17. Shadow #2
“I hear it.” My hand’s already on the van’s ignition. “Stay calm. Could be a neighbor.”
But I don’t believe that, and neither does she.
The footsteps get closer, heavier, purposeful. Someone walking with confidence, with ownership, like they belong there.
Then a voice in the hallway, muffled but audible even through the apartment door.
“I knew you’d come back.”
Tyler’s voice.
Fuck.
“Fuck.” I’m already starting the van, engine roaring to life. “FUCK. He’s there. Hawk, Razor, converge on the building now. Now!”
“On my way,” Razor responds immediately, and I hear his bike start in the background.
“Moving,” Hawk confirms.
But they’re blocks away, and Jade’s in that apartment with Tyler right outside the door, and there’s nothing any of us can do except listen and hope she remembers her training.
I hear a key sliding into the lock on Tyler’s apartment door.
The lock turns with a click that sounds like a gunshot through the Bluetooth.
The door opening, hinges creaking.
Tyler’s voice, clear now, no longer muffled. “Well, well, well. Look who decided to come home.”
My entire body goes cold, and my hands shake on the steering wheel as I pull out of the parking spot and start racing toward the building.
Jade doesn’t say anything at first, and I can hear her breathing, fast and panicked, and I can imagine her frozen in the bedroom trying to figure out what to do.
“Tyler,” she says finally, and she’s trying to sound calm, but I can hear the fear underneath like a current. “I can explain.”
“Can you?” Footsteps entering the apartment, heavy and angry. The door closes with a slam that makes me flinch. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you broke into my place. Which is funny, considering this used to be your place too.”
“I just wanted to talk.” Her voice is steadier now, falling into the script we prepared for this exact scenario, even though we all hoped it wouldn’t happen. “To explain where I’ve been. To see if we could work things out.”
“Talk.” He laughs, and it’s not a nice sound, not human, just rage wrapped in mockery. “You want to talk. After disappearing for a week. After taking my son and making me look like a fool in front of my entire club. After making me weak.”
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I hear movement through the connection, fabric rustling, something hitting a wall. Then Tyler’s voice drops to something colder and more dangerous than his shouting.
“What’s that on the bed, Jade?”
Silence.
My heart stops.
“Is that my laptop?”
“I was just?—”
“You were just stealing from me.” His voice rises again, getting louder. “You broke into my apartment to steal from me. What’s on that flash drive? What the fuck were you looking for?”
“Nothing, I just wanted?—”
“Looking for something, baby?”
I’m driving now, van tearing through the streets toward Tyler’s building, running a red light because I don’t care about anything except getting to her. Two blocks feels like two miles, and every second is an eternity.
“Talk to me, Jade,” Tyler says, and I can hear him moving closer to her. “What were you planning to do with my files? Who sent you? Was it my father? Did that piece of shit send you here to spy on me?”
“Tyler, please, just listen?—”
“Please? Please?” The sound of something hitting the wall hard enough to crack plaster. “You think you can leave me? Take my son? Steal from me and then ask me to please listen? You’re fucking dead. You hear me? You’re fucking dead.”
“He’s not your son, you asshole.”
The words are out before she can stop them, and I hear Tyler’s rage in the inhuman sound he makes, something between a roar and a growl.
Then the sound of a struggle. Jade gasping. Tyler snarling. Something crashing.
“You fucking bitch, I’m going to kill you?—”
A sharp crack that sounds like bone on bone. Jade’s broken free somehow and used one of the moves Razor taught her.
“Run!” I shout into the mic even though I know she can’t respond. “Run, Jade, run!”
Footsteps pounding. Door slamming open. More footsteps in the hallway, Tyler chasing her. Jade’s breathing hard, running, and I can hear Tyler right behind her, cursing and threatening.
“Fire escape,” she pants between breaths. “Going for the fire escape.”
“We’re coming,” I tell her, taking another corner too fast and not caring. “Twenty seconds. Hold on.”
I screech around the final corner, and Tyler’s building comes into view. Razor’s already there, bike abandoned in the alley, running for the fire escape with his weapon drawn. Hawk’s on foot from the other direction, moving fast despite his size.
I kill the engine, and I’m out of the van before it fully stops, feet hitting pavement and running toward the back of the building where the fire escape rattles and clangs with the sound of someone hitting the metal stairs hard.
Jade appears at the top, stumbling down the fire escape with Tyler right behind her. Her jacket’s torn at the shoulder, and there’s blood on her lip where he must have hit her, but she’s moving, she’s alive, she’s using everything Razor taught her to stay ahead of him.
Tyler lunges for her, hand outstretched, and she ducks at the last second so his fingers catch nothing but air.
That’s when Razor reaches the bottom of the fire escape.
Tyler sees him and stops mid-lunge, eyes going wide.
Jade makes it to the ground, stumbling the last few steps and nearly falling. Razor catches her and immediately pushes her behind him, putting his body between her and Tyler like a wall.
I reach them a second later, positioning myself next to Razor. Hawk’s right behind me, breathing hard from the run.
Three men. All of us standing between Jade and the man who tried to kill her.
Tyler’s frozen on the fire escape about eight feet up, looking down at us, and I watch his face as he processes what he’s seeing.
His eyes go to Jade first, taking in her torn jacket and bloody lip. Then to me, recognition flickering because he’s seen me before at club events. Then to Razor, who he doesn’t know but can tell is dangerous from the way he stands.
Then his eyes land on Hawk.
His father.
The man who abandoned him twenty years ago.
Recognition hits Tyler like a physical blow. His face goes through a dozen emotions in two seconds—confusion, disbelief, understanding, betrayal, rage.
“What the fuck?” His voice cracks. “What the fuck is this?”
Hawk steps forward, hands visible and open, trying to de-escalate even though I can see the tension in every line of his body. “Tyler. Let her go. This doesn’t have to get worse than it already is.”
“Doesn’t have to get worse?” Tyler’s laugh is hysterical, broken, the sound of someone whose world just shattered. “You kidnapped my girl! You’re helping her steal from me! How the fuck does this get any worse than it already is?”
“She’s not your girl,” I say, stepping up beside Hawk because I can’t stay quiet anymore. “She left you. It’s over. Accept it and move on.”
“It’s not over until I say it’s over!” Tyler’s hand moves to his waistband, and I see the gun before he even pulls it all the way out.
“Gun!” I shout, and everyone moves.
Razor has Jade down behind a dumpster in half a second, covering her body with his. Hawk and I scatter in opposite directions, using the bikes and the van for cover.
Tyler levels the gun at Hawk, and for a terrible moment, I think he’s actually going to shoot his own father right here in this alley.
“Twenty years,” Tyler says, and his voice is shaking with rage and hurt and everything he’s ever felt about being abandoned. “Twenty years you’ve been gone, and now you show up here with her? What are you doing with my fuck of a father?!”
The question is directed at Jade, but she doesn’t answer, just stays behind Razor and the dumpster.
Sirens wail in the distance, getting closer fast. Someone called the cops. The neighbors must have heard the commotion on the fire escape, the shouting, all of it.
Tyler looks at the gun in his hand, then at us, then back toward the apartment building where lights are coming on in windows, and people are looking out to see what’s happening.
His face twists with indecision and rage.
“This isn’t over,” he says, backing up the fire escape toward his apartment. “You hear me, Jade? This isn’t fucking over. I’ll find you. I’ll find Mason. And when I do, I swear to God?—”
“Go,” Hawk says quietly, and there’s something broken in his voice. “Before the cops get here and everything gets worse for everyone.”
Tyler stares at his father for another long moment, and I can see him warring with himself about whether to shoot anyway.
Then he turns and runs up the fire escape, boots clanging on metal, disappearing into his apartment just as the sirens get close enough that I can see flashing lights reflecting off the buildings.
We have maybe ninety seconds before police cars arrive.
“Move!” Hawk orders.
Razor gets Jade to his bike in three seconds flat. I run for the van. Hawk’s already on his Harley, engine roaring to life with a sound that’s going to bring more attention, but we’re out of time for stealth.
We peel out of the alley just as the first police car turns onto the street, lights blazing.
Jade’s on the back of Razor’s bike, holding on tight, and I can see her face in my side mirror as we blur past the streetlights. She’s pale and shaking, and there’s blood still on her lip, but she’s alive.
The flash drive is in my pocket, warm against my leg. We got it. We got the evidence we came for.
But Tyler knows now. He saw his father with the woman he considers his property.
Everything about this situation just got worse.