Chapter Ten
Grayson
I watched as the sun slowly rose, its bright rays peeking out from behind the mountains, glistening along the snow caps as I took a sip of my fourth cup of black coffee. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing here, waiting for the sun to grace us with her beauty, but I wasn’t moving until she was above the highest peak, shining down on this city. I needed to feel her warmth against my skin.
I needed a reminder of Carrie.
Four days.
Four days, and a lifetime of secrets had been uncovered. We were one step closer to getting the love of my life back, and yet?
I was lost.
I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I tried, all I saw was her, screaming in pain, blood covering her face. It was just flashes, bits and pieces of the nightmare that unfolded before me the last time I’d been in my office.
A sun ray landed on me, covering me from the neck down. My chest tightened as I bent my head, seeing the warm light cover my blood-stained cargo pants and boots. With each breath, my abs constricted underneath the fresh shirt I’d just put on, and my throat began to burn. I swallowed, ignoring the pain as I watched the rays shift, moving over to my right. My eyes followed, not wanting the warmth to disappear.
My eyes lifted, tracing the length of the ray up to the window to find a small rainbow, the sunlight creating a prism of sorts.
It was the most color my office had ever seen.
I felt something wet on my scarred cheek then, and without moving my eyes from the rainbow, the small flashes of red, blue, and green like a beckon, I brought my hand to my scar, wiping away the tear.
I was a fucking wreck.
My emotions were all over the place. I’d lost control over them days ago. Despite that, my mind was clear. I couldn’t slip back into the past again, and one way of doing that was avoiding sleep.
The ray moved further away from me, stretching over to the far side of the building, its light shining on someone else now.
“I’m coming, baby,” I promised the empty office softly, exhaustion lacing my voice. I paused, waiting for an answer because my soul desperately needed one. When it didn’t come, I bowed my head and whispered, “Just hold on for me, Sunshine.”
Another tear fell, landing on my scar again, but this time, I didn’t wipe it.
Instead, I downed the rest of my coffee and turned back to my desk. Once the mug was drained, my eyes focused on the set of pictures on my desk, one of a man and one of a woman, both smiling. The woman had gray hair, pulled back and styled in a way that made her look younger than she actually was. The man, even at his age, still had a full head of hair and a cocky bastard kind of a smile.
Robert Hale’s parents.
They’d been here for only an hour, the mother crying and screaming for mercy.
No one here was in the mood to give her any. She remained in lock up, in a soundproof room, pacing back and forth as her irritating voice bounced off the walls while her husband was gagged and bound to a chair in the secondary lock up soundproof room. I contemplated giving Dominic the go ahead to pull all thirty-two of the man’s teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers.
A knock sounded on my office door, and I looked up to find Hayes walking in, his eyes hard.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he replied, sighing at the end when he looked over to the couch, seeing the folded pile of blankets resting atop the pillow. When he looked back to me, he said, “I need you at the top of your game for this. If we’re going to find Carrie—”
“Until she is back with me, I will never be at the top of my game,” I growled, slamming my hand on the table before I could stop it. My anger was in the driver’s seat now, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Until Carrie was back home—in my fucking arms—the anger wasn’t going away. I could keep the rest of my demons in check, Dominic made sure of that, but anger?
There was no stopping that.
“Gray—”
“Don’t you fucking get it?” I barked, throwing my arms out. “I am not myself without her. I will never be at the top of my game ever again. She fucking—” I cut myself off, looking away from him.
A tense silence lingered between us as the unfiltered, raw, ugly fucking truth slammed into me.
I was nothing without Carrie.
She was sunlight, and I was nothing but a mere shadow, worthless in this world. My soul wasn’t tethered to hers. No, my soul simply didn’t exist until her. My life was nothing until her. Nothing, not even Red Snake, could fill the hole inside me that was meant for her and her alone.
“Gray,” Hayes called softly.
My eyes snapped, meeting his, and I watched as he read me, taking in the pure, all-consuming agony I’d been in for days. She had only been gone four days, and it felt like a lifetime had passed. Now that he saw the truth, I needed to make sure nothing would change it. “Stop worrying about me,” I ordered. “Stop worrying about me and let me do what I need to do so I can get my fucking woman back.”
He nodded. “Understood.”
Gratitude hit me then. He wasn’t pushing it. That was good. He understood and was letting it go.
We needed to move on. “Jake have an update?” I asked.
“Yeah, and you’re not going to like it.”
“Why’s that?”
Hayes’ eyes shifted to focus on the mountains behind me. “Because we might have to get the FBI involved after all.”
Fucking hell.
Here’s what we knew, according to the information that Bradley Gelling had so graciously given us before I took his tongue: Robert Hale was born Robert Hale thirty-three years ago, and when he turned twenty-one, he decided that wasn’t enough.
Robert Hale became Charles McLain at the age of twenty-one.
Robert Hale then became Edwin Griff at the age of twenty-nine, the year Gelling had introduced him to Carrie.
Both names had once belonged to very respectable men with good credit scores, a decent amount of money in their savings. Most importantly, though, they were unmarried and had no children.
They were also both dead.
Robert Hale took over their identities before their deaths could be reported, and hid all of his secrets within them.
“Right,” I muttered to Hayes, rounding my desk, leaving the sun rays and my colorless office behind.
“Also, Carrie’s cat won’t get out of my fucking office,” Hayes grumbled as we made our way down the hall, rounding the corner, heading straight for Jake’s office.
“If Tic-Tac is happy in your office, then he stays in your office,” I said, opening Jake’s door. “When we get Carrie back, he’ll be home with her.”
At that second, the fluffy orange cat dashed past us, his little bell jingling on his collar. Hayes looked from the cat and back to me. “Fine. Whatever.”
I stepped into the office, and Hayes went back down his to get an update from the Astoria police department.
“What’s this about getting the FBI involved?” I clipped. If the FBI got involved, then it was only a matter of time before it was flagged by Agent Garner, and then Jeremy Jones would be notified Carrie was in danger.
That couldn’t happen.
Jake lifted his arm, holding out a thin file to me. “Got the rest of the information on the second alias,” he said. I took the file, and then his typing resumed. “I’m pulling up the last known address right now.”
My jaw tightened as I read over the file on the second man, Edwin Griff, while standing in front of Jake’s desk. A second later, Ash made his way into the room, Jake giving him the same update.
“Why would he come up with a second alias?” Ash asked as he got settled in the corner of the room, away from all the computers.
“More credit cards, more money, more places to hide secrets,” Jake answered, leaning back in his chair.
“Robert Hale didn’t need money though,” I returned. “When the FBI froze his accounts, he had well over six figures in there, and that was just from his job at Gelling’s office, plus the small amount from his stock investments.”
Jake looked up from the computers, his eyes tired behind his glasses. As he began speaking, my eyes dropped down the file, taking in the amount of money in Edwin Griff’s accounts. “The reason why we might need to get the FBI involved is because I don’t know what we’re dealing with here, Gray. I’ve never seen anything like this. Usually, when someone steals a person’s identity, they apply for a shit ton of credit cards, rack em’ up, and move on. Robert didn’t do that.”
I lifted my eyes from the file, bracing for what was to come, as if it couldn’t get any worse.
Jake’s eyes bounced back and forth between both of us. “Robert worked under these aliases. He fucking paid taxes under these aliases, guys. It’s like he was living a double—no, triple life.”
Ash leaned forward in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck. The sling he’d been wearing had disappeared after Carrie was kidnapped, and I doubt he’d be putting the damn thing back on again.
“Why in the hell would he have told Gelling about them in the first place?” Ash asked.
That was the question on everyone’s minds.
Back at the prison, Gelling told us Robert was a good match for Carrie when he was Robert.
When I ordered him to elaborate, he told me about the aliases. Gelling then went on to say that Robert wasn’t right in the head, but of course, Carrie’s father didn’t give a shit about that. Robert was the key to Gelling’s success in politics.
“What about Whitelock ?” I asked Jake. “Have you found anything on that?
Right before Gelling ended his confession about his twisted son-in-law, he said something none of the Red Snake team would ever forget...
“The reason why I gambled with Robert’s life was because I had no use for him anymore. He was fucked in the head, and I didn’t need that coming back on me. He also wouldn’t tell me about Whitelock.”
He didn’t need that coming back on him, not Carrie.
I shook my head.
He really didn’t give a shit about her.
“Whitelock?” I parroted, staring down at the man, ignoring how his body was trembling. We already knew how much Robert was fucked in the head based on Carrie’s abuse, but now, I had a feeling we were dealing with a new definition.
Gelling nodded frantically, a bead of sweat falling from his brow, down his nose. “He was always going on about Whitelock, telling me that when the time was right, he was going to take Carrie there someday. I figured it was a romantic spot or something. I never pushed it.”
“Did he ever mention taking Monica there?” I pressed.
Gelling shook his head. “Monica was just his mistress. I’d only met her a few times.”
He’d fucking met his son-in-law’s mistress? What the fuck?
“Why did he tell you about Monica in the first place?” Dominic asked, reading my mind. “Seems like an odd thing for a son-in-law to do.”
The man shook his head and shrugged like it was no big deal. “That was just locker room talk. You know how it is.”
“No, we don’t. Infidelity and disrespecting women are two things that don’t appeal to us,” Hayes said from behind Gelling, his voice low.
“So Whitelock is a place then?” I assumed, waiting for the son of bitch to fill in the blanks.
Gelling nodded.
“And what about Brandon Hale?”
His face morphed then, his brows coming together. “Robert’s brother?”
I said nothing, clenching my jaw. I didn’t have time to answer stupid questions, but the fact Gelling knew who Brandon was only pissed me off more. Thankfully, this fucker wasn’t stupid enough to try me again.
“I never met Brandon, but he called Robert a lot. Almost every single day.”
“When did he start calling Robert?”
Gelling looked down to the table, thinking.
Hayes cursed under his breath, and in the next second, he had Gelling’s head back, yanking it by the hair. “Answer the fucking question,” he ordered through clenched teeth as Gelling winced.
“O-okay. H-he started calling him about a year after Robert and Carrie got married.”
My eyes shot to Jake, knowing he would be putting a timeline together for me after this. Hayes released Gelling with a shove as Ash declared, “Time’s up. Let’s roll.”
“We need to find Whitelock,” I stressed to the boys, jerking my chin to Jake.
“Right,” he said. “Also, I have the call logs between Brandon and Monica.”
I nodded. “Good. Hayes and I will go through those after we’re done with the parents.” I looked at Ash as I snapped the file close. “Come with me.”
He smirked at me. “Right behind you, boss.”
Leaving Jake in his office, we made our way down the hall, toward Dominic’s office.
“You get anything from him?” I asked, walking in to find him standing on the other side of his desk, shirtless, a wet towel in his hands, stained with blood. His black hair was slicked back from sweat, his skin glistening with it. Dominic had no tattoos, his tanned skin clear, his muscles tight underneath it.
“Aside from his screams? No,” Dominic sighed, rolling his neck as he turned to face us fully.
Ash muttered something under his breath about getting back in the gym and then asked, “What do you mean, no?”
Dominic shot him a glare, his dark blue eyes cold. “I’ve been in there with him for a fucking hour. All he kept saying was all his children were dead. He’s playing dumb.”
“Yeah, and usually within twenty minutes, you have what we need,” Ash shot back, stepping forward. A chuckle left him. “You telling us you’ve lost your touch, is that it?”
Fucking hell. Ash was pushing his buttons, and for once, I remained silent.
I was willing to do whatever it took to get some answers and get my woman back, and if that meant Ash needed to ruffle Dominic’s feathers, then so be it. With that thought at the forefront of my mind, I took a step back, leaning against the wall and watching.
Dominic’s jaw ticked as his eyes sliced to me. “You’re just going to let this happen, aren’t you, boss?”
I cut the shit. “I don’t need Dr. Edwards right now. I need Dom.”
Dom.
The boys and I never called him that. He hated it—he made the people he tortured call him Dom. It drove him crazy, and in turn, pushed him to do what was necessary to get the answers Red Snake needed. When he asked him why he hated being called that, he never gave an answer, remaining silent. It was one of the great mysteries about Dominic Edwards.
He blinked as Ash added, “Or you could just sit here and continue polishing the weapons and being a good little boy.”
Dominic’s nostrils flared, and he raised a finger towards the ex-Navy Seal. “Don’t push me.”
“Oh, that’s exactly what I’m here to do,” Ash vowed, standing in front of Dominic’s desk now.
Dominic said nothing, looking out the window, jaw tight.
Another rough chuckle left Ash as he braced his hands on the desk, leaning closer to him. “Get your ass in there, Dom. ”
The towel fell from Dominic’s hands, landing on his perfectly polished desk.
Then, without a word, he was moving, glaring at Ash as he went, not sparing me a glance as he rushed out the door. I looked to the floor, my mind on overdrive.
After a few minutes, I finally looked at Ash, who had discarded the bloody rag in the trash bin and was wiping off Dominic’s desk. Ash didn’t push him to be an asshole; he pushed him because I didn’t have the strength to. Not now, at least.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice tired.
The teasing smirk was gone, replaced by a serious look, one filled with death. “We’re going to get her back, Gray, even if we all have to dive into the deep end to do it.” He rose to his full height.
A twinge of guilt hit me. If I’d done a better job at keeping Carrie safe and started digging into Robert Hale sooner, she would be here and Red Snake would be hunting down the woman Ash went into Devils Den for. “I know we said we would be going after—”
He held up his hand, shaking his head. “We’re going to get her too, but Carrie comes first,” he said firmly, faith shining in his eyes. He had faith in me, in Red Snake. He knew we wouldn’t let him down.
I nodded once. “Okay.”
“Let’s go see if Dominic is making a mess or not,” he said, giving me a wink.
He was shoving it down. All my Red Snake men seemed to be doing that, running on fumes, ignoring the pain in our hearts so they could get the job done.
All except for me.
With that, he left the room, and I followed.
Hayes met us outside the cell door, Dominic already inside.
“Humbly didn’t have any updates for us, and no updates from any of his police contacts up and down the coast,” my right hand informed me.
“She’s not going to be on the coast,” I said, finally coming to that conclusion. I’d been sitting on it for the last twelve hours. The coast was filled with tourists, despite it being the end of winter. It was one of the scenic hot spots on this side of the country. A man and a woman in a van with a woman tied up in the back would have been noticed by now.
“They took her inland,” Ash said from beside me.
“More places to hide,” Hayes agreed. “I’ll call him back after this and ask about his other contacts.”
I doubt Humbly would be able to help us. Lark and Brandon Hale had taken Carrie out of state. There was no telling where they were. We had constant eyes on Brandon’s warehouse in Jersey, and if they arrived there, we’d be there. However, I didn’t think they would.
If Lark's intention was to kill Carrie, then they wouldn’t transfer her across the country to do so. That would take too much time, effort, and money.
I jerked my chin to Hayes and then the door opened, horror-filled screams flooding the hallway. It didn’t phase us; we’d heard our fair share of torture in the past. My eyes landed on Carrie’s father-in-law, and a cruel smile formed on my face. His face was covered in sweat, his shirt ripped open, revealing white chest hair and weathered skin. Blood was trickling from various abrasions on his chest and stomach. His hands were tied to the tops of the armrests, and a blade stuck out of his left one, Dominic standing on that side.
“Mr. Hale,” I greeted. “Welcome to hell. My name is Grayson, and you’re going to answer some questions for me.”