Chapter 13
Everett stood beneath the breadfruit tree and looked through the open glass panels into the house.
He didn’t need to be inside to understand what happened.
Blood was everywhere.
It gleamed deep red beneath the recessed lights, spread across the pale floor in slick, uneven ribbons, splattered up the cream walls, streaked across the low table, the ivory sofa, the sculptural chair Bobby had once bragged about importing from Milan.
The room had been all clean lines and curated wealth from the pictures he’d seen of the place.
Now violence had taken a brush to every surface.
And Bobby was dead.
He followed the splatters of blood across the seagrass rug to an outstretched pale arm, palm down.
The Rolex on Bobby’s wrist ticked in the silence, its diamonds sparkling beneath the amber recessed lights.
It was too clean for the mayhem that surrounded it.
The rest of his body was blocked by the sofa.
Only the dark pool of blood beneath the low teak coffee table proved that what he couldn’t see was worse.
So much worse.
He took three more steps along the terrace.
That’s when he saw her.
Remington.
She sat on the floor near the foyer, fifteen feet away from Bobby’s blood-soaked body. She stared at her dead husband, eyes locked on his lifeless form with slow blinking eyes and a steady, controlled breathing.
Blood covered her hands and forearms. Speckled her throat.
Marked the soft brown skin of her cheek.
Her dress clung to her in places, dark and wet.
Her hair spilled loose over one shoulder, tangled and wild.
In the middle of all that ruin, she looked heartbreakingly beautiful and completely destroyed.
She was in no immediate danger. As much as he wanted to rush inside and wrap her in his arms, he had to be strategic if he was going to get her out of whatever this was. That was the only reason he forced himself to put a plan in motion to protect her before he went inside.
Everett took a step back onto the terrace, pressing his back against the outer wall of the mansion. He pulled out his phone and called Adonis. His friend answered on the first ring.
“You better not be butt-dialing me, bitch.” A laugh rolled under his breath. “I thought you’d be passed out by now.”
His voice was barely above a whisper as he responded. “I need your services.”
A pause. A chair scraping. The ambient noise of whatever room Adonis had been in dropped away.
Everett waited for him to come back to the line. Likely from a more secure and private location than he’d been in before.
After a long moment, Adonis asked, “Where are you?”
“The Bluffs.”
He cleared his throat. “What are we dealing with?”
“Level five clean and swipe.”
“Shit,” Adonis muttered. “My guys in St. Basil can’t handle a level five. We’ll have to come from St. X, which will take longer. How much time do we have?”
“Not sure,” Everett said. There were acres between the homes in The Bluffs. It was likely that none of the neighbors heard anything of what happened inside the house. But he couldn’t be sure. “Expedited service would be prudent.”
“You want the body destroyed?—”
“No!” Everett dragged a hand down his face, then peered back through the open panel doors to make sure Remington hadn’t heard him. “Secure storage for the body.”
The line went silent.
Adonis was no fool. He was putting the pieces together.
“Who got killed, Everett?” There was a warning in his friend’s tone. A challenge to not say what they both knew he was going to.
Everett closed his eyes as the tiniest seed of grief planted itself within him.
Not for Bobby. He couldn’t lie to himself and pretend he cared that Bobby was dead.
But for all Bobby’s faults, it didn’t stop the other Stingray guys from loving the man.
He was a critical piece of the team. A vital piece of the family.
Their brother. His death was going to hit them hard, and that hurt Everett the most. Watching his closest friends grieve over another who was gone too soon in their eyes.
“Who?” The question was strained and raw.
“Bobby.”
The silence stretched.
“Everett.” A catch in Adonis’s voice, quick and swallowed. “Tell me you didn’t …”
He wished he had. It would be much easier to deal with than what lay ahead for him and Remington now.
“It wasn’t me,” Everett said.
He swore he could hear the relief through the phone.
“Who did it? Why are we doing level five to cover this shit up?”
“Can you please trust me on this?” Everett clenched the phone in his hand almost to the point of breaking it.
Something crashed on the other end of the line. A glass, maybe. A piece of furniture shoved into another. The sound of a man unloading the only way he could to deal with a truth he never expected to hear tonight.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Adonis said, his voice flat. “Forty minutes out.”
“Thanks,” Everett whispered.
“And Everett …”
“Yeah.”
“You’d better figure out what you’re going to tell Ike.”
A dark fissure opened low in his gut. He nodded even though there was no one around to see him. He found his voice again. “Yeah. I will.”