Chapter Three
Adrian Michael Huber lived in apartment 8A at twenty-eight Glacier Way.
He drove a blue Ford Ranger and had eight thousand dollars in his savings account.
He belonged to Mountain Fitness Co., where he went every morning between five-thirty and six-thirty. Then he drove to the coffee shop on the corner, bought an everything bagel with cream cheese and a flat white coffee before returning home to shower and get ready for his day job.
He worked as an insurance broker for Snowcap Insurance from eight-thirty to four. He didn’t take a lunch break, but chose to eat his ham and cheese sandwich at his desk. This allowed him to end his day half an hour early, so he had time to drive to the soccer field for practice.
Ryker could have figured this all out by tailing Adrian for a day, but it was easier to field this crap out. Luckily, he knew a guy who knew a guy who got everything he would ever need on Adrian, and it was all sent to Ryker’s phone by the time his plane touched down.
Sometimes the gray area of the law was a really helpful place to be.
He pulled his black Chevy Silverado rental up to the curb in front of Adrian’s apartment building. It was only a two-story complex with what looked like four units on the bottom at the front and four units on the top at the front. The same setup was probably in the back.
They were all walk-ups with the upper units having stairs.
Adrian’s unit was on the top right corner, and based on his open windows and the flash of the television screen, the prick was home.
Excellent.
Brass knuckles, switchblades and garrotte wire were all illegal, but definitely easier to conceal than a gun. He also just preferred the weight of brass knuckles or a blade in his hand. And there was something very satisfying about the crunch of bone when your fist made contact with a well-deserving face.
He had all three in his pockets, as well as a cute little 9mm stashed at the back of his waistband. He had a license for his gun and was a registered gun owner. Open carry was legal in Wyoming anyway, so he could have strapped the 9mm to his chest and walked straight up to Adrian’s door.
But where was the fun in that?
He made sure his boots didn’t create a sound on the stairs as he climbed to Adrian’s front door. He also kept his face hidden beneath the brim of a ball cap. There were probably cameras.
A gentle rap of his knuckles against the door, and a thumb over the peephole, and it was less than twenty seconds before the door swung open.
He was inside, with Adrian’s shirt front in his fist and the door slammed shut before the creepy soccer coach could even say a goddamn word.
Shoving the man up against the wall, he got right into Adrian’s face. “Do you know why I’m here?”
Wide brown eyes stared at him with mounting fear. “N-no. Wh-who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s who I represent that matters.”
Adrian swallowed. “I-I don’t have anything. I-I don’t owe anybody any money. Y-you have the wr-wrong guy.”
“I don’t think I do.” Ryker bracketed his forearm against Adrian’s throat and wedged a knee against his groin in case he decided to take a chance and run. Then he brought out his phone and brought up all the information Chase—his intel collector—had gathered for him. “Adrian Michael Huber. Son of Alice and Alfred Huber. Born February 19 th 1983. You have an older sister, Adella, who lives in San Francisco with her husband, Adam, and their three kids—Arvin, Alyssa and Amanda. Jesus, you people and you’re A names. Give it a rest already.”
“I … I don’t understand.”
“You work at Snowcap Insurance as a broker and coach teenage girls’ soccer. You also have a habit of benching your best players because you can’t take rejection. You’re a jealous, predatory bastard who spies on women with cameras, reads their text messages and kills their cats. Stop me if I’m wrong.”
Adrian’s throat bobbed heavily. “I … I need you to leave. I’ll call the police.”
“Go ahead,” Ryker said with a smile that made a lot of people piss their pants in fear. “I’ll even give you a five second head start.” Then he released Adrian and stepped back.
Like an absolute idiot who thought he actually had a fucking chance, Adrian darted into the living room, presumably where his phone was.
“One Mississippi … two Mississippi … three Mississippi … four Mississippi … five Mississippi,” Ryker counted before joining Adrian back in the living room and pinning the man to the floor by sweeping his legs out from under him. His phone flew across the room. He hadn’t even started to call 911.
Ryker stood on each of Adrian’s hands, then sat down on top of his thighs before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his switchblade. He popped the sharp and shiny blade and grinned.
Tears started to fall down Adrian’s cheeks. “Please … please don’t. I … I’ll leave her alone. I swear it.”
“Have you ever seen the inside of a human body before?” Ryker asked, ignoring Adrian’s blubbering.
“Help!” Adrian screamed.
Ryker rolled his eyes. “Seriously? Fine.” Using his switchblade, he sliced off a sizeable chunk of Adrian’s shirt, then stuffed it into his mouth so he couldn’t holler anymore. “That’s better. Now, where was I? Right. Besides on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and stuff, have you ever seen the inside of a human body before? Do you know what the spleen looks like up close?”
Raw fear stared back at him.
Gently, so as to not break the skin, he skimmed the tip of the blade up Adrian’s now bare stomach, from his navel to between his nipples. “I have. I’ve held a man’s spleen in my bare hands while he was still awake and still alive, watching me. He had a similar look on his face as you do now. Only, he was also in quite a bit of pain. See, I’m trained to take out the bad guys. The guys that hurt other people for no reason but their own sense of superiority and entitlement. I’m very good at my job. I go in. I shed a lot of blood. Then I clean it up so that nobody would ever guess a body had been cut into teeny tiny little pieces. I have disposed of bodies in some very creative ways. And, never the same way twice. I like to keep things interesting.”
Tears fell with abandon down the sides of Adrian’s face. He shook with fright, and for the briefest of moments, Ryker felt sympathy for the man.
“Molly and Sasha O’Shea are off limits. You hear me? If I hear that you’ve even farted within five hundred meters of either of them, I will be back and I will take you off the census so fucking fast. This is a courtesy warning. I could just as easily deal with you now and nobody would ever find your body.” He glanced over at Adrian’s phone on the floor near a potted plant. “You’re welcome to call the cops. Do I recommend it?” He faked a frown. “Try it and see.” Careful not to break Adrian’s fingers with his boots, he stood up off the blubbering, terrified man, retracted his switchblade and stuffed it in his pocket. Then he was gone.
Hooligan’s Pizza had some of the best fucking pizza Ryker ever tasted. Besides seeing Molly and Sasha, it was the thing he looked forward to the most when he came to Jackson Hole. That and the view, of course. But it also conjured a lot of memories of Brendan. This was where Brendan grew up and over their years together, Decker and Ryker followed Brendan home quite a bit. Mrs. O’Shea was a top-notch cook and by the time they left, they were each packing at least five pounds of her chicken pot pie and spare ribs around their middles. But it was so worth it.
He picked up the pizzas and headed back to Molly’s house just as the sky was beginning to darken. He made sure to order a small pizza for the cop parked outside the house and was careful not to cause alarm when he approached the driver’s side door of the patrol car.
It was a different officer than before. This time, it was a tall African American man with a noticeable white scar on the left side of his top lip. “Can I help you?”
“Just came to introduce myself and see if you wanted some dinner. I’ve done this kind of thing in the past and it can get lonely and boring. So I figured pizza might help.” He held out the pizza box.
The cop’s brows lifted, and his dark eyes widened with pleasant surprise. “Thank you.” He took the box. “Officer Kaan. Felix Kaan.”
They each balanced the boxes on their hips and in one hand so they could shake hands.
“Ryker McKnight.” He knew his dog tags were hanging on the outside of his shirt and the cop’s eyes drifted directly do them.
“You’re a friend of Mrs. O’Shea?”
Ryker nodded. “I served with her late husband. There were ten of us—including Brendan—so the nine of us that are left vowed to always be there for Molly and Sasha if they ever needed anything.”
“Well, hopefully Mr. Huber smartens up now that I’m parked out here and you’re staying with Mrs. O’Shea. He didn’t seem like much of a threat, but nailing that cat to the side of the house proved otherwise. You need to be one sick fucker to do something like that.”
Ryker chuckled. He liked it when cops dropped their professional decorum a bit and were just real . It humanized them. “Yeah, well, I think we can agree that Adrian Huber is a sick fucker.”
“I’m on until six in the morning, so rest easy, Mr. McKnight. You should all be safe inside.”
Ryker did a friendly slap on the cop’s shoulder, smiled, then headed toward the front door.
“Meat Lovers with mushrooms from Hooligans! You might be my new favorite person, Mr. McKnight,” Officer Kaan called from the road where he stood with his open pizza box.
“It’s my favorite, too. Have a good night, Felix.” Then he punched his personal code for the front door and entered the house to the delightful and familiar sound of mother and daughter singing—terribly—to Taylor Swift from the portable stereo.
His smile quickly turned into a laugh as he made his way to the kitchen, where Sasha was cutting up veggies for a veggie tray and Molly appeared to be making sangria. “It’s turning into a party in here,” he announced over the music.
Molly had her back to him and jumped at his voice, which pulled a cheeky smile from Sasha, who saw him coming from her vantage point behind the island.
Molly’s face flushed so easily, given her fair complexion, and she didn’t let him down this time, either. She flashed him a teasing glare. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
“Sash saw me. Just because you’re pretending that you’re at The Eras tour with all the friendship bracelets doesn’t mean I snuck up on you.”
“How do you know about Taylor Swift, the name of her tour, and the bracelets?” She turned down the music.
“I pay attention to the news. Plus, I’m a Chief’s fan, so …” He plunked the pizza boxes on the counter. “Dinner is served, my ladies. I slaved.”
Sasha dove into the pizza immediately, but Molly hung back, a nervous glint in her eyes. Ryker angled his head to the side, so she knew he wanted to speak in private and she followed him outside to the deck, closing the French doors. “So, how’d it go?”
“He’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Did you maim him? Did you hurt him?”
“No bones were broken. I didn’t even draw blood.”
“You’re being cagey.” Her green eyes formed thin slits as she gazed up at him.
A smirk hooked one corner of his mouth. “He knows that to even think about you, let alone come near you, is a death sentence. The threat has been conveyed and hopefully he’s not that big of an idiot and actually listens to it. He’s been given his one and only warning.” His fingers ached with the need to cup her cheek, to step closer to her body and reassure her with not only words, but touch.
Instead, he bunched his fingers at his sides.
She let out a long exhale and her shoulders made their way away from her ears. “Thank you, Ryker. Thank you.” Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, lifted up onto her tiptoes and pressed her petite frame against him in a hug.
He did his best to keep some space between their bodies, and to hug her as a friend, but it was impossible. She made it impossible for him to not smell her hair, relish the feel of her in his arms or covet that softness in a more than platonic way.
When his dick twitched in his jeans, he cleared his throat and broke their embrace, stepping back and shaking her free of him. “We should get in there, otherwise Sash will eat it all.”
The sigh she made after he turned his back sounded like something you make when you’re disappointed or defeated. But that made little sense.
Maybe he was just projecting his own feelings and hearing things that weren’t there.
He sidled up beside Sasha at the island and hip-checked her playfully. “I guess I have to come up with a new nickname for you since you’re not really a half-pint anymore, huh?”
She grinned at him as she chewed. “I’ll always be your half-pint, even if I’m tall enough to be a full pint.”
He grabbed a slice of the Meat Lovers with mushrooms, then leaned over and pecked her on the side of the head. “Yeah, you will, half-pint.”