Chapter Twenty-Six
Grayson
Four Days Later. Red Snake Investigations. Denver, CO.
“We’ll be able to call them soon,” I said to Carrie as Jake walked out of the office.
Humbly was being persistent, to say the least. For the last three days, he had reached out, demanding an update. Each time, the weight of the lie grew heavier and heavier on our collective shoulders. I may not like Humbly, but Carrie’s friends in Astoria were good people who cared about her—so much. It gave me a small sliver of hope, knowing she wouldn’t be completely alone when we came forward with our knowledge of Robert Hale.
However, with each passing day, I knew our sentences grew. We were holding the Hale couple captive after all, and as Dominic stated before, they were going to get away with this, but we wouldn’t. Hayes was still on the hunt for Brandon, and we were all on edge, waiting for his daily updates. During our last call, Dominic offered to come out and help, but Hayes refused. We all knew the reason why. He preferred working alone. We didn’t argue. However, we were growing restless.
“I hate this,” Carrie noted from the couch, Tic-Tac resting in her lap, purring loudly.
“I know you do,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair, my body aching. When I wasn’t here or with Carrie, I’d been in the gym, putting my body through hell so I would stay out of my own fucking head. I couldn’t go back there, not when my time with Carrie was limited. She didn’t need to be spending it fixing my shit.
The sound of my cell ringing cut through the air, and the orange puffball raised his head, glaring at me.
“Little shit,” I mumbled, reaching for my phone and answering it. “Grayson.”
“Brandon is underground,” Hayes informed me sharply, sounding frustrated.
My eyes shot to Carrie’s as I sat up. “Details. Now,” I ordered.
“Remember the trouble Brandon got into? The reason why Robert helped him fake his death?”
“Yes,” I clipped, rising from my seat and pressing the all-call button on the office phone. We needed the team in here for this conversation. I jerked my chin to Carrie. “It’s Hayes.”
She scooped Tic-Tac up and set him on the couch. He gave a loud meow of protest as she stood, coming to the front of my desk. A second later, the boys filed in.
“Everyone is here,” I told Hayes, putting the call on speaker and placing the device on my desk. “Go.”
“Brandon got into some gambling trouble three years ago—not just with a casino, but with the Black Mist,” Hayes informed us.
“Jesus,” Ash groaned beside Carrie, running his fingers through his hair.
Dominic shot a look at me while Jake muttered something under his breath, coming around the desk aned taking over my computer.
“What’s the Black Mist?” Carrie whispered to Ash.
“A fucking nightmare,” he answered.
“It’s a gang. They basically run Vegas. Even the Mafia stays away from them,” Jake answered.
Carrie’s eyes widened as she looked at me for confirmation. “Collin and Jeremy wouldn’t touch that fucking city with a hundred-foot pole, Sunshine. If they did, it would be an all-out war.”
“Brandon owes them over six figures, and he couldn’t pay. The only way he could escape the debt was by faking his own death, and the Black Mist bought it,” Hayes said, getting us back on track.
“If that’s the case, then why did he run back to Vegas? Why run back into your own death trap?” Dominic asked, crossing his arms.
“Because he tried to strike a fucking deal,” Ash bit off.
Carrie looked up at him. “H-he did what?”
“Tried as in failed,” Hayes clarified.
My eyes snapped down to the phone. “You got confirmation on that?”
“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing the last hundred hours? Fucking around?”
“Don’t get sassy,” Jake taunted.
“Fuck you,” Hayes clipped. “I worked my way into a meeting with Jack. It took a while to get his boy to trust me. Told them there was a bounty on Brandon’s head and I was hired to find him. I didn’t tell them anything else, and they didn’t seem to care whether it was the truth or not.”
“Don’t play with that fire, Hayes,” I warned, worry building in my gut.
“I have it handled.”
I shot a look to all my men. We were all thinking the same damn thing.
“Who is Jack?” Carrie whispered to Ash again.
“He’s the leader of the Black Mist,” he answered. “Obliviously, Jack isn’t his real name.”
“No one knows his real name. He’s just a pain in the fucking ass,” Jake added, typing on the computer, pulling up the casino Black Mist ran.
“You know you can’t hack into their system, right? I don’t need my dick on the chopping block,” Ash said.
“I’m not tracking them, dipshit. I’m tracking Hayes.”
“Don’t,” Hayes ordered.
Jake’s fingers froze in mid-air as he looked to the phone. “Why the hell not?”
“Because we don’t need them coming back for us. I’m here. I’m safe. They are letting me walk out of here after I get the proof I need,” Hayes explained.
“If Brandon is truly underground, then that means BM has him, and—”
“—we can’t take care of him like we want to. He won’t be turned in,” Dominic finished for me.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. This just made things even more complicated.
“I’ll let you know when I have it,” Hayes said before hanging up.
I looked over to Carrie. “Are you going to be alright with that?”
“With this Jack guy taking care of Brandon and not the police?” she asked.
I nodded once. “If you aren’t, tell me now. I’ll go to Vegas myself and make a deal.”
All my men stiffened. “You can’t be serious,” Dominic scoffed in disbelief.
I didn’t look at any of them, only keeping my eyes on her. “Tell me now.”
Carrie’s eyes bounced around to all four of us. “You can’t do that to Red Snake, Grayson.”
“I wouldn’t be doing anything to Red Snake. I’d part ways with this,” I explained, gesturing around the room, “and I would go to Vegas on my own.”
“Like fucking hell we would let you do that,” Ash clipped, crossing his arms over his chest, leveling me with a glare.
“Tell me what you want, Carrie, and I’ll make it happen,” I vowed, referring to our conversation from last night. I wanted to be the one to kill Brandon, but I wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want me to do.
“I don’t want you leaving Red Snake behind,” she replied calmly, standing her ground. She looked at Dominic, then Jake, and finally up to Ash before looking back at me. “The sooner Brandon is taken care of, the sooner I can go home. So let Jack or whoever have him.”
That was that.
Thirty minutes later, Hayes sent us the proof we needed: a video of Brandon pacing back and forth in a dirty, cramped cell with nothing but a small bucket in the corner to piss in. If I had to guess, he was being held in the basement of Jack’s home. Once the proof was in my hands, and Jake made sure the video was, in fact, real, Carrie came to me, placing her hands on my chest and looking up at me with her stunning eyes.
“Take me home, Grayson,” she rasped, her voice shaking. “Take me back to Astoria.”
“Okay,” I told her, grabbing her face. “We’ll leave as soon as I get something else from Hayes, okay?”
“Promise me,” she demanded.
“You have my word.”
“Thank you.” With that, she rose up on her toes, pressing her lips to mine before leaving me in the office, our cat following her. I couldn’t give her the world, but I could give her this.
I could give her a few more memories in her blue house with me before the truth came out.
“Hayes, I need—”
“I know what you need, Gray,” he said, interrupting me on the other end of the line.
I put my free hand into my pocket as I stood in front of my office windows, watching the sun poke through the overcast sky for the first time today. My eyes followed the golden rays all the way down, and I wasn’t surprised to find them landing on my sunshine girl as she walked across the street with Jake to my condo. She was getting ready to head home, packing what little she had here. My jaw tightened. “Are you okay with that?” I asked my friend.
“Job’s not done, Gray. You shouldn’t have to ask me that,” he returned shortly. He was on edge.
“Know that, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“I’m not dropping this until that son of a bitch is in my hands or I receive proof of death from Black Mist,” he quipped.
“As I’ve said before, I don’t want you playing with fire, Hayes. You push your luck, and you’ll get burned,” I warned.
“Once I have what I need, I’ll leave. Until then, I’m staying in Vegas.”
I looked away from the ground below, Carrie now safe in the building, and turned to walk back to my desk. “Carrie wants me to take her back to Astoria.”
“Do it,” Hayes rumbled. “Jake and the guys will have things handled there.”
I said nothing as I pulled out Carrie’s original file, feeling the weight of it in my hands, the smoothness of the folder, knowing all the horrors lingering inside it. “This might be it for us, Mitchell,” I murmured.
He was quiet for a moment. “We had a good run, didn’t we?”
Jesus.
I set the file back onto the desk and took a seat, my chest deflating. “I’m going to say something now, and I want you to keep your mouth shut until I’m done, yeah?”
“No promises.”
Fucking figures.
“I never intended for this to happen,” I admitted. “When Carrie—when I got assigned to find her, I never thought I’d be here, right now, having this conversation with you.”
“It’s not really a conversation if I can’t speak,” he deadpanned.
“Motherfucker, what did I just say?”
“You and I both know I have issues with authority.”
I sighed through my nose, looking out into the hallway. “That’s why we get along so fucking well,” I said, my voice tired.
“Whatever you’re about to say to me, or whatever you’re fucking trying to say to me, save it. You can’t change the past, and none of us, not even me, regret you finding Carrie,” he assured. “She’s your woman, your happiness.”
“We’re going to lose Red Snake, Hayes.”
That got him to shut up, even for just a moment. “Like I said, we had a good fucking run.”
“I’m giving her the choice,” I confessed.
A short, harsh laugh came from him, reminding me of the one Carrie gave me last night. “Yeah, well, if you gave it to anyone else or kept it to yourself, we wouldn’t be having this heart-to-heart right now.”
My brows came together. “And if I gave it to you?” I pressed, making sure I’d heard him right.
His voice was steady as he answered, “I’d choose your happiness, Gray. I’d choose Red Snake. Every fucking time.”
I was taken aback. That wasn’t the answer I’d expected from him. “What about all your righteous talk the other day?”
“The world is a shitty fucking place.” That was all he gave me.
“So all five of us are fucked in the head, huh?” I sighed again, leaning back in my chair.
“You’re acting like you didn’t know that.”
“She already told me she wouldn’t choose me,” I muttered, looking back to her file.
“No, Gray. She would choose you. She wants to choose you. She’s just too damn good to look the other way on this. That’s why you love her.”
Fuck, but it was. That and so many other reasons.
Running a hand through my hair, I sat up. “Look, I said all of that to say—”
“You even think about uttering those three flimsy words to me, I’m shoving my foot up your ass the second I get back,” he growled.
“Fuck you. I’m saying them,” I shot back. “I am sorry.”
“No one blames you for this, man,” he told me. “Especially not me. You don’t have to apologize for this.”
I heard a bang in the background, and my spine straightened. “What the fuck was that?”
Hayes made a sound like he was impressed. “I have to give it to him. Jack’s got style.”
“Hayes, what the fuck?” I clipped.
“He just blew up at car, that’s all. Nothing bad.”
I muttered a curse under my breath. “Try not to get killed.”
“Oh, before you, me, and the boys spend a lifetime in prison? Of course not. Where’s the fun in that?” he deadpanned.
“I’m serious, Mitchell.”
“Go take your woman back to her blue house, Gray, and get off my ass. When I have the proof, you’ll be the first to know.”
The line went dead, and I sat there for a few moments, remembering how far we’d come, how much we’d built, and when I was done, I got up from my chair and left my office.
Little did I know, it would be for the last time.