Club 22 (Hades Book 3) Page 28

  "Well, I guess it was nice she tried?" I suggested, coming over to peer at the dish.

  Zed gave me a sidelong glance. "She was making Beef Wellington."

  I screwed my nose up and made a gagging sound. I despised mushrooms, and Seph fucking well knew it. It was Zed's favorite, though, so no points for guessing who my sister had been trying to impress tonight.

  "Want a drink?" Zed offered, heading for the liquor cabinet. "I'll make you a cocktail."

  Eagerly accepting, I perched on a barstool to watch as he mixed up my drink. Cass came in to join us a couple of minutes later, bending to kiss me, then giving Zed a bro nod.

  "Suppose you want me to make you one too," Zed commented, pouring my velvety, delicious espresso martini into a frosted glass.

  Cass grunted. "Nope. Whiskey will do me."

  "Easy to please." Zed grabbed out a bottle of whiskey and tossed a couple of ice cubes into a glass for Cass, then nodded toward the courtyard. "Let's sit outside where we don't have to smell this crap."

  Cass eyed the remains of Seph's dinner and smirked. "Looks delicious," he muttered, standing back to let me outside ahead of him. Such a gentleman.

  I loved Zed's courtyard. It was outdoors but totally private in the center of his fortress house. Unless Chase was flying drones, there was no way he could spy on us, nor could anyone else.

  "Where's Lucas?" Zed asked as we got comfy on the couch.

  "Sleeping," I replied with a smile. "He'd crashed out in the middle of his books."

  Zed nodded like that was unsurprising. "He's been working hard lately; I'm impressed."

  Cass grunted a sound of agreement. "He told me he wants to start doing practical labs as soon as his high school exams are done. Kid doesn't wanna waste any time."

  "I hope he's not doing it because he feels like we need him to upskill," I commented thoughtfully. "I hope he isn't feeling pressured to do this just to be more valuable or something."

  Both Cass and Zed stared at me for a moment, then Zed grinned.

  "Seriously?" he asked. "Fuck, you're cute when you're clueless."

  Confusion rippled over me as I sipped my drink. "Huh?"

  Cass leaned back in his seat, pulling his weed pouch out to roll a joint. "That's exactly why he's doing it, Red. He wants to impress you. Doesn't make it a bad thing, though. Gave him a goal to strive toward."

  The doorbell rang, interrupting whatever I might have said back to that, and I frowned. "That's too fast for pizza. They said they were slammed right now."

  "I've got it," Zed murmured, pulling his gun as he moved inside the house.

  I turned my attention to Cass, ready to argue the fact that Lucas wasn't doing all his EMT training just to impress me, but Cass met my gaze with a knowing smirk.

  He got up from his seat and came to settle beside me as he lit the joint. He took a drag, then passed it to me as he draped his arm around me.

  "Lucas is one hundred percent trying to impress you, Red," he rumbled, "but there's nothing wrong with that. He seems to enjoy the course material, so who cares what his motivation is?"

  "I guess," I mumbled, drawing a deep lungful of smoke.

  Zed returned then with no pizza in his hands but a manila folder instead and a curious look on his face. "That was Dallas," he announced. "I didn't invite him in because, well"—he waved a hand at Cass—"but he left this. Said it's the info on Lucas's genetic match."

  I sat up straighter, passing the joint back to Cass, and held my hand out for the folder.

  Zed handed it over, then sat back down. "Should we wake him up?"

  I hesitated a moment, my finger under the envelope flap. Then I licked my lips and shook my head. "We can show him in the morning; it's not time sensitive."

  And yet I wasn't exactly putting it down. Zed arched a brow at me accusingly but didn't stop me when I tugged the paper out of the envelope.

  "Oh shit," I breathed, my eyes scanning the first page before handing it to Zed. The second page was a photo of the man who was not Lucas's sibling... but his father. Or that certainly seemed to be what the results suggested.

  "Captain Brant Wilson," Zed read aloud from the paper. "Date of birth and genetic matches suggest he would be Lucas's biological father. Says he was enlisted in the US military until around ten years ago when he made the switch to working for... Ah fuck." Zed had spotted the part that’d made me curse.

  "The suspense is killing me, guys," Cass drawled, sounding anything but tense.

  "Ten years ago Brant Wilson took a position within the FBI. All records past that date have been redacted beyond Dallas's capabilities." Zed held the paper out to Cass to read for himself and gave me a grimace. "That can't be a coincidence. Right?"

  I snagged my drink from the table and downed the whole thing in one gulp. "Nope," I croaked, handing Zed the photograph of Brant Wilson that I'd been looking at. "Recognize him?"

  Zed frowned at the picture a moment, then his eyes widened and flicked back up to meet mine. "Is this—?"

  "Yup," I replied, feeling sick.

  "Fill me in," Cass rumbled.

  My mouth felt dry again, so I swiped his whiskey for a sip. "That"—I tapped the photograph that Zed handed him—"is someone who was caught snooping around the Cloudcroft docks a few months ago. He was caught taking pictures of incoming shipments, and when questioned, he claimed to be a spy for the Diamondbacks."

  Cass blew out a breath, grimacing. "You killed him."

  I nodded, dying inside. "I killed Lucas's dad."

  38

  Seph and the pizza interrupted any more discussions we could have about Lucas's bio-father and the fact that I'd put a bullet through his head just four months ago. Only one decision was made, and that was not to tell Lucas about my part in Brant Wilson's disappearance. We would give him the packet of information Dallas had delivered and leave it at that. For now.

  It had me all twisted up with guilt and anxiety, though, so I'd gone to bed alone for the night. Besides, my poor, worn-out vagina needed a night to herself for recovery. I wasn't used to having such an active sex life, not that I was complaining, but every now and then I felt the overwhelming need to sleep alone. Be alone.

  A desire I found myself regretting some hours later when I woke up to the cold bite of metal circling my wrist. It was the click of the cuff closing that'd woken me, and despite knowing I'd just been handcuffed, I still tried to jerk out of bed on instinct.

  "Ah-ah," the shadow-shrouded figure above me scolded, stepping back so he was just out of reach. He'd only cuffed one of my hands to the headboard, but it was enough to trap me. "You look so pretty when you sleep, Darling."

  A deep shudder ran through me as I wondered how long he'd been in my room watching me sleep. Fuck, I was never sleeping alone again.

  "What the fuck are you doing here, Chase?" I snarled, yanking on the handcuff and testing how tight he'd done it. The whole idea of dislocating my thumb to slip the cuff was pure fiction, and I wasn't stupid enough to attempt it... again. So I just had to hope he'd rushed and not done the cuff tight enough.

  My ex chuckled softly, flicking my bedside lamp on so I could see his sick smile as he peered down at me. "Just paying you a little visit, my sweet. You never stop to chat when we pass in the street; it hurts my feelings."

  I tugged on the cuff again, furious that he'd caught me vulnerable and terrified at the idea he'd been able to break into Zed's house undetected. How many times had he broken in without us knowing?

  "Your days are numbered, Chase," I growled, pulling my hand harder against the metal. It wouldn't be the first time I'd slipped a handcuff. It hurt to get over the joint at the base of my thumb but wasn't impossible. "You must know I'm coming for you soon. Not even you are deluded enough to think you're getting away with all of this."

  His grin spread wider. "I look forward to it," he replied with total sincerity. "I can't wait to see you fight back. It's going to be so delicious." He pulled something from his pocket and stroked his cheek
with it, like a lucky rabbit's foot or something. "So very delicious."

  I jerked on my cuffed hand again and hissed as the metal ripped my skin open. A little blood would just lubricate it, though. "What did you come here for, Chase? Just to prove you could?"

  He shrugged, that smile unshakable. "That, and I wanted to pick up a souvenir." He turned his hand around, showing me what he'd been rubbing on his cheek so affectionately. It wasn't anything so innocent as an animal's foot. It was a thick lock of copper-red hair.

  I drew a sharp breath, my eyes automatically shifting to the spill of my hair across my pillow, but Chase's malicious chuckle made my blood run cold.

  "Don't worry, Darling," he purred, "I wouldn't touch a single hair on your head. They're far too pretty right where they are."

  A surge of adrenaline shot through me, and I wrenched my hand through the cuff with a blaze of pain. Chase darted out of reach as I threw myself toward the bedside table to grab my gun. Except...

  "Looking for this?" he taunted, spinning my Desert Eagle around his finger, then kissing the barrel like an old lover. He was backing slowly toward the open window of my bedroom, and I knew I had a choice to make.

  "You're a walking dead man, Chase Lockhart," I snarled. "I'm going to enjoy killing you again. This time I'll make sure it's painful."

  He cackled with glee. "Not if I get you first, Darling. An eye for an eye and all that biblical shit."

  With a quiet, frustrated scream, I did nothing to stop him as he disappeared out the window and into the night. I didn't have time, and he would live to die another day. I raced out of my room and down the hall to Seph's loft bedroom.

  The door was open, and my whole body went weak with fear as I took the stairs three at a time to get into the loft space that Zed had set up for my sister. I burst through into her bedroom with my heart thundering so hard I could barely hear anything else, expecting to see the worst.

  But there she was, still fast asleep and snoring like a lumberjack. She hadn't even stirred with all the noise I'd made, which explained how Chase had cut her hair without her even noticing. Fucking hell.

  For a long moment I stood there staring at her, my chest heaving and my fists clenched at my sides while I tried to get a handle on my rage and fear and frustration.

  A movement on the stairs made me flinch hard, then I let out a long, slow breath when I saw it was Zed. He gave me a puzzled, concerned look, and I laid a finger over my lips to tell him to be quiet.

  He nodded his understanding and waited as I pulled Seph's blanket up over her shoulders. Then I checked the small gable window to ensure it was locked from the inside—even though I knew how Chase had come in. When I returned to Zed, I was only a fraction calmer than when I'd come running in to save my sister.

  "What's going on?" Zed whispered as we tiptoed back down the loft stairs and quietly closed the door at the bottom behind us. "Did something happen?"

  A small, slightly hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest, and I raked my fingers through my hair. But Zed caught my forearm before I could complete the gesture and jerked me closer in alarm.

  "You're bleeding. What the fuck happened, Dare?"

  I peered at the hand in question and grimaced at the mess I'd made of the skin. It was nothing life-threatening, but now that he'd reminded me, it was stinging like a motherfucker.

  Instead of standing there in the hallway and giving him the whole stupid story, I nodded in the direction of his bedroom. He took the hint and strode along the hallway with his fingers still tight around my forearm like he could somehow heal my scrape with the power of his mind. How useful that skill would be in my world made me wish I believed in magic.

  Once we were safely in his room with the door shut, Zed pushed me over to his bed and glared down at me. “Stay here. Don’t move.” He grabbed a gun from his bedside table and disappeared out of the room again, no doubt going to do a sweep of the house and ensure Chase wasn’t still lurking behind a potted plant or something. Not that he knew who he was looking for, but he knew a sweep was warranted.

  When he got back, he didn’t look any calmer. Hell, if anything, he looked more stressed out. "Dare, start fucking talking before I have an aneurysm."

  "Chase," I muttered, looking up at him with regret. I knew he was about to blast me for not calling out for help. "He broke in. Cuffed me to the bed."

  Zed's whole body went rigid, and the air crackled with violence. "What—"

  "I'm fine." I cut him off before his imagination could run wild. "He just wanted to prove he could. And he took my fucking gun." That was probably more distressing than him breaking into my room in the first place.

  Zed's brows hiked. "He took the Desert Eagle?"

  I gave a sour nod. "He's been obsessed with it since he’s been back; I kept catching him eyeing it when we were in person. I knew he'd try for it at some stage, but... I wasn't expecting this."

  Zed blew out a long breath and sat down on the edge of the bed beside me. "Why didn't you call out for help? Any one of us could have come to—"

  "Come to my rescue?" I snickered, trying to soften the mocking in my voice. "I wasn't in any danger. Not really. And at first I was worried that if I screamed, Seph would come to investigate and get hurt."

  Zed scowled, taking my injured hand into his lap to examine further. "And then?"

  I hissed when his fingertip pressed a sore part of my wrist. "And then he made it clear he'd already visited Seph, so I made the decision to let him go and make sure she was unharmed. Which, as you saw, she is. Just missing a chunk of hair."

  Zed gave me a disgusted look, and I agreed with a hollow laugh.

  "Want me to wake Lucas up to clean this up?" Zed offered, arching a brow in question. "He needs practical medical experience."

  I bit my lip, another worry running through my head. "Zed... what if Chase found Cass while he was looking for Seph's room?"

  He shook his head, unconcerned. "Cass isn't here. He got a lead on one of his projects and headed out disguised as me again."

  I wrinkled my nose. "Maybe that's why Chase decided to break in tonight. He thought you were gone, and... shit." I jerked up from the bed. "What if he hurt Lucas?" I was already out of the door before finishing that question. Rushing over to Lucas's bedroom, I shoved the door open.

  Yeah, I wasn't a big one for polite knocking when I was worried about my loved one's safety.

  "Hayden?" Lucas mumbled, raising his sleepy head to squint at me in the darkness. "What's going on? Is everything okay? No, what? That's such a dumb question; of course it's not or you wouldn't be—"

  "Lucas, shut up," Zed cut him off as he rambled in half-asleep panic. "Wake up and come to my room. Dare needs some first aid and a fucking hug, but it's not urgent."

  With a firm hand on my back, Zed turned me around and steered me back into his room, giving Lucas a minute to scrub the sleep haze from his eyes.

  "He's fine," Zed murmured, confirming what I'd just seen. "You're all kinds of twitchy, though. Understandable, but unnecessary. Everyone is okay. I'm guessing Chase was already nervous about being caught. Knowing his time was limited, he'd have gone straight to Seph and back to you,."

  I nodded, knowing he was probably right but still anxious as fuck. It could have ended so much worse. He could have hurt Seph or Lucas. He could have found Cass still alive. He could have...

  "Shit," I breathed, dropping back onto the edge of Zed's bed with a heavy sigh. "Zed, he's messing with my head, and it's working."

  Zed smiled sadly, nudging me further onto the bed. "I know, baby," he whispered, "but we'll win the war. You know we will."

  I clenched my teeth hard but forced myself to nod. I didn't always believe it, though. Some days I really did wonder if Chase would win... and what that would look like.

  "I'm here," Lucas announced, entering Zed's room as he tugged a T-shirt over his bare chest. "First aid kit?"

  "Under my bathroom sink," Zed told him, nodding that way. "It's just a skin ab
rasion, should only need antiseptic cream and a bandage."

  Lucas nodded, following Zed's directions to grab everything he needed along with a warm, wet washcloth to clean up the blood.

  Before he started, though, he placed everything down on the bedside table and leaned down to wrap me in a soul-warming hug that I never wanted to end. The kind of hug that instantly eased my tension.

  "What's that for?" I muttered when he pulled away again.

  Lucas shrugged. "Dunno. Zeddy Bear said you needed a hug, so I provided. Now show me what the damage is."

  I obediently held out my hand to him, shooting an amused look at Zed. "I wonder what else you'll do if Zed tells you." As soon as the words left my lips, I bit my cheek. That had been supposed to stay inside my head, but... oh well.

  Zed's gaze flared hot; he was completely on the same page as me.

  Lucas flicked a glance up from my wrist, a playful grin on his full lips. "Be a good patient, and you can find out."

  Lust and anticipation swept through me, dissolving the fear Chase had left behind. There really was no better therapy. And besides, there was no way in hell I was going back to sleep alone tonight.

  "Done deal," I murmured, grinning wickedly at Zed, who simply rolled his eyes and closed his bedroom door. Then locked it. We definitely didn't need Seph interrupting.

  39

  Seph gave an exaggerated yawn as she made her way into the kitchen for breakfast, her school uniform perfect but her hair a mess. "Dare," she groaned, "can you braid my hair for me? I can't seem to make it sit right this morning."

  I exchanged a quick look with Zed over my coffee mug, then gave Seph a warm smile. "Sure thing, brat. Come sit." I hopped off my bar stool and patted it.

  She gave me a frown. "What happened to your hand?"

  "Um..." I glanced down at my bandaged hand and wrist. The scrape over my thumb joint had been deep, so Lucas had needed to apply a gauze dressing, then secure it all with an elastic bandage around my hand and wrist. "Picked up my curling iron at the wrong end," I lied.