Chapter 32
A sneering sound left Maverick as he gave us a look like he would’ve liked to see us try. Stepping up to Briggs, Maverick held his dark stare when he said, “If you ever find yourself trying to pick up the shattered pieces of your life, I’ll be considerate enough not to remind you of that statement. I’ll also spare your life tonight by not relaying that to Kieran. Now, choose someone to come, and let’s head out.”
Briggs glanced my way before nodding past me as he said, “Get—never mind.”
Rush came into the kitchen then, exhaling heavily as he did. “Evans’ mom just called, hysterical. Said she found his dad and wants Evans there.” He gave all of us a meaningful look. “Thought it was self-inflicted.”
Briggs scrubbed a hand over his face before looking carefully at me. “Can we trust him to be there without one of us?”
“What, do you think he’d say what really happened?” I asked, a small sound of denial sliding up my throat at Briggs’ nearly imperceptible nod. “I can’t imagine he would. It would hurt his mom more to know what her husband was involved in, and I can’t see Evans doing that.”
“All right,” Briggs said after a moment. “Ask if he wants someone to go with him, if not, let him go. The rest of you stay ready while—” As if just realizing they’d been missing for some time, he asked, “Where’re Monroe and Gray?”
“Right,” Rush began, then pointed in the direction he’d come, “they crashed on the couch.”
Briggs lifted his chin just slightly as if he was sure he’d heard Rush incorrectly. “Together?”
“Together,” Rush confirmed.
Briggs’ eyes rolled as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered before glaring at me like the entire night was my fault. “Get them up. Get them ready in case anything happens.”
“Yep,” I said, already heading that way.
Before I even looked at the couch to see exactly what was going on with Gray and Monroe, I narrowed in on where Evans was sitting in one of the chairs. Face tortured. Eyes dark with wrath. Knees bouncing a mile a minute as he sat hunched forward, his phone clasped tightly in his hand.
“What would you do?” he asked before I made it to him. “What would you do if you found out your dad—the man you’d looked up to your entire life—was a dirty cop? But not just a dirty cop,” he added. “Working for the mafia and kidnapping women for a trafficking ring.”
I wavered as I tried putting myself in his shoes...and couldn’t. “Think I’d probably fall into a rage-filled hole of denial, the way you have.”
A strained breath left him, sounding like a humorless laugh. “But you know...you know people like that need to be stopped.” He looked up at me in confirmation, his wrath-filled eyes glassy.
When I nodded, he gave his own jerky nod before quickly shaking his head as the words, “I hate him,” wrenched from him. “How do I comfort her when I know the truth? When I hate him for doing this to her?”
“Because that’s your mom, and she needs you,” I told him softly. “And no matter what you feel right now, no matter what he did, he was still your dad.”
He dropped his head into his free hand, the rapid movement of his knees bouncing his entire body for long seconds before he suddenly pushed from the chair, stealthily rubbing at his eyes as he did.
“Want one of us to come with you?” I asked when he took a step.
“No, I—no,” he said, refusing to meet my stare, but I knew he just didn’t want me to see the tears he was fighting. “I gotta go.”
Grabbing one of his shoulders, I pulled him in for a hug before he could take another step. “I’m sorry, man,” I said softly. “I know you’ve been struggling to find your place ever since we first found out about your dad, but this team is a family, and that includes you. All right?” I shifted him back and clapped his shoulder. “We’ll be here when you’re done.”
Once he was headed toward the garage, I turned to the couch, my eyebrows lifting when I saw exactly how Gray and Monroe had fallen asleep.
Monroe was up against one side of the couch, her laptop open and sitting on the arm. If I had to bet, I’d say her legs hadn’t been stretched out onto Gray’s lap when she’d been awake. But knowing Gray, he’d been all too happy to let her rest there as he’d continued working, considering his laptop was precariously balanced on her legs and about to fall off.
And at some point, after falling asleep himself, he’d started leaning to the side, toward her, and was now only inches from sliding in behind her.
I carefully lifted his laptop and tapped his arm, waiting for him to wake.
“Comfy?” I softly asked, my eyebrows lifting with amusement as he tried to focus on me.
Glancing at Monroe and their positions, a wry smirk tugged at his mouth before he closed his eyes again and settled deeper into the couch.
I grabbed his arm to stop him. “You need to wake up. We need to be on watch. And this ,” I added, gesturing between the two of them. “She’s gonna kill you if she wakes up and sees this.”
His eyelids had popped open at be on watch , but a defeated sigh left him at the last. “Yeah, all right,” he muttered as he carefully straightened and stilled when Monroe shifted.
We both looked at her just as her eyes shot open and immediately narrowed as if she instantly knew something was wrong. Her stare shifted to me, then over to Gray and where her legs were still draped over his lap, before widening in horror. “What are you—get off,” she snapped, then pulled one of her knees up to deliver a foot into Gray’s side, but he easily stopped the kick.
“Aw, I love you too, Princess,” he said smoothly.
“Call me that again,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Snookems?” The name left him like he was trying it out, and it left a bad taste on his tongue, but it only infuriated Monroe more.
“I’m gonna murder you,” she promised darkly, prompting Gray to smile at her, then me.
“She loves me,” he said with a shrug, as if Monroe had just said those exact words.
“That’s great,” I muttered. “Well, while you two decide between love or murder, we’re on watch until Briggs and Rush get back, and you’ve missed a lot. Like actual murder that directly affects one of us.”
A stunned sound burst from Gray. “Wait, what?”
“Tell me everything,” Monroe demanded.
I pointedly looked at where Monroe’s legs were still on top of Gray, one of which was still in his grasp from when she’d tried to kick him.
At the reminder, she scrambled to sit upright, purposefully kicking Gray in the process and looking more flustered than I’d ever seen her.
“See? Love,” Gray said with a dreamy sigh.
“I can’t with you,” Monroe snapped as she stood and rounded the couch, calling out, “I need caffeine before I deal with this.”
A wicked look crossed Gray’s face. “What’s that? I think she needs my help.”
I started protesting, only to release all the oxygen in my lungs on a rush when he hurried after her, their bickering immediately starting back up.
Sinking to the coffee table, I dragged a hand over my face before letting it fall heavily to my thigh. “Cool. Go team,” I murmured sarcastically. “Break, I guess.”
By the time Briggs and Rush returned, and the ARCK guys had left for the airport, it was six in the morning. Monroe and Gray had fallen asleep again—this time on separate couches—Evans had yet to return from his parents’ house, and I was struggling to stay awake.
Since Monroe and I had been on watch the night before Chloe and I had gone to Colorado, I was now going on seventy-two hours without sleep. Wouldn’t be the first time, but it’d been a long time since I’d gone days without sleep for a mission.
Briggs cut off mid-sentence, his eyes narrowing on me, before he jerked his chin past me. “Go. You need to sleep.”
I pushed off the living room wall I’d been leaning against and shook my head. “I’m fine,” I lied. “So, you really think we’ll be good from now on? The Wreckers seemed that worried?”
He looked like he was going to argue with me for a moment before acknowledging, “That’s putting it mildly.”
“Soon as the boss saw Kieran, he started falling all over himself,” Rush explained. “Started saying something about nightshade and apologizing before any of us ever said a word.”
“Wells even came up to me as we were about to leave and handed me his card,” Briggs added. “Told me if we ever had anything that needed taking care of , we had people close by.” He lifted a knowing eyebrow when shock pulsed from me. “You would’ve thought he’d seen a ghost when Kieran came up, took the card from me, and handed it back to Wells.”
“What?” I asked, the word all disbelief. “Who exactly are these ARCK guys?”
Briggs drew in a deep breath before releasing it as he shared a look with Rush. “Bad enough that the main Wrecker members knew all of them on sight.”
“And we’ve been using them to help women escape bad situations...” A dull laugh crept from me. “How sure are we that they’re actually doing what they say?”
“I asked,” Briggs said—of course he had. “They said they can’t escape who they are. ARCK is their way of helping people, the only way they feel they can.”
“Right,” I mumbled, but I wasn’t sure if I believed their answer or not. Now that the adrenaline of the past day had worn off, I was struggling to wrap my head around anything.
“Sleep, Thatch,” Briggs commanded, making me realize I’d leaned up against the wall again at some point.
“I will.”
“Now,” he said in a tone he rarely used with us, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to argue with it.
Still, I gave him a look and meaningfully said, “When I get back to my apartment.” I didn’t add the word alone , my tone implied it. “I wanna talk to Chloe first. I wanna be the one to tell her what happened.”
“You’re not driving back to Dallas,” Briggs said on a scoff. “You can barely stay standing.”
“Briggs—”
“There are five bedrooms here,” he continued unwaveringly. “Go lock yourself in one if it’ll make you feel better.”
It wouldn’t.
But before I could remind him of that, he held out his hand in silent demand and tried to sound understanding. For Briggs, that just meant he didn’t sound like he was ready to destroy the world. “You’re not gonna be what she needs when you’re like this. So, go.”
I stared at him a second longer before relenting with a sigh.
Pulling my holstered gun off my belt, I handed the entire thing over to Briggs and stalked past them, feeling the weight of my exhaustion and worries press down harder and harder against me with each step. Like one half of me was rebelling falling asleep near all these people—near Chloe—while the other half knew I was finally about to succumb to sleep, and it was already shutting down long before I ever made it to the guest rooms.
Mentally. Physically.
I barely stopped to lock the door and ensure it was secured before stripping off my shirt and shoes and falling onto the bed, on top of the comforter. Gripping the material tight, I silently prayed I would be right there when I woke up.
The last thing I remembered thinking was the pillows didn’t smell like coconut and vanilla...
And I hated it.