Chapter 4
KREED
Idragged Jesse through the unmarked side door of the Rooftop, my fingers locking around his upper arm like a vice.
His boots scraped against the stained concrete floor with each stumbling step, rubber soles catching on uneven patches worn smooth by years of foot traffic.
A dark streak of blood trailed down his lip.
If he didn’t give me what I wanted, he would be losing a whole lot more than the small amount from a cut.
The heavy metal door slammed shut behind us, bouncing off bare walls and rolling down the empty corridor. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed, casting everything in harsh, unforgiving white.
Jesse shifted as I shoved him forward, his shoulder blades rigid beneath his flannel shirt.
He grunted as I forced him down into the metal folding chair positioned dead center in the back room.
This was where we held fights when the main floor got too crowded, where we conducted meetings that required privacy, and sometimes where we kept people we didn’t plan on letting walk back out into the world.
Maddox materialized through the doorway, two bottles of water dangling from his left hand while his right held zip ties. Raine claimed his usual spot against the pool table, arms folding across his chest.
“You know,” Jesse huffed, his chest rising and falling with exaggerated breaths as he pushed his hair back from his eyes with both hands. The sandy strands were damp with sweat, sticking to his forehead in uneven patches. “This whole hostage thing you’ve got going? Not your best look.”
“Not a thing,” I retorted and positioned myself directly in front of his chair.
“A fucking deadline.” I leaned in close enough to smell the motor oil on his skin.
It was smart that he feared us. At least he had the wits to understand the gravity of the situation, or… perhaps he had another reason to sweat.
“I don’t care if your old man despises you. I don’t care if he’s willing to trade you for a bottle of whiskey and a busted carburetor.” My hands found the armrests of his chair. “You’re bait. But you’re also a key, Jesse. And I need a fucking door.”
He leaned back as far as the chair would allow, his spine pressing against the backrest. A scoff escaped his throat. “You keep acting like I’m part of this. Like I know what the hell he’s doing.”
“You do know.” My hands slammed down on the chair arms, and he flinched. “Maybe not details, maybe not names. But you’ve seen things. Heard things.” I straightened, pacing a tight circle around his chair.
Raine pushed himself off the pool table and grabbed a cue stick, twirling it in his hand. “If you weren’t involved, you’d be a lot more scared right now. You’d be pissing yourself and begging us to call your daddy.”
“Or a lot more cooperative,” Maddox muttered from behind Jesse’s chair.
Jesse’s gaze darted between the three of us. “You’re so wrong. You don’t get it.” He cleared his throat with obvious irritation. “He wouldn’t trust me with shit.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re telling me he never slipped? Never had a phone conversation you overheard? Heard him talk about a place, an address?”
“Do you know how many secret phone calls he takes in a day? Do you listen to every conversation your father has? I just turn wrenches and collect a paycheck. That’s it. You’re wasting your time with me.”
I didn’t believe him. Not entirely, but he was right about my old man. “Prove it,” I dared. “Give me a name of someone who might know something. I don’t care if it’s a maybe.”
“So you can give them the same treatment?”
I stared at him, letting Maddox’s footsteps and Raine’s breathing fill the space. Let the tension push against his spine. Let him feel what it was like to be hunted, to be the prey instead of the predator.
“I will find her,” I said finally. “Maybe we’ll just have to see if your pops feels any love for you…his only son.”
His eyebrows climbed toward his hairline, and for a moment, some of his old cockiness flared back to life. “Would your father give a damn? You can torture me all you want, but it won’t bring her home.”
I offered him a smile that held zero warmth. “We’ll see.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “You really think she’s still alive?”
The question hit me like a blade dipped in liquid nitrogen, slicing through my chest and leaving frost in its wake. For a split second, the world tilted sideways, and I was somewhere else, somewhere dark and cold where hope went to die.
But I didn’t flinch.
I didn’t look away.
I didn’t let him see the way his words had found their mark and buried themselves deep.
“She better be alive,” I said, my voice thundering through the room. “For your sake and your crew’s.”
Jesse blinked, specks of sadness gleaming in his eyes. “I hope she is, but girls have a way of disappearing in this town and never coming back.”
“And that’s your father’s doing. The man you’re protecting.
You better hope to God I fucking find her before my patience runs out.
Because if I don’t—” I held out my hand, palm up, and Raine dropped his blade into my waiting fingers.
With a single graceful motion, I flicked the knife open, letting Jesse’s gaze linger on the steel.
The corner of my mouth lifted as I flipped the weapon in my hand, sharp point down, and slammed it into his thigh.
I made sure to avoid nicking anything vital so he wouldn’t bleed out, but it would still hurt like a bitch.
Jesse hissed, his head falling back as the pain registered.
I kept my hand on the knife so he couldn’t pull it out. “—you’ll be the next body no one finds.”
Jesse wouldn’t talk.
At least, not yet.
Blood covered my split knuckles as I flexed my fingers, feeling the sting of torn skin and the way my bones had jarred against his ribs with each impact.
Still, the little shit had kept his mouth clamped shut, jaw set in stubborn defiance.
His crew would be proud. Or…he actually didn’t know anything.
The latter theory was fucking annoying. If I wasted time on him for nothing…
My chest heaved with each breath, rage coiling in my gut. I was out of patience. Out of time. Out of everything except the burning need to find her. “Handle him,” I grumbled at Maddox, peeling myself away from the wall. “Make him talk.”
Maddox rolled his shoulders, muscles bunching beneath his shirt. “Gladly,” he muttered gravelly.
I turned and walked away before I could hear Jesse start to beg. Before I could hear the first crack of bone against flesh. Because if I stayed, I’d want to be the one breaking him apart piece by piece, and I had bigger things to worry about than Rusty’s cowardly son.
Kaylor.
Her name carved itself deeper into my chest. We were burning daylight, and every second she remained missing felt like barbed wire wrapped around my ribs, tightening until I could barely fill my lungs. I needed a goddamn lead that didn’t end in blood and silence.
Which meant we needed Kenny.
She was our best chance, maybe our only chance. She’d been inside, trapped in the same hell that had swallowed Kaylor. Nearly lost, like who knew how many others.
She might not even realize what she’d seen, but there could be details buried in the trauma. Anything that could help us find the girl who’d saved her life.
I headed toward the car as gloomy clouds gathered overhead in the sky. Raine materialized beside me, sliding into the passenger seat.
“She’s gonna be a tough one to get to,” he said as I turned the ignition, engine growling to life beneath the hood.
“Cops have been crawling around her house since she returned. She’s front-page news, the first missing girl to come back and verify what the police didn’t want to believe.
Not exactly someone we can knock on the door and borrow. ”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. “Then we won’t knock.”
A grin spread across his face. “Love it when you go full felon.”
Kenny’s place sat at the end of a quiet residential cul-de-sac, just a house away from Carson’s and Kaylor’s.
Mature oak trees created a canopy overhead, their bare branches rustling in the cold air.
Despite the dark clouds rolling in from the west, the chill of winter still clung to everything, but spring was around the corner.
A patrol cruiser idled at the curb, its engine maintaining a low, steady rumble. Exhaust fumes gathered behind the car, and I could see the officer’s silhouette through the window, head tilted back against the headrest, probably half-asleep from boredom.
One cop. That’s all they posted?
Good for me, not so much for Kenny’s safety. If I could get to her, what was stopping Rusty from grabbing her again?
I circled the block once, my eyes cataloging every detail. The space between houses. The high privacy fence that enclosed her backyard. The motion-sensor lights mounted under the eaves.
Raine peered through the windshield, his fingers drumming against the dashboard. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“You distract the cop while I sneak inside,” I said, pulling over two blocks away and killing the engine. “Don’t be subtle.”
Raine’s smirk widened. “Subtle is not really my thing.”
I waited until Raine rounded the corner and approached the front gate, his voice already carrying down the street, loud and just the right kind of annoying that would demand attention.
He stumbled around, pretending to be drunk, snagging the cop’s attention.
The officer stepped out of his cruiser, and Raine maneuvered his position so he blocked the cop’s view of the house, allowing me to sneak in.
I slipped out of my hiding spot and disappeared into the shadows between houses. Breaking and entering wasn’t new territory for me. I’d learned these skills young when survival meant taking what you needed from whoever had it.