Page 38 of Single Teddy (Mayberry Protectors #6)

THIRTY-TWO

WESLEY

I didn’t know at what point I passed out and was blindfolded, but at some point, I came back to my senses and everything was dark. Dark and bone-chillingly quiet.

The soft rhythmic splash of waves on shore filled the silence, but whereas the sound was usually relaxing, soothing, it just made my heart beat faster and everything more ominous.

What had I gotten myself into? Why didn’t I listen to Teddy and his teammates? Did I really think I, a teacher, knew more about crime and security than a bunch of people who had dedicated their lives to protecting innocent people?

Agh.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Wesley .

I’d made a mess of things, and even worse, I’d made everything so much worse for the twins.

Shit .

The twins .

“Valentin? Niko?” I whispered.

Were they suffering the same fate as me, or had they been taken back to their father?

“Mr. Wesley?” I heard a tiny, broken voice, but I couldn’t tell which of the kids it was.

Shoot. I had hoped they wouldn’t drag the kids into…whatever this was.

“Boys? Are you okay? Where are you?” I asked and started twitching in an attempt to get the blindfold loose.

“I don’t know,” said the same voice.

“I can’t see anything,” said another.

At least they were both here. At least they hadn’t separated them, which was a shit consolation prize, but it was something.

“Hang on. Let me try something.” I groaned and tried to find some sort of grip, any kind of surface, but there was nothing around me. Only the floor.

So I flopped down to my side and rubbed my face along the floor until the blindfold came loose and hung around my neck.

I tried to sit back up, but with my hands tied behind me, it was hard, so I focused on the kids as much as I could with my shitty eyesight.

Everything was slightly blurred but I could tell the poor things were tied up, squatting next to each other with a dirty rag covering their eyes, similar to mine.

I crawled toward them, and by the time I reached them, I was aching all over. The pain and exhaustion would have to wait. I had to help them first.

I bit the dirty rags off both their faces and pulled them down so, at the very least, they could see too.

“Mr. Wesley!” Valentin and Niko exclaimed with heartbreaking relief as if the poor things thought we were free when in fact we were anything but.

“Boys! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Injured?”

I didn’t wait for them to tell me. I scanned their bodies looking for any hints of harm, other than the tight restraints that had made both their wrists red.

“I’m okay,” Niko said.

“I’m okay too.” Valentin agreed.

I sighed in relief—it was the small graces in situations like these.

It was only then that I took notice of our surroundings.

The building was small and rather damp, with wooden beams supporting the angled roof and the walls seemingly made of wooden planks and not much else.

There was a layer of dust and dirt across the floor, but in the middle of the room, there was a large, bolted trapdoor.

“We’re in a boathouse,” I mumbled and turned to the kids. “Does your dad own a boathouse? A boat?”

Was he planning on shoving us into a boat and abandoning us in the middle of the ocean? Or taking us onto the mainland for easier disposal? I didn’t know which fate was worse.

“Boat?” Niko asked. “I-I don’t know.”

I took deep breaths and tried to steady the chaos inside me before I spoke again. Even if it was hard or impossible, I had to keep a semblance of control. For them. If these were our last moments, I didn’t want them to be shaking like leaves.

“I’m so sorry, boys. I should have… I should have done something sooner.”

Or I should have let things slide and run to Teddy for help and advice. Instead, I’d made everything ten times worse.

But it wasn’t entirely my fault. There was someone else who’d screwed up, not that he cared.

Detective Bennet.

That man! I should have known he was a scumbag by the way he moved, talked, acted, and even breathed. But I’d been stupid enough to believe I’d be safe at the station. Why would a cop want to hurt me and the kids?

How naive of me.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” I told them, and they looked back at me with big puppy-dog eyes that literally made my heart shatter into a million pieces. “But we’re going to be okay. I know it. This is just…a hiccup.”

I didn’t like lying, but in times like these, it was okay if it offered some comfort.

Because it was a lie. We were doomed. No one was coming for us. We had disappeared from inside a police station. I doubted there’d be any clue of us come tomorrow.

Except…

Except for Ruby and Lexi. I’d told them what had happened.

Shit. What if they’d been grabbed too when they went to the police station?

What if Bennet got to them too? Or Dakota.

Just because he was handsome didn’t mean he wasn’t dirty.

Hell, the whole station could be dirty for all I knew.

How else could a detective take us out so nonchalantly without concern for being caught?

Stupid, stupid, stupid Wesley .

I was too trusting. Too innocent. Too stupid to live, apparently.

Instead of making me give up, this whole situation and the accompanying soliloquy in my head made me hotter. Angrier.

I won’t go down without a fight !

I gritted my teeth and sat up, determined to get us out of here. I moved my hands, trying to free myself, but it was pointless. The zip ties wouldn’t budge.

“I need something sharp,” I said, more to myself than to the kids.

I looked around, trying to find anything. A knife, a nail sticking out of the floor, a broken piece of wood. There was nothing I could see from where I was sitting. So I forced myself to get up on my feet and walk to the edge of the room to the countertop out of breath by the time I got there.

It was pretty bare with only a few pieces of paper—invoices from the looks of it—and a few dirty old pens in a pen holder.

“That might do,” I muttered and bent over the countertop to grab a pen with my mouth.

There was a creak behind me, and before my teeth connected with the plastic pen, I was yanked backward with so much force that I landed on my ass.

A man walked up to me and put his hands on his hips. I blinked to try and make out his face.

“I knew you were trouble,” Barnes said, kicking my ribs.

I yelped, the pain scorching through me, leaving me breathless.

“Why?” I groaned.

“Why what? Kick you? Because I’ve wanted to do that since that day you showed up at my house,” he huffed.

“Why…would you do this to your kids?” I looked behind me at Valentin and Niko, who were looking at us with wide eyes of terror. “What kind of father ties up his kids and dumps them in a shitty boathouse like they’re thugs?”

Barnes laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, gritting my teeth to try and control the venom that would sure spill out otherwise.

“That you still think they’re my kids. Those brats aren’t mine. And if they were, trust me, I would have chopped their tongues a long time ago.”

Bile made my mouth taste bitter, and I grimaced at the towering man.

“If they’re not yours, whose are they?”

“This guy I worked with,” he said. “He died last year when your friends got involved in our business.”

“What business? What are you talking about?” I asked.

I knew shit had been going down for a while now. I’d read the fucking news for goodness’ sake, but I hadn’t realized things were that bad that people had been dying all this time.

At least they were bad people.

“Don’t act like you don’t know. You’re friends with those assholes who have been trying to kill us all this time. You probably suck their dicks every time you see them in exchange for information.”

I winced.

“Watch your language, you dickhead,” I said, fully realizing the irony.

Why did he keep talking about my friends though?

Did he know about my connection with Teddy?

How? He shouldn’t have known…unless he’d been playing me all this time.

He must have seen me get in and out of Teddy’s car and just kept his mouth shut, although he didn’t strike me as a guy who could do that.

“Oh fuck off. You’re so pretentious. Boys are so weak these days. They need to see how a real man acts and talks.”

I glanced around me, dripping with sarcasm.

“Is the man here in the room with us?”

Barnes laughed. “You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I can’t wait to see how funny you think dying is.”

A knot formed in my throat and a chill ran down my spine, giving me goosebumps.

“Wh-what do you think you’re going to achieve by killing me? Huh? You think you’ll feel like more of a man? Because let me tell you: you’re an idiot if you think murder makes you cool.”

He laughed again. I really must’ve been amusing him if he was acting like I was throwing jokes at him left, right, and center. Or he was truly unhinged, which was far more likely.

“Oh, it’s not cool. But it will eliminate this pest problem we’ve had for so long. It’s time to take back control.”

I inhaled and looked Barnes in the eyes.

“Okay then? What are you waiting for? Do it.”

Barnes smirked and crouched down, which made him look even more dangerous, an absurd thing considering our current predicament.

“If you insist,” he said, taking out a gun and pressing it right against my forehead.