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“You have to promise to keep your cool.”

Nate opened his mouth to give a glib promise, then shut it again to rethink his words. If there was one thing he had learned in the recent days, it was that his temper had hurt the people around him without him even noticing. But making an empty promise to control it wasn’t the way to make things better.

“I’m going on about four hours of sleep in the last couple of days, and my whole body hurts from the beating your friends gave me last night,” he said. His temper tried to stir at the reminder, but he shoved it ruthlessly down. “I’ll try not to fly off the handle, but I’m hanging by a thread here.” His voice got raspy toward the end. Nadia reached over and took his hand again at the same time that Kurt leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. The two of them shared a glance Nate couldn’t interpret, then Kurt squeezed his knee and let go.

“I’m real sorry about that, Nate,” he said. “Angel promised me they wouldn’t hurt you too bad. And it was the only way I could think of to make you back off.”

“It might have worked if you hadn’t sent me the tracker,” Nadia said.

Kurt made a face and rubbed his bald head. “Yeah. Guess Nate’s not the only one with a temper after all. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Why?” Nate demanded. “Why were you so desperate to keep me away?”

Kurt met his eyes grimly. “Because it was Dirk Mosely who killed you.”

Nate’s jaw dropped in shock, and Nadia gasped, letting go of his hand to cover her mouth.

“You ’n’ me heard something while we were”—Kurt’s glance darted quickly to Nadia and back—“together. Something that Mosely was talking about with your father. We were in a supply closet. We decided to get out as soon as we heard them come in the room outside. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, except they were talking about someone named Thea.”

The words sent another bolt of shock through Nate’s system.

“Anyway, you boosted me up through a ceiling panel. You were going to follow me, but you heard something else. Something that really rocked you. You made shooing motions at me and pulled a joint out of your pocket. I guess that was supposed to be your excuse for what you were doing in the closet if they caught you. Which they did.

“I closed the ceiling panel right as Mosely was opening the door, but there was a little gap I could see through.” Kurt shuddered and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t do anything.” He shook his head, eyes still closed. “I didn’t know I had to. Didn’t ever think he would kill you, for fuck’s sake.”

Nate shook his head in denial.

“That can’t be what happened,” Nadia said breathlessly. “You said Nate’s father was there, too.”

Kurt opened his eyes, and the pain and sympathy in them conveyed his message before his words did. “Yeah, he was. He’s the one who gave Mosely the order.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Nate couldn’t talk, couldn’t move, couldn’t fucking breathe.

“I don’t know exactly what you heard,” Kurt said in a voice so gentle it hurt. “But whatever it was, it was so big your father was prepared to kill you to keep it secret. Keeping in mind that from his point of view, your death was only temporary.”

Kurt had probably meant that reminder to soften the blow, but it had the opposite effect. As far as his father was concerned, it didn’t matter what happened to Nate, as long as he, the Chairman, didn’t have to lose his heir.

The paralysis exploded into a kind of rage Nate had never felt before. He turned and punched the wall of the van with his already-bruised knuckles. He was dimly aware that it hurt like hell, but the rage wasn’t finished with him, so he did it again. He tried for a third time, but someone grabbed his arm. He tried to jerk free but couldn’t, which meant it was Kurt restraining him, not Nadia.

The rage inside was still rampaging, so he whirled around and threw a decidedly awkward left-handed punch somewhere in the vicinity of Kurt’s face, not really trying to hurt him, just trying to make him let go. The blow glanced off Kurt’s chin, but Kurt kept his grip, and when Nate tried again, he found himself jerked off the milk crate and wrestled to the floor of the van.

“Stop it, stop it!” Nadia was crying, but Nate didn’t know if she was talking to him or Kurt.

“Don’t make me hurt you,” Kurt growled, his lips so close to Nate’s ear he could feel Kurt’s breath on his skin.

Nate tried a feeble twist, but he was facedown on the floor, and Kurt had him thoroughly pinned. His battered knuckles throbbed, sending shooting pains up his arm, and Kurt’s weight on his back wasn’t doing his old bruises any good, either. The rage bled out of him as fast as it had swooped in, replaced by pain, and Nate went limp. A sob tried to push its way up his throat, and he swallowed hard in a desperate attempt to hold it back. Even so, there was a telltale wetness on his face.

Kurt pressed a kiss to the side of his head, then rolled off of him. Nate might not have had the will or energy to move, except neither Kurt nor Nadia was willing to let him crawl into the hole of self-pity he’d dug himself. Kurt “helped” him up, and Nadia threw her arms around him in a hug tight enough to hurt. Nate didn’t care that it hurt, pulling her even closer, grateful for her presence even as he was embarrassed by his own weakness.

“Everything all right in there?” Dante called from outside the van, and even Nate had to admit the bastard showed an admirable amount of restraint not opening the doors to see what was happening.

“We’re fine,” Kurt answered. Nate almost laughed at the absurdity of the statement.

Kurt sat cross-legged in front of him on the floor of the van, a sad smile on his face. “If that’s you trying to keep control of yourself, I’d hate to see when you really let go.”

Nadia made an indignant sound. “How dare you make jokes at a time like this?”

“It’s all right,” Nate said to Nadia. His voice was raspy and his throat hurt. He must have shouted more than he’d realized. There was no lightening this particular mood with jokes, but the normalcy of it was comforting. “Sorry I hit you,” he said to Kurt.

Kurt snorted. “Tried to hit me, you mean. You can’t punch for shit.” He grimaced. “At least, not with your left. Let’s see that right hand. You beat the van down pretty good.”

Nate felt the blood rushing to his face and hoped his makeup hid the embarrassed blush. As losses of control went, that had been pretty epic. “It’s fine,” he mumbled.

“No it’s not,” Nadia countered, extricating herself from his arms and maneuvering his right hand into the light.

The knuckles were swollen and split, and blood trickled down his fingers. Kurt gave a low whistle of appreciation.

“Yeah, you showed this van what for all right. Can you move your fingers?”

Wiggling his fingers hurt, but he could do it. “It’s not all from the van,” he admitted, wondering if Kurt would be appalled or impressed. “I, uh, kind of punched Dante earlier, too.”

Kurt gave him a look of surprise, then burst out laughing. “I’ve wanted to do that a couple of times myself.”

“I’m glad you boys are finding this so funny,” Nadia said scathingly.

Kurt sighed. “Sweetheart, sometimes it’s either laugh or cry. We aren’t supposed to cry, so we laugh instead.” He reached across and smoothed a hand over Nate’s damp cheek.

Nate’s costume was pretty much ruined. He hated to think what his face must look like with tear tracks through the powder, and his wig had come off and somehow ended up underneath him when he and Kurt had wrestled. He could put it back on, but it looked more like roadkill than hair. He supposed he was lucky his contacts hadn’t come out when the waterworks started.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me any of this before now?” he asked.

“Because Mosely doesn’t know I didn’t hear the whole conversation. I made some noise when I ran for it, so they knew belatedly that I was there, but they don’t know what I heard. If Mosely has any reason to think you and I