Chapter 3
Callan
“It’s not just going straight to voicemail,” Ethan says, hanging up.
“Leave a message then telling him if he isn’t already dead, he will be when we find his sorry arse,” I fire back.
Ethan cuts me a look that promises violence later and dials again anyway.
Annabelle stands too still beside me, staring at the open stretch of yard behind the unit as if Aidan might simply appear out of thin air, bloodied and swearing.
I want to put her back in the car. I want to lock every door between her and this place.
Instead, I keep my gun low and scan the edges of the lot, the fence line, the roofline, every blind corner where someone could be waiting to take another shot at our lives.
Ethan says, very calmly, “Answer your fucking phone, Aid. If you’re conscious, call back now.”
He ends it and looks at the blood trail again.
Annabelle swallows. “That’s a lot of blood.”
“It looks worse than it is,” I say.
She closes her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, she looks pale enough to disappear into the hard afternoon light.
“We need to move,” Ethan says. “Standing out here discussing Aidan’s blood loss is not helping.”
“Facts. We are going back to the penthouse.”
“What?” Annabelle whispers. “Isn’t that the opposite of what we should be doing?”
“It is,” I say. “Which is why we’re doing it.”
Annabelle stares at me. “That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. Jack knows we won’t take you somewhere random for long. He knows we have to regroup. He knows Aidan is missing. If he wants us stretched thin, panicked, and reactive, he expects us to scatter.”
“And you want to do the thing he expects?” she asks.
“No,” Ethan says. “I want to do it on our terms.”
I look back at the warehouse. Bullet holes. Blood. Empty space. Aidan is alive enough to move. Jack is alive enough to take him or go with him. Whoever the third shooter is, they are packing submachine guns and are still out there. I hate not knowing which threat deserves first place.
I also hate that this place isn’t already crawling with the police. Someone must’ve heard the gunfire. But then I look around again.
This place is completely deserted. So, maybe not.
“We get inside,” I say. “We lock the place down. We check every camera feed, every message, every route. We wait for Aidan to either call or kick the door in.”
“Or bleed out somewhere,” Annabelle says, voice thin.
I turn to her. “He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I say. “I know him.”
She looks at the blood again and goes quiet.
Ethan gestures backwards. “Get back in the car. We are exposed out here.”
This time, she doesn’t argue. I move first, crossing the yard with my weapon low but ready, scanning left and right.
I get Annabelle into the back first. Ethan slides in beside her again, shutting her in with his body and his temper.
I take the driver’s seat and pull out fast, but not fast enough to draw attention.
The trick is always the same. Look normal while everything inside you is tearing itself apart.
My phone sits in the holder on the dash. Silent. Useless.
I check the mirror. Annabelle has both hands knotted in her lap. Her face is white. Ethan’s arm is along the back of the seat behind her, not touching, but ready. He keeps watching the roads behind us and his phone in turns like he can force it to ring.
“Aidan can handle himself,” I say, more for her than for me.
“He’s right,” Ethan says. “Aidan’s hard to kill.”
She looks at him, then at me in the mirror. “And if Jack took him?”
My hands tighten on the wheel. “Then Jack made a mistake.”
Nobody speaks after that.
Traffic thickens as we come back into the city proper.
I take a route that loops twice, checks mirrors, changes lanes at the last second, and gives anyone following too many chances to expose themselves.
No one does. Either we’re clean, or whoever is on us is better than average. Neither option helps my mood.
Annabelle’s bag buzzes once from the floor at her feet.
Every muscle in me locks.
She looks down at it like it just hissed.
“Don’t,” Ethan says.
“I know,” she whispers.
It keeps buzzing.
Once. Then again.
Ethan’s hand lands over the bag before she can reach for it. “Leave it.”
Her eyes lift to mine in the mirror. Fear sits in them, raw and bright. “What if it’s Aidan?”
“It isn’t,” I say.
“How do you know?”
“Because he wouldn’t text your phone.”
That shuts her up, because she knows I’m right.
The bag goes quiet for three seconds, then starts again. A proper run of vibrations this time. Repeated. Insistent. Deliberate.
“He’s calling me,” she says.
“He would be who in this scenario?” I ask, pulling into the underground parking at the apartment block.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Either of them.”
The phone stops before she can answer it.
But then Ethan’s phone goes off, making her jump.
“Aidan,” Ethan growls, answering his phone. “Where the fuck—”
“Speaker,” I interrupt.
He switches it over, and Aidan’s voice comes over the line. “… fine. Got some shit to deal with. Stop calling me. I’ll be back soon.”
“Aidan—”
He’s already hung up.
“Is that good or bad?” Annabelle whispers.
“Well, he’s alive and in a position to use his phone,” I state. “Good?”
“Good,” she says, and drops her head into her hands. “Please take me inside. I need the bathroom.”
I park up and get out before the engine fully dies.
Ethan is already opening the rear door for Annabelle. She climbs out too quickly, one hand over her mouth, the other clamped around her bag strap. Pale. Shaking. Done.
I sweep the concrete expanse first. Nothing moves except a woman loading shopping into the boot of a hatchback three rows over. She doesn’t look over.
“Inside,” I say.
Annabelle nods and starts for the lift. Ethan stays close enough to catch her if her legs give out. I go first, gun hidden again, eyes tracking every reflective surface we pass. The mirrored lift doors give us back a warped little portrait of disaster.
The doors open. We get in. I hit the button for the penthouse and listen to the mechanical rise.
When they open, Annabelle launches forward before either one of us can stop her to do a sweep. She is in her room before either one of us can stop her.
“Fast when she wants to be,” I mutter.
“She has things to take care of,” Ethan says, doing the sweep anyway, because we would be stupid not to.
“Annabelle?” I call out, pushing her door open.
“Bathroom,” she calls back.
“You okay?”
“Not shot or dead, so that’s a plus, I suppose.” She opens the door and exhales. “Also, my period has finished, so yay for that.”
I give her a slow blink, not sure what to say to that, so I blurt out the first thing I can think of. “Is that normal? To be so short?”
She presses her lips together, trying not to break into hysterical laughter. “For me, yes.”
“Okay, good. I just thought, stress, grief, undernourished…”
“I’m good,” she says and sits on the bed. “Aidan. He sounded okay, right?”
“He did,” I say, sitting next to her and wrapping my arms around her. I’m still surprised by this. But I’m reaching the point where I want to keep doing it because it makes me feel seen. “He sounded shot and pissed off, but alive and not a prisoner.”
“What could he possibly want to deal with that he wouldn’t say or involve you?”
“We will ask him when we see him.” It’s all I’ve got because the same question is bouncing around my skull.
“I hate this,” she says quietly.
“I know.”
“No, I mean this bit.” She tips her head back and looks at the ceiling. “The waiting. The not knowing. The stupid domestic bits in between all the terror. Going to the loo. Asking for water. Being glad my period finished.”
A rough laugh nearly gets out of me, but I kill it. “That sounds about right.”
Her eyes drift to me. “You really don’t think he’s been taken?”
I think about Aidan’s voice. Flat. Irritated. Brief. Not afraid. Not forced. I know his temper. I know the sound of him when he is trying not to murder somebody through a phone.
“No,” I say. “If he was being held, we’d know.”
“How?”
“Because he’d make sure we did.”
That earns a weak breath from her that might be the start of a laugh. It dies quickly.
Ethan comes back with an uncapped bottle of water and hands it to her. He sits on her other side, and she leans her head on his shoulder, taking a sip from the bottle. “Any ideas on what we do now?”
“I have a few,” Ethan says with a slow smirk.
She sits up so suddenly that she spills her water. “We can’t… Aidan…”
“Is fine. He is on to something, and he will call us when he can. If we interfere or go off half-cocked without any information, we could get him killed.”
She lets that sink in as I fire Ethan a vicious stare.
He shrugs and leans forward, elbows on his knees. “He knows something we don’t. Probably a shitload. Until he fills us in, we are better off staying here instead of running around town trying to find out what he knows, or him. We let him work it his way.”
“And if he’s in danger?”
“He isn’t. At least not immediately.”
“Was that supposed to be comforting?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She huffs out a breath, then her eyes find mine. “And what do you say about letting Aidan work on whatever he knows?”
“I say if I start talking honestly about Aidan’s choices, I’ll end up smashing something expensive,” I reply.
That gets the faintest breath out of her. Not a laugh. Close enough.
“He went after or with someone. Not away from it. That voice was clipped because he didn’t want a conversation. Not because he couldn’t have one.”
She twists the cap back onto the bottle and stares at her damp hand. “So, we just sit here.”
“And find something to occupy the time,” Ethan says.
“And if Aidan is dying and we are in bed, then what?”
“Then I’ll have the memory of your pussy wrapped around my cock to help me with the guilt.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “Seriously?”
“Quite serious,” Ethan replies. “Tinks is spiralling. Sex is a good distraction.” He doesn’t even wait for agreement. He stands up and strips off.
I glare at him. He has put me in a shit situation. But one that I can’t deny, I’m curious to test out. I’ve had sex exactly once. Ten years ago. I hated the entire experience. I want to see how it feels with Annabelle.
I stare at him. “You are unbelievable.”
Annabelle makes a strangled sound. “Ethan.”
He turns his head towards her, completely naked, cock hard, completely at ease with the fact that the world is on fire. “What?”
“Aidan is missing.”
“He called,” Ethan says. “He sounded like himself. Angry. Impatient. Alive. Unless you want to sit here and shake until he walks through the door, I’m offering a better use of the time.”
I snort despite myself. It’s typical Ethan. Cold, controlled, but I know underneath, he is serious about the distraction.
Slowly, I rise and pull my white tee over my head.
Annabelle gasps.
The sound goes straight through me.
She is shocked. So am I.
I never take my shirt off in front of anyone unless I have to. I don’t strip for fun like Aidan sometimes does. I don’t get curious and join in because my brother decides sex is a coping strategy.
But this is Annabelle. Nothing with her has followed the rules I built to survive.
I flick the button and unzip my jeans, stopping just short of pulling them down. “If you don’t want this, say so.”
Ethan makes an impatient noise. “She wants it.”
I watch her instead of him. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she breathes.
The word hits me low and hard.
Not timid. Not forced. Breathless, frightened, wanting. For a second, I can only stand there with my jeans half-open and my pulse pounding far too fast, because she said it to me while looking straight at me, and I don’t know what to do with how much that matters.
Ethan, of course, knows exactly what to do with it.
He reaches for the hem of her top. “Arms up, Tinks.”
She obeys, still watching me.
That look does something violent to my insides.
Her shirt comes off. Then her bra. I drag in a breath and almost regret it. Pale skin, flushed cheeks, nipples already tight.
“Lie back,” Ethan murmurs.
She does, but her eyes keep finding me.
I force my hands to move and shove my jeans down. My cock is hard enough to hurt. Annabelle sees it, and her lips part. That tiny change nearly undoes me.
Ethan climbs onto the bed and settles over her, kissing her mouth, her throat, one breast, and I forget, for one savage second, that I have hated this with everyone else.
I move to the bed slowly, aware of every inch between us. Aware of Ethan’s mouth on her skin. Aware of Annabelle’s breathing turning unsteady as she looks at me like she is waiting to see if I will stop, retreat, or decide I can’t do this after all.
I can do this.
I want to do this.
That is a far more dangerous truth.
Ethan lifts his head. “Get over here, Cal.”
I climb onto the mattress near her legs and stop.
My hands hover uselessly for half a beat before I set one on her calf.
The contact punches through me harder than I expect.
Not revulsion. Not that old instinct to get away.
Just a violent rush of need and something darker beneath it. Mine. Safe. Ours.
Annabelle watches my face. “You okay?”
I meet her eyes. “Ask me that again in five minutes.”