Page 91 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

Cassius nods in agreement. “I’ll follow up on the law enforcement side of things.”

“Go straight to the FBI with this,” I tell him. “Do not run it through the Portland PD first because we don’t know if any of those cops are on the Mancinis’ payroll.”

“I’ll dig into Alexandra Jones again,” River says. “I’ll make some calls. We’ve got a good network of information officers to work with.”

“And Teagan and I will go talk to Spike. Chances are, he knows more about Christa’s online activities and where she might’vestashed any information she had regarding the Mancinis,” I say. “If Cass is going to bring the FBI into this, then those suits will need some kind of proof to work with. Their organized crime division is under a lot of scrutiny these days.”

“Guys, I’m scared,” Teagan says. “I can’t get a hold of Spike either. I just tried calling him.”

My stomach drops. I think I know what we’re about to walk into.

I’m scared, too. I’m scared we won’t get to Christa in time. That we’ll lose her and our baby.

Upon reachingSpike’s apartment building, I turn to look at Teagan, now small and quivering in the passenger seat of my SUV.

“You need to stay put. Don’t come in unless I tell you,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, and Christa means the world to me, not just you. I can handle it.”

I shake my head slowly. “You, Christa, and Spike had a plan. You executed it last night, but Christa went missing, and Spike isn’t reachable. Hawthorne security footage was scrubbed. Christa’s cyberattack targeted the Mancinis. Alexandra took Christa out of the offices at gunpoint last night. We’re missing a connection here. On top of that, one or all three of you were probably bugged at some point. Someone knew where Christa would be last night.”

“They didn’t see me at the Mancini office building,” Teagan mumbles, her gaze drifting off to the side. “Do you think they knew we were coming and let us do what we planned to do?”

“It’s possible, yes.”

“Do you think we did it for nothing, that Christa might die and the Mancinis will get away with it?” She sounds horrified. The same thought has crossed my mind more than once since I saw Alexandra on the security footage.

“I don’t know how it will end. But I do know that if anything happens to Christa or the baby, we will burn that entire fucking family to the ground, and there’s no law enforcement agency in this world that will be able to stop us,” I reply. “In the meantime, I need you to sit tight. Please.”

“Okay.”

I leave her in the car and cautiously make my way into Spike’s apartment building. Relying on Teagan’s knowledge of the guy, I expect to find a hacker’s lair, except the front door is slightly ajar, and a subtle smell of iron hits my nose before I even step inside.

My worst fear has come true. I don’t need to see it. But I have to.

“Anyone in here?” I call out.

I hear the humming of a computer in a nearby room. The deeper I go, the more prominent the smell of blood. I notice the armchair toppled over in the living room, the glass-topped coffee table smashed, the torn sofa, stuffing spilling out. I see the beer bottles strewn through the hallway, which is dark.

The computer is on. A plethora of software runs on multiple screens. Blood is smeared over the keyboard and the desktop.

“Spike? It’s Nathan Hawthorne,” I call out again. “Just checking in on you, buddy.”

Looking around, I make a note of every detail that stands out. And plenty stand out. Something bad went down here.

The bedroom is at the end of the hallway.

“Are you here?” I ask, then wait for a response.

Nothing. Just the same eerie silence, weighing heavily on me as I walk down the hallway and push open the bedroom door.

“Shit,” I mutter.

Spike is dead. He’s been dead for a few hours, at least, hands and feet bound to the posters of his bed. There’s so much blood everywhere. He was tortured. And he’s staring at me, gone from this world yet with glassy eyes wide open. They made him suffer.

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