Hugh
H ugh sat in the back of the warehouse, bound to a chair, and gagged. He wondered why Luke and Jace kept leaving, but when he overheard them talking earlier, they said something about two million dollars and making the call. If he was a betting man, they were calling Colter, and hopefully, his guy wouldn’t give them a cent. He hated that his past was going to cause his guy any grief. That was the last thing that he wanted, but then again, he never expected Luke to show back up in his life and kidnap him. This whole thing felt like something out of a horror movie, and he just hoped like hell that his character had a happy ending.
Luke walked into the massive room and stood before him. was pretending to be asleep, but his ex seemed to see right through him. “I know that you’re not sleeping, dumb ass,” he said, kicking ’s boot. He opened his eyes and looked up at Luke, finding him smiling down at him. “If you promise to be good, I’ll take your gag out,” he offered. ’s mouth was killing him from having the gag in for so long. There was no way that he’d refuse Luke’s offer, even if he wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. nodded and Luke reached down to untie the gag.
“There, that’s better, right?” he asked .
“It’s a start,” mumbled, trying to work his jaw back into place. “How about you untie me from this fucking chair too?” he asked. He knew that he was pushing things when Luke just laughed and shook his head at him.
“You always did like to take things a bit too far, didn’t you, ?” he asked. Yeah, he really wanted to tell Luke to go fuck himself, but he wasn’t about to push any further. Right now, he needed some answers, and if he played his cards right, would give them to him.
“So, what’s the plan here?” asked.
“Not that you need to know, but I just had a lovely conversation with your boyfriend. He’s agreed to pay the ransom, and when he’s transferred the money into my account, we’ll let you go.” Now it was ’s turn to laugh. There was no way that Luke and Jace would just let him walk out of there and return home. They had too much at stake if he went to the cops.
“You’re just going to let me walk out of here?” challenged.
“Well, that’s the deal that I made with your boyfriend,” Luke drawled.
“And what’s stopping you from reneging on your end of the deal?” asked. Luke pretended to be offended by ’s question, and he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at his ex’s theatrics.
“I am a man of my word,” Luke assured.
“Yeah, I’m starting to doubt that, Luke,” grumbled. “When I walked out of your townhome, you shouted that you never wanted to see me again, yet here we are.”
“Things changed when you started shacking up with Daddy Warbucks,” Luke said, laughing at his own humor. “I want my money, and then, I’ll decide what to do with you. For now, I plan on keeping my word, but that all depends on how you behave.” wanted to promise him that he’d be as good as gold, but Luke knew him well enough to know when he was lying. He was an awful liar, and he wanted to at least pretend to be on his best behavior.
“Where’s Jace?” asked, trying to change the topic. If it was just the two of them, he might be able to take Luke—if he could get him to untie his hands.
“He ran a quick errand,” Luke said, “but he’ll be back soon.” Luke quickly added that last part as though he could read ’s mind. “Don’t try anything stupid,” Luke ordered. “Remember, I have a gun.”
“How could I forget?” Luke asked. “I still have the bruise on my side from where you shoved that thing while we were driving here.”
“Count yourself lucky that a bruise was all you got, ,” Luke warned.
They could hear a vehicle pull up outside the back door to the building, and Luke smiled at . “Oh good, Jace is back, and we can get on with our plans for the day. Your boyfriend’s time is almost up.” didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. He remembered Luke’s threats on the drive to the warehouse about sending him home in pieces.
shivered and Luke chuckled, “Yeah, you remember the plan.”
“How could I forget?” grumbled.
“I wonder what’s taking Jace so long to come in,” Luke said. “I’m starving and he’s bringing back lunch. If you behave, I’ll let you have my leftovers.”
“Generous of you,” grumbled. He watched as Luke crossed the concrete floor to open the back door for Jace. Instead of finding his skanky boyfriend on the other side, he found Crew and a few other cops waiting for him.
“Hands,” Crew shouted. “Show me your fucking hands.” Luke was at least smart enough to do as he was told. Crew turned Luke over to the cop standing behind him, “Read him his rights,” he ordered. He started working to free and asked if he was okay. He was more than okay, but telling him that past the lump in his throat was damn near impossible.
“Was he the only one here with you?” Crew asked.
“No,” said, “his boyfriend, Jace was here too, but he went out to get lunch.”
“Any idea when he’ll be back?” Crew asked.
“No, but Luke thought that you guys were him. I’m guessing he’ll show up any minute now,” said. He stood from the chair that he had been bound to and stretched. “God, it feels good to stand up and move around.”
Luke laughed as they put handcuffs on him and started reading him his rights. “This isn’t over, ,” he taunted. “Jace is smart enough to figure out what happened when he sees all these cop cars. He won’t come back here and sooner or later, he’ll find you.”
“Let him,” Crew shouted back at Luke. “I’ll be waiting for your boyfriend to come after , but I might not be so gentle with him as I was you, asshole.” Luke’s smile faded at Crew’s threat and nodded his thanks to the big guy.
The other officers led Luke out of the warehouse and Crew called over his walkie to send in the guys. wasn’t sure what he meant by that until Zane and Colter walked through the back door. Colter pulled him into his arms and felt safe for the first time in a week.
“I’m so sorry that this happened to you,” Colter breathed.
“No, I’m the one who is sorry. Luke is my ex and he’s the one who kidnapped me and tried to get you to send him two million dollars. I brought this mess to your doorstep and I’m so sorry, Colter.”
“How about if we forget who is to blame, babe?” Colter asked. “And, I would have paid two million and so much more to get you back. I thought that I lost you, .”
“I know,” breathed. “I thought that I’d never see you again and that hurt more than anything Luke and Jace planned to do to me.” Colter kissed his forehead and tugged him closer. They stood like that for what felt like an eternity until Crew cleared his throat.
“How about Zane and I give you two a few minutes?” he asked. “I need to put an APB out on Jace. Do you know what kind of car he was driving?”
There was no way that could forget the silver SUV that Luke had forced him into at gunpoint. “Yeah, it was a silver Honda CRV. It was missing a mirror on the passenger side, but that’s all I can remember.”
“Actually, that’s a huge help,” Crew said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t take too long guys. We’ll need to take down to the station to give us his side of the story, but then, you both will be able to go home.”
“What about Luke?” Colter asked.
“He’s not going home for a long time,” Crew promised. “And I don’t want you to worry about his asshole boyfriend coming after you, . We’ll put a couple of guys outside of your place to keep an eye on both of you. If he shows up in town, we’ll get him.”
“Thanks, man,” said. “I appreciate you doing that and well, you know, showing up to save my life. I don’t think that Luke was going to live up to the promise that he made Colter and let me go after he got his money.”
“Yeah, I didn’t believe him for one-second either,” Colter said. “That’s why I called Zane and Crew. I knew that you wouldn’t go with Luke without him forcing you to.”
“I hoped that you would figure that out,” said.
“We’ll be outside, guys,” Zane said, following Crew through the back door.
“I was so worried about you, babe,” Colter admitted. The little break in his voice nearly did in. He could hear all the love and worry in Colter’s voice, and he felt the same way about his guy.
“I was worried that they were going to come after you next,” admitted. “I swear that I had no idea that my ex was batshit crazy,” he promised. “I thought that he was an ass, but never psycho enough to kidnap me or anyone else.”
Colter covered his hand over ’s mouth, effectively stopping him from talking. “How about we don’t talk about your crazy ex or any of this mess? I want to put it behind us, well, after you give your statement.” Colter linked their fingers together and gently kissed ’s lips.
“I like that idea,” admitted. If he never had to say Luke’s name again, that would be fine with him.
“Good, because I only want to talk about our future,” Colter said.
“Our future?” almost choked. They had only been together for months, and until today, neither of them brought up having a future together.
“Yeah, I think it’s time that we start planning a few things,” Colter whispered.
“Like what kind of things?” asked. His damn heart felt as though it was going to beat out of his chest waiting Colter out.
“Well, like our wedding,” he breathed. “I want you to marry me, .”
“But we haven’t been together that long. Don’t you think that it’s too soon?” asked. He wasn’t sure why he was pretesting the idea of marrying the man that he loved. Everything was just moving so quickly; he was finding it hard to keep up.
“If you don’t want to get married, we don’t have to. I don’t want to rush you into anything that you aren’t ready for, babe. But almost losing you showed me that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you, ,” he said.
“I see,” whispered. “Well, I guess that’s good because I love you too, Colter. I have since the day you hired me to manage the bar. I’m not sure how it happened, but it did, and I’d love to marry you.” Colter pulled against his body and kissed him, and felt like he had finally found his home.
Colter broke their kiss and smiled. “Let’s go home then. We have a lot of planning to do, babe.”
“And kittens to feed,” added.
Colter chuckled, “And kittens to feed.” They had already become a little family and that sounded like heaven to . He had found the man that he had been waiting his whole life for and never thought he’d find, but he had. Colter was his future and now he could see everything that they were going to be to each other, laid out before him.