Chapter 56
Cole
Cole stretched out on the bed and yawned. He had slept for three hours and was naked since his clothes were a crime scene. He cracked the door open and grabbed the bag he had heard Lydia put there when he got out of the shower and into bed.
The bloody clothes were in a pile on the bathroom floor. He shoved them into a plastic bag and got dressed, frowning at the memories of the idiot he had to hurt.
The torture lasted hours because the guy wouldn’t talk, but he broke down eventually.
Cole got his answers and snapped the guy’s neck before calling his old friend to help him get rid of the body.
Ramirez served with him a few years back and worked for his brother, doing things Cole only imagined were of a violent nature.
He was particularly good at paying attention to every tiny detail to make sure a body was never found or, if it was, the information it provided was controlled.
When Ramirez arrived at the safe house and saw how fuming Cole was, he sent him away and told him he’d take care of the body on his own.
Walking into Daniel’s place and seeing Lydia standing there barefoot and half asleep calmed the fire in him. She didn’t cower—she acknowledged his rage, accepted it, and gave him space, despite their very significant size difference.
When Cole walked out of the guest room, Daniel and Lydia were on the couch. Daniel shot up as soon as he saw Cole and strode straight to the coffee machine with a determined and annoyed look.
“What’s up your ass?” Cole asked.
Daniel mumbled something incoherent in response, so Cole looked at Lydia, but she just shook her head and smiled.
Cole walked up to Daniel in the kitchen, who was working his too-large coffee machine. He put his bag of bloody clothes on the floor. “I need to incinerate this. That coffee for me?”
“No, it’s for her. She didn’t want me to make it until you woke up because the machine is loud.”
“Is that why you’re all pissed?” Cole chuckled. “Can I get one, too?”
Daniel nodded toward the bag. “Leave it, I’ll take care of it later.” He handed Cole a double espresso and made Lydia a cappuccino.
Cole joined them both on the couch, trying really hard not to poke fun at his friend with the way he stared at Lydia drinking her coffee.
She closed her eyes for a second and smiled at him.
It looked like a nice moment, but Daniel looked at her like she was doing a whole lot more than just sipping coffee.
The fuck are you seeing, brother?
Cole shook his head and downed the coffee at the sudden reminder of why he was there to begin with.
“The guy Langford called, he’s the one that hired the fuckers that attacked Becca and Lydia.”
Daniel’s body stiffened. Lydia leaned back on the couch and pulled her legs up.
“Did he tell you what Langford asked specifically?” She looked shaken, but her voice was still its usual steady self.
Cole nodded. “Took a bit of…convincing, but yeah. Langford told him to get his baddest, ugliest guys to torture her and make her wish she was dead. Didn’t specifically tell him to do what that Luthor guy said, but he used the words ‘nothing but a shell’ when he called, so same difference as far as I’m concerned. ”
“And then he hired Luthor and Vince. So that’s why we couldn’t find a connection to Langford—he probably didn’t even know them.” Lydia looked up at Daniel, who was fuming quietly beside her.
Cole spoke to Daniel, but watched Lydia’s reaction carefully. “If he thinks you're to blame for losing someone he loves, and he’s trying to pay you back by attacking Becca…”
Daniel grabbed Lydia’s thigh. “It puts a target on Lydia.”
“No,” Lydia said, shaking her head. “He has no reason to believe I mean anything to you. To anyone looking in, I’m close to Becca, not you. Especially now that I’m working with her.”
“He’ll find out eventually, little one,” Cole said with a sigh.
“He needs to die.” Daniel’s grip tightened on Lydia’s thigh.
Cole nodded. “I can get rid of him quietly. We can’t make too much noise with this.”
Lydia stood up and shook her head. “You can’t make any noise with this. You’re both angry and thinking about revenge instead of a solution.”
Daniel pulled her back down beside him. “You don’t want him dead? After what he did to you and Becca? What he’s still going to try to do?”
Cole watched quietly. Daniel’s voice was getting angrier and louder, but Lydia didn’t look bothered by it at all. He would have stepped in if she had. Instead, her brow went up, and she looked at Daniel with a challenge in her eyes.
“Daniel, we both know I’d kill him so slowly, Cole would need a puke bag. I’m not saying he doesn’t need to die—that is the only way this ends. We just need to do this right. Mark Langford, CEO of Condukt turns up dead—that makes headlines.”
“Then we’ll make it look like an accident.” Daniel’s voice softened.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s too high profile. Even an accident will be investigated and I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
Cole leaned back in the chair. “So we make sure they don’t investigate.”
Lydia’s smile widened. “Exactly. We need to discredit him first, and it needs to be something that will mean no one’s surprised when he turns up dead.”