Chapter 33
HATCH
The room suddenly feels smaller. The old bungalow creaks around us while ocean wind rattles the windows. It’s a gentle cool breeze this time of year.
I’m pretty sure if I walked outside to face it right now, it’d knock me over.
I swallow hard. “How did he find out?”
Frog’s smug expression makes me want to widen the gap between his two front teeth with my knife, but I hold back. He’s talking. That’s what I need.
“You got all high and mighty on a sin island, beating the shit outta one of Castle’s own men over pussy at a strip club.” He chuckles. “People noticed.”
My grip tightens on the knife handle.
“Before you, he had no clue who Alice was. Figured her for another runaway girl down on her luck.” He smirks. “Then you showed up and he started digging.”
Ice slides down my spine. Frog shakes his head, almost impressed.
“Imagine his surprise when he found out he had himself a Fury prince acting like a lovesick idiot over a clueless Troisgarde bitch—”
My boot slams into his kneecap, and the inhuman howl that erupts out of him is high enough to crack glass.
“Watch it, motherfucker.”
Behind me, Harry sighs. “Damn drama queen, that one.”
“Perverts always are.” I force Frog’s chin up with the tip of my blade, cutting off his shrieks instantly.
“So he knows who we are. Fine. How do you come into play?”
He swallows thickly against metal, trickling a thin line of blood down his Adam’s apple.
“B-Because she owed me.”
“Owed you?” I bark a laugh. “What could Lucy McKennon possibly owe you?”
His good eye burns with hatred. “My life, asshole! She tried to kill me!”
He growls it like it’s some great injustice, but it only makes me laugh harder.
“Good for her. Too bad she didn’t finish the jo—”
I stop. Realization washes over me as everything Lucy told me last night crashes together at once.
Afraid I’ll murder him outright, I lower my knife and step back, putting him out of arm’s reach.
“Hatton?” Harry mutters from behind me. “You good, son?”
I shake my head and point my knife at Frog. “When did Lucy McKennon try to kill you?”
Completely oblivious to how much danger he’s actually in, Frog settles back into the chair he’s strapped to and grins.
“Well, a long time ago, a big family wanted leverage over another big family. Real Hatfield and McCoy bullshit. Turns out they knew I was the best man to get the job done.”
“The family.” My heartbeat starts racing. “Who were they?”
His smirk widens. “I think you already know—”
I whirl around and set my knife on the desk before crossing to the pile of tools beside the hole Harry’s been patching.
Harry immediately pushes away from the wall.
“Hold on now, Hatton. That’s my good hammer—”
“Was it the Wildes?”
“Maybe—”
I swing.
The claw of the hammer comes down through Frog’s hand, crunching flesh, bone, and the chair arm beneath it. His scream tears through the bungalow as I wrench the hammer free and step back.
“Dammit boy.” Harry glares at the wood splintering through Frog’s mangled hand. “Add a new hammer and chair to that list of things you owe me.”
“Charge it to my rent.” I point the now dripping hammer at Frog. “Was. It. The. Wildes?”
“Yes! Yes!” he cries. “Fuck, yes. Of course it was the Wildes.” His chest heaves.
“They wanted to stick it to you Furys. Had a whole operation planned. Take the McKennon girl. She was the youngest and easiest target. One family falls. Then we’d take the other two, and the rest of the Troisgarde falls in line.
Everybody turns on the Furys. Wildes come out on top. ”
“And your role?”
He swallows hard, fighting for breath. “T-Take the girl. Keep her. Make proof of life videos. Wait for instructions.” His lip curls. “At first, the kid was the easiest job I ever had. She was seven, maybe eight, I don’t fucking know.”
My stomach drops.
“But all I had to do was steal her cat—they let the thing roam around the entire McKennon Hotel and Casino, can you believe it? I took it and told her she could have it back if she got in my car. Easy as pie.”
Dread settles in my gut like wet concrete. My mouth goes dry.
“What happened to the cat?”
“The what?”
“The. Cat.” My words are slow, my voice deathly calm and crystal clear. “What the fuck did you do to her cat?”
He frowns, then shrugs. “Once I got her where I needed her, the damn thing attacked me, so I threw it against the wall and killed it.”
The air leaves my lungs, and my next question wheezes from me. “And Lucy? Where was she when you did that?”
“Right there. Where else?” He snorts. “It was an empty warehouse, not a luxury mansion.” He spits out another mouthful of blood. “You know, it was pretty funny actually. She cuddled that dead cat for days. Even after it started to stink.”
The bungalow drops away and I go lightheaded as the scene plays out in my mind. I brace myself with one hand on the wall.
Little Lucy loving her cat more than her safety, then being forced to watch it die for her. A poor, terrified child holding the last semblance of safety, love, and hope she had left as she suffered days with this monster.
I close my eyes against the images, breathe long slow, centering breaths, waiting for the visions of violence that always come when I’m this angry.
But they don’t.
Because that fucked up little coping mechanism that my mind created at the ripe age of thirteen came during a time where I was full of pain, physically and emotionally, while justice was out of reach.
But right now, I don’t need to imagine causing pain to the people who hurt me and mine.
I will make this bastard suffer, tear him limb from limb, then stitch him back together again, wrong and crooked, just so I can do it all over again.
When I open my eyes, Harry’s gone cold and stopped obsessing over the tile.. He catches my gaze and gives a slight shake of his head, bringing me back from the edge of madness.
Not yet.
Frog’s still talking so I need to listen. There’s more to all of this, circumstances that don’t add up, coincidences that add up too nicely. Murder can wait.
I force myself to focus, keep my composure the best I can. “What happened next?” My voice sounds distant, even to me. “You said you waited for instructions?”
“Yeah.” He rolls his eyes. “The family refused to play ball at first. Thought they could pull a fast one on us by trying to find me first.” He shrugs. “So I started entertaining myself.”
Every muscle in my body locks up.
“Hatton,” Harry warns. I swallow down my rage.
“What kind of ‘entertaining?’”
Frog scoffs. “Not like that. I’m not a pervert.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Harry quips gruffly.
Frog shoots Harry a glare. “Look, all I did was have her dance for me.”
Fuck.
Nonononono.
“She’d do it when she thought nobody was looking. Made her feel better, or something, I don’t know. Anyway, I started making her do it for me. And when she didn’t want to, I—ya know. Helped her out a little bit.” A smile curls his lips. “Kinda like last night.”
My conversations with Lucy suddenly flood my mind, overlaying the horror movie playing behind my eyes.
When I asked her why she was nervous to dance for me…
“Because that’s what I had to do for him.”
The look on her face when she finally admitted the real reason the syringe scared her so badly…
“Because they used them on me… It made me more compliant.”
“You drugged her,” I say hoarsely.
“Yeah, but it’s not like it hurt her.” The future corpse yaps on. “It was just Pining, the good stuff too. Not the addictive kind. It sucks when they get addicted too early, ya know? Makes them too easy. Not as much fun to play around with—”
“Goddammit,” I roar, shoving off the wall, unable to take anymore. “Shut the fuck up, you sick fuck.”
I tighten my grip on the hammer until my knuckles ache. “You know, she thinks she killed you.”
“She almost did!” His huff comes out ragged.
“The Wildes had a great plan, but the little sneak pulled one over on me the last second. Right before her parents were about to give in too. After I took a little of the Pining I was giving her, she stuck me with a full shot of it while I was zoning out. I almost overdosed.”
“It’s why I sound like this,” he croaks, stretching his head back and baring his throat. “By the time my boss realized I wasn’t answering the phone, she’d already run off, and I’d puked so hard my vocal cords were fried.”
The predator in me wants to rip them out, but I just smirk.
“Aw, I think your voice suits you, Froggy. It makes you sound so authentic.”
His face twists. “Fuck you.”
“Who was your boss?” Harry asks, keeping both our heads in the game. “The Wilde that was calling the shots?”
“I-I never got the real name. I just know it was a Wilde.”
“Did Castle have anything to do with it?” I ask.
“No.” He hesitates. “I mean… I don’t think so.”
“Think a little harder, Froggy. It’s a pretty easy yes or no.”
“It’s hard to say—”
My fist slams into his face, snapping his head sideways.
“He didn’t!” he spits. “Not then anyway. As far as I know, Castle didn’t give a shit about the Wilde-Fury feud–not until a Fury showed up on his doorstep.”
The words hit like a freight train.
“Not until… I showed up,” I clarify.
Frog gives me a bloodstained grin. “That’s right. You’re the one that put a target on the McKennon girl’s back this time.”
Me.
I made Lucy vulnerable to these monsters.
Fuck.
My heart hurts. I press against the ache there as he keeps going.
“Castle only cared about how good she was at pulling information. None of his men could find shit about her except that she’d been bouncing from town to town for months. Thought she was just another worthless runaway escaping to Wander Isle.”
Because Lucy is good at hiding. Great at it. Even I couldn’t figure it out where she’d gone.
“But then I came along,” I finish numbly, “and he realized exactly how valuable she could be.”
I stumble backward until my shoulders hit the warped paneling.
“Hatton?” Harry prompts, but his voice is distant, muffled in my head.