Page 42 of Unmask (Crew of Elmwood Public #2)

His gaze landed on me first, and for just a heartbeat, relief flitted across his features before his eyes shifted to Kreed behind me, and his relief crystallized into something hard and cold. “Oh,” he said flatly. “You brought him.”

I didn’t flinch, though his tone cut deeper than I wanted to admit. “Can we come in?”

He stepped aside without answering.

Kreed followed behind me, and the second the door shut with a decisive click, Carson rounded on me.

“You think now’s the time to play house with him?

” His dark-blue eyes glared murderously at Kreed.

“Our best friend is missing, probably locked up in some goddamn hell, and you’re—what? Hooking up with him?”

The accusation hit like a slap, but I kept my voice steady. “Carson,” I said softly, trying to reach the friend I knew was drowning beneath all that rage. “I’m doing everything I can to help Kenny. That includes working with Kreed?—”

“Him?” Carson’s voice pitched higher as he gestured wildly at Kreed, his hands shaking slightly. “What the hell does he know about helping anyone? His family has blood on their hands. Don’t think for a second they don’t have their own shady involvement in all of this.”

Kreed didn’t respond right away, but his silence hung dangerously.

Carson stepped close enough that I caught a whiff of liquor on his breath, invading my space. He didn’t day drink, and I doubted he’d gone to school today, not that I blamed him.

Kreed, in a fluid half step forward, put him subtly between us. The movement was casual enough to seem natural, but there was nothing casual about the way his shoulders had set, the way his hands had gone loose at his sides.

Carson’s eyes burned with a wild, desperate fury, making him look half mad. “You going to protect her from me?” The words dripped with bitter sarcasm as he snorted, chest heaving. “At least I didn’t take advantage of her when she was vulnerable.”

“That’s enough,” Kreed said quietly. “Cool off.”

But Carson was beyond reason, beyond cooling off. His grief had twisted into something ugly. “I didn’t have to trick her to fuck me.” He hurled the words as he shoved Kreed, both hands slamming into his chest with all the force of his pent-up rage.

Bad move.

I gasped.

Faster than I could blink, faster than thought itself, Kreed had him spun around, and the thud of Carson’s body hitting the wall went through the room.

One of Carson’s arms was pinned behind his back at an angle that had to hurt, the other braced across his upper chest, Kreed’s forearm a steel bar forcing him still against the plaster.

Kreed leaned in so that his breath was hot against Carson’s ear. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he warned. “But if you try to hurt her—if you so much as breathe wrong in her direction again—I won’t stop at pain. I’ll make you bleed.”

The threat hung in the air, visceral and real. Kreed’s muscles coiled beneath his shirt, the controlled power in every line of his body.

“Kreed!” I shouted.

He didn’t move. Didn’t even acknowledge me. His focus was on Carson, who was pressed against the wall like a butterfly pinned to a board.

Carson struggled, his face contorted in a mask of anger and shame, but he wasn’t going anywhere. His feet scrabbled against the floor for purchase he’d never find. He had no training, no chance against someone like Kreed.

“Kreed,” I repeated, firmer this time, placing my hand on his arm. “Let him go. Please.”

His nostrils flared as he drew in a breath, the desire to make Carson pay for his words battling against whatever part of him still heard my voice. After what felt like an eternity but was probably only seconds, he slowly released Carson and stepped back, keeping himself positioned between us.

Carson turned around, immediately rubbing his wrist where Kreed had twisted it, his face flushed red with fury and humiliation. “You brought a damn attack dog into my house.”

“No,” I said coldly. “I brought someone who isn’t afraid to get shit done. If you’d stop letting your emotions cloud your judgment for five seconds, maybe we’d actually get somewhere.”

Carson stared at me, his mouth opening then closing as betrayal bloomed across his features, but underneath it all, buried beneath the anger and the wounded pride, there was hurt. So much hurt that it made my chest ache.

“I’m scared too, Carson. But fighting each other doesn’t bring Kenny home.”

Carson backed away from me, dragging both hands through his already disheveled hair as if trying to physically ground himself.

I thought he might kick us out. Instead, he collapsed onto the arm of the couch.

“I didn’t sleep last night,” he muttered.

“I just kept waiting…for a message, a call, anything. I kept thinking maybe she’d just show up at the door, maybe it was all some massive misunderstanding, you know?

” His laugh was hollow. “Like she’d just been at some guy’s place and forgot to check her phone. ”

I nodded with understanding and stepped closer as Kreed stayed rooted just behind me.

Carson glanced up at me, and I saw the boy I’d grown up with, scared, lost, trying so hard to be strong. “But she didn’t. And she won’t. Not unless we do something.”

“We are doing something. We’re chasing every lead, talking to everyone who might know something. Rusty’s putting feelers out on the street. The Corvos are watching every corner of this city.”

The muscle in his jaw jumped beneath his skin. “I don’t like you depending on them .”

“I don’t have to like it either.” I met his gaze steadily. “But I’ll use every tool I’ve got if it means getting her back. I’ll make deals with devils if that’s what it takes.”

Carson looked past me to Kreed. “I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t need you to,” Kreed replied coolly. His hands remained loose at his sides, but there was steel underneath the casual posture. “I just need you not to get in our way.”

Carson’s weight shifted forward like he was preparing to launch himself off the couch, but he surprised me. Instead of exploding, he shook his head. “This is messed up.”

“Tell me about it,” I murmured.

I sat for a beat, watching Carson’s face as he stared at his hands, at the red marks on his wrists, at anything but us. “Have her parents heard anything? Any new leads? Did the police find anything on her phone?” I asked.

Carson shook his head slowly. “Nothing. They’re treating it like a possible runaway. Again. Just like the other girls.”

“They’re wasting time.” I sighed. “We need to push harder. Find someone who knows something. And if the cops aren’t going to move, then we will.”

Carson finally looked, really looked at me, and I saw a glint of the old Carson, the one who’d always believed I could do anything. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No,” I whispered. “Never.”

“You get one shot,” he said, his gaze sliding past me to fix on Kreed. “One. If something happens to her because of you?—”

“She’s not your responsibility. She’s mine,” Kreed declared.

My breath caught, not surprise, exactly, but recognition. Like he’d just admitted out loud what had been hovering unspoken between us for weeks.

I didn’t correct him. Didn’t protest or deflect or make a joke to cut through the tension.

Not this time.

Because for the first time since this nightmare began, since Kenny had vanished and my world had tilted sideways, I didn’t feel alone. And maybe that was the scariest part of all, how easily I’d let him become the thing I leaned on when everything else was falling apart.