Fortune's Favor (A Power Up! Story) by Marie Harte

contacts all over the place, in law enforcement and underground. When psychic means failed, they could turn to Ian for help, and Ian never let anyone—Jack especially—forget it. Personally Avery liked the guy. Ian was small and cute and funny. Not threatening, and not his type, though Ian had offered several chances to get to know him better.
    Nathan glared at the computer.
    “Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell has your panties in a twist?”
    “Dickhead.” The standard response he typically received from Nathan. Avery had been worried that this morning might be awkward. To his pleasant surprise, being around Nathan felt normal. Just…enhanced…by that sexual tension he now knew they both felt.
    “Still waiting.”
    “It’s just, here. Look for yourself.” Nathan spun the laptop around. He wore a dark sweater and jeans, his hair looked damp, and he smelled like soap. Clean and handsome and so fucking close. Avery could easily see himself tying Nathan up and having some fun. Later. After the mission, he reminded himself.
    He took a look at the laptop and frowned. “This is beyond PWP clearance. How the hell did Ian get this?” Most of the names and locations had been blacked out, but Avery saw enough to understand just what Malcolm Dixon had done that had necessitated his travel all over the place. “I hate to break it to you, Nathan, but your uncle is even worse than you thought.”
    “He traveled a lot. Not as much as I liked, but the three years I spent here were tolerable because he was selling drugs.” At Avery’s questioning look, he added, “Pharmaceuticals. So we’d been told.”
    “So Danielle didn’t know what he really did for a living?” He’d decided to call her by her first name, because he could see Nathan had yet to deal with her passing.
    “Who the fuck knows?”
    Avery could feel Nathan’s frustration.
    “She apparently had a hard time with the truth.” Nathan rose to his feet and began pacing the kitchen.
    The time had come for some answers, things the files hadn’t mentioned about Nathan’s early years. “Tell me what happened that night, when you thought you’d killed him.”
    Nathan stopped in his tracks.
    “Tell me. I know a little about him, but we need a whole picture of the man. Hell, even you don’t know as much as you thought you knew about him.”
    Nathan’s jaw clenched. Then he blew out a breath. “I hated him.”
    “Yeah, I got that.”
    “My mom died when I was ten. I moved in here at my aunt’s insistence. She wanted me; he didn’t. I know he served in the army. That he was a Ranger, I think. But he got out to be with her more. Then he found a job selling drugs to hospitals or something. I only knew he went away and left me the hell alone. But that last time he came back, he was different.”
    “How?”
    “Normally when he dealt with me, he was cold. Not an emotional head case, but a man who knew what he did was wrong and didn’t care.”
    Avery had wanted to ask but wasn’t sure how. So he simply said, “Did he ever sexually assault you?”
    Nathan shook his head, and he didn’t appear to be hiding anything. Thank God.
    “No, but I have to wonder if he would have if I hadn’t tried to stop him that night.” He looked away from Avery for a moment. Then he met Avery’s gaze once more. “I came back late from a friend’s house. I was supposed to stay the night, but I’d forgotten something at home. I don’t even remember what it was now. I found him in the living room, beating the shit out of my aunt. He’d lost it. Really gone off the deep end. I’d never seen him like that before, and it freaked me the hell out.”
    “I’ll bet,” Avery murmured.
    Nathan shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down. “Apparently she’d caught him beating me and confronted him with her suspicions. I don’t know if that’s what made him nuts or what, but he was screaming at her and calling her all kinds of names. He was going to kill her. I know