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F or some reason, Max was surprised to see Jennifer and Ryan pull up and park just as he reached William and Michelle’s brownstone.

Max didn’t think the couples were that close, but on the other hand, Michelle was a natural-born hostess.

William and Michelle’s two-story home was located in a quiet suburban neighborhood with manicured lawns, trimmed hedges, and meandering walkways. Down the block, a park connected to an elementary school.

A caravan of Lily’s gang arrived and they trailed inside out of the cold weather. Lily had caught a ride with Sara and Chris instead of Blake.

Getting all these people together in one place was perfect and Max couldn’t have planned it better.

The threatening letters Blake had shown him had all been hand-delivered, and Max suspected that whoever had sent the crudely pasted notes was close to Lily.

And that included Blake, at least for now.

At first, Max thought the threats might be from a person in passing. Sometimes, all it took was a slight encounter to gain a sick person’s attention.

But Max didn’t believe the threats were from a chance meeting.

First off, whoever had delivered the letters had known Lily’s address.

Of course, if a stranger had followed Lily home—then they would know her apartment building. If they watched her collect her mail, then they would know what apartment number.

So, he couldn’t be sure about his theory of it being someone she knew.

Earlier, cold fear had punched him in the gut when Lily had almost been run over. His hands hadn’t stopped shaking the whole drive to William and Michelle’s home.

Thinking over what happened, Max at first thought it had been Blake who had pushed her and then stumbled forward pulling Lily with him. But the force with which Blake propelled forward changed Max’s mind.

He hadn’t seen whomever knocked into Blake because his eyes had been on Lily. And while he cursed himself for not seeing what had happened, he was glad his attention had been solely focused on her.

Snatching her into his arms had been instinctual.

“You coming?” William asked from the doorway.

Max followed the man inside the house. The inside was decorated for Thanksgiving as the holiday was just around the corner.

Max admired William’s warm and cozy home. The place he rented was a dump. It had been cheap to rent, but still a dump.

“Why don’t you rent one of my rooms?” William suggested as he closed the front door. “Or did you buy something?”

“No, I didn’t buy anything yet. The prices of homes here are too high. Once my business grows more, I plan to buy,” Max said as they walked farther into the man’s large home.

“Check out one of my rooms or the basement. You can rent one.” William gestured to the hallway.

“I can’t believe you guys still do game night,” Max smirked, changing the subject.

The monthly event had been going on as far back as he could remember. And back when he and Lily had dated, they had attended every time he had come back for leave—until he’d gone abroad.

“Yeah, it’s Michelle’s thing, you know. Some months people can’t make it, but our group is growing. We reconnected with people from college.”

Just then a knock sounded and William answered the door. Two men stepped inside and shook off the cold.

“This is Rick.” William pointed to a tall man with dark hair and a smoothly shaven face. The guy looked to be around Lily’s age.

“And that’s Mark.” The second man was stockier with shaggy brown hair and a scraggly beard.

“This is Max, we go way back. Mark and Rick both went to college with Michelle mostly, but I think you had one class with Lily, right, Rick?”

“Yeah,” Rick said flatly.

Mark gave Max an up-nod greeting and headed into the other room.

Rick didn’t give Max the time of day.

Max was used to both reactions. His size usually intimidated the fuck out of other people, so he wasn’t bothered by Rick’s attitude.

Both men were now placed on his suspects list and they would stay on that list until he found the person threatening Lily.

“They’ll warm up,” William told him with a grin.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Max grunted.

William pushed him lightly toward the hallway. “Go check out the rooms. And rent one from me.”

“I will, but later.”

William looked skeptical.

“I promise,” Max said.

Two hours later around 10 PM, a game of Cards Against Humanity wrapped up, and drinks had been consumed along with catered food.

Max wandered out of the room and into the hallway. A few people had bowed out of the game early after only a few hands, but Max had hung in there until the end.

The girls, Michelle, Lily, and Sara, shoed them out of the kitchen and away from the large dining room table where they had gathered.

“We want to gossip and do the dishes,” Sara teased the rest of them. “Go, but don’t leave because dessert is in a few minutes.”

William, Blake, and Chris ended up watching a college football game on the wide screen TV in the den.

Wandering into the hallway, Max started looking at the guest rooms. It might be a good idea to take William up on his offer—if Michelle was on board. He could save a buttload of money.

Max took the stairs downward to the basement. The whole house was big and William had pointed out the addition they’d had done a few years ago.

Just about to enter the basement’s main room, Max stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Jennifer, along with Ryan and Mark, were sitting on the sectional that took up a good portion of the room. On the table in front of them were half-finished beers and bowls of chips.

Rick was encased in a recliner with his feet up, the man was buried in his phone.

Jennifer checked her phone when it buzzed.

“Who’s that?” Mark asked.

“My mom.” The woman rolled her eyes. “She’s always guilt-tripping me about Scotty. According to her, I don’t spend enough time with him.”

“You don’t,” Ryan pointed out and Jennifer glared, but her brother continued. “Why did you bring up you had a son with Blake like that?”

Jennifer shrugged. “She needed to know.”

“You want Lily and Blake to divorce?” Mark asked Jennifer.

“No, you idiot. I don’t want them divorced. If that happens, the money will stop,” Jennifer huffed.

“Maybe it should,” Ryan muttered under his breath.

“Lily has never given you the time of day,” Jennifer sneered at Ryan. “She doesn’t even remember you, and you both shared a class together in college.”

“I look different now than I did then.” Ryan squeezed the remote.

“Yeah”, Rick said, dragging his attention from his phone. “You used to be skinny, have pimples, and wear glasses.”

“So what?” Ryan shrugged, sounding offended. “I got Lasik surgery. I work out now and my acne is gone.”

“Not quite.” Rick flicked a glance at Ryan’s face.

“Fuck off.”

“Nobody remembers you, bro,” Jennifer pointed out. “You even had to remind Michelle earlier upstairs of who you were.”

“Shut up. I play online games with Sara’s younger brother all the time,” Ryan mutter.

“That doesn’t count,” Rick said.

“I’m curious, did you want to kill them?” Jennifer asked Ryan.

Max’s body turned to granite. As of yet, they still hadn’t noticed him there, but then he was standing very still.

“What?” Ryan looked startled. “No!”

“You pushed me hard. Lily was almost killed.”

Ryan turned on his sister. “I didn’t push you.”

Jennifer frowned, squinting at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“Whatever. I would never do something like that. Not to Lily.”

Seeing the pain on Ryan’s face, Max almost believed him.

“Then who in the world pushed me?” Jennifer sounded bewildered.

“Wait…what?” Rick said, looking back up from his phone. “Who got pushed?”

“Keep up, dude,” Mark groaned, rolling his eyes.

“I got pushed right into both Lily and Blake, and Lily was hanging onto Blake,” Jennifer said.

“No, Blake was hanging onto Lily,” Ryan pointed out.

“Whatever,” she snapped.

“What the fuck?” Rick sounded choked up.

“Yeah. Blake took Lily with him when he went down,” Ryan said.

“And Lily was thrown into traffic,” Jennifer added.

“Scared the shit out of me. I thought she was going to die,” Ryan said with a grimace.

“Is she okay?” Rick gaped at them.

“She looked okay earlier, you saw her upstairs,” Mark reminded Rick dryly.

“Yeah, she was shaken, but otherwise okay. Max saved her,” Ryan muttered, taking a bite of a chip.

“There’s always a fucking hero,” Rick muttered and tossed back several swallows of beer.

Max squinted at Rick. The guy sounded bitter.

“Let’s watch a movie,” Mark said and Ryan tossed the guy the remote.

Rather than enter the basement, Max took a step back to be completely out of their field of vision and he headed back up the stairs.

Rick had just moved to the top of his suspect list.