“Not a bad idea,” Cross mused. “For now, I’ll be satisfied with him serving us cake and coffee in the living room.” Once again, he offered Toni his arm. She took it, wrapping both hands around his elbow. “Ranger, you know where the cups and plates are.” As he led Toni out the other kitchen door, he said to her, “I must say, I like this yardwork idea of yours. My gutters certainly need a good cleaning before the winter.”
Toni looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at Ranger before telling Cross, “That’s so funny. Liam was just telling me how much he misses cleaning out gutters.”
Shaking his head at their antics, Ranger headed over to the cabinet where Cross kept his mugs. He’d been to Cross’ house numerous times over the past two months, so he felt pretty confident he knew where everything was. It took him a few minutes longer to get everything ready because he didn’t realize at first that there wasn’t enough coffee leftover in the pot to serve three full cups. He did his best to evenly distribute what was there into the mugs and then prepped the machine again to brew a fresh pot.
Opening the fridge, he pulled out the cake and frowned. Brently had said it was pineapple, right? Taking a sniff, Ranger swore he got a whiff of banana, and why did the cake look tan-ish brown? Ugh. After a lifetime of his mom’s cooking, this was not going to be pretty.
Balancing the three mugs and three plates on the serving tray he knew Cross kept above the fridge, Ranger headed towards the living room to join Cross and Toni.
He registered just before he crossed the threshold how quiet it was. No chatter or Toni’s laughter. Ranger frowned, his hackles rising as he stepped into the hallway that split the first floor down the middle.
His eyes landed on Toni, first taking in her wide, fearful eyes and then the tight fist wrapped in her hair. Her heavy breaths were like whimpering gasps, piercing his heart with each exhale. Tears made trails down her pale cheeks and she shook violently, like she’d stepped outside into a winter storm without a jacket.
But what sent the tray cascading down to the carpeting at his feet was the needle Cross had pressed to the side of Toni’s neck.
“Sit,” Cross ordered, gesturing with his chin to the couch on Ranger’s right. Ranger’s eyes briefly flicked towards it, but it was long enough to notice the traces of off-white powder, spoon, lighter, and cotton ball on the coffee table in front of it. “Now, you have something I want and I have something you want. For Toni’s sake, let’s make a deal.”
CHAPTER 14
“Can you imagine how frustrating it was to learn I’ve been searchingfor weeksand you’ve been right under my nose this whole time?”
Even though Toni knew Cross wasn’t talking to her, she couldn’t stop her body from shaking in fear. She tried to hold still, logic warning her of the sharp needle Cross held to the side of her throat. It kept scraping along her flesh, and maybe she was imagining it, but she wouldswearit sounded like a nail on a chalkboard.
Ranger stood several feet away from her. She wasn’t sure if that was intentional on Cross’ part, or he’d just grabbed her where she stood staring dumbfoundedly down at the paraphernalia on his coffee table. He’d wrapped his hand around her mouth before she could scream a warning to Ranger. Then, in the span of seconds, he grabbed the syringe from the table and pressed the needle to her throat. He told her he would inject her with the heroin if she didn’t stand perfectly still and not make a sound.
Minutes ticked by painfully slowly. Toni prayed her heart was pounding loud enough that somehow Ranger subconsciously figured out something was wrong—but then shealso realized that would place him in the same room as the heroin. An entirelynewfear took her. She’d still been trying to figure out how she could overpower or get away from Cross before Ranger came into the room when suddenly Cross moved his hand from her mouth to her hair and jerked her around to face Ranger.
Toni had no idea how Cross’ hand was so steady that he didn’t accidentally jab her with the needle as he moved them, but she was very, very grateful it wasn’t.
The anger on Ranger’s face when he saw her was visceral. She saw the warrior, the protector, behind his ice-blue eyes. There was no mistaking his silent vow of vengeance. It radiated off him like an electric pulse.
Then Cross motioned to the couch, and Toni’s heart sank as she saw the addict replace the warrior. It wasn’t a gradual shift, but an immediate flip triggered by a mental switch. The second his eyes landed on the coffee table, his body tensed in an entirely new way. Like a starving man presented with a steak, Ranger leaned towards the table.
But he wasn’t totally lost to the pull. Toni had seen it time and time again, like a war of wills inside her parents’ heads. Her grandma used to attribute it to the angel and devil on your shoulders analogy. Whose voice was louder today?
Ranger took a step towards the table.
“Easy,” Cross cautioned, like he was talking to a rabid dog. “You and I both know that snorting won’t scratch that itch. Not the way this will.” Cross pulled the needle away from Toni’s throat long enough to catch Ranger’s attention. “You’ve earned the needle, my boy. But you’re going to have to wait until I get what I want before you can have it.”
Ranger’s body froze like a rusty tin man. All but his eyes that kept flicking back and forth between the needle and the powder. Toni’s history with meth had not prepared her forRanger’s addiction to heroin. Shortly after he’d taken her on that trek through the woods where they peed on the graves of his tormentors, Toni had dove into research on the effects of heroin and how it differed from meth. She could guess what was going through Ranger’s mind. The powder would require time to work, but he’d still get high. Whereas the syringe, when delivered through the vein, would be immediate.
“What do you want?” Ranger demanded, barely moving his jaw.
“Pike’s money.” Cross’ voice was as steady as his hand with the needle. If Toni hazarded a guess, she didn’t think Cross was high. Did that make him more or less dangerous? She had no idea. “I have been searching for that fuckerfor weeks, thinking he’d run off with the cash. Then I find out from Colby of all people that your club recently gave his rehab center amassivedonation. Didn’t think anything of it at first. What’s more desperate clients for him to send my way? But then I discover that the bitch Pike said he was going to go see about a debt was your girl.” Toni felt Cross shake his head behind her. “Can you imagine how impossibly frustrating it was when I finally put all the puzzle pieces together? Pike was there the night Toni killed her father and planned to extort money out of her, but he wouldn’t give meher fucking name. Said he’d handle it. I could have had all this solvedweeks agoif he hadn’t kept her name to himself!
“Now, I’m guessing Pike is dead. He threatened your girl, you killed him… Blah, blah, blah. Fine. One less person who requires a cut. But here’s my problem, that money your club took? That money you gave to Colby for his stupid redemption project? It wasn’tyours to give. It wasmine, and I want it back.”
“You’re Pike’s partner.” Toni did not like how shaky Ranger’s voice was, or how long his eyes stayed transfixed on the loosepowder on the table before flicking back to her. Every time his eyes shifted, it felt like he looked longer and longer at it.
Toni didn’t recognize the name ‘Pike’, but from the conversation she could easily piece together who he was, or had been. From the sounds of it, Mr. Smith was quite dead. She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that, but she also knew she wasn’t surprised by it. The man had vanished after all, never to follow through on the threat or ultimatum he’d given her. Toni specifically hadn’t asked what happened to him. Maybe because she’d already known, or at the very least, had guessed?
Was he buried next to her father in the woods, a new unmarked grave?
“Interesting. He couldn’t have told you my name because he didn’t know it. What else did the little weasel tell you?” Cross almost soundedamusedby this revelation.
Ranger’s body started shifting towards the coffee table again.
“No, no, no, my boy.Thisis what you want.” Once again, Cross lifted the needle from Toni’s throat to present the syringe to Ranger like an offering. But the second Ranger’s attention was back on it, the needle was once again pressed to Toni’s throat.
