Page 155 of Oddly Fine

Meathead punched him unconscious. Hallelujah! Another small blessing.

Chapter 29

Hayes Monroe was neither difficult nor demanding by nature. He lived a quiet life. Enjoyed simple pleasures, like fine scotch and quality pastries, and was generally easygoing. The only complication in his life was his choice of partners, which, in retrospect—was abysmal, because how was it that, once again, his fucking boyfriend was facing mortal danger? The bottom line was that Beckett was a giant fucking magnet for trouble. They couldn’t get through a single fucking week without Beckett landing his ass in a near death situation. Was it too fucking much to ask that life give him a fucking goddamned break when it came to the man he loved? For fucking heaven’s fucking sake?

Excuse his French, of course.

But he’d never fucking felt compelled to curse like he did now—on a regular basis—since he’d started working with that fuckwit Beckett.

Having returned to their base of operations, Hayes began pacing and damning Mario Rosario to the depths of hell.

“My uncle maintains he has nothing to do with Beckett’s disappearance,” Matthew said, not looking terribly convinced of the veracity of that particular claim, and not really expecting Hayes to buy into it either.

“You asked him? In so many words? You asked about the whereabouts of your bodyguard? And of his, too, for that matter?” Hayes pushed for answers, turning towards the Mafia boss with every intention of nailing his ass to the wall with brass tacks if he didn’t give him the information he needed. Damn, he wanted to shoot something. Good Lord, now he sounded just like Beckett.

“I did,” he confirmed with a jerky nod.

“He’s lying,” Hayes said, daring the other man to argue.

“He’s lying,” Matthew agreed with a sigh.

“He can’t have taken him far. The guys who took him were part of his security team. They’d need to stay in the area. Where could they have taken him?” Hayes asked, walking over to the wall covered in maps and pictures that Beckett had put up. His eyes ran over each location. There were so fucking many. It was the reason the human trafficking case was so hard to prove in the first place. They couldn’t just storm every fucking building!

Except Hayes would, and could, do exactly that. He’d storm every fucking building until he found Beckett.

It had taken every ounce of his legendary restraint to get in the car with Matthew and leave the Rosario mansion without Beckett. They had to keep up appearances in front of Mario and the rest of the family, and not blow the goddamned case. As soon as he’d heard Beckett’s distressing update over the comms, he’d known shit was going south. He’d wanted to charge out of the room immediately and gun down all three guards. But doing that would accomplish nothing in helping them to reach their goals. Instead, he’d bitten his tongue, and counted backwards from 10,000 as he’d listened to Mario Rosario spin quite the bullshit tale for his niece and nephews. There had been no point to his calling the family in for this meeting. As it turned out, kidnapping Beckett had been that sick bastard’s primary mission when he set up the meeting, and he’d definitely succeeded in doing that. Fuckwad.

“I don’t know,” Matthew said, at a loss. “They could be anywhere! I’m not even sure why he’d take him! If he’s suspicious of me, why would he go after him?”

“Why don’t you pick up the fucking phone and ask him?” Hayes snarled, grinding his teeth in frustration. It was a stupid suggestion, but it was also what his mind was screaming at him to do. It wouldn’t help, surely. They’d be putting themselves right in Mario’s crosshairs. Admitting to things he had not yet accused them of.

He glanced over at Adeline who was working nonstop to gain access to CCTV footage—or any other footage that might provide any insight into where the guards had taken Beckett, but so far—they had nothing to go on. Beckett had been missing for over five hours, and Hayes was slowly but surely losing his mind.

“While I understand Beckett’s disappearance might be unnerving—” Matthew began.

And it was like hearing himself talk—the same tone and diction that always sent Beckett into a tizzy. Hayes understood it now that he was on the receiving end.

“I would advise you to maintain an objective view of—” Matthew started up again.

Hayes punched him. A surprising, and amazingly powerful, clean uppercut that sent Matthew flying and he landed hard on his ass. It wouldn’t do much more than bruise his jaw, but fuck had it felt good to knock him off his high-fucking-horse.

“Oh, wow!” Adeline spun around in her chair to face Hayes, momentarily taken aback by his surprise attack. She didn’t seem bothered or worried, merely impressed. “Pretty boy has quite the hook,” she commented approvingly and patted Nickel—who sat in her lap—before spinning back around to resume her work.

“Don’t mistake my silence for sanity. I’ll tear your fucking family empire apart to find him—understood?” Hayes told Matthew, bristling with anger, ready to take his ass down again if need be.

Still sitting on the floor, Matthew gave a sharp nod of understanding. He put a hand up to his face, as though testing to see if the bones were still intact. He opened his mouth to speak just as his phone rang. He reached for the phone instead of answering Hayes.

“Matthew,” he said, his pronunciation a bit off as if it hurt to speak.

His eyes grew wide, and he snapped his fingers to get Hayes’ attention.

“Yes, no, that’ll be fine. Can you get him inside? Yes, I’m on my way. No—no, no, best not to alert the authorities.”

He listened for a few more seconds, keeping his gaze on Hayes as he did so.

“Thank you, Amanda.” He ended the call and stood up.

Hayes recognized the name of his personal assistant.