Chapter 18 - Would We Were All Of One Mind.

Mel had been both happy and very curious when Beks called and asked to meet up with her. They hadn’t talked in quite a while, but it was still nice to hear from an old friend. However, judging by Beks’ tone, she sounded almost frantic to get together. Mel scanned her calendar to confirm she was free for the rest of the afternoon and made a snap decision to leave early. She’d told Beks to meet her at her favorite coffee shop, The Love Cup, in thirty minutes and then ended the call.

Mel arrived first and grabbed a table before ordering her own fat-free, caramel macchiato. Beks sidled in, looking around her almost guiltily, before moving towards Mel’s table. Mel immediately stood up and offered a friendly hug, which Beks seemed to appreciate, clinging a little at the end before finally letting the other lawyer go. After greeting each other they sat down to talk. 

“Thank you for meeting with me, Mel. I could really use some level-headed advice.” Beks paused and thought a moment before she continued; Mel held her peace so as to let her friend gather her thoughts. “What I need to talk to you about is important. It also needs to stay just between us, at least for the time being,” Beks said cryptically. 

“Okay. I can do confidentiality,” Mel tried a bit of humor, seeking to lighten the mood, but Beks’ expression remained serious. “You’re not in any kind of trouble are you?” Mel asked, hoping that it was just Beks being dramatic. 

“No. At least not so far,” Beks answered before continuing. “How well do you know Brian Kinney and what can you tell me about him?” 

“Beks, is Brian in some kind of trouble?” Mel asked, worried now. 

“Sorry. I’m starting this off all wrong, Mel. Let me start over from the beginning,” Beks answered, and proceeded to explain to Mel about Aleksi, Brian, and Justin for the next twenty minutes as they sipped their coffees. 

“Shit, Beks . . .” Mel paused trying to assimilate the crazy story her friend had just related. “Okay, this is what I can tell you,” Mel said, launching into the full story of Brian Kinney, the one and only. “Brian is a narcissistic asshole. He will fuck anything with a dick and then toss the guy aside without another thought. No one ever gets a second fuck with him. There’s no way you - or this Aleksi - can use his sexuality against him because Brian just doesn’t give a fuck what people think about that side of him. And there isn’t anyone close enough to him that would care about his sexuality either. On the other hand,” Mel paused and weighed her words, then proceeded with a resigned respect, “he is also one of the most honest and generous men I know. He will do anything for the people he considers his friends. Although he hates it when anyone even acknowledges that side of him, and he refuses to accept offers of gratitude.” 

“I’ve heard a little about that already,” Beks admitted. “I called around and found out about some of his ‘anonymous’ charitable donations. All the organizations he’s supported said about that same thing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mel agreed. Then she looked Beks over with a critical eye, assessing the changes she saw in her old friend, before deciding to offer her the whole truth. “Brian is also Gus’ biological father. Gus is my son with my partner, Lindsey, and Brian was our sperm donor. But, surprisingly, he’s become a much bigger influence on Gus than I would ever have thought. A good one, too. Anything we have ever needed for Gus, Brian has given us without any complaints. He also pays monthly support for Gus without ever having been asked. So, before you go thinking about doing anything to hurt Brian, you should know that it would hurt me and my family as well, and I would kill to protect my family, so be warned.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone, Mel,” Beks rushed to assure her. “That’s why I came to you. The moment I realized that Brian was somehow related to you, I knew I had to tell you what was going on. I don’t know what to do, though. I’m already knee-deep in this shit, Mel . . .”

Mel didn’t respond to that appeal immediately, reserving her judgment for the moment as she continued the explanation she’d already begun. “As for Justin, well . . . I don’t know the kid that well yet. I’ve only seen him a few times but Gus raves about him. It’s ‘Youstin’ this and ‘Youstin’ that all fucking day. According to my kid, the guy apparently walks on water. And I can tell you that I’ve never seen Brian be as attentive to anyone - except for Gus - as he is to Justin. So, I’m really not sure what to make of their relationship. But, I can tell you, that if Brian considers Justin a ‘friend’ already, then he will move heaven and earth to make sure that nobody - especially not this goon Aleksi - hurts him,” Mel concluded. 

“Wow, Mel. I honestly can’t tell if you love or hate the man,” Beks commented with a small chuckle. 

Mel smiled back at Beks and shrugged. “It’s complicated,” she offered, picking up a stack of sugar packets and playing with them while she spoke, as if she needed something to keep her hands busy while she delved into more difficult topics. “Lindsay adores Brian and she insisted right from the start that he was the only person she would allow to be the father for any child she carried. To be honest, I suspect that, if Brian suddenly switched teams and wanted Lindsay, she would be out of my life without another thought. Brian would ever want that, of course, no matter how much she continues to flirt with him. So I don’t actually hate him, it’s more like I’m jealous of the power he has over her. Not that he ever uses it,” she assured Beks, flicking over the tower of sugar packets as if to end the topic for good. 

“But what about this Justin person? What do you think about him? I haven’t found out much at all about him, even after Kacmar sent me additional information on his family. He’s sort of a non-entity. On paper, at least, he looks like any other spoiled rich kid. After he flunked out of college he took off to bum around Europe on Daddy’s money. But other than that, he’s kept his nose clean and not gotten into any real trouble. I can’t really figure out how Kacmar thinks some random little blond kid is supposed to fit into whatever his plans are for Kinney.”

“I can’t help you with that. Like I said, I’ve only met the kid a few times. Plus, Brian told us all that he was Croatian and didn’t speak English, so nobody bothered to try to get to know him better. You telling me he’s actually American, and from around here even, is the first I’ve heard about it,” Mel insisted. “Other than just a general impression that he seemed to be a nice young man, I can’t tell you anything about him. I do know that Lindsey isn’t that enthused about Justin. She’s mentioned a couple times that she didn’t like the way he seemed to be taking advantage of Brian by staying there so long. At least Lindsey manages to cover her jealousy up much better than Brian’s ‘best friend’, Michael Novotny. That fag has been just outright nasty and rude to Justin.” 

They both fell silent for several minutes after that, lost in their individual thoughts. Beks finished off the last of her coffee and took advantage of the chance to get up and take both her and Mel’s cups over to the bussing station. Then she reseated herself and looked at her old friend with determination. 

“So you’re saying that Brian Kinney is basically a good person, someone who wouldn’t be into any kind of serious illegal dealings?” Beks clarified.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if I were in any kind of serious trouble, the person I would trust over anyone else I know is Brian Kinney,” Mel answered honestly. 

“Would you be willing to call and get us in to see him? The sooner, the better,” Beks asked, hoping she was doing the right thing. 

Mel nodded and stood up. “No problem. Let’s go.” She gestured towards the door and Beks followed her out.

While Justin was upstairs doing whatever he ran out of there to do, Brian got a cryptic text from Mel, informing him that she and a friend were on their way to the firehouse to discuss something important. 

“Any idea why Mel would be on her way over here with her pants on fire?” Brian asked Ted, who was still going through the full criminal background report from the Zagreb Embassy. 

“No clue. I haven’t talked to Mel in a few days,” Ted replied.

Fortunately, they didn’t have long to wait to find out exactly what it was Mel needed. When the bell rang barely five minutes later, Brian buzzed the door and let the new arrivals in. Mel was accompanied by a tall stranger, of about the same age, who looked anxious and distracted. The woman’s long brown hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and she scanned the room nervously, her eyes darting around but never meeting Brian’s directly. Brian wasn’t sure what to make of this newcomer. Considering what they were dealing with right then, it probably wasn’t a surprise that both Brian and Ted looked on the stranger with more than a little suspicion. 

Mel had just finished introducing her companion as ‘Beks’, an old friend from law school, when Justin came racing down the stairs and skidded to a stop next to Brian’s chair, a phone held out in front of him like it was about to explode or something. When Mel announced that they needed to talk to Brian about his houseguest, Justin groaned. Brian reached out, grabbed hold of Justin’s wrist, and pulled the silent blond down onto his lap. 

“What about him?” he asked, squeezing Justin to calm the jittery blond. 

“Well, first of all we know that JUSTIN,” Beks began, emphasizing the proper pronunciation of his name, “is from Pittsburgh.” When it seemed like the boy might bolt, regardless of Brian’s attempt to calm him, she rushed to add, “I’m not trying to cause trouble. I promise. I just need to try and fix what is going on. That’s why I came to Mel and begged her to help.” 

Brian and Justin looked at each other, communicating silently, before Brian came to a conclusion and prompted, “go ahead, Sunshine. Explain what you were doing upstairs and why you ran down here like you were being chased by demons.” 

Justin nodded and pulled out his phone. “Listen to this,” he directed, tapping at the device to replay the message he’d received from Aleksi. 

The threatening words poured out through the speaker on the phone, landing on the ears of a stunned gathering. When it was over, nobody spoke for several minutes; they were each caught up in their own thoughts and fears. It wasn’t every day you found yourself embroiled in a mafia plot after all. 

Beks was the first one to break the silence. “Are there any others?”

“Yeah, There are two more, but I didn’t listen to them, I only listened to the last one,” Justin answered. 

“Well, we might as well hear the rest of them,” Brian commented and Justin reluctantly tapped at his phone to play the next message. 

The other messages were pretty much the same. Brian was still a little shocked at the abrupt change in Aleksi’s personality. When the man had been in Pittsburgh to sign the advertising deal with Kinnetik he’d been personable and friendly, going overboard to be nice to Brian. The voice in these messages, though, while it sounded like the same man, made it seem like they were left by a completely different person. 

There was the usual homophobic name calling interspersed with barely veiled threats against Justin and his family. From the hints dropped, it appeared Aleksi really had managed to dig up a lot of information on Justin. There were quite a few references to someone named ‘Gunter’; someone Brian suspected was a past lover of Justin’s, judging by how much dirt he had on the poor kid. It seemed Gunter had sold the boy out. Bigtime. What wasn’t clear from the threats and vague references to Aleksi’s ‘Plan’, was how he thought Justin would help him get to Brian or just what that plan entailed. It didn’t sound good though.

“I know someone in the local FBI field office,” Mel commented when they’d listened to the last message. “Cara Carpenter. She worked on a case that my firm was handling. She seemed like a decent sort. I’m going to give her a call. Maybe there’s something she can tell us.” 

Brian cocked his head to the side as if granting her permission and added, “saved by the lesbian squad . . .”

Mel shot him the finger as she got up and went into the kitchen to make her call. When she got back she looked concerned. 

“Cara asked that we all wait here. She’s on her way over. She sounded . . . Very interested.” 

Justin, who was clearly too anxious to sit still any longer, got up to make a pot of coffee. Brian followed him to the kitchen. Behind them he could hear Ted informing the women about the criminal background report they’d been going over before they’d arrived.

Wrapping his arms around the jumpy blond, Brian told him, “I don’t want you to worry, Sunshine. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe and out of trouble.” 

Justin turned and looked into the worried hazel eyes, trying to smile. “Thank you. I’m sorry I’ve caused so much trouble for you,” he told Brian as he leaned into the bigger man’s embrace. 

Brian put his finger under Justin’s chin and lifted up his head. “You didn’t do anything but try to get home. Besides, Aleksi had already gotten to me. Hell, you showing up in the place of the girlfriend may have actually saved my ass. At the very least, it delayed Aleksi’s plans. And anyway, you were a much better surprise than what he was trying to send me,” he told the blond before leaning down for a kiss. 

Brian and Justin brought out the coffee and cups just as the doorbell rang again. Brian buzzed in the visitor. Mel got up and greeted the woman, speaking to her briefly before bringing her over to meet the rest of the group. Introductions were made while everyone drank their coffee. 

“I want you all to know that this is a very important lead,” Agent Carpenter announced. “The organization headed by Aleksi Kasmar is under investigation not only by the Bureau but also by Interpol and a half a dozen European countries. He’s suspected of a whole host of criminal activity, including human trafficking, money laundering, and even espionage. We’ve been after him for years but never managed to find a way to get into his inner circle. Until now.” She let her words trail off as she smiled around at the unlikely assemblage of people in the firehouse’s living room. “If you folks are willing to work with us, we might be able to finally bring this fucker down.”

Brian, taking on the role of spokesperson for the group, asked the pertinent question they were all thinking, “what would we have to do?”

“Just act like you’re willing to accept Kasmar’s offer. Go along with his plans, but with the FBI backing you up and listening in the entire time.”

“You want us to wear a wire and help you catch a mafia don?” Brian scoffed. “Do you think I have a death wish or something?” 

“There could be quite a reward in it for you,” Carpenter offered, but Brian just waved her off. “Fine. Then do it because you’re concerned citizens who want to do the right thing. And, before you say no, remember that if you don’t, Aleksi will probably still come after you for turning him down.” She paused there while Brian and Justin exchanged worried looks. “Please know that the FBI will do everything in our power to protect you. You wouldn’t be going into this alone. We’d have agents with you 24/7. We’ll help in any way we can, including protecting your families if needed.” 

That seemed to be the selling point, at least for Brian, who nodded towards Mel, silently communicating to her that he would do whatever it took to protect her and Lindsey and Gus.

“What do you need from us?” Brian asked the FBI agent.

“What has he asked you to do so far?” Cara questioned, sitting down and taking out her phone so she could make notes as they spoke. 

“Well, originally, he was trying to send me a bride, but I got Justin instead. Which is going okay so far, I guess. At least he has the right parts,” Brian quipped, earning him an elbow from Justin. “I think the original plan was to marry me off to some woman that worked for him - at least until he found out I swing a completely different way, that is - and said something about coming to my big American wedding. He even mentioned buying me a house as a wedding present,” Brian continued. “But, judging by the messages he left Justin, it seems like he’s willing to let Justin take the woman’s place. Whatever that means.”

“Interesting . . .” the FBI Agent mused, making more notes on her phone. “We could work with that, I think.”

“Except, I think he’s changed his plan a little bit,” Beks interjected, speaking up for the first time since the FBI agent had arrived. “He made some comments to me the other day about how he didn’t trust his people here in the states to ‘close the deal’ with Kinney. He said he always had to do everything himself or it always got fucked up. I think he may want them to come to Croatia so he can personally supervise whatever it is that he’s planning,” Beks concluded.   

“Hmmm. That makes things a little harder,” Cara muttered, tapping away at her phone as if she was checking something. “We’d have to get Interpol involved more directly and set up some additional security . . . But I think it could work.” She looked up at Brian and Justin, a victorious look on her face. “So, who wants to catch a bad guy?” 

Brian and Justin shared a long look without comment until the blond finally shrugged. 

Brian caught the FBI agent’s eye and gave his own shrug. “I’m game. I guess. Not that I see any other way out of this pile of crap I find myself in. But you better fucking have my back. I don’t want my son or any of the rest of my family to be put at risk.”

“You have my word on it,” Carpenter promised. “We’ll get security teams in place for your families by nightfall. And, in the meantime, we can work on a plan to get to Kacmar.”

“What are we going to have to do?” Justin asked, sounding unsure about his role.  

“Mostly, all you two will have to do is string Kacmar along, keep him talking, until we get enough evidence on tape to justify an arrest,” Carpenter advised. “We’ll do our best to coach you so you’ll know what to say, and what not to say, so he won’t suspect you’re working with law enforcement. You just have to keep him in the dark long enough for us to make our case.” 

“Well, my international man of mystery here looks so innocent, he could probably get away with anything,” Brian commented as his Sunshine smiled at him. “Okay. So, if we’re doing this, I think I can start the ball rolling. Let me make a call,” Brian said, taking out his phone. Dialing a long number, Brian tapped at the speaker icon so that everyone in the room could hear the ensuing conversation, and put his arm around Justin while he waited for the call to be picked up.

“Aleksi. You’re a hard man to get a hold of,” Brian paused and listened to the other man, who returned his greeting with a vague excuse for not taking Ted’s previous calls. “I’m glad I finally got through to you, though. I want to invite you to my wedding. You were right before about me needing to settle down like you and Petra. But, before you get too excited, I need to let you know that my ‘bride’ is actually a groom,” Brian told the man who he secretly wanted to hurt for threatening Justin.

“Well, well, well! This is dobra, Brian! I am very happy for you, my friend.” Aleksi did, indeed, sound overjoyed at Brian’s announcement. “And who is this groom you speak about?”

“Funny you should ask, Aleksi. Remember that mix up where the woman you thought you were sending me accidentally ended up being a man?” Aleksi made a mirthful noise on the other end of the phone line. “Well, it turns out his name is Justin and we’ve hit it off so well I think I’m hooked. It seems I have you to thank for that happy mistake.”

“This makes me so happy, my friend. You have no idea,” Aleksi answered, and the people listening could almost imagine him rubbing his hands together like an evil cartoon villain, judging by how satisfied he sounded. “But, if this is what you need to do, I have request. You must do wedding here. At Princess Mia. Please, I like host your wedding here, in Croatia. Is perfect spot for happy couple.”

Brian smirked around at the crew listening in on the call. “Well . . . I just need to know that we’ll be safe and accepted there, Aleksi. I’m sure you understand. Many places are not safe for men like me,” Brian commented. 

“I promise, Brian. Trust me. You and your groom will be safe and welcome at Princess Mia. I will make arrangements. Lucija send you all details. How soon you will be able to come and get wedding done?”

“We don’t want to wait. We were going to just elope. I’m sure I can rearrange my schedule so that we can be there as soon as things are arranged on your end. I would only need . . .” Brian looked at Carpenter, who mouthed ‘one week’. “Give me one week to get my schedule cleared here,” Brian answered.

“Beautiful! Okay. I email you arrangements. You be here in one week and we have best wedding ever!” Aleksi said before disconnecting the call.

“Well, he seems excited for us. So, Sunshine, are you ready to get hitched in Split?” Brian asked the now speechless blond.