“What the fuck?”
At my growl, Lyla shot awake and sat up. “What’s the matter?”
“Goddamn it,” I raged as I killed the engine. By the time I was out and rounding the hood, Lyla had pushed her door open and climbed out.
“Oh my god,” she gasped when she finally got a good look at her car. The front and back tires of the driver side were completely flat, and not just from running over a nail or something. No, those fuckers were slashed, an inch-long gash in the sidewall of each of them. “Who would do something like this?” she asked, turning wide eyes to me.
“My guess, fuckin’ neighborhood kids. You’d be surprised how many spoiled, privileged motherfuckers live in this development.”
“But why?”
“Who knows why punk-ass kids do what they do. But when I find ’em, you can bet your ass they’ll never fuck with anything that belongs to me again, and that includes my woman and all her shit.”
Her head jerked around to me, and she did the last thing I would have thought possible after finding her car had been vandalized in the middle of the goddamn night. She burst into a fit of laughter.
I glared at her while she slowly worked to get control of herself. “Not sure what you’re findin’ funny in this situation, baby.”
“Then you aren’t standing where I am, ’cause if you were, you’d be laughing your ass off too.”
My glared deepened into a severe scowl. “This isn’t funny, Goldie.”
“Oh, come on, honey.” She closed the passenger door and came toward me, wrapping her arms around my neck. “First of all, you’re not gonna find whoever did this. It’s impossible. Secondly, if, and that’s a big ‘if,’ you find the kids who did this, you aren’t going to do anything to them and you know it, because, I’ll repeat, they’re kids.”
I wanted to argue but I couldn’t, because beating the shit out of a bunch of teenagers would probably cause some serious legal issues that would make Tate’s head explode.
Before I had a chance to let my anger build into something bigger, she took my hand and began pulling me toward the house. “Come on, Mace. If you come inside and promise not to beat up any of the neighborhood children, I’ll make it worth your while.”
The slashed tires were all but forgotten. “Oh yeah? What exactly do you have in mind?”
“Well….” She bit the corner of her bottom lip and gave me a seductive look. “It involves me wearing nothing but these shoes while on my knees.”
That was all it took. Bending at the waist, I threw her over my shoulder and lumbered toward the house as she laughed hysterically.
Then she got down to making it worth my while.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lyla
A week and a half had passed since the wedding, and life was perfect. Absolutely, ecstatically perfect.
“Mace?” I called as I pushed through the front door. I’d spent the afternoon getting coffee with Tate before attending another group meeting. I’d been giving a lot of thought to what I wanted to do with my life, and after how much my group had helped, I’d decided I wanted to try and help women the same way my group had helped me so, come the fall semester, I was going to start taking graduate classes in order to become a grief counselor. I’d talked about it in the meeting today, and the other women though it was a great idea. I couldn’t wait to share my revelation with Mace.
“Mace, honey? You home?”
I dropped my purse on the table near the door and noticed a piece of paper with his handwriting scrawled across it.
Goldie,
On a run with Deck. Be back soon.
Love you,
M.
I smiled at the note and folded it in half, carrying it with me as I headed for the kitchen. The moment I stepped through the threshold, I jerked to a complete stop and sucked in a gasp at the huge arrangement of hydrangeas and daisies beautifully arranged in an exquisite crystal vase smack-dab in the center of the island. I moved to throw the note away so I could inspect the flowers more closely when something in the recycle bin caught my eye.
“What the hell?”
Reaching into the bin, I pulled out an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and just like that, my perfect world imploded. It was partially buried beneath the other recyclables, as if someone had tried to hide it, and my stomach plummeted to the floor.
Just then, the front door creaked open, and Mace’s voice resonated through the house. “Yo, baby! Where you at?”
I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. All I could do was hurt as the betrayal burned in my chest.
“Hey,” he said once he reached the kitchen. “You’re here. Didn’t you hear me?” I slowly turned around to face him with the bottle held aloft. The smile slowly melted from his face when he saw my expression and read the feel of the room. “What’s wrong?”
I lifted the bottle higher. “What the hell is this?”
“What?”
“What… the hell… is this?” I repeated, the pitch of my voice rising higher with every word.
Mace looked from me to the bottle and back again, no less confused than the first time I asked, but it was Declan, who’d come back from the run with him, who spoke first. “Uh, should I… maybe go?”
“How could you?” I continued as if Deck hadn’t said a word. “You were doing so well!”
“How could I what?” he asked.
“It’s an empty bottle of Jack!” I shouted, slamming it down on the counter so hard it was a wonder it didn’t break.
Mace’s face grew hard as he snapped, “I see that, Lyla. What I want to know is why you’re jumping up my ass about it.”
I narrowed my eyes into vicious slits as I hissed, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Not even a fuckin’ little,” he snapped in return. “If I was kidding, that’d mean I knew what the fuck you were pissed about.
“It was in our trash, Mace!”
“Oh fuck,” Declan, grunted at the same time Mace’s already hard expression turned to thunder.
“What?” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
At the viciousness of that one word, all my anger fled and I took a step back.
“It’s not yours?” I whispered in shock.
“Of course it’s not fuckin’ mine!” he barked. “I haven’t had a goddamn drink in months. You really think I’d ruin that? That I’d do that to you?”
Dread suddenly created a rock in the pit of my stomach. “Then… then were did it come from? How’d it get here?”
“That’s a good fuckin’ question, and one I’d like an answer to myself.”
It was then that Declan chimed in, asking the question Mace and I were both too ill-tempered to think of.
“You have anyone in the house lately?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not anyone besides you guys.”
“Well none of us would bring that into your house. We all know how hard Mace has worked, and we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. So we need to figure out who the hell’s been in here to put that bottle in the trash. And who brought in those flowers?”
I looked at the massive bouquet on the island. “What are you talking about? Mace bought those for me.”
His chin jerked back in surprise. “No I didn’t.”
“That’s not… but….” That rock in my stomach grew wider and heavier. “Those are my favorite flowers. Who could’ve known? How else could they have gotten in here?”
This wasn’t right. None of this was right, and something instinctive was telling me it was very, very bad. Everything started to come together like pieces of a puzzle to form an unpleasant picture.
“The tires on my car,” I whispered. “All the stuff that’s gone missing over the past several weeks. Do you think it could be the same person?”
“What stuff?” Declan asked, his voice hard with concern.
“Her watch went missing a while back. Couldn’t find it anywhere,” Mace answered for me.
“Well that, along with some other stuff.”
Mace’s head shot around at that and he snapped, “What?”
“I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I just thought I misplaced some things.”
Declan seemed to be getting just as pissed as Mace. “What things?”
“Well, uh… a hair tie, a tube of my favorite lip gloss, and….” I caught myself, knowing the next thing I said was liable to make their heads explode, and that was the last thing I wanted at a moment as tense as this one.
“What else?” Mace demanded on a growl.
Well, um… it’s just….”
“What else?”
At his bark, I jumped and spit out, “Some of my panties disappeared.”
The air sparked and crackled, and a bolt of electric rage shot through the atmosphere. “What?”
“Mace—” I tried, but it was too late.
Grabbing the crystal vase around its center, he launched it across the room with the force of a professional baseball player. It crashed into the wall and exploded into a million tiny pieces.
“Mason!” Declan barked. “Calm the fuck down!”
“Get on the phone. You call Ian and get his ass here now. Someone’s been breaking into my fucking house and stealing my girl’s goddamn underwear!”
Declan fished his phone out of the pocket of his basketball shorts and hit a couple buttons before putting it to his ear.
“Mace,” I whispered, fear taking hold of my throat and squeezing, making it hard to breathe. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. “But you can goddamn bet I’m gonna find out.
“Are you kidding me?” I spat, my jaw clenched so tight it was a wonder all my molars hadn’t cracked.
It had been two hours since Deck called Ian and ordered him to get over to our house, and an hour and a half since the big beast of a man showed at our front door. In that time he’d been making quiet, secretive phone calls as word spread and the rest of the guys, with their girls in tow, had shown.
Gwen, Tate, Gina, and Corrine had all fretted over me while Garrett and Killian had joined Deck and Mace in their brooding.
Ian had connected with the security company that was in charge of manning the gate around the perimeter of our development and somehow talked them into handing over their security footage. Then he’d gone back to the dates we’d given him of when we noticed things missing, and to the night my car had been vandalized. It had taken a while, and we had to fast-forward through tons of boring, grainy black-and-white footage, but now I knew who was behind it all.
And I was no longer scared.
I was pissed.
“Baby, calm down,” Mace tried to order, but it was too late for that.
I spun around on him and spit, “Calm? Screw calm!” I shouted. “You be calm! I’m gonna be pissed!”
The corner of his mouth twitched up like he was trying to fight a smile, and I nearly lost my mind. “Are you… are you laughing?”
“Never,” he replied, that twitch getting more distinct.
“Oh my god! You are laughing! This is not funny!”
“You’re right, baby. The situation certainly isn’t funny, but how you’re acting is all kinds of cute. I just couldn’t help myself.”
Killian stood up from where he’d been hunkered over Ian’s laptop screen and stated, “That dude looks familiar. Why’s he look so familiar?”
“Because you met him before,” Mace replied as he pulled me into his embrace. “He came with Lyla to a concert in San Fran years back. That’s her fucker of an ex-husband.”
Tate clapped her hand over her mouth, and Declan looked at her curiously, but I was too busy losing my shit to notice. “I don’t get it,” I cut in, pulling at Mace’s hold so I could look up at him. “Why’s he here? He shouldn’t be here. I have a restraining order.”
“Why the hell do you have a restraining order against this guy?” Garrett growled.
“For a restraining to be valid in a new state you have to take it to the police to get it registered,” Ian rumbled. “Yours was filed in California. Unfortunately, since you didn’t bring a copy to give the cops in Washington, it doesn’t hold any clout here… for the time being. But the bright side is I’m getting that shit fixed tomorrow.”
“Why do you need a restraining order against this guy?” Garrett semi repeated, growing angrier.
“I didn’t think of that,” I told Ian, choosing to ignore Garrett’s question, mainly because I was too scared to answer it. “I should’ve gone to the police station when I moved here.”
“We can take care of that first thing in the morning,” Ian told me, a gentle—well, as gentle as Ian could manage—look on his face.
“Guys!” Garrett snapped loudly. “I know I’m not invisible! Will someone answer my goddamn question?”
Before I had a chance, Mace got there first. “That motherfucker beat her. Put her in the hospital when she tried to leave him.”
If this had been a movie, thunder and lightning would’ve cracked through the night air and the skies would’ve opened up, rain pouring down on everything.
As it was, this wasn’t a movie. But the mood suddenly filling the room was so thick it was suffocating.
Well shit.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lyla
Needless to say, the guys lost their shit. If Mace had given me a chance to speak, I would’ve gone much gentler than he had, but there was no turning back. The only saving grace was that the girls already knew, and they could help talk their men down… hopefully.
“He hit you?”
“Garrett,” Gwen started, hoping to contain the blond Viking’s rage.
“That motherfucker put you in the hospital?” That was from Killian, and he sounded just as threatening as Garrett had. Gina put her hand on his arm in an attempt to soothe.
Declan looked at Ian and ordered, “You track that cocksucker down. I want him found and brought here so we can fuckin’ kill him.”
“Enough!” I snapped, having reached the end of my rope. I pulled completely out of Mace’s arms and spun to face everyone. “Yes, Daniel beat me, and yes, it was bad enough that Will had to rush me to the hospital. It’s not my fondest memory, and I’d really like to stop reliving it if necessary.” I worked to soften my tone and calm my anger. “I know you guys care about me and I love you for that, and I’m sorry this isn’t something I shared with you sooner, but you know now. What he did then is in the past. This is now. I’ve finally started moving on from what he did, and that asshole rears his ugly fucking head again to try and ruin things when I finally have something to be happy about. I’m not going to let that happen. I won’t let him win. He isn’t taking another thing from me.”
“Of course not,” Tate stated firmly, shooting a silencing look at her Declan.
“I’ll get the restraining order taken care of so it’s valid here. I have some connections in the police department, and I’ll get that ASAP. In the meantime, I’ve put in a call to a buddy of mine in Virginia. His name’s Lincoln Sheppard. He can be here in a couple of days to install a new security system in the house.”
“But we already have a system,” I said.
“Not like this guy can provide. He’s an expert in his field, best I’ve ever met. He’ll make it safer here.”
“Set it up,” Mace answered firmly. “I don’t give a shit what it costs. Just get him here.”
“You got it.” With that, Ian disappeared into some corner of the house to resume his secretive phone calls.
With everything that could be handled that night taken care of, our friends eventually headed out. It was late, everyone was tired and overly emotional. I loved them all dearly for caring as much as they did, but I was exhausted, so when they left I was grateful. That meant I could sleep, hopefully without any nightmares. But I wasn’t holding my breath for that.
After the day I’d had and the ugly reminder that I’d married a narcissisti
c prick, I was sure my sleep would be plagued for god knew how long.
Fortunately I had the best man in the world to help me beat those nightmares back and heal my wounds.
He might not think that was enough, but I knew better.
Mace
Taking Lyla’s hand, I led her into the bedroom and stopped at the foot of the bed. “Stay here. I’m gonna check the doors and windows. Be right back.” I lifted her hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles before dropping it and heading back out.
A storm was brewing beneath the surface, and I had a tenuous hold on the violent rage churning in my stomach. I needed a few minutes to get a grip before heading back to her. She deserved that much.
I went through every single inch of the house, upstairs, downstairs, and basement. I checked every door and window, double and triple checking the locks before finally going to the panel at the front door and setting the alarm.
When I finally thought I could go in without exploding all over the place, I headed back to our room.
She sat at the foot of the bed, a hesitant smile on her face as she asked, “You okay?”
“You’re asking me if I’m okay?”
Slowly standing to her feet, she came close and placed her hands on my on the sides of my neck. “You just look like you want to rip the head off someone is all.”
I appreciated her attempt at making a joke, but I wasn’t able to draw up a smile just yet.
“I do. Someone’s head in particular.”
That smile, as fake as it was, fell from her gorgeous face, and I hated that I was the one who’d taken it away. “Come on,” I said softly as I led her toward the bathroom.
Turning the tap of the tub on, I tested the temperature before pushing the stopper down, then went back to Lyla. I undressed her slowly before divesting myself of my own clothes.
“What are you doing?”
Climbing into the tub, I grabbed her waist and hefted her in with me, guiding her down until she was sitting between my legs with her back pressed against my chest. “We’re gonna take a nice, relaxing bath. Then we’re goin’ to bed, and I’m gonna hold you until you fall asleep.”
Ravage (Civil Corruption Book 4) Page 21
