Chapter 2
Decker
“ You.”
The word is a curse as I charge for him without hesitation.
Greedy’s eyes go wide, then he’s spinning out of the pocket and across the hall before I can reach him.
Hunter hisses behind me, trying to call me off, but it’s useless.
A second later, she grasps my raised arm, the touch barely registering against the blind, vengeful rage coursing through my veins.
I’m fully prepared to shake off her hold and smash my fist into Greedy Ferguson’s face.
“Crusade!”
Hunter’s admonishment isn’t enough to stop me in my tracks. But what she says next is.
“Decker—Stop. You can’t hurt him without hurting her. Joey thinks Greedy saved her.”
I whip my head around so fast my neck cracks.
“Saved her? What the fuck are you talking about?” My demand is directed at Hunter first, then at the man of the hour. My jaw ticks incessantly, and the blood whooshing in my ears is so loud I’m sure they can both hear it.
Tension thrums between them as they turn to one another and have a silent conversation I can’t interpret. Eventually, Hunter raises her perfectly arched eyebrows, and Greedy sighs.
“I’m the one who found her. Who pulled her out of the back of the truck. I was with her when she came to on Monday,” he explains, back pressed against the wall behind him and his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I brought her in immediately.”
Head spinning, I force myself to lean against the opposite wall. There’s a pain that’s blossomed in my chest that has no focal point. It’s heartache and confusion and grief, all braided together into a battle rope heavy enough to weigh me down and crush me.
“She’s been here since Monday?” I croak out, turning to Hunter. “The fuck?”
“I didn’t know anything until a few hours ago,” she says softly.
Bullshit.
“And why’s that?” I turn my ire back on Greedy. “Because you didn’t think to tell your sister you were chilling at the hospital with her best friend? For two days?”
“Stepsister,” Hunter mutters. She’s standing smack in the middle of the hall, directly under the bright fluorescent panel of lights I swear I can hear buzzing.
The asshole across from me stands up straighter, jutting his chin toward me.
“I had no idea who Joze was until last night. Bible.” He holds up both hands, as if his word is worth shit to me.
“I knew she had to be important to you or one of your boys since they targeted her, but that’s it.
I figured she was a cheerleader or somebody’s girlfriend.
It wasn’t until she connected the dots for me this morning that I even realized Joze knew Hunter,” he offers, nodding to his stepsister.
“Bullshit,” I snarl, fire igniting in my gut and licking up my insides.
“I thought so, too,” Hunter pipes up. “But he has no reason to lie about this.”
I snap my attention to her, and she meets it head-on.
“They only met once,” she offers with a shrug.
“And it was barely a meeting. Hunter couldn’t wait to get away from me that day,” Greedy begrudges, his jaw clenched so tight he could give me a run for my money.
It all sounds too coincidental, too contrived, but my gut says Hunter is trustworthy. Even if she’s not, my girl’s in that room, and these two are standing like sentries, keeping me from getting to her.
I have to tread lightly if I’m going to uncover the truth and identify exactly who needs to pay. For now, I need to see her. Take her home. Make sure the guys are okay. Restore some sense of order to our world.
“Hold on,” I mumble, remembering for the first time that the boys are waiting for me to send an update.
Cap: I still haven’t seen her, but the report is that she’s physically unharmed. Still trying to figure out wtf is going on. I’ll let you know when I know more.
Kylian: What room? No one will tell me anything out here. I can’t even find her in the system.
Fuck. He would try to hack into the hospital database.
“Is she here under a fake name?” I ask.
Greedy nods. “She’s listed as Jane Doe on the patient manifest. Like I said—I didn’t know who she was when I brought her in.”
Sighing, I accept that his version of the story is the only version I’m going to get for now.
Cap: Cool it, Kyl. I’ll come find you as soon as I can. What floor are you on?
I take a breath, then another, feeling completely underqualified to be dealing with all of this, even if I am desperate for answers and vindication.
Not for the first time in the last three days, I wish I had my boys by my side. I hate going this alone. I’m out of my depth, and I have no one to blame for that but myself.
Originally, they stayed behind to deal with the charter cruises. We all assumed we’d sort all this shit out and have Josephine home before sunrise on Monday morning.
When it became clear that things weren’t going to play out that way, though, I panicked.
I demanded they stay back. Told them they had to stay on the boats—keep all the attendees together until we had answers.
Don’t let them get you to the second location.
Isn’t that the warning the experts tout? Someone on the boats had to know something, and we could force them to talk by keeping them from leaving.
Or so I thought. Fucking stupid, now that I think about it.
Maybe I was trying to play the hero, or maybe I just needed to control some aspect of the situation.
I’ve made more than one wrong call in the last sixty-plus hours. I just never thought it’d take this long. Or that it’d come to this.
“Who was it, and what did they do to her?” I finally grit out. I keep my focus locked on my phone while my imagination runs wild. If I don’t, I’m liable to do something I might regret later.
The rivalry between the Lake Chapel and South Chapel teams has always run deep, but the pranks over the last several years have been more mild and good-natured. I never thought something like this could happen on my watch.
Greedy clears his throat and stands taller.
“What they did was not sanctioned by me, my boys, or anyone else on the team. It was three underclassmen, one of which is the son of a guy who played ball for South Chapel in the ’80s.
They said they were taking it upon themselves to revive the rivalry to its full glory.
They’re nobodies. Second-string fuckers who have no idea how badly they’re going to pay. ”
I grunt my approval. At least we agree on that.
“They also claim they didn’t actually do anything. According to them, Joze lost consciousness within minutes of boarding their boat. She was out of it almost the entire time they had her.”
Hunter squeaks out a startled whimper. Shit. Sounds like she hasn’t been filled in on all the details yet, either.
Greedy glances at his stepsister, his eyes swimming with concern as he scratches at his neck. “They made sure she was breathing, but they couldn’t get her to come to. I don’t know what their plans were…” Greedy trails off.
One hand gripping my phone so tightly I wouldn’t be surprised if I cracked the screen, the other fisted at my side, I study Greedy’s expression.
He knows, just like I do.
We may not know to what extent. How far. How many. How long.
But we both fucking know.
I can’t ask. Not in front of Hunter. Not when the answer has the power to send me to my knees.
Meeting my gaze, he glowers, but the look lacks the typical ire we reserve for one another. I wait with bated breath for what feels like a lifetime before he finally shakes his head twice in response to the question I refuse to speak into existence.
Relief floods my system. Fuck. For now, I’ll cling to the hope that his version of the truth aligns with Josephine’s experience. If they did anything to harm her—
“I believe them. They’re too dumb to have come up with any sort of contingency plan once things went off script. They panicked and immediately texted a few guys on the team. I stepped up the second I knew what they had done. I swear to you both. As soon as I got there—”
“Where?”
“South Marina.”
Dumbasses. They didn’t even get out of the fucking parking lot?
“I brought her here immediately. She was dehydrated and not fully lucid, so they kept her sedated through Monday and Tuesday. She’s been better today.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Again.
Kylian: Update?
He’s relentless. Always has been. In a lot of scenarios, his dedication works to our advantage, but this is next level, even for him.
Cap: Still haven’t seen her. Stay put. I’ll keep you posted.
I can only imagine the fury consuming him at the lack of updates. But I can’t just shoot him a text telling him I’m having a casual chat with the quarterback of our biggest rivals, a man who’s somehow embroiled in this situation right along with us.
Kylian’s off his meds, short tempered, sleep-deprived, and not thinking clearly. I have to protect him. I also have to protect her.
That last thought nags at me. It’s the truth of what hasn’t quite evolved between me and the girl just beyond the hospital room door.
We haven’t had a chance—haven’t had enough time.
Dammit. Why didn’t I do more sooner? Why didn’t I act on my impulses?
Tell her exactly what I was feeling. She should already be mine.
Now, though… fuck.
Now it’s all fucked.
She’s already picked him—or them, maybe—and I don’t stand a fucking chance when all I’ve done is drag her into not one, but two pseudo-kidnappings.
“I still don’t understand why it took so fucking long for me to get a phone call,” I grit out, holding the device in the air to emphasize my point.
“She wasn’t really lucid until this morning, but once she was, she recognized me and connected the dots. I called Hunter immediately, then she texted you, and here we all are. One happy little family,” Greedy declares sarcastically.
The glare I level him with is akin to the kind I get from an entire defensive line just before the snap. What I wouldn’t give to try my hand on defense right now. If only for the chance to get a few good hits and take him down.