Russian Roulette: Flashbacks [male x male]

Ch. 65: I'm telling you I want in

Then

Gareth slammed his fist into the table to get everyone's attention. "Mind telling me what in the holy fuck is going on?"

This was it. Jace had to man up and explain things to Gareth, and then use all his abilities to find Phoenix. Be that Overseer, Gareth had put his trust in the last year, and the man Phoenix had helped fight to the surface.

"You'd better sit down," Jace said and wheezed for air. He leaned his hands on the table to ground himself because the entire room spun around him. He had to stay calm. He had to focus.

Gareth grumbled, but did nothing to sit. "Just bloody tell me."

As efficiently as possible, Jace gave Gareth an unemotional and very abbreviated recap of the stalker situation, and how it had escalated over the last year. He only told about the stalker and did not go off on a tangent about the Levi situation or even mention his relationship with Phoenix. What Gareth deducted from the story, that was up to him, but the stalker was after Phoenix, and Jace had no intention of making that about himself. Everyone targeted by the stalker was in danger by association, the fact that he and Phoenix bumped pelvises made no difference.

Jace had no idea how his voice even worked with how fear ran through his veins like a debilitating poison. He hoped it was the confidence in himself that helped him in the face of fear, but he managed to get through the parts he needed to clue Gareth in, and judging by the fast-growing veins expanding as balloon snakes in Gareth's forehead, the man understood the severity of the situation.

"Let me get this straight. I have half my house filled with Phoenix's friends. This fucker killed Tana and not some random traffic accident. There's a deadline on who to kill next due tomorrow, and Phoenix is missing?" Gareth held on to the table so hard his knuckles turned white. He kept his head down, afraid his eyes would kill whomever he looked at. "Did I miss anything?"

"That's about it," Cracker confirmed in the dead silent conference room. Only Gareth's heavy breathing broke the eerie quiet that engulfed them.

"Why wasn't I told?"

"You think we haven't tried?"

Gareth's head snapped up to meet Jace's pointed look. He was right. Looking back, Vasili had tried several times to inform him about things. Phoenix had wanted to talk Friday, and, going over their conversations over the weekend, Rami, Cracker, and Jace had tried. He had dismissed all of them. The fault was his, which turned his blinding rage into defeat, with an unhealthy serving of guilt on the side.

He stumbled to the nearest chair and fell into it with an inelegant thud, leaning his head on his arms on the table in front of him. Gareth breathed in deep shaky breaths to calm himself, and finally lifted his head when Rami slid a glass of whiskey over the table to him.

So much for not drinking again.

Gareth emptied the glass in one gulp and allowed the burn in his throat to shock him out of his stupor.

He could be angry with himself later. This was a time for action.

"Ok, is there any information I need before we dive into this?" he asked and looked at the three men in turn. "Any detail of importance I'm not aware of?"

Jace looked at Rami and Cracker to see if he could read them, to know how they felt about him keeping the closeness of his relationship with Phoenix from Gareth. Of course, Cracker did not know they had sex, but he had to be aware they were quite close friends. Rami, of course, displayed nothing; as always, he had nothing to say because it was not his decision and did not involve him personally. Cracker said nothing either, but he made a slight tilt of his head as if to say Jace held power in the situation.