian Cross, but that’s the name the CIA put in the file. I’m telling you right now, though, the man from Paris was not Cross. Not this Cross, anyway.”

Zane frowned, mulling that over. “So either who we have isn’t the original Cross, or the CIA guy you worked with said he was Cross but wasn’t.”

“We know our Cross is connected somehow, because he knew me,” Ty said.

“Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe he’s like the Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Ty looked at Zane warily.

Zane nodded and cocked his head at Ty. “What?”

“I’m just waiting for you to bust out the ‘double cross’ pun so we can get it over with.”

One corner of Zane’s lips curled up. “Want me to come up with one real quick?”

“No. Stop it.”

Zane laughed and pressed his lips to Ty’s cheek. Ty’s body was still tense against his, and Zane could feel that there was still more his lover wanted to say. He reached up to put his hand against Ty’s cheek, looking into his eyes, feeling that tangle of warmth spread in his chest like it always did when Ty looked at him like that. “What else, baby?”

Ty shook his head and wrapped his arms around Zane’s neck instead, kissing him messily. They were still kissing when the water began to cool and Ty pulled away to meet Zane’s eyes.

“We’ll drop these two bozos off, then disappear for a night or two between DC and home, okay?” he whispered. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. And I’ll make it up to you for bolting.”