Chapter Thirty-One #2
With a last wrenching stare, Beck disappeared around the corner. Hudson followed suit, dragging Carl behind him.
Gene leaned around the corner to keep watch on the guys while still able to see the women.
Heavenly wasn’t sure what was happening, but the scrape of shoes against the hardwoods and the creak of Hudson opening the basement door were unmistakable.
The steep, uneven stairs groaned under the guys’ collective weight. A thump. A grunt of pain. Then Beck’s low rumble, unintelligible and strained.
Hudson’s whispered apologies followed. “I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
Another thump. Heavier this time. Carl being dragged down the steps.
Heavenly’s nails dug into her palms. She hated feeling helpless, hated that she could only sit here and listen as they endured what might be their final prison.
Suddenly, a sobbing Grace gripped her hand. The woman’s trembling fingers were ice-cold, her lips moving with more desperate, whispered prayers.
Gun still in hand, Gene stepped closer to the basement door—and took his eyes off her for just a moment. Heavenly glanced at the front door, mentally calculating. It was so close, maybe ten feet.
She could run…but would she make it?
No. Gene would shoot her before she got halfway there. And even if she escaped, Gene would kill Grace. Kill Hudson. Maybe Beck and Carl, too—if they weren’t already dead.
She couldn’t risk it.
A flash of metal caught her eye. Hudson’s phone still sat on the couch where he’d left it.
If she could just—
“Don’t even think about it,” Gene growled, his glare landing on her. “Or I’ll shoot the kid.”
Heavenly froze. Her heart hammered. She held up both her hands.
Gene’s smile was vicious. “Smart girl.”
Minutes crawled by, each feeling like an eternity. She sat frozen, her heart racing while her brain screamed at her to do something.
But she had no idea what.
Finally, footsteps echoed back up the stairs. Hudson emerged, pale and shaken, a phone bulging from each of his front pockets. He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table, the scrape of it against the floor sounding final. Then he wedged it under the knob of the basement door.
Beck and Carl were locked in. The two men big enough to fight off Gene were neutralized.
Heavenly’s panic surged, clawing at her throat. Now, it was just her, Grace, and Hudson.
And Gene knew Seth was coming.
Hudson looked ready to explode as he crossed the room, yanked the two phones from his pockets, and dumped them on the coffee table with a clatter that made her start.
Gene just kept tightening the noose. She couldn’t wait anymore. If they were going to survive this ordeal, she needed to think. Needed to find a way out.
But she’d never faced danger like this. She had no idea what to do.
Hudson sank onto the couch, his face devastated. His hands shook with terror and rage.
Gene turned the gun back on the boy, gesturing wildly. “Now the others. Put the rest of the phones on the table.”
Hudson slumped. “I don’t know where Grandma’s phone is.”
“In my purse, honey.” Grace’s voice shook. “In the kitchen, on the counter near the stove.”
Hudson hesitated before he got to his feet and retrieved the phone under Gene’s hawk-eyed stare. Wrath filled the teenager’s face as he carried it back before setting it carefully beside the others.
Hudson looked her way then, his green eyes—his father’s eyes—meeting hers with silent apology before he bent and picked up her phone from where it had fallen on the floor.
As he did, Heavenly noticed his still sitting on the couch cushion. Her heart raced. If she could just reach it—text Seth—warn him somehow…
“I already warned you once.” Gene leveled the gun her way. “So help me, bitch, if you touch it, I’ll put a bullet in your fucking skull.”
Heavenly froze, her fingers halfway to the cushion, then pulled back her trembling hand.
Cruel satisfaction engulfed his smile as Hudson added her phone to the growing pile of technology.
“Now yours, kid,” he ordered Hudson.
The teenager paled. Panic flashed across his face before he gritted his teeth, plucked up his device from the couch, and dumped it on the gleaming wooden surface next to the others.
Five phones sat in plain view three feet away, unreachable.
Now they were completely cut off. Every lifeline gone. Every illusion of help stripped away.
Gene had them trapped, and his terrible smirk said he knew it.
Guilt filled Hudson’s face, as if he was beating himself up for betraying everyone.
She sent him a reassuring smile. It’s okay. There was nothing else you could have done.
In that moment, he looked so much like Seth that it almost broke her heart.
“Good job, kid. Now sit down,” Gene ordered, gesturing with a jerk of his gun toward the couch. “Next to Grace. Where I can see you.”
Hudson obeyed, sinking onto the cushion beside his grandmother.
Gene’s message was unmistakable. They were leverage. And they were expendable.
Beside her, Grace blinked, her stare landing on Hudson’s tormented face. Then she lifted her gaze to the spot on the floor where Carl had fallen before trailing to the unmistakable stain of Beck’s blood. Something inside her seemed to snap.
“What are you doing, Gene?” Her voice cracked. She sounded raw and desperate.
He turned his focus on her, his eyes wild with rage. “Michael asked the same stupid question, in that same righteous-ass tone—right before I blew his fucking brains out.”
Gene’s words landed like a sledgehammer.
Grace gasped, the sound strangled and broken. Disbelief rippled across her face. Heavenly felt the woman’s shock blasting through the room in a wave of horror. Grim silence followed.
A moment later, Grace opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She stared at Gene like she was seeing him for the first time—not the man she’d known and trusted—but the vicious monster he’d concealed for decades.
“Why?” she finally managed to choke out. “Michael was your friend.”
“Michael should have learned to either shut the fuck up or cooperate. I offered to let him in on the business, but no. He had to be a goddamn saint.” Contempt twisted Gene’s face. “He made his choice. So I made mine.”
His words were sharp. Cruel. Like Michael’s murder was less important than the weather.
Grace’s face crumpled. Her shoulders shook with raw, guttural sobs that tore at Heavenly’s heart. She slapped her hand over her mouth, trying desperately to hold in her grief, but it broke through in jagged gasps.
Hot tears stung Heavenly’s eyes. She’d never met Seth’s father, but she nearly cried with Grace. The woman had spent sixteen years mourning her beloved husband, believing he’d been gunned down in the line of duty by the criminals he’d sworn to stop.
And it had all been a lie.
His best friend—his partner—had killed him for a buck.
“I’m trying to think here,” Gene snapped. “And I can’t do it with you blubbering. So shut the fuck up or I’ll do it for you.”
Hudson tensed, fists clenched. His whole body coiled in fury.
Heavenly caught his eye and shook her head. Subtle but firm.
Hudson’s jaw worked, rage and helplessness warring across his face. Finally, he cursed under his breath and sulked against the back of the sofa, crossing his arms over his chest.
Heavenly sighed raggedly. Beside her, Grace’s sobs had quieted to shuddering inhalations. Tears still streamed down her face as she rocked, clearly trying to hold herself together and failing.
Every cell in Heavenly’s body hurt for the woman. The shock. The pain. The utter betrayal…
Then she realized… If Gene had killed Michael, he’d also ordered Autumn’s and Tristan’s deaths. He must have. Seth had been investigating his father’s murder, and he’d gotten too close. So Gene had blown away his wife and infant son, then left him to drown in guilt and grief.
Did Seth know? Had he figured it out? Would whatever Michael had left in the storage unit prove how evil Gene was?
Seth must know by now. He had to. Or else…why wasn’t he back?
Heavenly felt the screws of danger tighten.
The monster was waiting for Seth to return so he could clean up the last of his loose ends. If he managed to silence Seth, he’d kill them all without a second thought.
She couldn’t let that happen.
A whisper of a plan began forming in Heavenly’s head, fragile and desperate…but the best she had.
“Gene.” She was surprised by how steady her voice sounded. “Can I go check on Beck? Help stop his bleeding?” Maybe sneak out the basement window and get help?
Gene snapped his head in her direction, his expression vicious. “Don’t fucking move. Your other boyfriend is just fine.”
She blinked, his words a paralyzing shock. He knew?
Heavenly’s heart stuttered as she whirled to Grace, whose brows furrowed with confusion on her tearstained face.
“You didn’t know, Gracie? Priceless.” Gene shook his head, somehow mocking and pitying at once. “But I’m not surprised. You’re just like Michael, too good to see the bad in others.”
Grace’s lips parted, but nothing came out. Then she turned her questioning stare on Heavenly.
Dread filled her. Humiliation followed. What should she do? Say? If she wasn’t careful, she could mess up Seth’s relationship with his mom—if they lived long enough for that to matter.
“Oh, your face… Look at all that guilt.” Gene laughed before turning back to Grace.
“Bet you don’t know that your golden boy is a class-A pervert.
Always has been. He used to belong to Graffiti, that kink club in the city.
The one where people wear leather and chains and call each other Master.
And Autumn wasn’t just his wife; she was his slave.
Seth controlled her. She couldn’t so much as put on a goddamn sock without his permission. The whole precinct knew it.”
Grace flinched as if he’d struck her. Then she shook her head in denial, her mouth in a flat, mutinous line.
Heavenly wanted to scream at Gene, but her throat had closed up. Her hands shook. Besides, begging him for any sort of mercy was a waste of breath.