Better When He's Brave

by Jay Crownover

  The realization of how insidious and malicious as well as how fucking brilliant in his evil machinations Roark was had me shaking so hard I almost missed Brysen’s words as she whispered “Someone needs to stop him; he can’t be allowed to go after anyone anymore.”

  I blew out a breath and tried to steady myself. “I’m trying.”

  She narrowed her very blue eyes. “Try harder.”

  No wonder Race was sprung on her. She looked like a doll but had the bite of a barracuda. She was his perfect match in that way—all golden and glossy on the outside but made of stronger, more resilient stuff on the inside. If Roark did have Karsen, I sure hoped the younger Carter was as tough as Brysen.

  Just as the big, black utility vehicles with SWAT team members and the bomb technicians rolled up to the scene, the metal front doors at the front of the school clanked open and Booker came striding through with his arm wrapped around an obviously shaken and upset Karsen. The teen looked so tiny and fragile next to the giant man that it had murderous rage toward Roark thumping heavy not just through my heart but the heart of the beast that was wide awake in my chest and hungry for retribution.

  Brysen let out a shout and took off running toward the duo. I should’ve stopped her considering the building still wasn’t secure and I still had no idea where Roark was lurking, but I didn’t have the heart to keep her away from her sister. The two blondes hugged and then they were both crying as Booker was ripped away from the teen and slapped into cuffs by the same cop he has shoved over only moments before.

  Karsen started yelling when the cop began to haul Booker away, but Brysen shushed her and guided her over to where I was still standing. I watched curiously as the guys dressed in black tactical gear unloaded a robot that looked like something from Star Wars and used a computer to guide it toward the front of the school. I was dying to know if they were going to find anything or if this had all been some elaborate ruse Roark had staged only to show me he had me right where he wanted me.

  “Are you okay?” The teenager was crying big, fat, silent tears but she looked unharmed. She nodded and looked in the direction where the cops had taken Booker.

  “Why is he getting arrested? He was the only one that came and looked for me.” Ouch. That accusation burned hot across my skin.

  “He pushed a cop. They tend to take offense at that. Why were you still inside the building, Karsen? What happened?” I didn’t want to press her too hard because she was obviously pretty shaken up but I didn’t have any time to waste either.

  She frowned and leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder as Brysen stroked her fair hair. “Yeah, why were you still in there?” Brysen sounded mad.

  Karsen swallowed hard and looked up at her sister with wide eyes. “They announced that we all had to evacuate over the PA system. We do drills all the time, so it was no big deal. My whole class got up and headed to the door like usual. Well, Mr. Kline, my math teacher, stopped me and told me that I had to wait for a minute. I thought it was weird, but then he told me that he had to have a witness to verify that the room was totally empty, so I stayed.” She blinked her eyes like an owl and looked between the two of us. “I knew something was off. I was getting ready to bolt for the door when he grabbed me and shoved me back into one of the desks. He kept rambling about how he has a family and that he was so sorry. He locked me in the room. I couldn’t get out.”

  Brysen said every dirty word that had ever existed and glared at me over her sister’s head. “Tell me you are going to do something about this?”

  I nodded. “Karsen, is the teacher still here?” I asked the question just as the bomb-squad guys hollered an all clear and stormed the front of the school, finally making their way inside the building. It hadn’t been a real threat. It was all a distraction. Unease and something stronger, scarier, raced up and down my spine.

  She gave a cursory glance to where the crowd was thinning out and shook her head in the negative. “No. I don’t see him. This is because of that guy, isn’t it? The guy who burned down Nassir’s club and who burned up Race’s car and killed his dad.”

  I didn’t see any reason to lie to her, so I was going to tell her yes, but, like she had conjured him out of thin air, Race was suddenly there looking beyond furious and ready to take on the entire police force and anyone else that might be in the way of him getting to his girls. He wrapped them both up in a hug so tight it had them squeaking, and glowered at me over their heads.

  “Seriously? A kid is getting dragged into all of this? It ends now, Titus.”

  I couldn’t agree more but I wasn’t sure what any of them expected me to do. I was already dangling the carrot in front of Roark; he just hadn’t bitten at it yet.

  Karsen pulled herself out of Race’s suffocating embrace and looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Booker was the one that came in the school and found me. I heard him calling my name and pounding on all the doors until he found the right one. They arrested him. You have to help him, Race.”

  There was more in her tone than concern for her savior. Oh, boy, I didn’t envy Race or Brysen having to deal with a crush like that on a guy like Booker. It was just asking for all kinds of ugly heartache.

  Race gave me another hard look and I just shrugged. “This is my job, Race. Booker decided to ignore police orders and went in even though we didn’t know if the scene was clear. He could’ve been putting Karsen at greater risk. He got handsy with a cop when they tried to stop him, so they hooked him up.”

  His green eyes flashed to black with fury and his mouth pulled into a hard, tight line. “What if there had been a bomb, Titus? What if she was just stuck there waiting to die because some madman has daddy issues?”

  Deciding that things would just get nastier with Race because I didn’t have an answer to his questions, I asked Karsen to give me the teacher’s full name and promised her I would do what I could to get Booker out of lockup as soon as possible. The poor kid had been through enough for one day.

  I called Dispatch to get an address on the math teacher and decided I better call and check on Reeve since she was on her own. My hackles lifted straight up when the phone just rang and rang. She was supposed to be at the loft, and she was too smart to venture out into the city on her own knowing Roark was winning this deadly game hands down. I tried to remind myself of that as the phone continued to ring unanswered. She wouldn’t willingly put herself in harm’s way knowing what the stakes were. I also tried to keep in mind that if she had left the condo, the feds were supposed to be keeping an eye on her per our deal, so she wouldn’t be out there in the war zone alone.

  The teacher lived in that weird in-between neighborhood where Bax had bought a house. It was nice enough not to need bars on the windows, but still close enough to the city that you could feel the grime and the dirt under your feet. The teacher had a simple ranch-style house that was well maintained and looked about as lower middle class as one could get. There were no signs of anything that would indicate that he was somehow mixed up with Roark, but I knew looks could be deceiving. I shot Reeve one last text demanding that she tell me where she was before climbing out of the sedan and walking up to the front door.

  I raised a hand to knock and almost fell into the house as the door swung open under the tapping of my knuckles. The interior was dark, and before I even took a step over the threshold, the metallic and iron scent of blood hit my nose.

  I swore under my breath and walked into the house expecting the worst. I got it.

  The middle-aged teacher and his wife were sitting on the couch, each with a perfectly round bullet hole in the center of their foreheads. They were still holding hands.

  A teenaged boy that couldn’t be any older than Karsen was a few feet away, facedown on the carpet and missing the back of his skull. It looked like he had tried to make a run for it and not gotten very far. I pulled my phone out so I could call the murders in and saw that I’d missed a text from Reeve. I ignored it so I could call the station, explaining that
I thought the multiple homicide was directly related to the bomb threat at the school. I wasn’t sure how to explain Roark, so I just told Dispatch that it was all part of an ongoing investigation. One more kid I hadn’t gotten to in time in a pool of blood. Roark really was eating away at the very foundation of what I did and why I did it.

  I went outside so that I could go talk to the neighbors and see if anyone had seen anything. As I stepped outside I remembered to look at Reeve’s text. I tapped the screen to open it and frowned at her terse message.

  I had to go home.

  What in the hell did that mean? She was still at the loft? She had to go back to her place up north where WITSEC had stashed her? She had to go back to her place she had in the city when things went to hell? I wasn’t sure what she considered home and I didn’t like that at all. I shot her back:

  WTF does that even mean? Call me NOW! Tied up at work. Triple homicide most likely Roark.

  I thought that would get her attention, and I would hear back from her in a split second, but all I got was silence. I didn’t like it, but I had a job to do, so I started knocking on doors. The first neighbor hadn’t seen or heard anything. Of course not. The second took great pleasure in telling me all about what a delinquent the son was. Apparently the kid had a drug problem and had been caught trying to break into various neighbors’ houses. Two houses down, an old lady that had to be in her eighties swore she saw a big silver truck that didn’t belong in the neighborhood pull up in front of the house. She also thought Clinton was still president of the United States, so I jotted the info down without much hope of it leading to anything. Finally, when I spoke to the young couple that lived across the street, I got something that might actually be helpful.

  They said they saw a bald guy with a goatee talking to the kid. He had been around a few times when the parents were gone, and the couple agreed he didn’t give off a good vibe. The kid’s drug problem was well known around the neighborhood, so they thought he might be a dealer. I told them thank you and made my way back across the street as the crime-scene crew arrived. I was getting really sick of those guys and the ones with the body bags.

  Roark had a full head of hair and was clean-shaven. He looked like a lot of retired military men look. Hard and battle weary but still stuck on the regimen of being clean cut and straightened out. I wondered if the bald guy with the goatee was the infamous Zero, who had shown up on Reeve’s doorstep asking after Roark. It sounded like I had a description of the man Roark had doing his dirty work for him while he pulled the strings safely hidden away.

  Once I was done at the scene I started blowing Reeve’s phone up and tried to fight down panic when there still wasn’t any answer. I knew she was smart, but so far Roark had proven smarter than all of us. She knew that all of her protection was tied up at the charter school with Roark’s carefully crafted distraction, and she wouldn’t have left the safety of the loft unless she felt like she absolutely didn’t have a choice. I needed to figure out what “home” meant and I needed to figure it out right now. I called Otis, the marshal, to see if his guys had eyes on her and they could guide me in the right direction.

  When he told me where she was off to, my heart dropped and I knew I needed to get to her. She had been taking care of me since the moment she stepped foot back in the Point. Now it was time for me to return the favor.

  Chapter 13

  Reeve

  WHEN BOOKER TOOK OFF after a panicked call from Brysen, I had planned on settling in for the rest of the day and doing nothing. I was getting real sick and tired of doing nothing. I had never had the opportunity to just sit around idle while someone else took care of me, and I didn’t care for it at all. Especially since I woke up alone and bereft every morning knowing that Titus was purposely putting space between us during waking hours. We needed to figure out a way that I could be out in the open that seemed like I was on my own without actually flying solo. I needed to be someplace where Conner could get closer to me. This condo was like a fortress and there was no way he could get his hands on me if I was cloistered behind the impenetrable walls.

  I was messing with my hair in the bathroom mirror because I was that bored when the cell phone Titus had given me rang. Only two people had the number, Titus and Booker, so I froze when neither one of those names came up on the display. I thought I knew who would be on the other end, that a deadly and lyrical Irish lilt would hit my ears when I answered the call. I was so surprised to hear a voice I hadn’t heard since my family was whole that I actually went weak in the knees and had to sit down before I fell over.

  My mom sounded so much like Rissa over the phone it was like talking to a ghost. I was shaking so badly that I was having a hard time holding on to the cell and her words were getting lost in the rushing of blood through my head.

  She said something about a federal agent stopping by the house and letting her and my dad know there was new information on Rissa and her boyfriend’s murder. She told me the agent had been so nice, so handsome and polite. She told me that he thought she should be the one to call me because it was information the entire family needed to know. My mother hadn’t had that much life in her since my sister’s body went into the ground. Her words stabbed through me like broken and jagged shards of glass. She asked me to come home. I hadn’t been home to see her or my father in almost six years. Too much time and such a huge secret kept me from going back to them, and now Conner was manipulating the situation so I had no choice.

  He wanted me to tell them what I had done. He knew that admitting to my parents my part in what had happened after Rissa’s death was my worst fear. He was using things I had told him, shared with him, when I thought I was in love, against me. He was pure evil and really tricky. It didn’t escape my notice that he was guiding me away from the security of the condo while both Titus and Booker were away. I wondered if he had yet to pick up on the marshals that were supposedly keeping an eye on me from the background or if he just didn’t care.

  I promised my mom I would try and make it home soon. She cried, and when I hung up I knew without a doubt the phone would ring again. I don’t know how Conner got the number, but I was done questioning how he managed to always be a step ahead. Instead I needed to focus on luring him closer.

  I would never understand how such a terrible man could have such a beautiful voice. It was without a doubt one of the greatest weapons he had in his arsenal. His accent just a shadow under his hard words as he said my name.

  “Reeve. Pretty, pretty Reeve. It’s a shame it had to go this way. I had such big plans for you.”

  I stared at the phone like it might bite me. His words coiled tight and threatening around my throat.

  “Because you loved me, Conner? You had plans because you loved me?” I sounded bitter and scorned, and I kind of was. I hated that he had fooled me so badly. I hated that he had just brought more bad into my life when all I wanted was good. I hated that I was going to kill him, and this beautiful thing that was unfurling between me and Titus would wither and die.

  “I love you about as much as you loved me, Reeve. One user can usually spot another from a mile away. I thought that’s what we were doing . . . using.”

  I scoffed at him. “I thought we were starting a relationship. I thought you were something different.”

  “That makes two of us. I thought you would understand why I’m doing what I have to do. I thought we spoke the same language of revenge, of doing what had to be done to right a wrong.”

  I flinched at the word revenge and how powerful it could be in the wrong hands. I shoved my fingers through my long hair. “Why did you go to my parents’ house, Conner? What are you trying to do to them?”

  He laughed, and it made my stomach turn over and over. I wrapped an arm around my waist and bent over. I felt like there was a good chance I might get sick.

  “I’m giving them the truth. Don’t you think they deserve to know the role you played in bringing their daughter’s killer to justice? Don’t yo
u think they should be proud of you, admire what you risked?” He laughed. “I’m helping you face your fears, my dear. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean, laid the burden down? You went back to the Point to end me but forgot just how many of your secrets still lived there. There are a lot of ways to make someone suffer, Reeve, and I think you should experience them all before we meet again.”

  He wasn’t trying to do anything to my parents or for them. He was trying to do it to me. I’d left because things hadn’t felt right. I hadn’t felt right knowing what I had done and not feeling an ounce of guilt over the choice I had made. I couldn’t stay there and lie to my parents’ faces, so I left, and now he was forcing me to go back. He was going to blow up my family once again, using me and my past choices as the dynamite. I squeezed my eyes shut. He was right: there was more than one way to make someone suffer. I felt the pain well up inside of me.

  “You expect me to tell them what I did. You want me tell them I went to Novak.”

  “I don’t expect it, I know it. If you don’t do this, the next call will be from your new boyfriend because he’s on the way to their bodies. Do you understand me?”

  “You’ll kill them anyway. It’s what you do.” And even though my parents and I weren’t really close, I still couldn’t let him do that to them. They were innocent in all of this, their only crime being that they were related to me. Their deaths would be my fault, and even though I was strong, the weight of more guilt and more bodies would cripple me.

  “I haven’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.” That voice was so seductive, just begging me to believe him.

  “Oh yeah? What about the girl on the docks? You want me to believe you didn’t have your hands in that? She looked just like me.”

  He laughed a little bit. “She had your smart mouth as well. I might have taken a personal interest in her and gotten a little overzealous in trying to teach her what happens to pretty, mouthy girls. It’s time to go home, Reeve. Go alone. If the cop shows, it won’t end well for anyone.”