Chapter 27
Time doesn’t make sense now. Days and moments bleed into one another. I have no idea how long I’ve been standing in the study petting June, staring at the floor lost in my thoughts, when Ryker walks in.
The air changes.
His expression is harder than usual, which is saying something. The man doesn’t exactly stroll around looking gentle.
He closes the door with his heel as he manages two mugs of coffee and a tablet.
“I don’t like this,” he says. “That piece of shit doesn’t deserve more air-time in your head.”
I take a breath and give myself a little mental shake. “Soon.”
Ryker takes a slug of coffee. Grimaces over the burn or maybe over what he’s about to do.
“Don’t like the idea of you being alone when this goes down.”
“June’s with me. The house is guarded. You have a job to do and I know you’ll get more of a reaction out of him than your men will.”
Gripping the mug too tight, he stays locked on my gaze. “I want this to be over for you.”
Heaven help me.
That protective tone, the way he does everything to keep me from being hurt more, brings a hailstorm of tears against the back of my eyes.
“Hopefully it will be over for both of us,” I say, reaching for his arm. “I’m sorry you have to go in there and see him.”
“Oh, I want to do more than put eyes on him,” he growls.
As he straightens the muscles in his biceps ripple with tension. A vision of Ryker snapping the man’s neck in the forest flashes through my mind.
“Remember if he’s dead, he can’t talk.”
“You’d be surprised how many body parts you can lose and still talk.”
I shudder. “Ryker!”
He clears his throat, eyes softening. “Sorry. That should have stayed in my head.”
When he leans over and kisses my forehead, my lashes drift closed. He makes me feel so safe and loved. I’m in deep here.
“Just be careful,” I tell him, gripping his forearm before he leaves. “I know you’re a big mean beast, and your team will be with you, but having you in the same room with Trevor’s kind of evil still worries me.”
“I’m good. But you stay in here. Door stays shut. Thane’s going to be stationed in the hallway. If I think for one second this is too much, I end it.”
“That’s exactly what I imagined you’d say it.”
One side of his mouth twitches, but the expression vanishes and he taps the screen a few times, then angles it toward me.
A live video feed opens on the garage, a little grainy, but clear enough. The view is coming from high in a corner.
Trevor is sitting on the floor, chained around the torso to a thick support post, his hands are bound behind him.
The way his shoulders are hunched makes me wonder how long they’ve been going at him.
There are two masked men inside the frame and at least three others moving in and out of view. My stomach slowly drops.
God. It’s terrifying, facing Trevor and seeing a…
Torture chamber?
“What’s that garage used for when it’s not, um, being used like this?”
“Multi-purpose. Holding prisoners. Interrogation. Storm shelter. Extra bunker in case of attack.”
So they do this in their line of work.
The sensation of cold fingers trails down my spine. I’m happy it’s not me that has to do that kind of thing.
“I’m so glad he’s not in the house,” I admit with a shiver.
That would have been too much. It was enough to find out he was locked up in the underground room at the back of the property. Only grass and doors between us.
“Honey,” he rumbles, stroking my hair. “I’d have dug a hole to put that motherfucker in before he was ever under the same roof as you.”
“Even seeing him through a screen makes my skin prickle,” I admit when I should probably keep my mouth shut.
Ryker steps closer, reaching past me to lower the volume.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he says, quietly, next to my ear. “Not to me. Not to yourself.”
“I know.” My throat is dry, palms damp. “But I want to help. Let me do this. Let me find what solace I can putting an end to whatever they’re up to.”
“Alright.” He doesn’t hesitate. Walks out, leaving his coffee cup sitting next to the one he brought me.
A reminder he’ll be back.
Outside, he says something low to Thane. I reach for June’s fur, petting her as she leans against my chair. “Good girl. Thank you for being with me.”
I focus on the tablet, the feed is live. The sound of the garage leaks through the speakers. A chair scrapes across concrete. Boots scrape. Someone says something I can’t make out.
Then Ryker’s voice comes through the tablet. “Start talking.”
His tone hits me surprisingly hard. The man who was with me a moment ago is gone.
Trevor gives a short laugh that crackles through the mic. “That’s not very polite.”
“You’re in no position to ask for manners.”
“Fuck you.”
I grip the edge of the desk and stare at the screen, fighting the urge to throw up at the sound of Trevor’s live voice.
It’s worse than the recording by a hundred times.
On camera, he turns his face toward the sound of Ryker, though the angle keeps me from seeing his full expression. Or the extent of the damage.
He’s got two swollen eyes, cuts and god knows what else on his face.
“I want a lawyer,” Trevor sneers.
One of the masked members of Ryker’s team chuckles.
“What you want isn’t relevant.” Ryker clips. “I want information on Sheriff McCoy.”
Trevor is quiet for a beat.
Then, with that same awful note of humor, “You don’t sound like cops.”
Ryker doesn’t take the bait. “Start talking. McCoy. What’s your relationship to him.”
“I don’t have to say shit to you.”
One of the other men steps into frame, crouches, and says something too low for the mic to catch. Trevor spits at his boots.
The man rises slowly, but then explodes into motion with his boot slamming into Trevor’s knee.
My hand flies to my mouth. Shocked that what I feel is a wave of satisfaction.
On the screen, Trevor wheezes and starts laughing, “You really asking about McCoy or are you asking about Jade?”
When he glances at the camera, every muscle in my body locks.
“She watching right now? Enjoying you taking out your revenge? Because if she is, I just want to say hi.”
He flicks his tongue obscenely at the camera. “Hey, baby. Remember this?”
There’s a burst of motion on the camera, and suddenly Ryker’s the one crouched in front of Trevor this time. A giant knife blade glints in the light.
It’s pressed right against Trevor’s dick.
“You make one more move like that and I’ll bleed you out real slow.”
“What? Too personal?” Trevor asks, but his teeth chatter.
“Sheriff McCoy. What’s his role in all of this?”
My stomach rolls as my father’s image invades my mind.
“What’s in it for me?”
“That remains to be seen,” Ryker replies, that dead calm, cold tone that should terrify Trevor.
“How about we talk about you.” Trevor hums under his breath. “Say something again.”
“You’re wasting time you don’t have.”
Trevor zeroes in. “I know that voice. I know exactly what I’m hearing.”
Ryker stands up, looming over Trevor with the knife fisted tight. “Answer the question. Sheriff McCoy. What’s his role?”
“Do they know?” Trevor asks.
Nobody answers.
“Does your girl know?”
What is going on? I go completely still.
Then Trevor slowly grins. “You’ve got a brother, don’t you?”
My breath catches.
No one speaks.
On the screen, one of the masked men takes a step toward Trevor, but Ryker says, “Hold.”
Trevor’s head tilts. His smile grows in his battered face. “Yeah, you do.”
The room around me seems to sharpen and blur at the same time. My heart beats harder, not because I understand what Trevor means, but because of what I don’t understand. Where is he going with this?
Trevor exhales through his nose. “Same build,” he says. “Same voice.”
One of the guards grabs the front of Trevor’s shirt. “Name him.”
Trevor winces, but he’s too pleased with himself now to care.
“Can’t say I know the name. Never met him proper.” His gaze shifts toward wherever Ryker is standing. “But your people ought to worry less about me and more about what kind of blood you’re running around with.”
I’m clutching my chest again, the pulse in my ears loud.
The man holding Trevor slams him back into the support post. Trevor grunts.
Ryker’s voice comes through again, dangerously calm. “Alright. You want to talk? Talk.”
Trevor’s eyes half close. “You seemed familiar but something was missing. The neck tattoo.”
“How do you know him?” One of the guards asks.
Trevor laughs again, and this time there is real malice threaded through it. “Now that sounds like a family problem.”
The feed cuts. Not glitches. The screen goes black for a second before returning to the icon of the camera system.