Chapter 32
THIRTY TWO
Grey
The air in this car is so thick I may choke on it.
None of us are talking. It’s as though if one of us breathes a word, everything will crash down around us.
My heart is in my fucking throat, my good knee restlessly bouncing as Oli drives.
Steven better not touch a hair on his goddamn head.
I’m sick to the stomach with worry. All I can think about is him, what he’s doing to him.
“It’s going to be alright,” Oli whispers, eyes focused on the road. His large hand braces my thigh with a squeeze. “We will get him out of there.”
I want to believe that, but some situations are bigger than three giant hockey players. Steven is a cop, which means he has a gun. He’s an evil manipulative dick as well. “Thanks.”
Andre sticks his head through the center. “I hate to do this but . . . I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Hold it,” I grit.
Oli turns, glancing at him quickly. “Let me pull over so my husband can piss.”
“Aw, Oli. Husband.” Andre presses a quick kiss to his shoulder.
“And no, I need somewhere to go. It’s that kind of a pitstop.
” I glare at him. “What?! We’ve been traveling nonstop.
Just find a gas station or something. I’ll be fast.” I see a diner up ahead, and my knee keeps shaking.
Every second is precious, but Andre is right. We’re burning fumes right now.
“It’ll be fast.” Oli reassures me. “We’ll go in, let him go, maybe get a cup of coffee .
. .” He pulls into the parking lot with zero argument.
Oli helps me out of the car. As it is, I have to wear sweats.
My knee is swollen to hell, and I can feel fluid pressing on my joints.
I don’t give a shit about any of it. I don’t give a shit if I never walk again as long as he’s safe.
We walk into the diner ripped straight from the fifties, and all eyes seem to drift toward us.
It’s funny being a hockey player. We’re famous athletes, but unless you watch hockey you wouldn’t know who we are.
Even if you like hockey, you still might not know what we look like, since most of the time we’re in gear.
These looks aren’t of the “holy shit there are pro athletes here” variety.
It’s more “what the hell you are doing in this small town?”
“What can I help you fellas with?” a waitress who looks like she could have retired decades ago asks.
“Do you have a bathroom I can use?” Andre is dancing at this point.
She blinks at him. “Sorry. Customers only.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Oli growls. “I’m going to buy something. Can my husband take a shit or not?”
Now, any other person would cower at my friend’s gruffness, but this woman is not one of them. She straightens, glowering right back. “Fine. Right this way, gentlemen.”
We follow her to the counter and take our seats. “You want anything?” Oli asks Andre.
“Something to eat, please. Something with a shitload of carbs.” Oli smiles as Andre walks off to the bathroom.
“What can I get you fellas?” Still irritated, she holds out her pad.
“I’ll take a coffee and the biggest, sloppiest breakfast sandwich you can make.”
“Make that two. And another coffee.”
“Coming right up.” She turns to the back to put our order in, then to the coffee pots, before bringing us over two mugs.
“You going to eat?” I ask.
Oli shakes his head. “I ate on the plane. I’m fine.” He thanks her as she pours coffee for us. He puts a little creamer into the cup then takes a sip. Burnt coffee singes my tongue. “Fuck, that’s terrible,” he whispers, taking another sip. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Snap Steven’s neck—no, wait, choke him until he passes out, revive him, then rip out his spine and beat him with it. Then watch him bleed out at my feet.”
“Vivid.” Oli smirks.
“If it were Andre?”
“I would burn this town to the fucking ground until he was safe in my arms,” Oli says quietly. “I support the neck snapping. Don’t let the judgmental tone fool you.”
“Whose neck are we snapping?” Another younger waitress asks, resting her elbows on the counter and batting her lashes at us. “Come on now. I won’t tell a soul.”
This is a small town, and we’re less than thirty minutes out from the town in his journal. Maybe she knows him. Or knows something. “We’re looking for someone.”
“Oh, sounds treacherous. Why not call the cops?”
“Because he is the cops,” Oli supplies, grimacing with another sip of coffee. She looks at his mug, shaking her head. “What?”
“Melinda pour that for you?” She laughs. I’m assuming Melinda is the other irritated waitress. “Here.” She grabs our cups, dumping the contents and rinsing out the cups, then she grabs a different pot and pours us fresh coffee.
Cautiously Oli grabs his, taking a sip. “Oh, shit, that’s better.” I take my own and I have to agree.
“Don’t mind her. She doesn’t like strangers. So, who are we looking for? What’s his name? The closest barrack is in Cherry Hill and that sounds unlikely.”
As soon as she says it, I remember Steven’s badge. Cherry Hill. That’s it. “Why is that?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Small town, our area isn’t the biggest. The closest division is about forty-five minutes north. Sometimes the staties come down, but it’s mostly the sheriff here and a few of his troopers. It’s a quiet town.”
“If I showed you a photo of someone, do you think you’d recognize them?”
She snaps her gum. “Worth a shot.” I pull out my phone, showing her a screenshot of Steven I saved from the security camera when he came to my house the first time. Even then I knew he’d be a problem.
I see the recognition in her eyes. “Yeah, I know him.” She frowns. “Why the hell are you mixed up with him?”
“Why? What do you know?” She pulls out her phone, tapping something, then faces it toward me as I catch Andre joining us back at the counter. What shocks me isn’t the photo of Felix’s ex; it’s the sex offender registry he’s on. “That’s him!”
“Steven doesn’t work for the precinct anymore. It’s been, I don’t know, a few years now.” She looks at the registry. “It says he was arrested four years ago. He was under investigation for some time before that.”
How did Felix not know this? We didn’t talk much about him, but how do you hide that from the person you live with? “What did he do?”
She shakes her head. “He was caught soliciting a minor. Then a few other students came out with their own stories. He um, he assaulted one of them. Lost his job, but they gave him a fucking severance package if you can believe it.” Oh, I can believe it.
“Did he get arrested?” She cocks her brow. “Take that as a no.”
“They let him go with a slap on the wrist.” She shakes her head. “This was years ago. Why are you looking for him now?” she asks.
It’s not that I don’t trust her, but I don’t know her. “He um . . . he’s a suspect in a case I’m working on.” Oli’s head slowly cranes to me. I glare at him, quickly turning my attention back to her.
“Are you like, an undercover agent?” She beams.
“We’re all secret agents, ma’am.” Andre leans against the counter, tipping his head to her.
“Jackass,” Oli whispers.
“Yeah, well, he’s your jackass,” I say as food finally arrives. I want to get the fuck out of here. My stomach clenches. I don’t know if I can eat it.
“You boys be safe now.” She smiles.
Andre sits next to Oli, groaning at his food. “Thanks, babe. Fuck, you know me.” Andre inhales his sandwich and I pick at mine, thinking about everything I’ve learned. He better be okay. I’m not a violent guy off the ice, but I’m afraid of who I’ll become if Steven hurts him.
“Eat up.” Oli nudges my shoulder.
“I can’t. If you want some, take it. Not so hungry all of a sudden.” My Angel better be okay. He’s probably so fucking scared. I know he thinks I let him down. “I promised him, Oli. I told him no one would hurt him. That Steven wouldn’t take him.”
“Can’t snap necks on an empty stomach.” I don’t laugh at his joke.
I’m frozen with fear. It’s really sinking in now.
Steven has him and is doing god knows what to him.
That sweet boy with a kind heart. That predator.
Oli soothes his hand along my spine. “He’s going to be okay. We will get him back.”
Things aren’t making sense. “I don’t understand.
If he got fired years ago, what the hell was he doing while he was supposed to be at work?
” Felix said he used to work nights, then he got moved to days.
Now I’m wondering if that’s when he was let go.
He was gone for like eight hours at a time.
“Where did he go?” And was he always spying on Felix?
Was he off hurting more innocent people? No, not people. Fucking kids.
We finish eating while my head sprints to conclusions. PING. I grab my phone so fast, unlocking it. I open my camera app, bile crawling up my throat. “Fuck!”
“What is it?” I stand, waving down our waitress who looks more annoyed by the second. I throw down a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change. We need to go.”
I don’t wait for my friends, hobbling quickly out toward the car. I hear Oli jogging behind me, followed by Andre who now has the sandwich I didn’t eat in his hand. “Really?” Oli hisses.
“What?! I’m hungry!” Andre says between bites as he catches up to me.
Oli grabs my bicep before I reach his car. “Grey! What’s going on?”
“We need to go. Now. To my house.”
“What?”
“Felix and Steven. They’re at my house.”
I don’t think I take one breath the entire ride back to my house.
It was a long drive, and other than watching him hurt Felix at the front door, I haven’t gotten any eyes on them since.
That’s what I get for disabling the camera in the living room.
They’re still in the house, though. I wrestled with calling the cops, but I don’t trust them.
I don’t know who’s side they’re on. I also don’t want to spook Steven into hurting him if he sees more cops.
Besides, it’s me he wants. I’m sure of it. It’s why he took him there.
“We will get him out. He’s going to be okay.” It’s like the seventh time my friend has said that and while I’m grateful for them both, Oli needs to stop saying it. I can’t breathe. Finally, the familiar woods around my house come into view as we drive down the dirt road.
“So uh, not that we aren’t going in there and kicking his ass, but we all figure he’s got a gun, right? We’re bringing hockey butts to a gun fight.”
“Baby, I love you so much, but please shut the fuck up.” We drive up to my gate, and my heart hammers in my fucking throat.
Andre’s right. We have muscle between us, but Steven has a gun.
Violence isn’t something I enjoy off the ice.
While Oli has razor-sharp edges, I know he’s more bark than bite unless backed into a corner.
And Andre may as well be made of play dough. “What’s the plan?” Oli asks.
“I don’t know. I just know that I will find the most creative way to remove his intestines from his body.” My eyes focus on the surrounding trees. “Needed a new jump rope anyway.”
“Now you sound like Jessica. Shit! We should have brought her. She’d remove his balls through his ear canal,” Andre says.
A tiny smile plays on my lips, but it dies seeing that fucker’s car in my driveway. “I’m going to paint the walls with his blood.”
“Oh, violent Grey. Nice. You sound like Oli.” Andre looks between the seats. “You’d come rescue me if I was kidnapped, right, babe?”
Oli parks and looks back at him between the seats. “If someone had the balls to do that, there’d be no dental records or fingerprints clear enough to identify their body.”
Andre pouts his lip. “You’re so romantic.”
I’ve had enough. I get out of the car and don’t wait, storming up the hill to my house. I hesitate, though, afraid what I’m going to find when I get in there.
I punch in the code and slowly open the door.
Everything is still, but it feels wrong. Off. I haven’t seen them leave.
Oli and Andre follow behind me. Oli throws his hand up in question. “I don’t know,” I whisper. My house isn’t large—I wanted land more than I wanted a big home—but I hear nothing. We walk through the house. I go down one hall, checking the bathroom and Lianna’s bedroom . . . Nothing.
Then I turn back down the hall. “Grey! Out here.”
I speed toward Andre’s voice. I see him in the kitchen, looking out my sliding door.
I’m so scared. My heart’s in my throat as I look out, afraid of what I’ll find.
A fire blazes in the pit. Felix is there, his neck tied with a belt and his hands cuffed behind his back.
Steven has him by the throat, holding him close to the fire while he sits in my Adirondak chair.
“That is not how you use a belt!” Andre growls.
Oli looks at him, shaking his head. “What do we do?”
I disappear through the living room and into my bedroom, taking my gun out of the gun safe.
I have it for safety, and I’ve fired it at a range for practice, but I’ve never shot anything living.
Nerves rattle my guts, but I swallow them down.
My hands are shaking. I take a breath. I need to calm down.
I walk back out. Oli and Andre are standing by the door, watching them. “What do we do?”
“You sure we can’t call the cops?”
I think for a moment. “Call the state troopers in Portland. Tell them what’s going on,” I say to Andre. “Stay here,” I say to Oli and go to leave.
He grabs me by the arm. “You aren’t going out there alone.”
“Oli—”
“No, fuck that. I’m not letting you do this alone. You’re my brother and we’re going to get him out of this.” I nod, opening the back door.
Steven lolls his head up. He has a beer in his hand—my fucking beer.
His gun is on his lap and his belt is twisting around Felix’s neck, holding his head dangerously close to the fire.
He’s not wearing his glasses, though. They’d probably melt with how close he is to the heat.
“Ah, damn. Spoiling the fun already? You following us?” He takes a swig of his drink.
Felix blinks his eyes open, dazed, and they land on me. My heart shatters and rage fills me at the cut bleeding along his temple. “Let him go.”
“No can do. You fucked with something of mine, and now I’m going to fuck with something of yours. I’ll start with the house. Then your friends. Then everyone who has ever meant anything to you.”