Hard to Be Good by Laura Kaye
Dedication
To Amanda for saying yes to J & C
To Christi for saying yowza!
And to the readers for loving Jeremy. For real, y’all!
Epigraph
Love knows no distinctions,
it only knows the joy of finding in another
everything your soul needs to feel complete.
Chapter 1
JEREMY RIXEY STOOD in front of the ruins of half of the warehouse building he owned in east Baltimore—-his home for the past four years, and wondered what the hell had happened to his life.
As he carefully climbed up the pile of rubble, he didn’t blame his older brother Nick or the other guys from Nick’s former Army Special Forces team for what had happened. Not for his building being bombed by their enemies in the predawn hours the morning before, not for his tattoo shop being forced to close until the team’s investigation finally ended, and not for turning his home into a boardinghouse for the team, their girlfriends, and the new allies they’d found in the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club.
No. Jeremy didn’t blame Nick for the conspiracy and chaos that whirled all around them.
Because Jeremy felt like ten kinds of hell for not being able to do more to help Nick in the fight. A fight that went all the way back to Afghanistan, where the same assholes that attacked his building had also ambushed Nick’s team, injuring Nick, killing seven others, and ultimately getting Nick and the other four survivors—-Shane McCallan, Edward “Easy” Cantrell, Derek “Marz” DiMarzio, and Beckett Murda—-kicked out of the Army.
Actually, it was worse than not being able to help. Jeremy was a damn liability.
Stepping from the pile of broken bricks, crumbled concrete, and twisted steel onto what was left of the exposed second floor, Jeremy dug his hands into his hair and tilted his head back, his gaze dragging up to the gray early--morning sky visible through the ruined roof another story above. Nick and everyone else were inside celebrating the decryption of a microchip full of information critical to their investigation, but Jeremy just couldn’t put on a happy face right now.
Instead, his stomach plummeted as blurred memories sucked him back to the previous morning. Being awakened by gunfire. Nick asking if Jeremy was up to helping defend them. Running to the roof and exchanging fire with the thugs shooting from three black Suburbans down on the street. The thunderous impact of an explosive hitting the building.
And then all hell had really broken loose.
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then the roof had collapsed right underneath Jeremy. One minute there had been four stories of solid, hundred--year--old warehouse beneath his feet. The next . . . he was just falling.
Charlie had dived out of harm’s way, but Jeremy had frozen. Full--on deer--in--the--headlights. His brain hadn’t even registered what was happening before a painful clamp around his wrist hauled him back to safety. Nick had saved him. And because Jeremy had needed to be saved, two members of the Ravens that had been up there with them—-men whom Nick had been standing closer to—-had fallen to their deaths and died, one because he hadn’t been able to hang on to the broken piece of rebar he’d managed to grab before Nick could get to him.
Jeremy would’ve liked to have thought that, in a crisis, he’d come through. But he hadn’t. And men had died.
That was on Jeremy’s shoulders. And the weight of it was so great he could barely keep from falling to his knees.
A tumble of bricks behind him.
Jeremy turned to see Charlie Merritt slowly making his way up.
The sight of the blond--haired man shot twin reactions through Jeremy’s veins. Concern, because Charlie was already injured. Two of his fingers had been amputated by kidnappers just two weeks before. And relief, because Charlie always had this aura of quiet around him that was so peaceful it calmed all the shit whirling inside Jer’s head. Which was really frickin’ ironic since Charlie was the kidnapping victim who’d just learned that his army--colonel father had been murdered in Afghanistan.
“I knew I’d find you out here,” Charlie said in that quiet way he had, his deep blue eyes trained on his footing.
“Yeah? Why’s that?” Jeremy asked as he extended a hand. Charlie grasped it as he made the last big step to the second floor. The touch was filled with the slow burn of attraction that Jeremy had felt toward the other man since they’d met after his rescue.