Chapter 9
Ishould’ve gone home.
Instead, there I was, throwing a twenty on the bar, ignoring Enrique yelling after me about my never-ending tab, and watching Jailbait disappear out the back door with Ryan Caliger hanging all over him.
Caliger was obliterated. That much was fucking obvious.
He was exactly the kind of drunk where everything was hilarious, and to achieve a standing upright position deserved a fucking medal. I didn’t remember him even drinking that much when we’d been talking…
Prissy little fuck didn’t seem to mind being tugged by Jailbait and that whore he always hung around with.
He had Caliger’s arm looped over his shoulders, smiling politely whenever Ryan leaned too hard or stumbled into him. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were old friends, but they definitely fucking weren’t.
Ryan had met him maybe forty minutes before? I’d heard the little shit introducing himself to him.
I didn’t know why that bothered me, but I was fuming.
Was I acting this way because Caliger, Allen, and I had fucked around a few times over the years? No. Maybe it was just that Jailbait had always been…strange. Now he was dragging away my subordinate.
A cop.
Five years before, the shit-bag white-haired freak barely looked another person in the eye, and every conversation I heard from him sounded like he was just afraid to exist. He’d flinch if someone laughed too loudly, and he always tapped his fingers together.
Tonight?
Tonight he’d walked into O’Malley’s like he’d owned the place for years.
He was a cocky little bastard now, not at all looking like the five-foot-something he had, bagging every smile from broads and making every man adjust himself.
Including fucking me.
It was not right.
He was…popular?
Hell, even charming.
It didn’t fit.
I told myself I was only making sure Ryan got home in one piece so I could keep the dumbass working on shift.
That’s all.
This is not heroic.
I’m not being a dramatic bitch.
Just looking out for one of the guys.
I’m the boss now. Gotta keep the peons in check.
Right…
I stayed across the street, keeping the two men in sight without getting close enough to be noticed.
Ryan kept talking and staggering around while Jailbait wore his creepy fake smile. I couldn’t hear a damn word he was saying, but every few seconds he’d burst into another fit of laughter, and my mind concocted dirty innuendos or stupid nonsense.
“Do you think? Nah.”
Jailbait laughed too now, and not a fake laugh either this time, but a real one.
“I think Hollis is just a bully.”
The sound carried farther than I expected in the quiet streets, and I growled.
Bully.
I’ll show you fucking bully, Jailbait.
We left the glow of downtown behind soon after, and the sidewalks were beginning to narrow. The old fat maple trees stretched over the road, and their branches swallowed the moonlight.
Ryan nearly tripped over the curb, and Jailbait caught him at the last minute with a laugh.
“You good, brother?” he asked, watching my subordinate dangle over the pavement.
Caliger gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up that somehow turned into him pointing at absolutely nothing and laughing like a complete lunatic.
“Fantastic.”
I snorted despite myself.
Fucking idiot.
The walk continued for another ten minutes before Jailbait stopped in front of an old Victorian mansion I’d driven past a hundred times without paying much attention to it.
The place looked abandoned from the road. Tall iron fencing surrounded the property, and vines crawled over the cracking stone foundations. Several windows in the vast space were dark, while others glowed faintly behind heavy-looking curtains.
Ryan looked up at the house and let out a low whistle. “Damn, are we gonna fuck here…?”
Jailbait didn’t answer.
Instead, he pushed the gate open, and the sound made my ears itch. It groaned on the rusted ass hinges, and then Caliger shuffled inside after him.
The gate fell shut behind them, and I cursed before moving across the street. “Son of a bitch.” I glanced back toward town and shook my head.
Ryan’s truck was still parked behind the bar, most likely, so unless Jailbait planned on carrying his drunk ass ten miles, they weren’t just stopping here on the way somewhere else.
Curiosity got the better of me, as it always did, and I crossed the empty street, reached the gate, and pushed it open just enough to slip through.
The hinges complained, and I bitched back at them to shut up.
“What was that?”
I froze.
But the voices faded away after no more sounds came.
I still didn’t chance it. My training told me to wait.
So, I did.
One.
Two.
Three.
Counting usually helped me center myself. My twin had always done that shit. And I had always helped him. But that was before…
No more footsteps sounded, and when it was finally just the wind moving through the trees, I forced my feet forward. Satisfied that I hadn’t been caught, I eased the gate shut behind me.
The yard was bigger than it looked from the road by a fuck ton. Grass brushed against my jeans, and I wondered again if this place was actually abandoned and Jailbait had just yanked Caliger in here to fuck and dash.
The stone paths disappeared beneath tall weeds, and I couldn’t find where they ended. An old fountain sat crooked in the middle of the lawn, dry enough to have collected leaves for years, and rusted with some red residue that looked like blood.
“This place is creepy as shit,” I muttered to myself.
Somewhere around the back of the house, Ryan laughed again.
I headed toward the sound.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The farther I walked into this weird hell, the quieter it got. The house blocked out whatever little noise came from the road until all I could hear was the wind rattling old tree branches and Ryan’s drunken rambling somewhere ahead.
I rounded the corner, and the backyard was even bigger than the front.
An overgrown garden swallowed what used to be stone walkways, and I couldn’t even make out the pattern anymore. A greenhouse leaned dangerously to one side, like that famous tower or whatever, and half its windows were busted out, littering the ground with broken glass that reflected the moonlight.
Ivy had climbed the back of the mansion, wrapping itself around balconies and gutters like it was trying to drag the whole damn place underground with it.
Ryan and Jailbait were near the tree line, and Caliger wasn’t walking anymore. He was mostly hanging off Cocky Asshat’s shoulder while he patiently steered him through the yard to some unknown destination only he knew about, apparently.
“You weigh a fucking ton, like your annoying ass friend,” Jailbait said with a wheezing laugh.
Ryan grinned and shook his head. “Nah…you’re just a tiny cutie and that’s my boss. Sir Grumpy Pants. He may be grumpy, but he’s got such a nice dick.”
“Hmm, must be why he’s so cocky then. I’ll take your word for it.”
I frowned and wiped my face.
These two fucks are chortling about my cock?
Who the hell did Jailbait become?
He looked…normal. Comfortable, even as he laughed with Ryan’s dumb ass. Nothing like the nervous kid I remembered first meeting.
Hell, maybe he always had some balls. He did throw that drink on me, even then.
He carried himself differently now, though. His shoulders were always back, his head held up high. Every fucking movement from him was relaxed, like he’d finally grown into his own skin.
It was fucking weird.
Or maybe just annoying, if I was being honest.
I ducked behind an old oak tree as they reached a pair of weathered cellar doors built into a small hill connecting to the mansion. They were the kind you’d see on an old farmhouse, not a creepy mansion.
Ryan squinted at them and looked around nervously, like the moron had finally sobered enough to see this was sketchy as fuck.
“Why’re we down here?”
Jailbait shrugged with a smile, reaching down and opening the doors with a louder creak than the gate had made.
“Quieter.”
Ryan nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and watched Jailbait’s hand.
“Yeah…”
I winced as Jailbait let the doors fall to the ground.
Holy fuck!
Those hinges hadn’t seen oil since the Reagan administration at least.
Does he own this place?
Ryan leaned forward, trying to look inside the impossibly dark space.
“Dark…”
“It usually is.”
Ryan laughed so hard he nearly fell over, but Jailbait caught him by the elbow before he could eat dirt.
“I got you,” he said, and his husky tone was damn near dick-pounding.
Ryan pointed into the opening nervously after staring at Jailbait’s lips. “Is…is this where you live?”
“No.”
“Then what’s down there? You just wanna fuck in the dark?”
Jailbait smiled, but it looked wrong. “You ask a lot of questions when you’re drunk.”
Ryan considered that for a second. “I do…”
Another laugh, and this time I was folding my arms.
If this was some weird prank, it was a pretty elaborate one. Maybe he just hated cops, and he wanted to lock Caliger in the weird cellar.
Ryan rubbed the back of his neck, and his discomfort was obvious. “I kinda just wanna sit.”
“Then sit.”
Jailbait gestured toward the open doors, and Ryan swallowed so hard I could practically hear the echo of it.
“Down there?”
“Mhm.”
Ryan looked at the opening again before shaking his head. “Nah… too many stairs.”
Jailbait chuckled under his breath.
“C’ mon. It’s nice and cool down there.” He gave Ryan’s shoulder a gentle nudge, but Ryan planted his feet.
“I’m gonna fall.”
“I don’t recommend defying me.”
“You’re so hot, but I know this is stupid.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “Jesus, Ryan so smooth…”
Jailbait sighed dramatically, and the poised mask fell, revealing something altogether different. “You are the most annoying ‘hunt’ I’ve ever met.”
Ryan beamed at that like a weirdo. “You hunted after me? Aw, I’m a catch.”
Jailbait reached for him again, trying to guide him another step closer to the opening, but Ryan resisted. He seemed to resist because he was scared, and not just because he was drunk enough to argue with gravity itself. “I don’t wanna.”
“One minute.”
“Two?”
Jailbait smiled.
“Maybe…One, two, three…”
I shook my head, listening to the counting continue.
Whatever this was, it was getting ridiculous. Why go through this much trouble to fuck Ryan Caliger?
They were standing in the middle of a backyard, debating whether Ryan wanted to walk down into a horror-movie-level cellar.
I shifted my weight for a better look, and my fucking heel landed on something brittle.
Snaaaaap.
Oh.
Fuck.