Chapter Thirty-Two
Liam
I can’t tell if the blood running down my arm is mine or that of the man I just killed.
“Jesus Christ, Liam. Was this really necessary?”
My friend, my business partner, nudges a toe at Harold Ruben, who lies sightless on the forest floor. What’s left of him, anyway.
My pulse hasn’t yet returned to its typical steady beat. It’s rushing and erratic in my chest and in my ears like it has been for days. Since Ravi left.
The threat at my feet may have been neutralized, but my nervous system hasn’t gotten the memo. Likely because the threat wasn’t really the trafficking drug dealer.
The threat is coming from inside the house.
It’s me. I’m the problem.
“It was necessary that he be stopped, Zed.”
I’m given a look of extreme skepticism. “Yeah, and I stopped his two security guys with bullets. No mutilation or dismembering required.”
“You know what he did.” I point at Ruben with my knife.
In the course of searching property records for another case, Bev stumbled upon the interesting fact that when the uptick of kids going missing happened in Belle Argo, eighty percent of the venues were short-term vacation rental homes.
Most of which were owned by the same guy.
While our search of those homes turned up a suspicious lack of security cameras, a more thorough sweep of the properties turned up hidden cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms, and showers.
Oh, and a cache of some new street drug inside a toilet tank.
It didn’t stop there. Harold Ruben was a bad, bad guy.
His own son and stepdaughter mysteriously disappeared on a trip to Argentina after the stepdaughter made assault accusations against him.
A neighbor with whom he’d had a dispute was conveniently killed in a home invasion.
A business rival’s niece was found taking it at both ends at an East End rave, high as a kite on that same street drug we found in his rental property.
Nothing touched this guy, but everywhere he went people ended up destroyed.
Well. He can’t destroy anybody anymore.
I realize my business partner is silent, still staring at me with what appears to be concern.
“What?” The word shoots out of my mouth. I’m too exhausted for this shit. I don’t even know how I’m still standing, and I sure as fuck don’t have the patience for my oldest friend to stand there and judge me for doing what he knows damn well I’ve always done. What we both have always done.
“Nothing much,” Zed murmurs. “Just wondering if my best friend’s lost all his marbles or if he still has some left.”
How the hell am I supposed to answer that? I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Come on,” he says with a sigh. He juts his chin in my direction. “We need to get back to the plane. You’re bleeding.”
How the fuck can he even tell? But I look down at myself, finally seeing what he’s seeing. A dark patch on my abdomen, fresher looking than Ruben’s blood, which is already beginning to oxidize and dry on my skin and clothes.
I make a circle in place, taking in the surrounding forest. My team tracked Ruben here to this private island in Chilean Patagonia, sometime during the night when I was tied to my own bed with Ravi’s ass milking me like a stud horse.
Once I got past the paralysis of watching him walk out the door, the office was the first place I went. I couldn’t stay in that bed, remembering. I grabbed on to the opportunity to hunt this piece of shit down with all ten of my greedy, desperate fingers.
When I blink to try and clear the memory of Ravi riding me, it only gets blood and sweat in my eyes.
“Aside from the house and the airstrip, this island is five hundred acres of forest. We can probably get away with leaving these guys for the wildlife and they’ll be gone before anyone can find them. ”
Zed huffs. “Fuck, you really are feeling reckless today.” He tosses me a foldable shovel. “Start digging, numbnuts.”
So, for the next few hours, we dig. Deep enough that the bodies couldn’t be immediately found, even if someone were to show up in this desolate place. We relieve them all of any phones, accessories, and weapons we can find, then unceremoniously dump them in.
We’re nearly done covering the grave when I’m caught with a wave of dizziness. My legs, which still aren’t in the best shape, threaten to buckle. I throw a hand out, catching myself on a nearby tree.
“Woah. Shit.” Zed grips my shoulder. “You’re losing blood faster than I realized.”
Maybe. Or maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t eaten or slept in at least twenty-four hours. Or…all of the above.
After we’ve trudged the handful of miles back to the plane, my vision is tunneling. My feet are so heavy I’m stumbling on tree roots. By the time our pilot, Deon, has gotten us into the air, all I want is a shot of whiskey and a bed.
“Hang on there, hot shit.” Zed slaps me when I turn onto my side in the seat. “Gotta lay you down so I can fix you up.”
“Fuck.” It’s a small plane, made for the times when our team needs to get in and out of hard-to-reach places.
The craft is designed more for maneuverability than it is for luxury or comfort.
The seats recline, at least enough so that those of us who are used to sleeping literally anywhere can rest. There’s no bed.
My friend hauls me out of the chair and dumps me somewhat unceremoniously into the aisle. Pain shoots through me—from my spent muscles, the stab wound in my gut, and the chasm that opened when Ravi left. My pain is a living thing taking over my body. It has its own heartbeat.
“Ow. Fucker.”
“Don’t go blaming me for this. You’re the one who went off on a torture spree because your boy toy left the state.”
“He’s not my boy toy.” He’s not my anything. Not anymore.
“Let me guess. You pushed him away? Don’t bother answering. It’s exactly what you’d fucking do.”
My only answer is a strained grunt when he pinches the wound on my stomach together. Then another when he hits my skin with a blast of cold.
“The lidocaine is more than you deserve,” he grumbles. “After being such a dumb shit.”
“He’s not for me,” I say. I’ve repeated those same four words over and over these last couple of days. When I’m really struggling, I pair them with: “He’s safer without me.”
“Is he?” Zed jabs a needle into my flesh.
The numbing agent hasn’t really even had time to take effect.
“Or maybe.” Another jab. “That’s the lie you tell yourself, because Liam Masters is nothing if not a martyr.
” Jab. ”And you think the only way to redeem yourself is to make yourself alone and fucking miserable. ”
What I know is that I had one job, and that job was keeping Ravi safe. I failed.
I’m silent, biting my lips together against the pain of the sutures. Every one of us knows how to do them. It’s part of our training. Some of us are better at it than others. Zed is not the best at them even when he’s in a good mood.
“Your bedside manner could use some work,” I argue.
“Fuck you and your bedside manner. You don’t deserve that shit right now.
Look, it’s one thing to go down in a blaze of glory if that’s what finally makes you feel better.
Frankly, I’d rather you didn’t, since I don’t want to lose my best friend.
But if you continue on this path of recklessness, you’re going to put everyone around you in danger worse than anything you were afraid of happening when Ravi was around. And Ravi won’t be any safer.”
I sink into the hard surface of the tiny plane aisle, puzzling over his words. Usually I’m the one in charge. The one with the plan. Right now I don’t even know how to admit to my friend that he’s absolutely right.
“Everything fucking hurts.”
“Of course it does. In the last few days you’ve gotten shot, stabbed, and concussed.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Not entirely, anyway.
“I know that’s not what you mean. Here. Done. We should get you to a hospital to check for internal damage, but it’ll hold you for now.” He stows the med kit and hauls me up, dumping me into a chair.
My head swims. When I close my eyes, all I can see is Ravi’s shadow beside my bed. Ravi rising and falling on my cock. Ravi walking out the door.
“He fucked me,” I murmur. “Then he just left.”
It’s shameful how pathetic I sound. But I’m too spent to care.
“You fucking told him to, dumbass.”
He’s right. I did.
“He didn’t stay and fight.” Even as I say it, I know it’s bullshit. Ravi’s been fighting for us for nearly two years. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s too young to know what he wants. The kid’s pre-med for fuck’s sake, even though anyone with half a brain can see he hates it.”
Another painful jab from my friend. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but I’m going to go ahead and throw it out there that maybe if you hadn’t rejected him so thoroughly and so repeatedly, maybe if you’d given him some damn support as his guardian or as his lover—either one—he might not have felt like he needed to be the thing his dead parents wanted him to be.
I sure as fuck don’t get why he’d want your cranky ass, but I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
I’d bet my car, my house, and my own dick that all that kid’s ever wanted was to know you approved of him. ”
That’s saying a lot, coming from Zed. He’s awfully proud of the monster between his legs.
My face burns. “I do approve of him. That’s why I let him go.”
Ravi’s capable of so much. What if I’d held him back?
Nausea swirls in my gut as our plane climbs higher into the sky. For all the times I’ve flown, I’m never entirely comfortable until we’re on the ground again.
But I do my best to settle into my seat, gripping the armrests, because it’s part of the job. Maybe being uncomfortable was always going to be a part of loving Ravi, too. It sure as hell is now.
“What happens in a few years when he gets all the kinky curiosity he’s been feeding out of his system and the novelty of being with an old man wears off?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Liam.” Zed scoffs.
“I’ve seen you drag children from burning buildings, slog through miles of rain and mud with fifty pounds strapped to your back, and face my mother across the Thanksgiving dinner table, which is something even I can’t do sober.
We’ve been through too much shit in our lives to not grab hold of the good stuff when we can.
You’re all, ‘Oh, I can’t keep him safe even though I’m a badass who assassinated two different warlords during my career.
’ For fuck’s sake. Stop being such a coward. ”
Direct hit.
“Ravi called me a coward.” I huff a humorless laugh.
They’re both right. The deep-down truth is that aside from the man currently scowling at me, I’ve lost everyone I ever loved. Everyone I truly cared for. Sending Ravi away was a preemptive strike against losing again.
Except…Ravi’s lost everyone he loved too.
“I’m a real piece of shit, aren’t I? I sent away someone I loved rather than risk him ever looking at me like he didn’t want me anymore.” I’m not talking to anyone in particular. The picture is finally clear.
Zed answers anyway. “You sure are, partner. But I still love you.”
I respond with my middle finger.
“Thanks, baby, that means a lot.”
“Zed, if I weren’t dying, I could beat the shit out of you right now.”
We’re getting ready to land when the phone I stuffed deep into a cargo pocket vibrates. I pull it out to reveal an unexpected notification.
Ravi has arrived at Shadow.
Adrenaline nearly shoots me out of my seat. “What the fuck?”
This doesn’t even make sense. I’d assumed he would leave the watch so I couldn’t track him. My phone’s been off or out of range for most of the trip, so I’m only now realizing the tracker is still active.
“Why didn’t he leave town?” I show the phone to Zed. “And what the fuck would he be doing there?”
“I don’t know, but I suggest we find out.” A smile spreads across his face. “You want him back, don’t you, brother?”
More than anything.
I straighten in my seat. Is this intentional? Did he come back to find me? Or is this something else?
“He might not want to see me.” Maybe Daniel Corvus and his little sugar baby who needs sex “more than air” are having a grand old time with him right now.
My old buddy raises his eyebrows. “You going to let that stop you?”
Fuck no. Ravi’s mine.
I’m going to get him back.