31. Kreed
31
KREED
M y football helmet dangled from my fingers as I wiped the sweat off my brow. I’d taken a nasty hit during that last drive, but at least we ended up with a score. It might not have been the touchdown I wanted, but still, three points were better than none.
Maddox was on the field. He was the only one of us who played defense. The crowd was deafening. Cheers, screams, and the stomping of thousands of feet against the metal bleachers. None of it registered. Not when I looked up and didn’t see Kaylor sitting where she was supposed to be.
I scanned the stands behind me looking for a certain pair of piercing light-blue eyes, not that I would have been able to make out the hue from this distance, but I could imagine them all too well, and my imagination was what I had to use since I couldn’t seem to locate her in the crowd.
My brows scrunched together.
I knew the general area where she and Poppy had been sitting, and unless they moved seats, the two of them were gone. This was the third time during the second quarter I’d looked for her. A bad feeling settled in my gut and crept up my spine. I told myself that maybe she was getting food or rushing to the bathroom with Poppy. There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her absence.
But I knew better.
With less than two minutes remaining in the second quarter, I went to the bench, dropped my helmet to the ground, and reached for my phone.
Then I saw her.
Poppy.
She came tearing down the field, red hair flying wildly behind her. I knew before she even reached me. Before she opened her mouth. Something was wrong.
Kaylor wasn’t with her.
My heart slammed against my ribs, and I closed the distance between us in three long strides. “Where is she?” My voice was rough, urgent.
She huffed, struggling to breathe but finally managed to speak. “They took her.”
This girl really needed to lay off the cigarettes. She couldn’t catch her breath to save her life, and it was making my job of getting information from her difficult. “Where?” If they had her, then I didn’t have a second to waste.
Poppy continued gasping for air, trying to catch her breath. “They—” she started, bending over and gripping her knees. “I don’t know. They just came and grabbed her. They wore masks. I couldn’t see their faces. She went with them. Why would she do that?”
The world tilted, a rush of cold fury surging through me. “Because she’s crazy…and she didn’t want to involve you. Fuck.” I shoved my fingers through my hair.
No further explanation needed.
I turned, scanning the field for my brothers. Mason was already looking at me, sensing something was wrong. I jerked my head at him, a silent command. “Get Maddox,” I ordered. “We’re leaving.”
Mason didn’t hesitate. He took off in the direction of his twin, shoving past people on the sidelines.
“Dude,” Nash’s voice cut through the chaos. “What the hell is going on?”
I met my best friend’s gaze, knowing I was about to ask him to throw away everything he’d worked for. “I need backup.”
His brows furrowed, but he didn’t waver. “What’s going on, Kreed?”
I clenched my jaw. “They took Kaylor.”
Nash swore under his breath. He glanced at the scoreboard, then back at me. “I’m coming with you.”
“I can’t ask you to walk away from a championship game. This is your future, your scholarship.”
Nash hesitated for half a second. Then he unbuckled his helmet and tossed it onto the bench. “Let’s go.”
I should have known Nash would risk everything just because I needed his help. We had always had that kind of friendship, and I could trust no one else except my brothers like I trusted him.
We stepped into the glow of the parking lot lights to find Mason and Maddox already there, still as statues beneath the buzzing lamps. I fished out my phone, the screen cold against my fingers, and called Raine. He picked up almost instantly. “They’ve got Kaylor,” I said, skipping any greeting.
There was silence on the other end. Then, with a dark promise in his voice, he said, “Where?”
“I’ll text you as soon as I have her location. I’m tracking her phone now.”
The tires screeched as I tore out of the parking lot, Nash barely getting his door closed before I was hitting seventy down the back roads. Mason sat in the passenger seat, phone in hand, staring at the location tracker we’d pulled from Kaylor’s phone. Maddox and Nash were in the back, bracing against the violent turns I took as I pushed the car harder, faster.
“You should have let me drive,” Nash said, echoing the suggestion made on our way to my car. He shifted in the seat as I blew through a red light. “You’re running hot, man.”
Fuck yes, I was. Anger issues weren’t new to me, but the level of fury burning through my blood right now was like nothing I’d experienced. It felt like I could send the entire car up in flames.
“I need to drive.” My knuckles screamed white against the wheel, but I didn’t loosen my hold. I needed the speed. The control. “I can’t sit and do nothing.” Because if I didn’t focus on that something, I’d think about Kaylor. And if I thought about Kaylor, I’d think about what they might be doing to her.
“Just don’t kill us before we get to save your girl. Would defeat the purpose,” Nash pointed out.
Maddox snorted in the back.
A tremor ran through my hands, and I flexed my fingers against the leather of the steering wheel, my jaw clenched so tight I thought my teeth might crack. The route should have taken forty-five minutes. I made it in under twenty.
By the time I pulled up near Viper’s Auto Pro on the north side of town, my heart was a wild drum in my chest. This was her dad’s shop and aptly named, considering who he was. The familiar snake twined itself in and around the shop’s logo.
“She’s in there,” Mason confirmed, staring at his phone.
Maddox leaned forward, his eyes narrowing at the building. The only lights in the entire place were the ones outside. It looked closed. “Are you sure this is right?”
I nodded. “Unless she ditched her phone, which would be what we would do.”
“Fuck,” Mason cursed, shoving a hand through his damp hair.
Nash’s gaze narrowed at the building as he continued to survey it. “You think they would pick a less obvious place.”
Maddox scowled. “It could be a trap.”
It probably was a trap, but what choice did we have? We couldn’t go home tonight without Kaylor, or there would be hell to pay. “We need to check it out just to be safe.”
“We should wait for Raine,” Mason suggested.
Would a fifth person be wise? Yes. We had no idea what we were walking into. We could easily be outnumbered or surrounded, but my instincts screamed for me to act. “I can’t wait,” I growled.
Mason sighed. “At least let’s come up with a plan before you go charging in there like a goddamn psycho.”
I ignored him, throwing the car into park and yanking open my door.
“Kreed! Damn it!” Maddox scrambled out after me.
I stalked toward the side door, the one that led straight into the garage instead of the office. My heart pounded like a war drum, rage coiling so tightly inside me that I could barely breathe past it.
If they’d hurt her, I’d kill every last one of them.
And I’d make sure it was slow.
A slow, aching creak spilled from the hinges as I edged the door open. My heart slammed against my ribs in answer. The garage was pitch-dark, nothing but shadows stretching across the vast, empty space. I froze, my instincts prickling. This was too easy. The door had been unlocked. No guards. No resistance. Either we’d walked into a trap or this place was a bust.
Mason must have been thinking the same thing because he muttered, “This doesn’t feel right.”
A sharp breath hissed from between Maddox’s teeth. “You think? Where the hell is everyone?”
But then I heard it. A faint murmur of voices.
I caught Mason’s eyes, then Maddox’s and Nash’s, silently passing the message to keep quiet. We moved as one, creeping through the garage toward the hallway leading to the offices. The closer I got, the more I could make out the voice threading through the silence.
Kaylor.
She was here.
A dim glow seeped out from under a door at the end of the hall. I didn’t hesitate. My hand wrapped around the doorknob, and I wrenched it open, body tensed and ready for a fight.
But the room was empty.
No Kaylor. No guards. No crew.
Nothing but the soft light coming from a single object on the desk.
A phone.
Her phone.
A sinking feeling settled in my gut. My fingers clenched around the device as I lifted it, and that’s when I heard it—her voice. Not a recording but a live call. Someone had called her phone and left it for me to find, letting me listen, but with no way to get to her.
“What are you talking about…Rusty?”
My grip tightened around the phone, my knuckles aching. I could hear Kaylor’s unsteady breathing, the tremor in her voice as she spoke, but it was the deep, gravelly voice responding to her that sent ice through my veins.
Rusty.
A sick, burning sensation tore through my gut—fury and fear tangled so tight I couldn’t tell one from the other.
“Frauds. All of them,” Rusty said. “Everything you’ve been told has been a lie.”
“No,” Kaylor said, her voice sharp but laced with uncertainty. “Donovan—he’s my godfather. An old friend of my father’s. He?—”
Rusty’s laugh was humorless. “Is that what he told you? Donovan isn’t your godfather, Kaylor. He was never your father’s friend.”
I went completely still, blood roaring in my ears.
“The Corvos, they’re not who they say they are,” Rusty went on.
“But the will—” A shaky breath came through the receiver, and I could picture Kaylor, standing somewhere dark and cold, trying to piece together the truth from the wreckage of lies.
“It was a setup, Kay. The lawyer, the will, the guardianship. Donovan wanted you under his control.”
My heart dropped ten flights of stairs.
“W-Why would he do that?” she stuttered, something I learned she only did when she was truly upset.
“Retaliation,” Rusty stated. “He’s the one responsible for your parents’ death.”
My grip on the phone nearly cracked the plastic casing. Oh, God. I had to get to her.
Now…before it was too late.
My breathing came out uneven. “Kaylor,” I said, but she didn’t respond. At least not to me. Her focus was on Rusty as he untangled the web of lies we’d woven.
“You lie.” Her disbelief made my heart skip. How many times had I told her not to trust me? I hadn’t been lying then. “Why would they have any reason to murder my parents?” she asked, trying to make sense of what her father’s actual closest friend was telling her.
“It’s the truth,” Rusty cut her off. “And you need to accept it. You’ve been living with the enemy, Kaylor. Sleeping under his roof. You think you’ve been safe? You’ve been a pawn.”
Kaylor’s broken exhale sent a shudder down my spine.
“It’s a story that goes back years. The Ravens and Vipers have a history that oozes bad blood,” Rusty began to explain.
I didn’t need to hear this fucking tale. I knew the details. I’d lived them. Unlike Kaylor’s father, mine had never hidden who he was or the legacy that came with the name Corvo. My brothers and I grew up in the fold of an organization and what it meant to be a Raven, what was expected of us.
I forced my brain to function through the noise, my fingers pressing harder into the phone. “Kaylor,” I said urgently, praying she’d hear me, praying she’d say something to let me know where she was, but Rusty must have heard me because the call abruptly ended.
The screen flashed Call Disconnected .
“Fuck!” I roared, throwing the phone onto the desk so hard it bounced. My body shook with fury, betrayal sinking its claws into me.
Mason and Maddox were both staring, tense, and on edge. Nash shifted beside me.
“What the fuck do we do now?” Maddox demanded.
A crack split through me, sharp and sudden, and there was no stitching it back. I slammed my fist into the desk so hard the wood splintered. “We get back what’s ours,” I stated, snatching her phone back up.
I didn’t care what I had to do.
I was going to find her.
And Rusty was dead.
I had no choice. This wasn’t a call I wanted to make. Ever. But finding Kaylor was more important than my pride, more important than my goddamn ego. Getting Brock Taylor involved in Crew business? A terrible fucking idea, but he was family to Kaylor. If anyone knew where she was, it was the damn Elite.
I could feel Maddox’s glare drilling into the side of my skull before he even spoke. “What are you doing? I have Raine on the line.” He had his phone pressed to his ear.
“It’s not Raine I want to talk to,” I shot over my shoulder, digging out my phone.
“Kreed,” he growled, a warning I ignored. “Who the hell are you calling?”
Their footsteps followed, heavy with frustration and something darker—uncertainty. We didn’t ask for help. Not from outsiders. Especially not from the Elite, but what other choice did we have?
“If we want her back, we need his help,” I said flatly, a numbness taking over. “Unless you have another way to locate her?”
Mason, Maddox, and Nash just shuffled their feet, staring at the ground.
That was what I thought. We had nothing. No backup plan. No contingencies. Just desperation and failure choking the air around us.
We’d been so fucking arrogant, thinking we could pull off this scheme my father had set into motion years ago. We’d all been on board. We’d all wanted revenge. The rage over my mother’s death had never left me, never faded. But still…
I had a personal reason for not wanting to give Kaylor up.
“Maybe we let her go,” Nash muttered when we reached my SUV, dragging a hand through his hair.
I glowered at him over the hood, my arm flexing as I gripped the door handle. “You want to give up?”
“I don’t want to go to jail.” His voice was sharp, but there was a raw edge to it, uncertainty creeping in like poison.
“They’re the ones who should be behind bars,” Maddox seethed. “None of this would have happened if they hadn’t shed blood first.”
The thought burrowed deep into my chest, refusing to let go. We weren’t the villains in this story. We were the ones cleaning up the mess left by the real monsters.
My mind raced through worst-case scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last. Was she safe? Was she scared? Had she finally realized she should have run from me the first chance she got?
I ground my teeth. Fuck that. “If anyone wants to bail, get out of the car.” I gave them a single chance to leave, but no one moved. Taking their silence as acceptance, I swiped through my contacts, stopping on the name I hated seeing on my screen. Then I hit dial. Every second was a moment wasted.
The line rang once. Twice.
“What do you want?” No greeting. No pleasantries. Just Brock Taylor’s voice, sharp as broken glass. The fact that he picked up my call was enough.
I exhaled through my nose. “Tell me where she is.”
A bitter chuckle came through the other end. “Why the fuck would I help you?”
“Because, believe it or not, we both want the same thing.”
“I highly doubt that.”
I hadn’t expected this to be easy, but I didn’t have time to be delicate. I gritted my teeth. “I know you were at Public earlier this week. There’s only one reason you’d set foot in that school, and we both know who you were there to see.”
“Your point?”
“You were worried about her.” Just like me, I silently added.
“Are you trying to tell me Public’s infamous Raven actually gives a shit about someone outside his crew?” His voice dripped with skepticism. “Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”
I didn’t have the luxury for this kind of delay. “Look, I can’t afford to waste time convincing you otherwise. If you won’t help me, this call is over.”
A heavy sigh on the other end. “Perhaps she doesn’t want you to find her.”
His words punched through me like a fist. “What do you know?” I demanded, my grip on the phone tightening.
“More than you’d like.”
I clenched my jaw. “I warned her I was trouble.”
“That’s something I would say.” His voice was oddly quiet, contemplative. Then, a shift in tone—steely and unyielding. “Fine. I’ll text you the address, but listen to me and listen good. Kaylor walks out on her own accord. If she wants to stay, then you leave. She won’t be forced or manipulated. Her future is her choice.”
I exhaled slowly, my rage teetering on a thread. I’d agree to whatever terms he wanted, but it didn’t mean I intended to abide by them. Brock should know better than to trust me and believe I was an honorable man. My reputation, which he seemed to know something about, would have plainly told him otherwise.
He wasn’t stupid.
But then again—neither was I.
“Fine,” I said.
“Don’t make me regret this, Corvo.”
I ended the call, and an address popped up on my screen seconds later.
I didn’t hesitate. I hit the gas. We were getting her back.
One way or another.