Chapter 24 Whip
WHIP
I’d lost track of how long we’d been on the road, but it was long enough for five more rounds of I Spy, a painful session of car karaoke, and for X to braid Violet’s hair.
He’d only shut up after she fell asleep, her head on his shoulder, apparently only willing to stop running his mouth when he was worried about waking her.
In the rearview mirror I watched them, her sleeping with a slight smile on her lips despite the shitstorm we were potentially about to drive into, but knowing she was safe, surrounded by the three of us.
X, for once in his life, seemed equally settled by her presence. His fingers splayed out on her thigh, and he sat quietly, staring out the window.
I had one arm on the center console and steered with the other.
Levi also rested his arm in the middle, our pinky fingers brushing with each bump of the road.
I wanted to link my finger around his. To hold his hand.
But I couldn’t make myself move.
I’d kissed him. Sucked his cock. Had him inside me. And yet, why did I feel like I couldn’t just hold my finger around his? Why was that so much harder than anything else?
“You okay?” Levi asked quietly.
I glanced over at him. “Yeah, fine.”
“You want me to drive for a bit?”
I shook my head. “I’m good.” I swallowed. “Sorry about what I said before.”
He frowned. “What did you say?”
I shrugged. “You know, about having someone else to take care of my…needs.”
Understanding washed over Levi’s face. “Oh. That. It’s fine.”
“It was presumptuous. We aren’t in a relationship…”
I wanted to swear as soon as the words were out. What the fuck was I doing? It felt a lot like testing him, hoping he’d disagree with me.
Which was just a surefire way to hurt my own damn feelings.
A blush rose up Levi’s neck. “Yeah, right. Of course. No need to make a big deal out of it and tell everyone our business.”
He pulled his hand away and turned to stare out his window, clearly not wanting to talk about it anymore.
I put my hand back on the steering wheel, clenching it with all ten fingers and cursing myself for saying anything. I didn’t need Levi to publicly acknowledge what we were doing behind closed doors, both with and without Violet. He was right, it wasn’t anyone else’s business.
I knew better than anyone that sex was just sex. It didn’t have to have meaning behind it. It didn’t have to come with the sort of relationship where you held hands across the center console.
Levi was hot. My dick liked him. It didn’t have to be more complicated than that.
Then why did I feel so fucking hurt and disappointed?
Iknew we’d found the right place before the GPS told us.
The house was huge—wide, white, and symmetrical, with black window frames and a front door that probably weighed more than Levi’s bike. A gardener in a beige jumpsuit trimmed rosebushes outside the imposing gates that probably cost more than my entire house and kept out any uninvited guests.
Like the four of us, peering out the windows of the car.
“Holy shit,” X muttered. “Are we here to find Nyah or apply to be adopted? This place is massive.”
Dax had decided to drive himself, the only other option being the space in the middle back seat between X and Violet. I rolled down my window when he stopped beside us.
He dropped his passenger-side window so we could talk. “This is it?”
I nodded. “According to the records X’s brother found, this is their last known address.”
Dax nodded, gung-ho determination in his dark-brown eyes. “Let’s go then.”
I raised a hand. “Let us go first, okay? You follow.”
He seemed like he wanted to argue but eventually gave a curt nod when I raised my gun just enough for him to see it over the edge of the window.
We were armed. He wasn’t. And walking into a Mafia family home and accusing them of kidnapping their only daughter probably wasn’t going to go down well.
I pulled the car into the driveway and pushed the intercom buzzer on the stone pillar.
Levi ducked his head so he could peer up at the top of it. “Video surveillance. At least two cameras. We should probably assume there’s more.”
I nodded but said nothing, because a clipped, gruff voice came through the speakers. “Yeah?”
“Wyatt DeLeon, here to speak to Jeremiah or Constance Matish.”
“Please!” X called from the back seat. “Honestly, Whip, you have no manners.”
I shot him a look.
“More than just one of you in that car,” the voice came back.
I pressed my lips together, but it was a fair enough statement. “Levi Griffin, Violet Garrisen, and…” I twisted toward X. “What the hell is your real name anyway?”
X rolled his eyes and answered the speaker for me. “Knox Hawthorne.”
Levi raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look like a Knox.”
“What name do I look like then?”
He shrugged. “Peter?”
X’s mouth dropped open. “Peter? As in Pan? That’s insulting.” He crossed his arms over his chest like Levi had mortally wounded his ego.
“I would have gone with Greg, personally,” I threw in, just to rub salt in the wound.
X shot me a dirty look. “Why are you both giving me old man names? I can totally pull of Knox! Can’t I, Omelet?”
She was much more gracious with his ego than we’d been. “If I can pull off Omelet, you can pull off Knox.”
He seemed satisfied that at least Violet thought his name suited him.
Truthfully, I was just messing with him, and I could tell from Levi’s smirk that he had been as well.
The security guy eventually came back to us. “You don’t have an appointment.”
“No, we don’t.”
“They aren’t taking visitors right now.”
Mmm. Sure they weren’t. “It’s important. It’s about their daughter. She’s missing.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Matish are well aware. Miss Matish left town quite some time ago.”
Violet rolled her window down. “We aren’t talking about her leaving the city. We’re friends of hers. She went missing two days ago. Didn’t show up for work. Nobody has seen her since.”
There was a long pause. “You’ll need to make an appointment.”
Violet sat back in her seat. “Forget it. They aren’t letting us in. Let’s just go. Coming here was probably a stupid idea anyway. Nyah hates these people.”
But we all knew it wasn’t that simple. We needed to speak to Nyah’s parents. Either they had her, or they might know who did.
I knew Nyah had run from these people, but my gut instinct said she was a lot better off right now if it was them who’d taken her.
Because the alternative was the sick fuck who’d been messing with us for weeks. And if he had her…
I didn’t want to think about finding another of Violet’s friends dead in a pool of her own blood.
Violet’s fingers shook, and I knew she had to be thinking the same thing. It was why we were here, why we were willing to go to the people Nyah hated.
It was the only hope we had that she was still alive.
She’d been gone forty-eight hours. If he had her, then she was probably already dead.
But we weren’t getting anywhere just sitting in the driveway. “We’ll find another way,” I assured Violet.
She nodded but I didn’t think she really believed me.
I needed her to have hope.
I just didn’t know where to find it. I backed the car out slowly, motioning to Dax parked across the street that it was a no go. I couldn’t hear him, but his frustration was clear in the way he slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and his mouth formed a curse word.
Levi’s phone rang a second later, and he mumbled into it before ending the call. “Dax is going to find somewhere he can get some new ink. He needs the release before he does something stupid.”
I watched him drive off in the opposite direction. “Healthier than getting drunk, I guess.”
Levi nodded. “I’ll check in on him in a couple of hours when we’ve worked out what we’re doing.”
X leaned between the two front seats. “Speaking of, uh, what are we doing?”
“Thinking,” I shot back.
He tapped his fingers for a moment. “Okay, that’s boring. What next?”
“X,” Levi warned.
X rolled his eyes and sat back. “Fine. God, I hope I’m not as dull as the two of you when I’m your age. Or is it the fact you’re an old married couple now?”
“We aren’t married,” Levi said with gritted teeth.
“And we aren’t a couple, right, Levi?” The passive-aggressive statement was out of my mouth before I even really thought about what I was saying. I could feel Violet’s concerned gaze resting on my back and bit down on my lip before I said anything else.
A horn honked behind me, and I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Fucking impatient city assholes.” I rolled the window down and stuck my hand out it, waving the guy around. “Just fucking pass if you’re in that much of a hurry.”
The nondescript white van made no move to go around us. It just honked again, this time with the addition of flashing lights.
Hair stood up on the back of my neck.
Levi took out his gun and checked it, then glanced at the van in the passenger-side mirror. Any talk of what our relationship was or wasn’t instantly forgotten.
“Uh, what’s going on?” Worry edged into Violet’s tone.
X patted her leg as he reached down to pull the knife he kept strapped to his ankle. “Nothing, my eggggg-stra awesome lady.”
She swatted his hand away. “Then why do you all suddenly have weapons?”
I didn’t want to scare her, but I wasn’t going to keep her in the dark anymore either. “That van honking at us looks an awful lot like the one you said was up on the bluffs that night.”
“And the same one from that night when someone threw a brick through your car window after you and Nyah followed us,” Levi added.
She twisted around, peering through the back window, before settling back. “Give me a weapon.”
“No,” all three of us said at once.
I could practically feel the heat from the steam coming out of her ears.
“If that asshole back there is the guy who killed Toby, who also potentially has Nyah, I’m not going to sit here and comb my fucking hair. Somebody give me a gun!”
There was so much wild anger in her voice that I instantly passed mine back to her.
In the rearview mirror, she blinked at me, like she hadn’t really expected her little outburst to work. But then she mouthed, “Thank you.”
I nodded. “There’s a spare in the glove box, Levi.”
He reached for the dashboard and found said spare weapon, checked it for me, then passed it over.
I clutched it with one hand, spinning the steering wheel with the heel of the other, turning us down a side street with less traffic. I needed to double-check this guy behind us was actually following us and not just a shit-ass driver.
I glanced over my shoulder, peering through the back window.
The van turned as well.
I slammed my foot on the brake. “Vi, open your door but do not get out.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply, just trusted she would listen.
Levi and I both opened our doors in unison, sliding out, guns pointed behind us, using the doors Violet and X opened as shields.
The van skidded to a stop in a screech of tires.
A man sat behind the wheel, his eyes huge when he noticed the guns pointed in his direction. He very slowly raised his hands.
“It’s the gardener from Nyah’s parents’ place,” Violet called from inside the car.
I glanced at Levi over the top of the car.
He shrugged, then turned his attention back to the guy in the van. “Get out.”
The man nodded nervously and very slowly opened his door. I braced myself for sudden gunshots or the back door sliding open and a small army of thugs flowing out.
But none of that happened. The gardener, easily identified now that I was paying attention to his beige overalls and the logo embroidered into his hat, just got out and shut the door, though he eyed me and Levi warily.
“You were asking about Nyah. I heard you speaking to the Matishs’ security team. They won’t take a meeting with you.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I muttered. But louder, I said, “Security already made that much clear. What’s not is why you’re chasing us down.”
“I can tell you where you can find Nyah’s parents.”
I raised an eyebrow but lowered the gun. This guy wasn’t going to hurt anyone. “Why would you?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Because she was my friend. She’s the best of them, you know? They’re horrible people.”
“Why work for them then?” Levi asked.
The man raised his shoulder. “Because they pay three times as much as any other job I could get around here. I normally just keep my head down and try to blend in with the bushes.”
“So why stick your neck out now?”
“If they’ve done something to Nyah, I want to help. I was glad when she said she was running. But I knew at some point they’d drag her back. She knew it too.”
Violet stepped out of the car, which didn’t exactly please me, but even I could admit this situation wasn’t as dangerous as I’d first thought it was going to be. “Have you seen any sign that they have her?”
He shook his head. “But they have other properties. Businesses. A hundred places across the city they could have stashed her in.” He swallowed thickly. “Your best bet is to try talking to her brother. Unlike her parents, he actually cares about her.”
That was worth a shot. “Know where we might find him?”
The man looked me up and down. “Got any clothes suitable for a gay bar?”