Page 10 of Cruel Debts
A bat swung at the back of my head before the door was even closed, and had he waited a millisecond more, he might’ve actually taken me out successfully. However, it was obvious that baseball was not Mistwood’s sport. The steel bat missed me by a mile, slamming into the nearby wall of cinderblocks with apingI could feel all the way up my own arms.
I laughed at his failed attempt to kill me and shrugged it off. Wasn’t the first time we’d come to blows, and I was certain it wouldn’t be the last.
I shoved him up against the wall and cut off his airway, grinning like a loon as he started to sputter and claw at my arm. “You seem like you’re ready to die today,Detective,”I lashed out, refusing to call him by my former best friend’s name. “Luckily for you, you’re of more use to me alive than dead.”
“When the fuck is all this going to stop? When is enough enough?” He struggled against my grip, trying desperately to shake me, but I was no weakling. Compared to his stature, I was a god, and he a mere mortal.
Heavens help him if I ever decided to actually kill him. He’d never see it coming.
I released him with a pointed look, shoving across the room in a single move. Before he even had time to double over andcatch his breath, I was pulling up a chair, the only one in the room, with a stern look in my eyes I knew he couldn’t escape.
I crossed my legs and waited for him to recover, my anger simmering that I even had to be here right now. But this bastard could get places I couldn’t, and right now, he had more men at his disposal than we did. Besides, until I knew what the fuck we were dealing with, I didn’t want to tell the others about the side job I’d taken on for the McCoys.
Hawke hated her guts. He hated Keehn from the start, only taking the blood oath because the rest of us did. Eventually, Keehn grew on him, if only because Hawke was constantly getting into trouble that Keehn would bail him out of. But Trin?
Oh, heneverliked Trin.
They were like oil and water, those two. He was a spitfire, and so was she, always at each other’s throats over something stupid whenever we had a chance to get together as a unit after we came home. When one got riled up, so did the other, and they fed off that energy, grating against each other whenever they were within striking distance.
One time, Trin might’ve taken a bat to him, for shits and giggles.
I wasn’t there to see it, but I believed it.
So if I told him Trinity was AWOL, he’d probably throw a party. And then invite her parents.
“Trinity McCoy is missing.” I watched the man who called himself Keehn process the words I’d just said, slower than usual. His eyes bugged out when the last name finally hit home.
“McCoy? Like your dead comrade McCoy?” He jerked his thumb into his chest. “Like the guy whose identity I’ve assumed McCoy?”
I nodded. “The same one. His sister. We promised the man we’d protect her and look out for her if there ever came a time when he couldn’t. And since he’d been missing, presumeddead, for years now, I think that qualifies as his inability in this situation.” My eyes narrowed dangerously. “And since she’s here looking for herbrother,you need her to be found and sent home just as much as we do.”
I thought Danny was going to have a heart attack on the spot. “So you want me to use the police force to find this missing girl.”
“She told her parents she was going to Nocturna Beach. The friend she was supposed to stay with was her cover. But she’s kindly informed us Trinity camehereinstead. And now, who knows where she is? She’s been unreachable for weeks, maybe longer. Very unlike her.” A shiver ran down my spine as any number of scenarios of things that could have gone wrong played across my mind. “The sooner we find her, the better for all of us. I don’t think I need to remind you what kind of people she could have run into in this town, what kind of trouble could have found a sheltered rich girl in Port Wylde.”
“And what, exactly, do you expect me to do?”
I snarled at him, my teeth gnashing together menacingly. “I expect you tofind her.The hows of it don’t concern me.” The manila folder I’d had rolled up and tucked into the back pocket of my jeans suddenly fell into his lap, and he stared at it like he’d never seen one before. “All the intel I have on her is there. You should be able to do plenty with that.”
He flipped through the pages, brows drawing together slowly. “What if she doesn’t want to be found?”
“I don’t care what she wants,” I growled. “I told her parents I’d find her. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
“You mean you’re going to makemefind her.” He shoved the folder into the back of his pants with a grimace. “Fine. I’ll do your dirty work again, Sentry. But this is the last time?—”
“You don’t get to tell me when you’re done working for us. You fucked up when you took the identity of the man who served alongside three of the most dangerous motherfuckers in thistown. And if you think going to St. Clair will save you, I have news for you. She’s even more likely to gut you and throw you to the river puppies than we are if your little secret gets out.”
His ex-wife, our boss, had no idea he’d been living his life under an assumed name. She’d only ever known him as Keehn McCoy. She had no idea the man she’d married was actually Danny Mistwood, rich boy extraordinaire on the run from his own past. That he never needed to be a suffering little street urchin. That he’d always been different from the rest of us, though he pretended to be otherwise.
And if she found out the one person she’d bothered to trust in this short life was a liar, she might go off the deep end. Lilly was always a little wonky to begin with. She didn’t let many people see it, but I’d been privy to one too many episodes of her manic breaks to let her pull the wool over my eyes.
Our boss was possibly the most volatile person in the entire Guild. And perhaps the most dangerous, as well.
“Go on, then, McCoy. Do what you do best, and figure out where the fuck this girl is. The clock is ticking.”
I let him disappear into the darkness first, sitting alone for a moment to collect my thoughts. As much as I hoped he’d find Trinity soon, something inside me felt off. Like there was something about her disappearance that wasn’t so simple.
When she finally did turn up, all hell would likely break loose.
