Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Chelsea
After Frost left Hazards so suddenly, I couldn’t sleep.
Storm insisted on taking me home and staying with me until Frost showed up to explain. Storm told the other two to go and get some rest before the morning’s training session. Dallas and Atlas objected, but I insisted I was fine. Neither liked it, especially Dallas, but they left us to it. That is to say, Dallas only left so Atlas would. Otherwise they’d both have stayed, and Storm would have lost his shit.
No, it was better this way.
I made coffee for Storm and me. We sat on the couch staring at the TV without watching.
“What do you think happened?” I asked, to end the silence.
All I knew was he was with my brother, sorting something out. I had a reasonable idea of what ‘something’ might entail, but not what that had to do with Frost.
“Not a clue, but it better have been important,” Storm growled softly.
I glanced over to him. His brow was creased, eyes like thunderclouds about to split open.
I’d never seen him look worried before.
“My brother wouldn’t let anything happen to him,” I said. That was the one thing I was certain of. Frost may get in over his head, but Ice wouldn’t let him die. Unless he killed him. After our last conversation, I was almost certain he wouldn’t do that.
“I don’t know what—” Storm was interrupted by the sound of the key in the lock and the opening of the door.
A smile on his face, my brother stepped through. He was followed by a grim-faced Frost.
“You waited up for us.” Ice stepped over to the kitchen and started to make a fresh coffee.
“We waited up for Frost,” Storm said, his eyes still on his teammate.
Frost didn’t meet either of our gazes. He sat in the arm chair opposite us, his head down like he carried a truck load of trouble on his shoulders.
My blood froze in my veins. I glanced at my brother who gave me a slight nod.
Fuck.
I reached over to put my hand on Frost’s knee. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
“What’s going on?” I asked gently. “Is everything okay?”
“Nothing is okay,” he said, his face still down. “I did something.”
“We all do things,” Storm said dismissively. “Sometimes even things we’re not proud of. If you think that will change the way we feel about you, think again.”
Frost slowly raised his head. His green eyes were rimmed with red and laced with regret. “It’s easy to say when you don’t know what it was.” His voice was barely above a tortured whisper.
“What did you do?” I asked gently.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Ice take the seat beside Frost. The irony of their matching names wasn’t lost on me. Both were some of the warmest people I knew.
“You remember Ivy, from Flirts,” Frost said in a hollow tone.
Storm’s body stiffened. “The one you fucked. If you went there again, I’m personally going to?—”
“She’s dead.” Frost’s words cut through Storm’s intended threat.
Storm frowned. “So what?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. There was no love lost between me and Ivy, but if Frost was implying what I thought he was implying… It wasn’t what I expected to hear tonight.
I opened my eyes. “What happened?”
His voice breaking every few words, Frost said, “She tried to get me to go home with her. I told her no. I tried to walk away, but she insisted. And then… And then she was dead.”
“It was an accident,” Storm stated, as if that was that. Case closed. Move on. Nothing to see here.
Frost turned haunted eyes to him. “No accident. I wanted her to leave me alone, but then I couldn’t stop myself. I had my hands around her throat, then… She was dead.”
He glanced down at his fingers, curled in a strangling motion in front of him.
“Holy shit,” Storm whispered. “You fucking strangled her?”
I squeezed Frost’s knee. “Are you okay?”
Storm stared at me, then at him, then back again. “Are you out of your mind? He killed someone and you’re asking if he’s okay?”
“Yeah, I am,” I said. “You really think he went out of his way to do it?”
The big fullback gaped. “Frost would never… Would he?” He turned to Frost. “Would you?”
“I didn’t,” Frost said.
“But he might in the future,” Ice said cheerfully.
“Isaac.” I shook my head at him.
“What? You said not to kill any of them. You didn’t say anything about not recruiting them.” Steam rose from the cup in his hand, dancing in front of his face before his breath dissipated it.
“I thought it was implied,” I said dryly. It seemed to me like that horse had already bolted.
“I’d say sorry, but Frost was lucky I was the one who walked in and not someone else,” Ice said.
“He helped me take care of her,” Frost said. “He said you wouldn’t be surprised about any of this.”
I leaned back and rubbed my temples. “I’m not,” I admitted. I’d seen the darkness in Frost, but I hadn’t anticipated it would manifest in this way. “You liked it, didn’t you? Killing her.”
“What kind of fucked up question is that?” Storm demanded.
“A pretty standard one for Dusk Bay,” Ice said. They could have been discussing the rising price of cantaloupe.
Storm looked at him like he’d completely lost his mind. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ice said the whole city is run by organised crime,” Frost said. “That people regularly turn up dead. He said they own everything here, including the sporting teams.”
“It’s true,” I said wearily. This whole night had been long and I was tired.
Storm’s stare turned to me. “Who the hell are you?”
“The same person I’ve always been,” I said. “I grew up here. I know what the place is like. I knew it was only a matter of time before you found out. I didn’t expect it to happen this way.”
He looked disbelieving. “Right. I guess you weren’t going to sit me down and say, hey, the fucking mafia run Dusk Bay.” He nodded over to Ice. “What’s your role in all of this? Are you going to tell me you’re some kind of mafia don?”
Ice laughed. “No, but I work for one. They’re not so bad when you get to know them. As long as you stay on their good side. If you don’t, your rugby career will be the least of your worries.”
“Are you threatening me?” Storm growled.
“Not threatening, just stating a fact,” Ice said. “Now you and Frost know the truth of things, you might be useful to us.”
“How?” Storm demanded. “How the fuck are you planning to use Frost? Or Chelsea?”
“That’s up to them,” Ice said.
“I try to stay out of it,” I said. “I have enough on my plate without getting involved.”
Frost stared at Storm, naked fear on his face. “Ice said he’d help me to channel my feelings in a productive direction.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Storm snapped.
“It means someone who enjoys killing can be useful,” Ice said easily.
“Enjoys killing,” Storm echoed vaguely. “What sort of fucked up person are you?”
I bristled at the accusation aimed at my brother, but Ice only laughed again.
“That depends on the given day. Some days, I’m more fucked up than others. But I get paid for it. Just like you get paid to smash the crap out of people on the footy field. Don’t say you don’t enjoy it.”
“Of course I fucking do,” Storm said, “but I’m not killing anyone.”
Ice leaned forward towards him. “Have you ever wanted to beat the shit out of someone who deserved it? Someone who maybe, I don’t know, hurt a person you care about? How would it feel to do that and not have to worry about the consequences?”
Storm shifted in his seat.
Ice leaned back. “That’s what I thought. You don’t have to commit to anything now, but if an opportunity like that arises, I know where to find you.”
“I really should get that lock changed,” I said.
Ice chuckled. “It’s too late for that. It was too late when Frosty here wrapped his hands around that woman’s throat. Some would argue it was too late when they met you.”
I wanted to argue against that point, but I found I couldn’t. I knew sooner or later it would come to this. It certainly could have been worse, Ice was right about that. Anyone could have walked in on Frost. They could as easily have killed him as helped him.
“What happens now?” Storm asked. “Are you getting the police involved? Or the team?” He quickly added, “I’ll tell them Frost was with me all night.”
“It’s taken care of,” Ice said. “No one needs to know but the four of us. And Mannix Cassani. He’s the Brantleys’ right-hand man here in Dusk Bay. One of them. Nothing much happens here that doesn’t go through him. Don’t worry though, his bark is worse than his bite. Although, his bite is pretty good.” He grinned.
“Mannix is Ice’s boyfriend,” I explained. He wasn’t the kind of person to be screwed with lightly. He’d screw back, twice as hard.
Storm rubbed the heel of his hand up and down the centre of his forehead. “Any minute now I’m going to wake up and find out this is a bad dream.”
I squeezed his bicep. “It’s not a dream. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you prefer to stay out of things, you can.” ‘Things’ had a way of choosing for us, but now wasn’t the time to tell him that.
Storm looked at Frost past the side of his hand. “Are you going to be killing people for this guy?” He gestured towards Ice with a flick of his fingertips.
“I…maybe,” Frost said. “You have no idea how it felt. It was…” He looked as though he’d experienced his first orgasm. “I felt fucking powerful. I watched her life end. I made her life end. Me.”
“Murdergasm,” Ice said. “I feel like that every time. It never gets old.”
“You’re both sick as fuck,” Storm said. He lowered his hand and shook his head. “I can’t listen to any more of this. I need some air.”
No one stopped him as he got to his feet and stomped out the door.
“He might never talk to me again,” Frost whispered. His eyes widened and he blinked a couple of times. “What happens if he goes to the police?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” Ice said.
Frost’s face paled. “You’d kill him.”
“Or you could,” Ice said.
“No one is killing Storm,” I said. “He’s not going to the police. What would he say anyway? You’ve taken care of any evidence by now. If they investigate, there won’t be anything to find.”
“There will be, but it’ll point to someone else,” Ice said easily. “Even if he were to walk into a police station and admit what he did, there’s nothing to prove Frost had anything to do with it.”
“People might have seen her follow me into the bathroom,” Frost argued.
“And they saw us carry a drunk woman out,” Ice said. “Trust me, this cannot be traced back to us. I’m very good at covering the tracks of myself and other people.”
“He really is,” I said. “He’s had a lifetime of doing it. Covering for himself and me.” On paper, he didn’t even have a speeding ticket. Anyone would think he was squeaky clean and innocent as fuck.
“What about Storm?” Frost asked. “What if he never accepts any of this?” In a whisper he added, “What if he hates me? Us?”
“He’ll come around,” Ice assured him. “You should have seen Kennedy when she first found out about all of this. She freaked out. Now, she’s as involved as the rest of us. He clearly cares about both of you. He’ll get past this.”
“What about Dallas? And Atlas? And the rest of the team?” Frost shook his head, trying to get his thoughts in order.
“Dallas and Atlas will find out when the time is right,” I said. “There’s no reason anyone else needs to know. Not for now anyway.”
Frost’s brow dipped in a deep V. “Do the Demons know?” He directed the question to my brother. “You said the Brantley twins own them? Do they know all of this goes on?”
“Most of them,” Ice replied. “The head coach is one of my boss’ other right-hand men. Some of the junior coaches who used to be players as well. They either work for the team, or they work for the Brantley family in some other capacity. If the shit ever hits the fan, you’ll be grateful they do. More than once they’ve come to the rescue.”
“This is fucking wild,” Frost said.
“It really is,” I agreed. I glanced at the door, hoping Storm wasn’t out there doing something he’d regret.