“Gabriella’s arranging a search warrant. I don’t want to compromise any evidence they might find. Besides,” I told him as I planted my foot, barely scraping through another orange light as we left her house behind. “I’ve got another idea.”
Sunday afternoon traffic was full of nine to fivers—all returning home at the same time from their weekend escapes. Dusk had truly arrived by the time we hit our destination. Parking the car a street away, we walked along the back of the reserve until we reached the yard of Graham Bennett’s house. Unlike Morgan’s, the back half of his house was lit up, highlighting the kitchen and dining area clearly to the backyard.
Travis handed me another Glock. I checked the sight and safety before taking another peek at the house through the car-wide gap in the fence.
“What do you see?” he asked from behind me.
“No one yet.”
“Wait here,” he told me, palming his own gun. “I’ll go around the front, see if Morgan’s car is in the drive.”
I set my jaw stubbornly. “You wait here. I’ll go.”
Travis sighed, exasperated. We did a quick rock-paper-scissors. Knowing Travis always chose rock, I went with paper. When he decided to switch it up and came out with scissors, I hissed quietly. “Sonofabitch.”
With narrow-eyed satisfaction, he threw a quick, “cover me,” my way, and crouched low, running for the back of the house.
He returned five minutes later. “Morgan’s car is in the garage. I saw it through a side window. I did a scope of the entire house from the outside. Didn’t see Grace,” he told me before I could ask.
I huffed with indecision. “What do we do? Storm the place or follow Morgan when she leaves?”
“If we storm the place and Grace isn’t there, then we’ve played our hand. Morgan will know we’re on to her and then following her when she leaves will be a crapshoot.”
“Hell,” I muttered, rubbing a hand over the back of my head.
“My gut’s telling me Grace isn’t here,” he said, shifting his gaze from the house to meet my eyes. “I vote we wait and follow Morgan when she leaves.”
“I can work with that.” I trusted Travis. His gut had never steered us wrong. “But if she leaves and then just returns home? What the fuck then?”
“Then we’re screwed, because the unmarked car the police have out the front of her house will pick her up, beating us to her.”
“Fuck it, Travis. I vote we storm the place.”
We both turned to stare at the house and as if I’d just said abracadabra, the garage door magically began to rise, the loud clunk alerting us to the activity. My pulse rose right along with it and we turned and began running for the Subaru. I beeped the locks from ten yards away and had the engine growling and the wheels spinning before we’d even shut the doors.
We shot out of the side street at the back of the reserve, just in time to catch the tail lights of Morgan’s car turning the corner. I inched off the gas, not wanting to alert her to our presence.
“Speed the fuck up. You’ll lose her.”
“I’m not going to lose her,” I snapped, speeding up a fraction because he was right.
When she hit the intersection up ahead she turned left instead of the right which would’ve taken her home. I followed carefully, keeping behind other cars, and hanging back when traffic around us eased. Travis rang Mitch for the second time since we left, updating him with our progress. In turn, he kept Gabriella in the loop. Travis had the phone on speaker and she was barking at us to stand down.
When she realised she’d have better luck pushing a snowball up a lava-spewing volcano, she told us they were on their way and to wait.
My response was firm and distinct. “No.”
Reaching across Travis, I hit the end button, cutting off her rant.
“Gabriella is a hard-ass,” Travis noted as we drove further towards the mountains.
“No shit,” was my reply as my gut began to churn, engaging its warning system the further out we drove.
“They’ve got a helluva history, those two.”
“Which two?” I glanced at him, confused. “What?”
“Mitch and Gabriella. You don’t remember her? They were tight at uni.”
I thought she looked familiar. Mitch had been two years ahead of us at Charles Sturt. They’d been tight for a long time. She’d changed, gotten taller, or grown her hair long. Or something. Whatever. I shrugged his question off because we just started down a familiar street in Blackheath. And screw my gut’s early warning system, it was full on screaming by the time Morgan pulled up outside the house where Janie Berg had been abducted.
I pulled to the kerb at the end of the street, both of us seeming to hold our breath as Morgan got out of the car.
Moments later, a Harley thundered down the street, driving straight past us. It pulled up next to Morgan’s car and the man swung his leg over and dragged the helmet from his head as he stood, and stood, and fucking stood. He was wearing a Sentinels MC vest and a beard so wild and woolly it was a wonder it didn’t smother him in his sleep.
“That is one big motherfucking bastard,” Travis breathed.
“Ring Mitch,” I ordered, but Travis was already dialling and giving out the address a second later.
“Holy motherfucking shit!” Mitch shouted when it clicked a second later where we were. Gabriella’s wild Spanish was ripping someone a new one in the background so he kept yelling over the top of her into the phone. “Don’t either of you dare touch this one or I swear to God, I’ll—”
“You’ll what, tell Dad?” Travis snorted as our eyes fastened on the argument in progress between Morgan and the big-ass biker dude. They started inside, the man roaring at her the entire way. I squinted at the back of his vest, catching the letters BIN on the back of his vest. He turned, eyes scanning the street before I could make out the rest of the letters. “Damn,” I hissed, ignoring the bickering between Travis and his older brother over the phone.
Reaching over, I hit the end button for the second time, cutting off Mitch’s rant.
I eyeballed Travis. “I’ll take the front, you take the back.”
Travis narrowed his eyes. “I’ll take the front, you take the back.”
“Fuck you, Trav,” I declared, both of us knowing the front would be more dangerous. “I called it. It’s mine.” He opened his mouth to argue and I knew exactly how to shut it. “You’ve got a little boy who needs you.”
Knowing I had him, I swallowed around the huge lump in my throat and held up a fist. “Let’s do this.”
He met my eyes as he bumped it with his. Then he grinned, his smile feral. “Let’s do this.”
We got out of the car and I popped the boot. Travis reached in, lifting the false flooring to reveal an entire arsenal. As he handed over a bulletproof vest, I strapped it on quickly. While Travis did his, I allowed myself the luxury of thinking about Grace for a brief moment, of her scent and her laugh, of the wild abandon on her face whenever I fucked her hard, of how much I adored every single hair on her head. My chest tightened and my hands shook. She could be just metres away right now, breathing in the same air, hurt, scared, bleeding out.
“Hey,” Travis muttered, eyeing me. “You with me?”
“A hundred per cent,” I told him, willing it to be true.
“Okay, then.”
We both tucked a spare handgun in the back of our jeans, keeping one each in our hands. My breath puffed in and out as we approached the house. The air was cooler near the Blue Mountains, seeping into your bones. I shivered. I hated the cold. It reminded me of hiding in the yard when my father was in one of his rages. Sometimes I would fall asleep, my body pressed up between the fence and the tall eucalypt tree that always smelled good in the summer. When I eventually woke, my fingers and toes would be numb from the frost.
We reached the house and I wiped my mind of the memories. Travis peeled off, heading around the back while I approached the front screen door. It was one of thos
e old kinds. The one that was there simply as a flyscreen, not a security screen. The hinges were flaking with paint and thick with rust, telling me that if I jerked too quickly, they would protest loud and clear.
Surprisingly, it was unlocked, making me pause. They couldn’t have seen us coming. Maybe it was missed during the argument the two were having as they headed inside?
With a slowness that made me itchy, I eased the door open, gun cocked and ready, and stepped inside the house.
A quick scan in front of me gave nothing. I took another two steps, opening up the living room to my gaze, and my heart punched to my throat. Grace was bound to a chair. Silver duct tape held her arms and legs in place and a single strip covered her mouth. Her eyes filled the second I appeared.
I ran my eyes over her as I took another cautious step. Her hair was a wild tangle, dirt smudged her cheek, and dried blood covered her arms and dress. I couldn’t remember ever seeing anything more beautiful in my entire life. I dragged air into my lungs, suddenly realising I hadn’t taken a full breath since last night. “Grace, baby? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, trying to speak behind the tape. I took another step and that’s when Morgan appeared to Grace’s left. With a smirk on her lips, she held up a gun in her hand and jammed it against Grace’s temple. Raw fear flashed across Grace’s face and it took everything I had to hold myself in check and not flinch.
“She’s not hurt yet, but that can be arranged,” Morgan told me.
My finger caressed the trigger of my own gun. “Put it down and step away from Grace, Morgan.”
Grace’s eyes went wide over my shoulder and she started screaming from behind the tape. Before I could turn, I felt the cool butt of a gun press against the back of my head.
“You first, Casey,” said the voice from behind me.
My arms went slack and for a second I allowed my eyes to close. I knew that voice. It might have roughened over the years, but I knew it. It wasn’t just the same voice as mine, it was the voice of my brother.
I swallowed hard and opened my eyes, focusing on Grace in front of me. She was blurred and I realised it was because my eyes were burning with tears.
“Kelly?”
Two hours earlier…
“You don’t talk much,” I announced from my bound position on the dining room chair.
Kelly had taken the liberty of having a nice hot shower for himself while I was trussed up like a Christmas turkey, unable to move and feeling tired and grimy. Now he was moving around in nothing but a pair of low slung sweats, showing off that mile-wide motherfucker of a chest and tanned, rippling muscle. It was obvious he’d chosen commando as this afternoon’s dress of choice, highlighting the fact that the man really was big everywhere. I made it a point not to stare.
“Yeah?” Kelly slammed the fridge door shut and cocked his brow at me in true Casey fashion. My breath hitched. I couldn’t deny it. The Daniels brothers were absolute sex on a stick—like what sweet, sticky cotton candy was to a poor, deprived child. It was a crying shame that this Daniels brother was completely whacked. “You talk too much, babe.”
“Argghhh! I’m not your babe,” I told him for the millionth time.
“Not yet.” He winked at me. “But you can be if you play your cards right.”
The gleam in his eye was downright predatory as he walked over and stood in front of me. Unfortunately, my gaze shifted downwards, suddenly eye level with the giant anaconda in his pants. Not knowing where the hell to look, my eyes began ping-ponging around the room, eventually settling on somewhere in the distance.
“There will be no card playing,” I declared in my primmest voice possible.
Kelly took hold of my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Unlucky for you, I’m the one in charge and if I want card playing, there’ll be fuckin’ card playing.”
My eyes clouded over, suddenly apprehensive. “So we’re playing cards?”
He let go of my chin and straightened and there went my eyes again, fighting to find somewhere safe to land. “Why? You bored? Because I’m sure I can find something for you to do.” Kelly’s hand ran suggestively down his chest until it hit the waistband of his sweats. “It would have the added bonus of shutting you up.”
My nostrils flared and the subtle reaction made him laugh. “How dare you? If my mouth is going anywhere near a guy’s junk, it’ll be Casey’s and his alone. I’ll pass, thanks.”
For a second his eyes softened and I got a brief glimpse of the real man that lay beneath the cockiness coating his surface. “Why were you and Casey arguing?”
I blinked, wondering how he knew.
“The party, Grace,” he prompted, his tone exasperated because I couldn’t somehow read his mind. “You walked in, laughing and teasing him. I saw the light in his eyes and his hand slide under that sparkly dress of yours. You walked out, you’re yelling, he’s yelling, and that light in his eyes is gone.”
My heart squeezed because Kelly was right. I hated seeing that light disappear. I also shivered, because being watched like that was really creepy. “You were watching us.”
“You think I just magically stumbled upon you in that airport passageway?”
“No.”
Kelly folded his arms, the move making his biceps bulge even more. “So why the argument?”
I made a pointed effort of glancing at the tape binding me to the chair. It didn’t hurt, but it itched, and I was pretty sure I’d need to pee soon. “You want me to answer your questions, you can untie me from this chair.”
“I can make you answer any question I want without untying you, Grace,” he told me, his tone harsh.
“Threaten me all you like. It won’t work,” I replied, doing my best to suppress the fear. This guy might’ve been Casey’s brother, but I had no idea what he was capable of.
Kelly shrugged and I watched him walk to the kitchen. He opened up the cutlery draw and took out a paring knife. It looked extra pointy and gleamed under the light of the kitchen, forcing my pulse to ramp up a notch. He walked back to me, picking up his phone along the way. “Let’s test this little theory of yours.”
An unnatural calm took over the fear, impressing me. My mind tried to tell me it was simply adrenaline, but I was too busy being phenomenally calm to pay attention.
Test away, pal, I retorted silently. And coolly.
Kelly pulled out a dining table chair, setting it so it faced me. Sitting down, he carefully placed the knife in arms’ reach and then tapped at the screen of his phone. Then he held it up in front of me. I took one look and my calm expired on the spot. It was a photo of Henry in high megapixel glory. He was in the backyard of the duplex, Mitsy in his arms. He was laughing at someone but I wasn’t sure who because they were out of camera shot. The focus was solely on my brother.
Kelly took the phone back and cocked his head. “You know that guy?”
I wanted to rip the smirk from his lips. Instead, I shrugged, the movement more feeble than I would have liked thanks to my forearms being attached to the chair. “Never seen him before in my life,” I said breezily.
Kelly tapped at his phone and held it up again. It was a photo of Henry and me together at the awards ceremony the very day of my arrival. It was after our performance and celebratory champagne so we were hugging each other close and smiling wide for the camera, busy riding the high. It seemed an entire lifetime ago now. Taking the phone back, Kelly read the beginning of the attached article out loud. “Henry Paterson, lead guitarist of Jamieson and brother of leading international model Grace Paterson, talks to us about rising fame, fortune, and his illustrious sister.”
I lifted my chin. “That’s not me.”
Kelly looked up from the phone. “Of course it’s you, Grace.” He set the phone down on the dining table to his right and then leaned back in his chair, staring me down. “Your brother’s got skills on the guitar. Be a shame to send someone over to break all his fingers, don’t you think?”
All the fight went out
of me like a deflated balloon. If I wasn’t strapped to the chair, I would’ve sagged from the easy defeat.
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve made your point. You can make me answer any question you want without untying me. Does that make you happy?”
Kelly grinned. “Yep … So …” He folded his arms and sat back in the chair. “Why were you and Casey arguing?”
“Why do you even want to know?”
“Humour me.”
I sighed, the sound heavy to my own ears. “Because he found out something I was keeping from him.” To deflect any further questioning, I asked, “Why did you disappear?”
Kelly stared at me for a moment. “I didn’t disappear.”
“Casey thought you were dead.”
He shrugged, the casual motion making my words appear unimportant. “He thought you were dead,” I bit out, repeating myself so he understood the magnitude of those five words.
Kelly’s eyes narrowed, flashing anger. “Heard you the first time, Grace.”
“Don’t you care?” I burst out.
His gazed dropped to his hands, shielding his face from my eyes. “It was better that he did.”
My heart dropped to my toes. “Better that he thought you were dead?”
He looked up from his hands. “Better that than knowing how much I hate him.”
“Why do you hate him?”
Kelly stood abruptly. “I’m the one asking the questions here.” Snatching the knife, he came at me. I shrank back. He took hold of my hand and with a quick flick of his wrist, sliced through the bindings on my left arm. I looked up at him, surprised. “You’re letting me go?”
He shook his head, indicating that was a no. “You’ve been squirming in your seat for five minutes. Lettin’ you use the bathroom.”
I watched him slice through the tape on my right hand. Then he crouched down and cut through the ones around my legs. A joyful moan slipped out at being able to move. Kelly grinned and gave my ankles a quick massage. “Feel good, babe?”
I jerked from his grip and hissed, “Don’t touch me.”