Chapter 29
Hayes Monroe was neither difficult nor demanding by nature.
He lived a quiet life. Enjoyed simple pleasures, like fine scotch and quality pastries, and was generally easygoing.
The only complication in his life was his choice of partners, which, in retrospect—was abysmal, because how was it that, once again, his fucking boyfriend was facing mortal danger?
The bottom line was that Beckett was a giant fucking magnet for trouble.
They couldn’t get through a single fucking week without Beckett landing his ass in a near death situation.
Was it too fucking much to ask that life give him a fucking goddamned break when it came to the man he loved? For fucking heaven’s fucking sake?
Excuse his French, of course.
But he’d never fucking felt compelled to curse like he did now—on a regular basis—since he’d started working with that fuckwit Beckett.
Having returned to their base of operations, Hayes began pacing and damning Mario Rosario to the depths of hell.
“My uncle maintains he has nothing to do with Beckett’s disappearance,” Matthew said, not looking terribly convinced of the veracity of that particular claim, and not really expecting Hayes to buy into it either.
“You asked him? In so many words? You asked about the whereabouts of your bodyguard? And of his, too, for that matter?” Hayes pushed for answers, turning towards the Mafia boss with every intention of nailing his ass to the wall with brass tacks if he didn’t give him the information he needed.
Damn, he wanted to shoot something. Good Lord, now he sounded just like Beckett.
“I did,” he confirmed with a jerky nod.
“He’s lying,” Hayes said, daring the other man to argue.
“He’s lying,” Matthew agreed with a sigh.
“He can’t have taken him far. The guys who took him were part of his security team.
They’d need to stay in the area. Where could they have taken him?
” Hayes asked, walking over to the wall covered in maps and pictures that Beckett had put up.
His eyes ran over each location. There were so fucking many.
It was the reason the human trafficking case was so hard to prove in the first place.
They couldn’t just storm every fucking building!
Except Hayes would, and could, do exactly that. He’d storm every fucking building until he found Beckett.
It had taken every ounce of his legendary restraint to get in the car with Matthew and leave the Rosario mansion without Beckett.
They had to keep up appearances in front of Mario and the rest of the family, and not blow the goddamned case.
As soon as he’d heard Beckett’s distressing update over the comms, he’d known shit was going south.
He’d wanted to charge out of the room immediately and gun down all three guards.
But doing that would accomplish nothing in helping them to reach their goals.
Instead, he’d bitten his tongue, and counted backwards from 10,000 as he’d listened to Mario Rosario spin quite the bullshit tale for his niece and nephews.
There had been no point to his calling the family in for this meeting.
As it turned out, kidnapping Beckett had been that sick bastard’s primary mission when he set up the meeting, and he’d definitely succeeded in doing that. Fuckwad.
“I don’t know,” Matthew said, at a loss. “They could be anywhere! I’m not even sure why he’d take him! If he’s suspicious of me, why would he go after him?”
“Why don’t you pick up the fucking phone and ask him?
” Hayes snarled, grinding his teeth in frustration.
It was a stupid suggestion, but it was also what his mind was screaming at him to do.
It wouldn’t help, surely. They’d be putting themselves right in Mario’s crosshairs.
Admitting to things he had not yet accused them of.
He glanced over at Adeline who was working nonstop to gain access to CCTV footage—or any other footage that might provide any insight into where the guards had taken Beckett, but so far—they had nothing to go on.
Beckett had been missing for over five hours, and Hayes was slowly but surely losing his mind.
“While I understand Beckett’s disappearance might be unnerving—” Matthew began.
And it was like hearing himself talk—the same tone and diction that always sent Beckett into a tizzy. Hayes understood it now that he was on the receiving end.
“I would advise you to maintain an objective view of—” Matthew started up again.
Hayes punched him. A surprising, and amazingly powerful, clean uppercut that sent Matthew flying and he landed hard on his ass. It wouldn’t do much more than bruise his jaw, but fuck had it felt good to knock him off his high-fucking-horse.
“Oh, wow!” Adeline spun around in her chair to face Hayes, momentarily taken aback by his surprise attack.
She didn’t seem bothered or worried, merely impressed.
“Pretty boy has quite the hook,” she commented approvingly and patted Nickel—who sat in her lap—before spinning back around to resume her work.
“Don’t mistake my silence for sanity. I’ll tear your fucking family empire apart to find him—understood?” Hayes told Matthew, bristling with anger, ready to take his ass down again if need be.
Still sitting on the floor, Matthew gave a sharp nod of understanding. He put a hand up to his face, as though testing to see if the bones were still intact. He opened his mouth to speak just as his phone rang. He reached for the phone instead of answering Hayes.
“Matthew,” he said, his pronunciation a bit off as if it hurt to speak.
His eyes grew wide, and he snapped his fingers to get Hayes’ attention.
“Yes, no, that’ll be fine. Can you get him inside? Yes, I’m on my way. No—no, no, best not to alert the authorities.”
He listened for a few more seconds, keeping his gaze on Hayes as he did so.
“Thank you, Amanda.” He ended the call and stood up.
Hayes recognized the name of his personal assistant.
“It seems Mr. Thérault was dropped off at my condo near the Old Port a few minutes ago. He’s alive but unconscious.”
Hayes didn’t waste time with a reply. He checked his pocket to make sure he had the keys to their rental car and headed for the door. The rapid tapping of Matthew’s dress shoes on the tile floor as he rushed to catch up was just so much static in his ears.
He drove like a maniac, and it was a miracle that he didn’t get pulled over.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not the unmanly yelps of fear periodically erupting from Matthew as he ran a dozen red lights, nor the acrid smell of burnt rubber when he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car with the engine still running and the driver’s door standing wide open.
He didn’t fucking care. He ran out of the parking garage, not pausing until he’d reached the front door.
There was blood on the entrance mat. The door swung open just as he reached for the latch, which was good, because otherwise he’d have broken it down in his haste to get to Beckett.
Amanda greeted him with a gentle smile. She didn’t bother with hellos.
She simply stepped aside and pointed to the couch.
“He’s breathing,” she assured him.
When his eyes finally landed on his partner, he took what felt like his first real breath since their comms had gone silent five hours before.
Breathing. That was good. But his breathing was laboured. Bruised and bloody, he had a slight hitch in every breath he took. Hayes could tell that much before he even reached his side. The routine rise and fall of his chest was reassuringly normal, despite the obvious injuries.
Finally close enough to reach out and touch Beckett, Hayes suddenly felt faint as his adrenaline crash hit, and his legs gave out.
He slid to the floor and scooted on his knees to Beckett’s side, pulling himself up, needing to touch him.
His hands were shaking badly, and they’d been that way ever since he’d learned of Beckett’s disappearance.
It had taken every ounce of his control not to react at first. He’d fought a quickly losing battle with himself to keep calm and carry on.
Only his hands had given him away. Shaking like leaves in a windstorm. Unsteady, uncertain. Fuck—
“Breathe,” Beckett urged him, one of his eyes partially open.
“You look like you’re about to pass out, and this fancy-assed couch is way too small to share,” Beckett said, no doubt to reassure Hayes that he was well and truly okay, and his crude sense of humour was still intact.
His voice was gravelly, his words barely more than scratchy whispers.
“You just don’t want people to know you’re the little spoon,” Hayes said, as he gently cupped his hands around Beckett’s face.
The bottom of his jaw was bruised. So was his cheekbone.
His nose was a little swollen but didn’t look broken.
One of his eyebrows had a cut and his bottom lip was puffy and bloody.
“You’re covered in blood,” Hayes said. Now that he was satisfied the man was breathing and his face was still relatively intact, he needed to find the source of the sticky wet stuff covering him.
“All mine,” Beckett said with mock pride. He coughed and winced.
Fuck—he had some bruised ribs, then, and Hayes prayed hard they were just bruised.
Beckett was covered with a blanket, but as Hayes pulled it back, he discovered that Beckett’s chest was bare beneath it. There was a wide white bandage taped to his left pectoral, but the gauze was soaked with blood. Soaked and falling off.
“Jesus,” Hayes said, as he took in the bloody compress.
“Superficial,” Beckett said, with a wince. Hayes wasn’t so sure about that, but he ran his hands along Beckett’s sides, pressing lightly, searching for additional injuries.
“Bullet?”
“Knife,” Beckett replied.