The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

21. Cal Walker

T he second I left Ryan’s, I regretted my decision to abandon him. I almost immediately wanted to go back and apologize.

Operation ‘Win Ryan’s Heart’ was off to one of the rockiest starts to ever rockily start. I definitely shouldn’t have forced him to come all over my victim’s dead body…I also probably shouldn’t have left him to clean it up alone… nope . That was the dumbest shit I had ever done, and I had done some epically stupid stuff in my twenty-six years of life.

I groaned out loud as I drove to the townhouse I shared with Naomi, dropping my head back into the leather seat of my G-Wagon.

On top of me being an idiotic, impulsive asshole—I was still nursing a massive hard-on. The memory of Ryan’s perfect dick pulsing in my hand was almost too much for me to handle. The deep masculine grunts and moans that had escaped his gorgeous throat would fucking haunt me for the rest of my life.

I wondered what sorts of sounds he would make when I finally rammed my dick up his tight, virgin ass?

Jesus, Cal! GET IT TOGETHER!

If I didn’t make it up to him somehow, there was no way he was ever going to let me anywhere near his ass… not that he had really wanted me to stroke his cock today either… like I said. Not one of my finest moments.

I wasn’t usually like this.

Ok… I was.

Kind of.

I was always a pushy dom that demanded obedience, but I usually had a willing sub to exact my sadistic will upon.

Ryan had certainly not been willing, but I hadn’t been able to stop. Even though he had begged me to stop… more than once.

That was bad.

I knew what I had just done was bad, but I had no idea what to do about it.

“This is a fucking mess… and not in a hot way,” I grumbled to myself as I pulled into my driveway and hopped out of the vehicle.

I scowled at the sight of my fire-crotch red Aston Martin parked across the street. It appeared Vox had wasted no time cashing in on his reward for checking on my sister while I was gone.

Bastard.

I walked up my professionally manicured front walkway, nodding at the massive collection of garden gnomes on my way before unlocking my front door.

We had several locks because I’m a paranoid nutcase who breaks into people’s homes for a living. We also had an alarm system that Vox keeps up to date for me, so even professional hackers would have a hard time breaching our system.

After sliding open the final bolt, I stepped into the house and sighed happily.

Home sweet home.

Passing the enormous gnome-shaped umbrella stand, I didn’t bother taking off my combat boots as I made my way toward the living room where Naomi was usually waiting for me.

We had lived in this townhouse for sixteen years. Cass had only moved out recently, but this is more or less where we grew up after we had escaped our mom’s house.

It was nice, with marble tile floors and white walls, and I had just paid someone to renovate the kitchen recently after Naomi had gone on a serious HGTV kick.

So now we had waterfall marble counters and Edison bulb pendant lighting, which seemed to make her happy.

We also had a shit ton of gnomes because both Cass and I had a habit of picking them up whenever we were out.

Gnomes for Naomi.

She pretended to hate it, but her eyes sparkled every time we introduced her to the newest addition.

Sure enough, I found her on the couch in the living room. She was curled around her favorite gnome-shaped Squishmallow and glaring at the sunkissed vampire that was my best friend.

Vox was at the kitchen table with his laptop set up, though he wasn’t staring at the computer.

He was glaring back at Naomi, his lips drawn in a tight line.

I frowned.

“Hey, kids, I’m home!” I declared, hoping to lighten the decidedly tense and awkward mood.

Naomi immediately abandoned her glaring match with Vox and beamed at me, which only made Vox narrow his eyes further.

“What’s going on in here? You two have fun?”

“Not really. Your friend is a joyless grump. Why’d you send him, anyway? I don’t need a babysitter.”

I shot Vox a quizzical glance, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He slammed his laptop shut and stood up, sliding the device into his black Jansport backpack.

Scowling, he stalked past me toward the front door.

“Hey man, thanks for watching out for her!” I called after him, but he didn’t look back; he just flipped me off and slammed the door behind him. I whirled to face Naomi, cocking my head to the side.

“What’d you do to piss old Voxy off?” I asked, though I was more amused than anything.

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. He showed up pissed off. It’s not my fault he’s shit with communication.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure it’s his fault either. He can’t speak, I’m pretty sure it’s a trauma thing.”

She shot me a look that said, ‘ Don’t make excuses for him.’

“You don’t need to speak to communicate, Cal. He was being a stubborn ass.”

“That does sound like him,” I mused, moving to the fridge to see if we had anything to drink.

“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about him. What are you doing home so early? I figured if you sent a babysitter, you were going to be out late.”

I grabbed an ice-blue sports drink and cracked the top open, slurping back a sip before turning and leaning against the counter to face her.

“He wasn’t a babysitter, Gnomes. I just hadn’t been home in a few days and wanted to send someone to make sure you were alright. I know you can take care of yourself.”

She brightened at this, looking adorable with her Squishmallow and little daisy clips in her blonde hair.

I was definitely overprotective of her, but I also didn’t want to smother her, not like Cass did. Cass was afraid of letting anything happen to Naomi, whereas I believed in making sure she learned how to protect herself in case anything ever did happen to her.

I couldn’t be with her all the time to protect her, so I felt better knowing that she knew basic self-defense. Also, as much as I could be, I was pretty forthcoming with Naomi about who I was and what I did for a living. She knew I killed people professionally, and because of that, she wasn’t under the delusion that the world was a safe, kind place.

“Cool! So, did you get that kid’s parents? When are we going out again?” she asked excitedly, and my mouth twitched.

Little blood-thirsty heathen.

“Yeah, I got him. It was the dad… I have to meet Cass tomorrow morning at that funeral home to give the kid to the mom… fuck!” I dropped my head into my hand and pinched the bridge of my nose.

With everything that had happened with Ryan, I had completely forgotten to tell him about Caleb’s mom… shit!

“What! What happened?” Naomi asked, and I groaned, glancing up at her.

“I fucked up,” I admitted, and she laughed.

“Naturally.”

“I’m serious. I did something really stupid, and I don’t know what to do about it. Ugh! He’s probably never going to speak to me again!”

Leaving my drink on the counter, I dragged myself to the loveseat sitting opposite Naomi’s couch and collapsed face first, burying my face in a bright yellow pillow.

“Who’s not going to speak to you again?” she asked.

“The hottest, most spooky ginger boy I’ve ever met,” I grumbled, my voice coming out muffled, considering I was ear-deep in a throw pillow.

“You met a boy?”

“Define ‘ met.’ I’m stalking him… or I was… I think I still am.” I rolled on my side to look at her, giving her my most pitiful ‘feel sorry for me’ face.

“You’re going to need to give me some context here, Cal. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She giggled, and I sighed.

“Fine. So, remember when we followed that kid to the funeral home yesterday? Well, this guy owns it.”

Naomi was literally on the edge of her seat for the whole story. I didn’t hold anything back, not even when I got to the part where I had totally lost my marbles in the prep room. She was nineteen, plus I’m sure she’d read more raunchy shit than an out-of-pocket hand job in the dark romances she was always binging.

“Cal, that’s… super fucked up. Non-con is not cute in real life.”

“I KNOW!” I whined, tossing my head back and rubbing my hands down my face. “I totally shit the bed. But he called me the devil, and I blacked out for a minute. It was like I just needed to fucking dominate him. If I could take it back, I would.”

“So do it, take it back. Apologize.”

I shot her an unenthused look. “And what am I supposed to say? Sorry I held you down and forced you to bust a nut all over my dead victim?”

Naomi giggled. “Well, yeah. For starters. You should also probably apologize for leaving him alone to dispose of your body. Maybe explain the trigger thing so he understands. It’s not really an excuse. You can’t use your mental health as a valid reason for being a huge dingus, Cal. You still owe him and will need to make it up to him… but at least it will help him understand why you totally lost your mind.”

I sighed. She was right.

“He’s not going to even want to talk to me after what I did.” I pouted, and she shrugged.

“Probably not, but from what you’ve told me so far, I’m not sure how that’s any different from all your other interactions. Seems to me like he hasn’t wanted to talk to you since you met him.”

I pouted harder. Again, she was right, and I hated it.

“You’re both going to have to interact anyway, for Caleb’s sake. But after that, the right thing to do would be to leave him alone if he doesn’t want to have a relationship with you, Cal.”

“That’s not fair! I want him,” I complained, and she rolled her eyes.

“Well, then you’re going to have to convince him to want you too, or I will have to officially start judging you for the first time in like… ever. You can’t be a vigilante who kills child abusers and then turn around and abuse innocent people yourself, Cal. It’s hypocritical.”

I narrowed my eyes on her. “How did you get so wise?” I asked, getting up and crossing over to her side of the room. Grabbing her head, I tilted it to the side so I could check her ears.

“Do you just stuff the knowledge in through here? I know you’re not learning this much from reading. All you read is smut.”

She laughed and tried to pull back, but I started tickling her until she squealed. I let her kick me away and grinned down at her.

She wrinkled her nose at me and flipped me off, making me chuckle.

“Alright so, you think I should go back?”

“What, like, to his house? Maybe you should text him first.”

“I don’t have his number.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “ Please. You’re telling me the big bad mercenary can’t get his number? I could probably get his number. I bet it’s listed on his website.”

I flicked her nose. “See? Wise. ” I smirked before whipping out my phone. She was right, of course. Right there on the Contact Us page of Fairview Funeral Services was both the business number and a fucking mobile number right under his handsome businessman headshot.

Good lord. If he ever let me within ten feet of him again, we would need to have a conversation about minimizing our digital footprint.

I mean, yes, I get it. You own a business and want to be easily found online… but you list your personal mobile number on the contact page?

I tutted my tongue. He was basically begging for dick pics.

Unable to contain the shit-eating grin that was spreading across my face, I glanced back up at Naomi.

“You going to be okay if I head back out for a bit?” I asked, and she nodded, reaching for the remote to the TV and her e-reader, which were lying next to her.

“Sure, I get so much more reading done when you’re not here to pester me,” she snarked, and I laughed.

“Alright. Text me if you need me. And lock the doors!” I shouted over my shoulder as I headed back out.

“I always do, you mother hen!”

I smirked. “Loooove youuu!”

Pausing by the door, I waited to see if she would say it back, but she just giggled in her adorable Naomi way.

“Get out of here, you goofball. Go get your man back.”

For a moment, I felt the usual swell of disappointment and worried that maybe my mother had been right.

Maybe I really was the devil, and that was why no one ever said they loved me back.

But then, my busy brain focused on two words she had said that made me forget all about my stupid trauma.

My man.

She called Ryan my man. I could get used to that.

I would text Ryan first, but I was sure he would probably ignore me. Naomi was right; I needed to talk to him about Caleb regardless, so I would try to do things the right way this time. But if he didn’t answer, I might need to commit one more B&E before I forced myself to back off…

This was probably my last chance to convince him to let me in, and I wasn’t going to waste it.