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“What the hell do you want?” Ian didn’t want to play this game any longer, didn’t want to let Jagger’s sleaze touch him another second. Not while he was sitting wrapped in Hollis’s arms.
“You know what I want. Your friends’ heads are going to roll.” Jagger paused. “They paid for you. Bought you like the trash you are. I’ve had years of amusement watching you set up a restaurant, manage it…think you’re as good as them. You’re not. You’re nothing but used, wasted goods. Fucking pathetic.”
Ian clenched his teeth, swallowing back the angry words that rose up.
Hollis still watched him, though his lips had tightened and his forehead creased in a thunderous frown. Ian stared at him, unable to turn and face Rowe. He’d thought he felt sick before, but nothing compared to how he felt right then.
His friends had bought him?
Like one of the lost kids in Jagger’s auctions? He kept his eyes on Hollis and in that blue gaze, he saw something that helped him not succumb to the despair. Hollis didn’t see him the way Jagger did. He didn’t even see him the way his friends did. They were a matched pair—equal. His shoulders lost their tension and he couldn’t help but press his palm to Hollis’s cheek.
“What did he say?” Rowe asked.
Ian shook his head, refusing to answer. He couldn’t look at his friend even though somehow, deep down, he’d always known that was how they’d gotten him away from Jagger. He hadn’t yet hit his last growth spurt when he’d been set free, and Jagger had still favored him—even after he’d started sharing him. He hadn’t moved another boy into his house, so in the back of Ian’s mind, he’d guessed Lucas, Snow, and Rowe had offered the only other thing that mattered to Jagger.
Money.
But it was one thing to think that and another to know.
“It was a long time ago, GQ,” Hollis whispered, tightening his arms again. “You’re a man now and so unbelievably strong. Don’t go back there. It was so long ago.”
“What? Don’t want to talk to me?” Jagger mocked when the silence stretched on the phone from Ian. “I bet I’ve got someone here you’d be happy to talk to.” There was a rustling sound as if Jagger was doing something with the phone. Ian struggled to draw in a breath, his stomach twisting with Jagger’s threat.
“H-hello? Ian?”
Ian audibly gasped at the sound of Sam’s terrified voice. If he hadn’t been seated in Hollis’s lap, he would have fallen to the floor as his legs gave out. “Sam?” he replied, his friend’s name catching on the lump in his throat.
“Ian! Please, help me! Call the police! Ple—” Sam’s pleas were cut off with a scream of pain that had Ian pulling out of Hollis’s arm and jumping to his feet.
“Sam! Sam!” Ian screamed.
Hollis ripped the phone from Ian’s hand and hit the speaker button before dropping it onto the middle of the folding table. Jagger’s disembodied laugh echoed through the small eat-in kitchen above Sam’s soft whimpers of pain.
“Did you really think you could escape me by hiding?” Jagger demanded, a train whistle rising above his voice.
“Jagger, don’t,” Ian gasped, struggling to draw air into his lungs. “Please…Jagger.” He looked around the room at his friends. Noah had stepped back from the table with his own cell phone pressed to his ear. It sounded as if he was already talking to either Gidget or Quinn, trying to get a trace on Jagger’s location. Rowe stood beside the table, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, looking as if he wanted to dive straight through the phone to kill Jagger with his bare hands, but there was nothing they could do. They had no idea where he was.
“Did you think there wouldn’t be consequences for that shit you pulled? And I know it was fucking you in White Rock!” Jagger shouted, his temper finally snapping.
“Sam had nothing to do with this!” Ian lurched forward to the table. Hollis’s arms came back around him from behind, holding him tight.
“But you’re not here to pay the price,” Jagger taunted.
“Ian! Please, help!” Sam screamed again.
“Jagger, you fucking bastard—” Rowe snarled, but his words were cut off by the sound of a gun firing three times.
Nothing but silence was heard for a heartbeat. No one breathed. No one moved.
“Sam’s dead, Ian. Your cowardice killed him. Next time, it’s going to be one of those fucks that bought you.”
Jagger ended the call and Ian’s sob broke from his throat. His legs gave out, but Hollis easily managed his weight, pulling him close as he sat back in the chair. Ian was vaguely aware of Noah and Rowe on the phone with Gidget and the police, fighting to determine where the bastard was and catch him at long last. But Ian didn’t care.
