Sicko(88)

“He escaped?” I screech, horror clawing its way into me.

Kara exhales, nodding with an apologetic smile on her face. “He did. Someone blew up the gate and while the boys were distracted making sure you and others were safe, he ran. Royce said his ties were loose all along, and that he could have run at any time, but he wanted to be there.” She pauses, and I place my cup onto the coffee table in front of me, unable to stomach anything right now. “He seems really bad.”

“Kyle?” I ask. “Oh, he’s much worse than that.”

The front door opens and my eyes shoot up to find Slim walking through with an AK strapped around his chest. “Still nothing.”

I groan, leaning forward while massaging my temples. “You’ll never find him unless he wants to be found.”

Slim’s phone rings in his pocket and he pulls it out, answering. I’m still stunned with the information that Kyle is out free, waiting to kill us whenever he would like.

Slim is handing me his phone, and I take it, bringing it to my ear. “Yeah?”

Silence. “You okay?”

I clear my throat. “Not really. Where’s Sloane?”

“She’s asleep in Wicked’s room upstairs. We’re going to find Kyle, and this time I’m just going to kill him. You good with that, or you wanna help?”

I pause, my fingers flexing around the phone. “I think I can pass on that, Roy.” I couldn’t keep the sarcastic tone out of my voice.

“I’m just asking, because I get the feeling you’ve been on the receiving end of his sick bullshit more than anyone else, and he took your mom.”

I think over his words. He’s right. I probably have. I’m not sure what my mom would have endured by him, but I gather it would be around the same. If not maybe more.

“It’s not me, Roy. You can handle that, but have you checked on our mom?”

“Yeah, I have. She just thinks he’s away on one of his many business trips. Oblivious. Did she know anything?”

I shake my head even though I know he can’t see me. “No. She didn’t have a clue.”

“Well, we’ll keep it that way.”

“You could just say that his submarine sunk or something,” I jest, leaning back against the couch.

“What? His submarine?”

“He owned a submarine company. How did you not know that?”

Silence. “I didn’t know a lot.” I’m not sure if that was a dig at me or not. I know Royce, and although I have no reservations on how he feels about me, I also know that he’s going to be upset with me about a lot once this is all over. For one, I should have told him from the start. I know for a fact that that’s going to be a big fight. I’m drained already. “Where’s the launching pad?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part.”

“Spit it out, Duchess, I’m really not in the fucking mood.”

“It’s at the naval base. You can’t get in without his access card or a military card.”

“Stay at the clubhouse. I’m serious, Jade. Don’t fucking move from there.”

“Okay.” What’s another lie. “Be safe, please?”

He doesn’t answer, hanging up and leaving me sitting there with a nervous throb deep in my belly.

Kara stands from the sofa. “They’ll be fine. Trust me.”

The thing about trust is that it can be broken.





We got into the naval base easy enough, with Lion and the pull he has, the cartel were more than happy to help us shift this along faster after learning who K Diamond really is and his connection to Olivia. The man behind the mask. Every time I think over the exchanges between him and me, I find myself getting angry that I hadn’t picked up on anything. None of it seems to make sense and right now, I don’t have the clarity to decipher any of it.

Four truckloads of some of the deadliest motherfuckers I know, all for a man I grew up with. I called Dad.

Fuck.

Lion stops the car outside the launch station, pulling up the emergency brake and glaring out at the endless ocean. Wicked and the boys who were rolling with us begin piling out of the car, leaving Lion and I alone for the first time since revelations came about.

“I need to tell you something. I knew your father in high school.” He took a breath and blew it out. I want to interrupt and ask how and why and what the fuck? But I don’t. Not yet. “He was my best friend. It was him, me, a couple other boys and Jenny Smith.”

“You didn’t think to tell me this?” I say, annoyed that it was kept from me by my damn president.

“I was going to tell you, but Kyle and I decided the less you knew, the better when it came to his history. He played it up, not wanting you to know his dark past. Bullshit, obviously.” His eyes come to mine, and I see the way the worry lines curve in when the next words come out of his mouth. “Everything I did was to protect you, son. Nothing more and nothing less.”

I nod my head, because I trust him. I trust that even if he had lied to me, I trust that I know he did it with the right interest at heart.

“We were all best fucking friends. You, Wicked, Orson, and Storm reminded me of what we all had. Only our story was a little more rugged than your high school stories. Jenny and Kyle were the couple of the school. They fell in love early and stayed that way right until the night she died. Kyle loved that girl more than he loved anything and anyone in his entire life.”