Page 9
Chapter Nine
Tynan
T he body’s response to fear was known as the three Fs. Fight. Flight. Or freeze. Everyone had their own predisposition for one of the three, and neither was right all the time. My natural instinct was always to fight, an instinct that had been trained and strengthened by my time in the military, along with the discipline to know when to walk away or not engage. Usually, I was pretty damn on point when picking which way I faced fear, but four nights ago, standing outside Sutton’s door, I made a catastrophic, cataclysmic error.
First, I’d tried to fight. I’d walked right up to the door and demanded her attention, thinking my presence would get her to stop. Not only had the sounds of her pleasure gotten louder, but the choice to fight had led me into a trap. By the time I realized fighting wasn’t going to work, I’d froze.
I couldn’t walk away.
I couldn’t stop listening.
I couldn’t tear myself from the path of her orgasm any more than one could tear themselves out of the funnel of a tornado.
And it had destroyed me.
Now, I knew when the threat of wanting her was too great, the right choice—the only choice left—was to flee.
“I’ll be back in a little bit.” I wiped dry the last plate and stacked it on the counter.
Sutton shrugged. “Sure.”
I tried to ignore the small smirk she wore whenever we reached this part of the day—the part where I fled the house—rather than risk a repeat of what happened four nights ago.
It was the smart thing to do, I reminded myself. I had work to do back at Sherwood—work I couldn’t exactly do when Sutton was tethered to my side. But I didn’t have much of a choice there either.
We’d fallen into a kind of routine, her and I. The day started with a firm fist on her door once I’d made breakfast. From there, I suffered the feel of her clutching to my back as we rode over to the garage. While I worked on customers’ bikes, I’d given Sutton the task of detailing the ones in the shop.
Of course, I’d made her clean mine first. Twice. That was one memory that brought a smile to my face.
“Here.” I dumped a stack of microfiber towels into her arms.
“What are these for?”
At that moment, her befuddled expression made me unexpectedly grin.
“You’re going to clean my bike.”
“Seriously?”
“Either that or you’re making ramen tonight.”
Her slight frown made me want to promise her a reward I had no business offering.
“That shelf over there has all the cleaning supplies.”
“Really? No Mr. Miyagi wax on, wax off lesson?”
“You’re not a kid. You can figure it out.” The words were out before I could stop them. Before I could think of better ones. Before I didn’t give voice to the thoughts that plagued me like an anchor around my waist, pulling me down into the dark depths of my forbidden attraction to her.
When she finished washing the bike, I pointed out all the spots that were still smudged and told her to do it again. After that, she had to clean and polish the wheels. Then condition the leather.
“This is a waste of time, Tynan,” she’d declared at the end of the day, tossing the towel in her hand to the ground.
I rested my hands on the Harley I’d just finished tuning up the engine on and leaned toward her.
“Never a waste of time to make sure you’re acting right,” I warned. “Recklessness is a perilous fault to success.”
“It’s a waste when my best friend—my only family—could be in danger.”
“And what good will it do to find her if you get yourself killed in the process?”
That bought me her silence, which most times felt more dangerous than her protests. And that was why I kept to a routine that kept her by my side. At the shop. Then back at the house, where she’d disappear into her room until dinner was ready.
And then I’d leave.
Like now.
“You sure you don’t want to stick around?” Her arched brow was nothing more than a perfectly crafted taunt.
What happened the other night lingered like carbon monoxide in the air. Odorless. Tasteless. Unsuspecting. Until the memory of her pleasuring herself not-so-quietly even as I knocked on the door and then coming with my name on her lips. Well, that was the kind of poison that could easily kill me if I breathed it in too deep.
So, I did my best not to. I gave myself a single, deadly dose during my few hours alone at the garage while taking a violently cold shower with my raging cock in my hand. I pretended like it was the antidote. And for a little bit after, it was. I could work on Vigilante shit without distraction.
But inevitably, I’d return to the townhouse to spend one more shitty night of sleep on the damn couch.
“I’m sure,” I said, gritting my teeth and heading for the door.
“Hello?” I answered Creed’s call within a nanosecond of my phone ringing.
“I’m on my way to you.”
“To Sherwood?” I sat forward at my desk and rubbed my eyes. “Did you find Mara?”
“Not yet, but I found something. Figured we should talk in person.”
My chest tightened. That couldn’t be good. “Of course.”
“I’m fifteen minutes out.”
“See you then.”
No sooner had I hung up the phone when the door to my office opened.
“Ty?” Harm leaned through the doorway. “Wasn’t sure if you were here.”
“Yeah. Got work to do.” I cracked my knuckles. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to see Rob.”
I nodded, having noticed her Mercedes parked outside when I got back to the garage.
“How long is she staying?”
It was never more than a few days. Like coming up for air, Robyn DuBois never surfaced for too long before disappearing back to the depths of her network in San Francisco.
She collected information through a channel of maids and servers and taxi drivers and bellmen about all of the bad men hiding in plain sight, just waiting for them to make a mistake and put themselves in her sights.
“She didn’t say. Didn’t say much as a matter of fact. She wanted to know if we had anything on Carson.”
I tensed. I didn’t have much since I was too distracted with Sutton.
“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” I told him. “He’s well-shielded. Not surprising since Belmont publicly brought him into the GrowTech organization. I did get ahold of travel records and managed to match up several destinations between Uzair and Carson. Not only that, but every time, there were two people traveling in Carson’s party: him and a woman.”
“Do we have IDs?”
My head turned in the negative. “The ones they traveled with are fake. I’m running facial recognition, but it hasn’t turned up anything yet. I have to assume that Carson changed their appearances some because of this exact scenario.”
“But they all leave out of San Francisco?”
I nodded. “And he’s the only one who returns.”
“So wherever he’s getting them from, it’s local,” Harm mused. “Not going to risk multiple itineraries under a fake or invest in multiple fakes…”
Not when Uzair considered women disposable.
I nodded wordlessly in agreement. I could pinpoint the moment when his silence turned from thoughtful to curious, and it made me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Harmon Keyes was one of two people who could not only see when something was gnawing at me, but also make me feel like I had to spill my guts. The second person had been Jon.
“What’s going on with Sutton?”
Nothing. Nothing was going on with Sutton.
“Her best friend is missing.”
Harm lifted a brow. “For how long?”
“A little over a month.” We shared a look because anyone who’d ever watched any kind of crime drama on TV knew that after the first twenty-four hours of someone going missing, the likelihood of them being found plummeted.
“I see.”
“Yeah.” I huffed. “That’s why I called in Creed. If anyone can find someone missing this long, it’s him or one of his siblings.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Six.”
Harm made a noise. “And they all live together?”
I chuffed. “I wouldn’t call living on the same couple thousand acres in Wyoming together .”
“You think he’ll find her?”
I grunted. “I fucking hope so. For Sutton’s sake.”
“She was close with this girl?”
“Imagine Dare was all you had, and you realized he went missing. How long would you look?”
“I’d never stop,” he said without hesitation. For Harm and Dare, they were brothers by blood as well as by the fires of war.
“I know she won’t either.”
“Did Talon figure out what she?—”
“No,” I broke in. “Said a juvie record would take him some time.” And it was a good thing. As much as I wanted to know, I wanted to hear the truth from her more. It felt cheap—a betrayal—to learn it any other way, but if it was the only option to keep her safe…
“You okay?”
I stilled. “What about me?”
His head tipped. “You seem on edge.”
Yeah, well, he would be too if he hadn’t slept for a week and had been living in a state of perpetual arousal, attracted to a woman he definitely couldn’t have.
Instead, I went with, “I’m having to babysit a woman with vengeance on her mind and the skills to get herself in serious trouble.”
He waited a beat before answering, “If you say so.”
“The last person she questioned about Mara’s disappearance ended up with his hand nailed to the wall and the word ‘PIG’ engraved into his chest,” I said tightly—anything to stop him from thinking the way he was. The way that scratched at the truth.
“Damn.” His eyebrows rose. “A pretty woman who knows how to kill and isn’t afraid of it is a dangerous thing…” As he trailed off, his eyes swung to the security feed on the wall, specifically the image of Rob’s car.
“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat and then standing when I saw movement on one of the screens. “Looks like Creed’s here. I’ll let you know when I have any updates.”
Stepping out of the garage, I came face-to-face with Creed Stone, the man every inch of the six foot five, dark, unruly-haired soldier I remembered.
“Creed.” I extended my hand, and he gave it a brief shake.
“Sorry for showing up?—”
“Not a problem. Let’s go inside.”
He nodded and then hesitated. “Would it be okay if I camped out here?”
“We have a guest house on the property. You’re welcome to it,” I offered, wondering if he always camped outside wherever his bounties took him.
Creed considered the offer, looking over his shoulder at his bike and then to the woods stretching along the side of the drive. “All right,” he agreed. “Thanks.”
I led the way through the garage.
“You’ve got some nice bikes in here.”
“It’s good work,” I told him. “Something to keep the hands busy.”
“And the mind?” he probed.
I opened the back hallway. “This way.”
Another few steps and we were back in my office, his silent eyes scanning the room.
“Callum would appreciate your setup.”
“Yeah?” I arched a brow, struggling to remember which of his siblings that was.
Creed grunted. “He’s into the tech stuff when he’s not chasing storms. He handles intake and research for all of our cases.”
“Except when an old friend calls you directly,” I muttered. “You want something to drink?”
He shrugged out of his leather jacket. “Beer. If you have it.”
“Yeah. One sec.” I went down the hall to the kitchen and grabbed a cold one from the fridge. When I returned, Creed stood with his arms barreled over his chest and was staring at the information on the screen—information I’d left up about fake IDs.
“Another case I’m working on,” I offered and handed him the bottle, reaching for my keychain that had an opener on it. Pointlessly, it turned out as Creed fisted the cap and popped it off with his bare hand.
“What did you find out?” I worked to keep my voice calm even though I wanted to shake the information out of him, knowing how all this waiting was killing Sutton.
“Mara Chan. Twenty-one. Parents deceased. Misdemeanors on her criminal record,” he monotonously rattled off facts. “I went to her apartment. No sign of a struggle, but no indication that she left voluntarily either. Clothes were still in the dresser. Suitcase in the closet. Phone charger on the nightstand.”
I lifted my eyebrow. Where in all of that did he get she hadn’t left voluntarily?
He made a low noise that was probably the closest he ever came to a laugh. “What twenty-one-year-old goes somewhere without her phone charger? Colby won’t even go one night without charging hers.”
Colby. Colby was the youngest Stone and the only girl. Based on his comment, I figured she had to be around Mara’s age.
“I reviewed some of the building security footage,” he went on, and I didn’t bother to ask how he managed to get ahold of that. “After what you learned about her leaving with Jack Kang, I was able to confirm on the feed that’s true.” He paused and opened up his phone. “Looks like they were headed out for the night.”
I stared at the familiar faces of the man Sutton had skewered in the alley and her best friend, the image capturing them leaving the lobby of the building. Creed was right. Mara had on a short dress and heels, and that tracked with what Kang had told Sutton.
“The White Pearl.”
Creed nodded. “I went there and showed her picture around, but no one was talking.”
“I’m not surprised.” People didn’t tend to live long after talking about anything that might be gang business.
“I have footage of Kang leaving the club, but not Mara.”
My gut clenched. “That’s what he told Sutton. That he and Mara argued in the club and then she left without him.”
Creed frowned. “Well, he lied.”
I stiffened.
“If she left the club, it wasn’t on her own two feet. I’ve got footage from street cameras on the front of the club,” he began and swiped through more stills of Mara and Kang entering the White Pearl. “But no sign of her leaving.”
“There’s a back exit in the club that leads?—”
“Into an alleyway,” Creed confirmed with a nod. “There’s no street camera back there, but there is one out front of the Asian grocery store across the street. That’s where I found footage of Kang leaving later that night.”
My heart started to thud heavy in my chest, like a hammer bent on nailing the truth to my chest.
“Tynan—”
“There has to be another exit from inside the club. Underground maybe,” I said, barreling through the curiosity on his face.
“That’s what I’m thinking. It makes sense. No way the local Triad is bringing in drugs or weapons or any kind of contraband through the front or back doors.”
“Can I see the footage you have of Kang leaving?”
Creed jerked his chin and swiped through his phone once more, handing it to me when he reached the final set of photos.
Yeah, definitely Kang.
He was leaving the club, but instead of the alley being empty, there was a black Benz parked right outside the door.
I squinted and then zoomed on the image. “You run this plate?”
“Of course,” Creed said flatly. “Company car belonging to a large biochemical company. Probably one of their big wigs stopping by for some blow to take the stress off?—”
I’d stopped listening at biochemical. “GrowTech?”
Creed’s expression darkened. “How did you know?”
“Gut feeling.” A bad one.
I started to zoom out of the image when a faint outline of a face in the front seat caught my attention.
No…it couldn’t be.
I zoomed closer, the pixelation and the tint of the windows working against me, but I swore…
“Fuck.”
“What?” He followed me as I carried his cell around my computer and pulled up a recent photograph of GrowTech’s new COO.
My eyes flicked between the two before I made my declaration. “I think that’s Brock Carson.”
I gave Creed back his phone and let him weigh in.
He stood still as stone—and as silent—for a couple seconds that felt like they dragged out the space between each heartbeat.
“It looks damn fucking close for him not to be.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”
He looked back at me sternly. “What’s this Carson have to do with Kang other than drugs?”
It took everything in me to speak calmly while my mind raced a mile a minute.
“We’ve suspected Carson is dealing in sex trafficking, and specifically, has been procuring women from the Bay Area for the son of a Pakistani warlord.”
“So, the last man to see Mara alive left the club that night with a man who deals in the sex trade…”
His gaze met mine, but I wasn’t seeing him. I wasn’t seeing anything but those dark pearl-blue eyes, shimmering with what I thought was emotion when Sutton told me about Mara’s relationship with Kang, but really the glimmer had been nothing more than lies.
I didn’t have proof, but I did have my gut. And I saw the look on Kang’s face that night in the alleyway. I heard the fucking fear in his voice when he begged me to save him from Sutton’s wrath. There was no fucking way that coward had the strength and mental acuity to lie about what he knew about Mara. Not when there was a knife through his hand.
And that meant only one thing: Sutton knew the truth and had lied to me.
“I was planning on following this Kang character for a day or two and then confronting him, but I haven’t seen him at all. And he hasn’t shared his location on his socials for about a week now.”
Since Sutton attacked him in the alley.
“If you think there’s more of a connection here, I’ll follow Carson for a few days and see where it leads me,” Creed continued and looked to me for confirmation.
“Yeah,” I croaked and nodded, powering down my computer and grabbing my keys. “Look, I’ve got to run. Elevator is at the end of the hall and will take you down to the cabin entrances. Guest one is first on the right. Code is 0525.” Ryan’s birthday. “And keep your phone close. I might have more information on Mara soon.”
His eyes pulsed wide. “You have another lead?”
My jaw pulsed like a beating drum in my cheek. “No, I’ve got a liar.”
His eyes only widened slightly, the stoicism of his face something I could only attribute as a Jedi-like ability to control his emotions. A skill I wish I had right now.
“You want backup?”
“No,” I clipped and headed for the door to the garage. “I’ll be in touch.”
He nodded. “Thanks for the hospitality.”
“Anything for a brother.”
The door slammed behind me, the bang like a gunshot that sent me sprinting to my bike, my heart already pounding like jackhammer in my chest.
She’d lied about Kang. Deep down, I knew it in my bones. She’d lied to me about what she’d learned from him, and once and for all, I was going to find out why.