Chapter 12
Trey McCann hated three things in this world. People who thought they were better than him. People who underestimated him. And people who tried to get one over on him.
Paisley fell into the last group. She’d thought she was clever when she’d packed her bags and left him the last time he was working a job out of the country.
He’d started his own security firm when he’d left the military.
Some people thought he’d never amount to anything, but he’d proven them wrong.
The work he did had made him rich enough to tell all his former commanders to fuck off, if he cared enough to find them and do it.
Stupid assholes. He got shit done, and now he got paid for it by people who didn’t care how he did it so long as he delivered results.
But the things he provided—a big home, expensive cars and clothes, the best of everything she could want—weren’t enough for Paisley.
Nothing was enough for her. Since the kid had been born, Paisley paid more attention to the baby than she did him.
He should have done something about it long ago, but making a kid disappear was a lot of work. People tended to get their underwear in a twist when kids were involved.
And he’d been too busy building his empire to take care of the problem. Besides, he’d gotten a lot of satisfaction out of knowing he’d taken something far more valuable from Ethan Snow than the man would ever realize.
Raising Ethan’s kid as his own had given him such a charge.
Until it didn’t. Until the kid started to resemble Ethan and not him.
Paisley hadn’t known when she’d gotten pregnant whose kid she was carrying, but Trey did.
He couldn’t have kids. He’d had a vasectomy years ago because the last thing he wanted was some bitch coming after him for child support.
He didn’t even like kids, had no intention of having any until he couldn’t quite pass up the idea of stealing more from Ethan than just the woman he loved. He’d figured he could handle the kid for a few years and then he’d make her disappear. Should have gotten rid of her before now, though.
Trey sat in the rental he’d picked up when he got to Huntsville and watched the house where his fucking wife was staying.
She thought he didn’t know where she was, but she was so fucking wrong it was laughable.
He knew she had an aunt in this two-bit town in northern Alabama, and he knew the aunt’s name.
Not hard to track down any property she owned.
After that, he’d made subtle searches until he found that, yes, Paisley Rose Allen—she’d dared to start using her maiden name again—was living at 223 Chestnut Street. Once he’d discovered that, he decided to take a trip.
Not that he intended to do anything about it. Yet. He wasn’t a fool.
He had business in Huntsville from time to time, but nobody knew he was here right now.
He’d flown out of Destin yesterday, headed for an overseas trip.
Instead of leaving the US immediately, he’d used a different identity in Charlotte to board a new flight and landed in Huntsville this afternoon.
He’d head back to Charlotte on Monday and fly out as scheduled.
Fucking child’s play for a former HOT operator like him.
This trip was a fact finding mission. See where Paisley and the kid were staying, learn their routine over the next couple of days, pick out the vulnerable points, and then leave.
He planned to let her think she was safe.
Planned to let everyone think he didn’t give two shits that she’d sued for divorce and convinced the judge to issue a protective order.
She’d taken his kid—legally his—from him, but even that was okay with the judge. Because Paisley had gone and opened her mouth, told them the things he’d had to do to keep her ass in line. Suggested he’d do the same to Violet if he wasn’t stopped.
As if he’d waste his time on that brat. He knew how to make her a non-issue, had it planned for years. Once he’d started making money, he’d figured boarding school would get her out of the way. Killing her would be more fun, of course, but it wasn’t always the optimal plan.
He ground his teeth back and forth as he thought. Paisley was the one who brought punishment on herself, disrespecting him the way she did. Judging him. Comparing him to the man whose name she still sometimes said in her sleep. He could have killed her when she did that, but he’d shown restraint.
And this was the thanks he got.
He’d loved her once, but now he fucking hated her. He was going to break her for her insolence. Her ingratitude.
He sucked down the Dr. Pepper he’d picked up at the convenience store, shoved a handful of potato chips in his mouth, and waited.
It was late, after ten, but his intent was to put a tracker on her car when the neighborhood went completely quiet in a couple of hours.
It was Friday night and people were still randomly shooting off fireworks and laughing in their back yards.
He wouldn’t take the risk of being seen.
He was just settling in with a true crime podcast—amazing what you could learn from those—when a truck slowed and pulled into a spot in front of the Craftsman. There were no designated parking spots on the street. Could be somebody headed to one of the other houses, but he watched anyway.
The driver’s side door opened and a man got out. Tall, muscular, shadowed so that Trey couldn’t see his face.
He watched with half-hearted interest as the man grabbed a duffel bag and slung it over his shoulders. Then the passenger door opened and Paisley emerged.
Trey’s heartbeat quickened and then slowed. She’d cut all her goddamn hair off. That was the first thing he noticed when the streetlight hit her. He might not have known it was her if not for the light on her face.
How dare she cut her hair when he’d told her never to do that? He liked it long, liked to wrap his hands in it and expose her pretty neck while he thought about how easy it’d be to slice clean through it when she made him angry.
But who was the fucking man? Had she been seeing somebody behind his back? Is that why she’d left him?
He’d kill them both if that was the case.
The man strode around the back of the truck so that Trey couldn’t see him. He fooled around on the passenger side, then emerged with a little girl in his arms.
Rage boiled to life inside Trey’s veins. It was a fire in his soul, scouring him from inside out. Because the light shone on the man’s face as he gazed down at Paisley and cradled the kid in his arms.
Fucking Ethan Snow. What the ever loving fuck was he doing here?
Rage, hot and sharp, twisted in Trey’s gut.
He hated Ethan Snow. Ethan, who’d thought he was such a fucking god that he deserved Paisley.
Who’d never even considered that every man at that table in the bar had seen her at the same time.
There’d been no debate about who got the shot with her. He’d simply taken it.
It was more than that, though. It was the way he’d swaggered into the unit at Eglin like he was some kind of god, the way he took control and had everyone eating out of his hands.
Ethan never said anything about it, but Trey was convinced the man knew that Trey had been reassigned, kicked out of the Hostile Operations Team because his own team and the commanders were a bunch of pussies who would have let soldiers die if he hadn’t taken care of the situation.
If he hadn’t made the hard call and did the necessary thing. His men didn’t back him up, and he’d never forgive them for it. He hated everyone in fucking HOT because of the way they’d treated him. He couldn’t make them all pay, but fucking up Ethan’s life had been a good diversion.
Trey ground his teeth together, pulled in deep breaths so he didn’t do something stupid like grab his Walther and double tap the bastard on the sidewalk where he stood.
Paisley started up the path to her door. She stepped up on the porch, Ethan behind her. The light illuminated the three of them as she inserted the key in the lock and opened the door.
Trey fantasized about the room exploding in a fireball the second the door swung inward, incinerating Ethan, Paisley, and Violet all at once. He loved a good fire more than anything, especially when it took the people he hated with it.
He could do that. Wire the room to explode the next time. He considered it.
But that wasn’t satisfying enough, not really. What good was it to put people out of their misery before they’d experienced any? They needed to suffer first. They needed to think they were safe, that they had everything they wanted, when in reality time was ticking away before they lost it all.
No, he had to do much more than wire the room to explode. He had to plan it so they suffered the most emotional damage possible before they died.
That was going to be the fun part.