Chapter 25
Chad woke up to a splitting headache and little lights dancing in front of his eyes. He blinked, feeling woozy, and tried to bring his hand up to the back of his head to see why it was hurting so much.
But his hands were bound.
For a second he was annoyed with Peter, wondering what the hell he had done now, but then his mind cleared and he remembered what had happened.
He’d followed the directions on his phone to the address supplied by the people who had taken his mother, and on walking inside someone had bashed him over the head with a…
Chad had no idea. But it must have been heavy and very, very hard.
“You’re awake.”
Chad looked up, surprised to see a petit beta woman standing in front of him with a gun pointed at his chest. The expression on her face was manic, her eyes opened too wide, and Chad felt a stab of fear. She looked like a crazy person.
“Who are you?” Chad asked, sitting up. He blinked down at his bound hands, startled to see what an amateur job it was. The ropes were tied all wrong, and Chad knew he’d be able to free himself in a matter of minutes if he really tried.
Not that he’d try with a gun pointed at him at point blank range.
“Peter Tank claimed you,” the woman said, the words mumbled and low like she didn’t care if Chad heard them or not. “He loves you. He has to!”
Chad wondered what the fuck was going on, but then it all clicked into place. This must be Karen Pen, the woman whose brother Peter had killed twelve years ago.
“Are my parents all right?” Chad asked, even though he now strongly suspected that he’d been tricked. Karen had probably never had his parents, nor had she probably been monitoring his phone.
He felt so stupid.
“They’re fine,” she said, the gun trembling in her hand. Chad worried she was going to fire it by accident. “My people let them go when you came.”
Her people. Sure.
“What do you want, Karen?” Chad asked. He somehow didn’t think it had anything to do with the merger between T.I. and Light Energy. If she wanted revenge, Chad wasn’t going to let her use him to get it. He’d die before he let her hurt Peter.
“How do you know my name?” Karen asked, taking a step back. She looked spooked.
“Just a guess,” Chad said. He had to stay calm. Karen was looking more and more unhinged, and he did not want to end up with a bullet in his chest.
“Peter took my brother, so I’m going to take you,” Karen said. The words were too loud and hysterical, like she was trying to convince herself to carry out her plan.
Chad swallowed. Peter wasn’t the one in danger. Karen didn’t want to kill him—she wanted him to feel what she had felt.
“Can you put the gun down, please?” Chad said, keeping his voice calm and trying to keep the alpha out of his voice. Who knew what Karen would do if she thought he was trying to influence her?
“No!” Karen screamed, shaking the gun at him and taking a step forward. “He killed Jacob! He deserves to pay!”
Chad gauged the distance between them, but she was out of reach. If he tried to free himself she’d have plenty of time to shoot him before he succeeded.
“My mom is going to be so sad if you murder me,” Chad said, holding his hands up in front of his chest defensively.
If she did shoot him he’d rather the bullet lodge in his arm than in his heart.
“And my dad, too. He just recovered from a heart attack a few months ago. A shock like this could kill him.”
Karen’s determined expression wavered, and Chad hoped that he was getting through to her. It was obvious she wanted revenge, but he didn’t think she was a killer. It was one thing to want Peter to experience the same loss that she had felt, but quite another to murder someone to make it happen.
“Peter Tank killed my brother. He deserves to pay.” The words were desperate.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Karen lowered her gun an inch, tears in her eyes, and Chad continued. “I really don’t want to die. Please just let me go and we can forget all about this. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
“No one?” Karen asked, her voice wavering. Chad shook his head.
“No one.” He confirmed. “I understand why—"
The gun went off. The shot rang out like a crack of thunder, and for a second Chad wondered where he’d been hit. Then he looked up and saw Karen slumping to the floor. There was a single red hole in her forehead, and behind her a spray of blood and brains covered the floor.
It wasn’t her gun that had gone off.
The front door opened and Merchant walked inside, holstering his weapon under his coat as he walked in and looked around the room. He looked completely in control, and utterly unfazed by what he had just done.
“What if she’d shot me?” Chad blurted out, his head feeling like it was submerged under water. He was in shock.
Merchant lifted his eyebrow incredulously.
“She had the safety on,” he said, crouching down in front of Chad and untying him. “You didn’t notice that?”
Chad blinked and tried to remember. Had the safety really been on? He looked over at Karen, but he couldn’t get a good view of the gun.
“So I could have stopped her?” he asked. If she’d really had the safety on, then maybe Chad could have gotten free and subdued her before Merchant got there. Maybe he could have prevented her getting shot.
The thought made him want to throw up.
“You’ve got a pretty nasty bump,” Merchant said, feeling along the back of Chad’s head. His fingers were blunt and not at all gentle. “Follow my finger but don’t move your head.”
Merchant started moving his finger, and Chad followed it without any difficulty.
“Seeing double?” Merchant asked.
Chad shook his head.
“She didn’t have my parents. Did she?” he asked, needing confirmation even though he all but knew the answer.
“No. She just spoofed your mom’s number.”
Chad bit his lip, relieved despite how foolish he felt.
“You’re going to be fine,” Merchant said. “Why don’t you go sit on the front step and wait for Peter. He’ll probably be here any second and I can’t imagine he’s going to be in a good mood.”
Chad nodded, standing with Merchant’s help and walking out the front door. He avoided looking at Karen’s dead body.
“I should call him,” Chad said, knowing that if Peter knew that he’d been kidnapped—again—he would be frantic. “Tell him I’m okay.”
“Good idea,” Merchant said. Chad reached into his pocket and retrieved his phone, calling Peter and lifting the phone to his ear.
“I’m fine,” he said the second Peter picked up. “Merchant killed Karen.”
“You’re not hurt?” Peter asked. His voice was clipped and angry.
“Just a bump on my head.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Stay right there.”
Peter hung up the phone, and Chad just stood there for a second before he turned to Merchant.
“He sounded mad,” he said. It was an understatement. Peter had sounded furious.
“He won’t hurt you,” Merchant said, his tone placating and reassuring. Chad blinked. Hurt him? Of course Peter wouldn’t hurt him. What a stupid thing to say.
“Of course he won’t,” he said, offended that Merchant would even consider that Chad would think that.
Merchant smiled like he thought Chad’s reaction was funny.
“What?” Chad asked. Merchant just shook his head.
“It’s good to see that you’re not afraid of him.”
Chad frowned. “I wouldn’t be with him if I was afraid of him.”
Merchant grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “Good for you.” He then looked at the door. “I’m going to head inside and take care of the body. Will you be all right out here by yourself?”
Chad nodded.
“Good. Just sit down here and Peter will be with you soon.”
Chad realized he was still leaning on Merchant’s arm, and he flushed with embarrassment. He pulled away and sat down on the front step, looking around the suburban neighborhood and wondering how something so awful could happen somewhere that seemed so normal.
Merchant squeezed his shoulder and then headed back into the house, closing the front door behind him.
The street outside of Karen Pen’s house was quiet, not a person or car in sight. Chad pulled his knees up to his chest and put his face in his hands and just breathed. He was still dizzy, but more than that he felt awful.
Karen Pen was dead, and he could have prevented it. If only he’d called Peter the minute after he’d gotten the first phone call—or if he’d just seen that the woman had no clue how to use a gun and had incapacitated her before things got out of hand—then she might still be alive.
But he hadn’t and she wasn’t.
Fuck.
Chad was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost didn’t hear Peter’s SUV come speeding down the road.
The oversized vehicle stopped on the curb outside the house, and Chad looked up just in time to see Peter coming toward him with an expression like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hug him to death or actually murder him.
He pushed to his feet and stumbled into the alpha’s arms.
Peter seemed a little surprised by the hug attack, but he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Chad and hold him tight.
“I’m so mad at you,” Peter said, stepping back and examining Chad with a worried expression. “Are you really okay?”
“I’m fine,” Chad said, even though his head was still throbbing. “Other than banging me over the head she didn’t do anything.”
Peter’s eyes narrowed, and before Chad could object Peter was feeling along the bump on the back of his head.
“I’m not even dizzy,” Chad said, but Peter didn’t pay the words any attention. It seemed that now that he’d started checking Chad for injury, he wasn’t going to stop until he’d felt up his whole body.
Spreading his legs and pushing his arms away from his body, Chad submitted to the pat down. Peter was behaving in exactly the same way he had the last time Chad had been kidnapped, though this time he didn’t seem quite as frantic.
Chad wondered if maybe he was just getting used to it. The thought made a hysterical giggle push past his lips, and Peter looked up at him sharply.