Fox
Christmas Day
The white-noise hiss of the snow cuts off as the cabin door slams shut behind me.
When I look over my shoulder, Kai Jordan flicks his sandy mess of hair out of his eyes with a snap of his neck.
“Oops,” he murmurs apologetically, looking anything but.
You wouldn’t think he’d just confessed to multiple murders and begged me to arrest him.
“Is that any way to treat our guest?” Rooke asks Kai.
The deep red dressing gown slung over his shoulders flares open as he slides a thumb behind the waistband of his low-slung pajama pants, adjusting them against his hip bones.
When he catches me staring, the smile that slashes across his mouth makes it obvious he did it on purpose.
He strides past a couch scattered with cushions and takes a chair from the breakfast nook, setting it near the flickering fireplace. There’s a belt lying on the floor by the couch. A blanket tossed hastily across an armrest.
Is that where Professor Rooke and his two lovers were cozied up when I knocked?
Resentment surges up inside me—they’d been nestled under blankets in this warm cabin in Montana while I was driving through a near-blizzard to reach them.
Before leaving the truck, I’d sent the cabin’s coordinates to a scheduled message on my phone. If I didn’t cancel it by six tonight, the location would go to three people who knew enough to take it seriously.
Not the sheriff. Not yet.
But I hadn’t driven into the middle of nowhere without leaving myself a way back out.
I think back to Rooke’s text. I hadn’t expected him to contact me again. Maybe that’s why I handled the exchange like a fucking idiot.
#rooke.bastian
Has Fox been a good boy?
#thatcher
Everything sent to this number is evidence. Keep texting. I’ll add it to my file.
#rooke
Evidence you haven’t shown a single soul isn’t a “file”. It’s a diary.
#thatcher
Fuck you
#rooke
So you’ll be joining us for Christmas dinner, after all?
#thatcher
Sure. Text me the address.
It was a joke, of course. Rooke would never—
#rooke
Pin Location
I felt disembodied as I texted a casual reply with trembling thumbs.
#thatcher
Red or white?
#rooke
We have enough wine. All you need to bring is your appetite.
It was hours later, somewhere past the county line, with the heater roaring and my truck’s headlights painting the pines crowding alongside the road, that I answered Rooke’s question.
I had been a good boy.
Bastian, Haven, and Kai could be sitting in a holding cell right now, but the thought of handing him over to the sheriff never crossed my mind.
Instead, judging from Kai’s glower, I’m the one about to find out when the bail hearing will be.
Haven clears her throat, drawing my eyes away from Kai.
She crosses her arms over the white Henley she’s wearing as a nightgown.
It’s warm in here, so it must be her hardened nipples poking through the near-transparent fabric that have her covering up.
At least the shell-shocked look she wore on the porch has faded.
Rooke hadn’t warned either of them. Guess no one’s safe from his mind-games, not even his two young lovers.
The third member of Agony Hollow’s murderous throuple seems different since I last saw her. More confident. Self-assured.
Maybe it’s the sapphire butterflies glittering in her ears—the ones that match her gleaming necklace. The necklace I’ve seen before, but the earrings must have been under the tree this morning. Her ears are a little red, and I can’t figure out why.
Why is it always so goddamn difficult to think around these people?
“Can I get you something to drink, Deputy Thatcher?” Haven asks, tilting her head.
I tug my beanie off and run a hand through my hair. I should have gotten a haircut last week, but I was too busy staring into the void and regretting my life choices.
“Yeah. Uh...Sure,” I say, sounding less confident and less self-assured than her.
Her arms tighten. “What would you like? Coffee, beer, soda—?”
“Whiskey on the rocks,” Rooke cuts in. “Two cubes.”
To prove he’s not right, I say, “A beer will be fine.”
Right on cue, Rooke gives me that fucking self-satisfied smirk that tells me he knows what I wanted, and that me putting up a fight is just getting him hard.
“Will it?” he murmurs. “Be fine?”
I swipe a hand through my hair again and take another look around the cabin so I don’t have to stare at Rooke’s smug face. Their Christmas tree is so heavily adorned, its branches are in danger of snapping. Torn pieces of wrapping paper litter the floor.
There’s not much else to look at, so my gaze instinctively goes back to Kai and Rooke.
They’re slightly disheveled, both in their pajamas. It is Christmas Day, but it’s gone noon already.
That’s when I finally identify the musty scent lingering in the air. It was just a hint under the faint wood smoke and a pumpkin-spice-scented candle.
Sweat, and cum.
Seems they haven’t had a chance to clean up their home...or themselves.
“Am I interrupting something?” I ask reluctantly.
“Yeah. Christmas,” Kai snaps, receiving a side-eye from Rooke.
“If you’ve got nothing nice to say—” Rooke’s voice trails off.
Kai rolls his eyes as he drops down onto the leather couch. He lifts a lacquered box from the coffee table and flips it open, taking out a dime bag of weed.
“Really?” I scoff sourly.
He doesn’t even bother looking at me. “Looks like you left your badge at home, officer. Or is this a citizen’s arrest?”
Says the guy who just confessed to multiple murders.
I realize my hands are tightened into fists, and force them open. Force them to relax more than I should.
For all I know, scantily-clad Haven went to the kitchen to fetch a knife. Or a gun. Or some more of those goddamn cable ties Rooke tied me up with in his basement. For all I know, this is their gift to each other.
Taking care of their last loose end before the New Year.
“Have a seat,” Rooke says, turning the chair so it faces the center of the sofa before taking his place beside Kai.
Not angled toward the fire. Not toward the windows.
Toward them.
I could keep standing there like a chump, but it was a long fucking drive. Best to conserve my strength if these three decide to continue their killing spree.
“What did you get under your Christmas tree this morning, Fox?” Rooke asks.
I scoff. “I haven’t celebrated for years.”
He nods. “Didn’t take you for a man of faith.”
“Christmas has got nothing to do with religion,” Kai mutters. “It’s just an excuse for us to buy shit.”
This time Rooke’s eyes are much harder when he looks over at Kai. “What’s with the attitude, boy?”
The hairs on my nape rise at the tone in Rooke’s voice.
Kai doesn’t look up from where he’s rolling a joint. “You knew he was coming. Could have given us a heads-up.”
Rooke’s smile is instant, and completely eradicates the stern look from his face. “Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise, would it?”
Kai briefly glances up at him with slitted eyes. “You know I hate surprises.”
I hear the clink of ice cubes against a glass before Haven re-enters the living area on sock-clad feet. She keeps her eyes downcast, almost demure, as she comes over to me. But the moment her back is turned to Rooke and Kai, her eyes flash wide, staring at me with unveiled ferocity.
“Here,” she says, the calmness in her voice a stark contrast to the fire in her eyes.
“You didn’t know I was coming either, did you?”
She gives her head a small shake. “I’d have dressed more appropriately.”
Despite her words, she’s not covering herself up anymore—she stands there defiantly, as if daring me to look at her body.
I take her up on the offer, if only to call her bluff.
She’s just as disheveled-looking as Rooke and Kai, perhaps even more so. Her hair is mussed, her shirt wrinkled, and there’s a red chafe mark on her neck—
My gaze darts to the belt lying coiled on the floor by the sofa.
Lord, the fireplace is turning this cabin into a sauna.
“I think pajamas are perfectly appropriate for Christmas Day,” Rooke calls out from the sofa. “Fox is a friend, Haven. Care to retract your claws?”
She glances to the side but keeps her back turned.
“Sure, Bash,” she says sweetly.
She steps backward a few paces before turning and heading for the sofa, as if she doesn’t want to let me out of her sight.
I didn’t come here in the cruiser. I’m not even fucking armed.
But can I blame her and Kai for being paranoid? Hell, I’m still not sure if I’ll turn them in or not. The only person who does seem sure that they’re safe is Rooke.
Haven goes to sit next to him, sandwiching him between her and Kai.
I’m not even remotely surprised when he stretches his arms out on the backrest, encircling them both as Kai lights up the joint and hits it so hard the cherry glows.
The ice cubes in my glass clink as I take a sip of whiskey. It’s fucking delicious. The whiskey I buy tastes like honey-flavored corn syrup with notes of iodine. I don’t even want to think about how much each sip costs. It’s probably been aging in a barrel longer than I’ve been alive.
I’m on my second sip, still trying to figure out how to wipe that smug look off Rooke’s face when my chest tightens.
I took this drink without thinking.
There could be fucking ricin in here.
That would be just Rooke’s style, too. Something tasteless, that’ll look like a heart attack. They could bundle me back in my truck and drive me off a cliff. No one would ever be the wiser...
Because Rooke’s right. I haven’t shared those ledger pages with anyone. They’re in a nook inside my house, hidden until every evening when I take them out and obsess over them.
Just like I obsess over these three...
Kai blows out a massive cloud of smoke that taints the air with the smell of weed before passing the joint to Haven. She takes it from him without moving her eyes off me and hits it.
Rooke arches an eyebrow when I stare at him as I gulp down the rest of the whiskey like a college kid taking a shot. I grimace at the burn before slowly setting the glass down at my feet.