Page 40 of Single Teddy (Mayberry Protectors #6)

THIRTY-FOUR

WESLEY

I was still alive.

Somehow, I was still alive. We all were.

After Barnes pointed the gun at me, another man, a bald man with a dragon tattoo all over his skull and a couple of tattooed teardrops under his eyes, walked in and whispered in Barnes’s ear, and then they both walked out.

We might be alive, but judging from them, we wouldn’t be for much longer. If they’d gone from hiding their faces behind woolen masks to walking around brandishing their evil smiles, we were as good as gone.

The question was, what were they waiting for?

A sniffle shook me back to the here and now, and I turned to find Valentin hunched over his lap. Niko turned to his brother, and he started crying too.

“Boys? Oh, boys, please don’t cry.” I scooched over to them, biting back tears myself.

How could I blame them for being emotional when we were trapped in the dark with no way out? I was feeling the despair. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how they felt. How much of this predicament did they understand?

“It’s going to be okay, Valentin. Please don’t cry.” I searched for the boy’s gaze, but he only cried harder, and I couldn’t do anything to console him.

I glanced from him to Niko, and my chest felt heavy. I’d done this to them. They were here because of me. Because I hadn’t thought before I acted. I didn’t pause to consider. I just let my emotions guide me, and this was where it had gotten us.

Someone shouted outside and I glanced at the door. Bile rose in my throat, making my mouth bitter.

It wasn’t all my fault. Barnes was to blame too.

I couldn’t even fathom these poor kids living with a stranger for a year now. A stranger who neglected, abused, and mistreated these kids, and all for what? Why had he even taken them on? Why had he kept them if he didn’t give a shit about them?

“Who knows what’s two plus two?” I swallowed down any fear or anger and raised my voice with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.

Niko looked up at me, confused, and mumbled four.

“Excellent. And what’s three plus three?” I aimed that at Valentin and waited.

I didn’t think he’d heard me at first, but then he—without looking up—whispered the right answer, and I nudged him, hoping to get any sort of reaction out of him.

I didn’t, and I couldn’t blame him.

“I’m sorry.” I sighed. “Math questions aren’t going to make anyone feel better right now.”

Niko shook his head, and Valentin? He finally looked up at me.

“I’m a silly billy,” I said.

Valentin laughed.

“You must miss your mom and dad.”

Valentin nodded, and I wished I could hug them, but those damn zip ties were unbreakable.

“Did that man make you call him dad?”

“He said if we didn’t, he’d beat us. But he beat us even when we did,” Niko said.

“Fu…dge.” I hissed at the near-miss, although I was pretty sure they’d heard Barnes say far worse.

“It’s okay. Daddy used to beat us too,” Valentin said as if that made it better, and my stomach sank.

These kids had had a rough start in life and had been dealt the worst cards.

“What about your mom?”

“Mommy died when we were babies.”

I nodded, choking down the heavy sigh that threatened to come out. Poor things never stood a chance.

Someone shouted again, and we all glanced at the door.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Valentin asked.

I considered my options. These boys weren’t stupid. If anything, the hardships they’d been through had probably wisened them up beyond their years. Even so. I couldn’t tell them the truth. How do you tell a small child they’re about to die? With what kind of heart?

“I…I don’t know,” I said instead. “But whatever it is, I’ll be here. With you. Okay?”

The boys nodded, and the door opened. Barnes and the dragon skull tattoo guy walked in and stared at us.

“Having a couple’s quarrel?” I asked before I could help myself.

Instead of answering, the dragon skull tattoo guy spat in my direction.

“Classy.”

Barnes walked up to me, put his gun to my head, and told me to shut up. The kids started crying again and I gritted my teeth, bit through the fear, and looked him in the eyes.

“Do you have no heart? Look what you’re doing to these kids. Look how you’re making them feel. You don’t have to do this.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Those brats have made my life a living hell long enough.”

“Then why not let CPS take them? Why not let them go to a nice foster home if you don’t care about them? Why hold?—”

“Because. I don’t need nobody snooping in my business.” He jabbed the gun at my forehead as if to emphasize his point, and I stilled my body as if that would stop me from getting hurt.

“Even so. I’m sure you could have found a way to let go of them. You still could?—”

“Oh, will you shut up? I’ve had enough of your lectures. Get off your high horse and realize I’m in control now, bitch!”

I bit my tongue and glared at him until he chuckled and walked off.

His buddy checked his watch as Barnes made circles around us. A mobile phone poked out of his back pocket, and I realized it was mine.

I bit my lip and kept my gaze on it. If only there were a way to get it, maybe I could use it to call Teddy. To get word out there about our whereabouts. Something. Anything.

But I couldn’t even stand with my hands tied behind my back, let alone grab anything.

“How long are you planning to drag this on? How long are you going to keep us here?”

He stopped and turned to look at me.

“As long as I fucking want.”

“Hey, hey, hey, Michael. Is that a way to talk to our guest of honor?” someone said, and I turned to look at the new person who had just entered the boathouse.

“You!” I growled

It was none other than the abominable Detective Bennet. The man who had waltzed us out of the station without a care in the world. Gosh, was this whole island corrupt, and we were none the wiser?

“Me indeed.” He smirked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re late,” Barnes said.

Bennet scoffed.

“In case you’re forgetting yourself, I had to blow my cover for your sorry ass, so no, I’m not late. I’m right on time.”

“No one asked you to do that,” Barnes said.

“I beg to differ. Your actions made this necessary. Besides, if it were up to me, I’d have let you get busted, dickhead. But I’m just following orders. Don’t kid yourself though. He ’s not happy with you.”

He? Who was he? The boss? The mastermind behind this farce? What had Teddy and his team called him? Sal…something.

“He can kiss my ass too. He cut my share in half after the shoot-out in May. As if it were my fault they found out.”

I could only piece together bits and pieces, but I couldn't connect the dots since I had been completely in the dark about this criminal organization up until last month. However, the ease with which they spoke and revealed information made me uneasy.

It was because they didn’t care what kind of information I got. What kind of intel. Because I wasn’t walking out of here alive.

“You think he doesn’t know about your side hustle?”

Barnes stared at Bennet, and the color drained from his face. He’d been caught red-handed.

“Fuck you and fuck him!” he said and turned to the dragon skull tattoo guy. “Any progress?”

The guy nodded with a smirk, and Barnes approached him and looked at something on the guy’s phone.

Bennet glanced at me.

“What are you looking at?” he said.

“A dirty cop, apparently.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“What? Does the truth hurt? Are you not ashamed of yourself? Look where you are. Look what you’re doing? Aren’t you supposed to serve and protect? Why would you do this?”

Bennet laughed.

“This pays better, idiot.”

I felt…sick. Disgusted.

“So it’s all about the money, huh? You don’t care about what you’re doing to two innocent kids? Look at them? They’re terrified. How can you live with yourself?”

Bennet shrugged and rolled his eyes.

“The number of zeros on my checks makes it all so easy.”

I shook my head.

I’d met a lot of people. I’d read a lot of stories. I knew what people were capable of, but this? These people… They weren’t human. They weren’t people. They were scum.

I opened my mouth to tell him where to put his zeros, but a loud bang made me jump. It made everyone jump.

“Wh-what was that?” I asked.

Barnes turned around and chuckled.

“That?” he said and walked over to the end of the room and turned a latch to open the window.

As I’d suspected, we were in a boathouse. The sea and beachgrass outside confirmed it. But it wasn’t the location that caught my attention. It was the plumes of smoke in the distance. And a building—another boathouse—on fire.

“That would be your military friends,” Barnes said. “May they rest in peace.”

My heart stilled in my chest, and I caught my breath.

“What?” I barely managed to utter.

My friends? Teddy? Wyatt? Slade?

And suddenly it all made sense. Why we were still alive. Why they hadn’t killed us yet. We’d been bait. I didn’t know or understand the specifics, but I knew it in my heart.

This was a trap for Teddy and his team, and they’d fallen right into it. Because of me.

I hunched over myself and tried to breathe, but it became impossible. The oxygen had left my body. This was my doing. My fault. It was all…my fault.

I closed my eyes and Teddy’s smile appeared before me. His warm hugs. His silky hair. The bright blue of his eyes. That first time we met, when he caught me in his strong arms and took my breath away. When he stole my heart.

All that beauty. All the wonder. All…gone. Because of me.

When I grabbed those kids off the street and took them to the police, I hadn’t just signed our death warrant, but Teddy’s. And everyone else’s.

How many tragedies had I caused with a stupid, rash decision?

“No,” I mumbled. “No, no, no.”

Barnes laughed.

“Yes, yes, yes. And now, it’s time for you to join your friends,” he said, and I looked at him as he aimed his gun at me.

I should close my eyes.

Oh well, what did it matter, anyway? In two seconds, I’d be dead. I started nodding, accepting my fate. My punishment. It was what I deserved after the chain reaction I’d caused. I didn’t deserve to live after that.

I closed my eyes after all. And I heard the bang. It rang in my ears. It made me jump.

I waited for the sweet release of death. The darkness. The end.

Yet it never came.

What did come was a groan, and I opened my eyes to find Barnes on the floor holding his arm, crying in pain.

His hand turned red. And both Bennet and the dragon skull tattoo guy dropped down as another loud bang made one of the wooden beams splinter and dust rain down on us.

“They found us,” Bennet shouted, and suddenly, it felt like the whole world turned the right side up again.

Because I knew it. I knew in my heart Teddy was here. He was outside. And he’d come to rescue me and the boys.