Chapter 16 Kreed
KREED
Kaylor dragged a hand down her face, pressing her palm to her forehead, exasperation rolling off her in waves. “What the fuck, Kreed? You promised.”
The corner of my mouth tilted upward, a gesture I knew would infuriate her. “I kept my promise, little raven. No blood was shed.”
Her mouth fell open in disbelief. “You know that’s not what I meant when I said it.”
“If you didn’t want me to hit him at all, you should’ve been more explicit in your wording.” I shrugged. “Details matter in negotiations.”
She groaned. “You might be the single most frustrating human being I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”
“Thank God for my irresistible looks and natural charm, then.” I flashed her a completely unapologetic grin. “You should be grateful I held out as long as I did and that he only got one solid hit to the gut instead of the beating he actually deserved.”
“Right,” she muttered, taking a side glance at Carson. “That went about as well as I expected.”
The hit hadn’t satisfied my desire to hurt him, not fully. “Could’ve gone significantly worse. I could’ve broken his nose or his jaw. Or several other things. He’ll live.”
From the porch behind us, Carson groaned, a pitiful, winded sound. I glanced back to see him propped against the door with one hand pressed against his stomach. He looked up at Kaylor with glassy, watering eyes that begged for sympathy or forgiveness or both.
She gave him one last look, more tired than angry now, resignation settling over her features before turning sharply on her heel. “Come on.” Her fingers closed around mine and tugged. “Before you decide to demonstrate exactly how much worse it could’ve been.”
I followed without argument as we walked back to the SUV and opened the passenger door, waiting for Kaylor to slide inside. I took my time circling to the driver’s side, using those extra seconds to let my adrenaline settle back to manageable levels.
The engine rumbled to life when I hit the start button, but I didn’t shift out of park. I adjusted the heat to warm her up. “I’m waiting, little raven,” I said, my eyes cutting sideways to study her profile. “Start talking.”
She huffed, staring straight ahead through the windshield. “Maybe you should drive. I don’t want to give you the opportunity to storm Carson’s house the second I tell you everything.”
“I’ve already got a pretty good idea of what happened between you two.” My hands stayed locked on the wheel as I flexed my grip. “But I want to hear it from you. Your words, your version of events.”
“Fine.” She sighed. “We’ve put this conversation off long enough anyway. Put your seat belt on first.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it.”
I obliged, eager to hear the truth. If she thought a seat belt would keep me in the car, she underestimated my ability to move, but if it gave her a semblance of peace, why not indulge her?
Her body angled toward me as she toyed with a stack of gold rings on her finger.
“When I left that night, Carson picked me up. I asked him to take me to the old train yard so I could make the exchange for Kenny. Carson tried to stop me from going, and he confessed that he had gone to Rusty for help.” She frowned.
“He wanted to get me away from you and your brothers. Rusty promised him he could do that.”
A growl built in my chest before I could stop it. “That stupid son of a b—”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she interrupted, her hand touching my shoulder. “What’s done is done. It’s over. He obviously knows what a colossal fuck up it was trusting Rusty. He should’ve talked to me directly, but he didn’t. Now he has to live with that.”
“Don’t make excuses for him.” My veins flared with a reckless impulse demanding action. The anger needed somewhere to go, and Carson seemed like the obvious choice. “I’m going to kill him.” I reached to unclick my seat belt, annoyed at the strap across my chest.
Her hand shot out and latched on to my arm, small but steady.
I could have yanked her off, but I refused to hurt her ever again.
“The only person we’re killing is Rusty,” she said, voice quiet but carrying absolute conviction.
“Carson’s an idiot, but he’s not a monster. There’s a fundamental difference.”
I stared at her, wanting desperately to argue, to list every single reason Carson deserved to feel physical pain for what he’d done, but her eyes were haunted and unyielding, and the words died somewhere in my throat.
“Don’t say something you don’t actually mean,” I said instead.
“Killing someone isn’t like returning a library book. There’s no going back.”
“As if you’re not already planning Rusty’s death in excruciating detail,” she shot back, one eyebrow arching in challenge. “And I’m certain my cousin’s helping you with the logistics.”
That earned the faintest twitch of my mouth. I sank back against my seat. “You’re not wrong about that.”
Our gazes held, locked together, the air between us crackling with electricity and everything we kept leaving unspoken. “What about you?” I asked, needing to know where her head actually was. “What do you want, little raven? Really, truly want?”
Her chin lifted. “I can’t go back to my normal life until I know everyone I love is safe. That includes stopping Rusty permanently.” She didn’t elaborate, but her eyes told me everything about the darkness she was willing to embrace.
I rubbed at the back of my neck. “I went through absolute hell when you were gone. Not knowing where you were or what he was doing to you. If you were scared or hurt or—” I broke off, swallowing hard against the lump forming in my throat. “If I’d been even a second later getting to that auction—”
She climbed over the console and situated herself on my lap, the steering wheel pressing into her back.
“I don’t just want Rusty dead,” she said clearly, needing me to understand the full scope, her fingers framing the side of my neck.
“I want the whole operation exposed. Every name, every buyer, every middleman, every hand that touched what he built. I want it all destroyed and the rubble handed over to the police and the press. I want every girl they sold to come home.”
My brows drew together as my hands came to rest at her hips. As much as I understood her desire for revenge and justice, it was her safety that worried me. “I can’t let you get actively involved in a dangerous operation again. I physically cannot lose you twice and survive it.”
“You can’t lock me away like a princess in a tower, Kreed. If I can help stop this from happening to other girls, I’m going to do it. You don’t get to decide that for me.”
My phone buzzed, preventing this from turning into an argument.
Once. Twice. Persistent and demanding attention.
I ignored it, keeping my eyes locked on hers.
“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that when you set your mind to something, you’ll find a way, regardless of the warnings or how perilous.
A part of me, the protective part, wants to forbid you, but I also know that will send you directly into the center of danger. ”
Her fingers went into my hair. “Then we do this together. You don’t leave me out.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, unable to think straight with her body pressing into mine.
It had been too damn long since I felt her weight.
The truth was simple and ugly: she needed purpose after Rusty had stolen everything, and I needed to keep her alive even if that singular focus killed me in the process. “I’m going to regret this.”
“Not a chance,” she said, and her lips tilted into the faintest suggestion of a smile.
My phone buzzed again. I exhaled as Kaylor climbed back in her seat, and I yanked the device out of my pocket. My father’s name glowed across the screen in harsh white letters. “Shit.”
It didn’t take a wizard to know why he was calling.
He only ever called for two things. To tell me he wanted to talk or because he needed something.
If I had to guess, he was reminding me to make good on our deal.
He’d given me what I’d desperately needed, an address for the auction.
I hated that I’d needed him. I hated even more that anything he touched came with invisible strings attached.
Dropping my head back on the seat, I took the call. “What?”
“Since you’re alive and answering your phone, I assume you got what you wanted.” My father’s voice came through the line, cold as always.
I scowled into the phone. “I did.”
“Good. Then I expect you home within the hour. We have business to discuss.” No fatherly concern. No questions about whether I’d been hurt, whether the rescue had gone smoothly, whether I was okay.
“Just me?” I clarified.
“No reason to involve your brothers in this particular conversation.”
Right, this was between him and me.
The line went dead. I dropped the phone into the cupholder between us, my teeth clenching. “I need to make a stop. I’ll drop you off at Brock’s first.”
“Where?” she asked. “Who was that?” Her eyes tracked from my face to the phone and back again, seeing past the layers most people didn’t take the time to peel back.
Brows pinched, I replied, “My father.”
“What does he want?” Her seatbelt clicked into place.
“I don’t know yet,” I admitted, shifting the SUV into drive and pulling away from the curb. “But with my father, it’s never simple. And it’s never cheap.”
“What’s wrong? I can see in your expression that something is going on. What is it? What did you do?”
I merged into traffic, keeping my eyes on the road ahead. “What I had to do to find you.”
“Kreed, no more secrets between us. For real this time.”
This was why I never had a girl before. Everything was more complicated.
And yet…I didn’t want to imagine my life without her.
Turned out, it wasn’t that I wasn’t a relationship guy.
It was I just hadn’t found a girl worthy of committing myself to.
“He was the one who provided the auction location.”