CHAPTER 5 TAUNTING DANGER

"Tell me about my son-in-law. Gabe, isn't it? How did you two meet?"

Gabe.The sound of his beloved husband's name on the lips of a psychopath filled Cole with nausea and heightened his fear. The monster had already attempted to take Gabe down—and lost. He only lost if Gabe survives surgery. He would survive. There was no other acceptable option.

Staring at the man, Cole wondered if he had meant to kill Gabe—or abduct him. Killing him would have been too quick. He wanted to make Cole suffer, and torturing the man he loved would have tortured Cole as well.

Answer him. Don't piss him off.

"I, uh…" Cole cleared his clogged throat. "We met at… work."

"The strip club? Is he a stripper as well?"

"Yeah," Cole mumbled. "Not so much anymore, but… yeah."

"Tell me about his family."

"He… doesn't have family. He spent most of his teen years on the streets."

Daniel stroked his chin. "I guess that explains why he didn't go down so easy. Street kids are tough."

Cole left out the part where Gabe was "adopted" by the boss of a crime family.

"How is he doing, by the way?" Daniel mused. "I hope the stab wound wasn't fatal. I would like to meet him under less… chaotic circumstances. He is my son-in-law, after all."

Cole swallowed thickly. "He's in surgery," he whispered. "I… I don't know how he's doing."

"That's got to be rough, not being there with him."

"It is," Cole replied tightly.

"And here I am, keeping you away from him." Daniel sighed. "I'll let you get back soon enough."

Was he telling the truth? Cole didn't expect the man meant him any harm at this point, he'd called Cole here to mentally torment him. It was working.

"I can see you love him a lot."

Cole's anxiety and terror rose a few more notches.

"Are you sure he loves you, too?"

Lowering his head, Cole closed his eyes. "Yes."

"You were convinced Ezra loved you," Daniel spoke with a flare of smugness. "And he left you without a word."

Cole looked up, tears shimmering, hating the monster across the table with everything inside him. He didn't leave me—you took him from me! I know it was you!

The first day back to school after Halloween was a hard day for Henry. The magnitude of Ezra's absence was everywhere. He moved from class to class like a zombie, his limbs functioning but feeling dead inside. At lunch, he sat alone and picked at his peanut butter and jelly sandwich—which he'd always traded with Ezra because his friend liked strawberry jam and his foster parents only bought grape jelly. Henry liked both. Even if he hadn't, he would've still traded because no sacrifice was too great or small for Ezra.

After lunch, the vice principal stopped him in the hall and asked about Ezra, and if he was home sick. Henry thought it strange that the school didn't know about Ezra moving away—surely his foster parents had contacted the school and let them know. Or maybe they hadn't gotten around to it yet?

During the bus ride home, Henry sat in the far back of the bus in the seat he and Ezra always shared, and stared blankly out the window until he was let off at the end of his long driveway. At that time of year, the sun was already down by the time he got home, and the evening fog starting to roll in.

Henry walked numbly up the dirt drive, practically dragging his backpack. The tears he'd fought off all day at school finally filled his eyes and spilled down his face. The thought of going back to school, day after day, knowing Ezra wouldn't be there hollowed out his heart and made him sick to his stomach. He wished his dad would homeschool him, but that wouldn't happen. His dad was too busy as county sheriff.

Walking toward the house, Henry noticed his dad's truck wasn't there. But his dad didn't usually arrive home until a couple of hours after Henry. He looked at the large barn and paused in the driveway. Henry thought about the other day when he and Ezra went into the barn and found the locked cellar door that Henry hadn't known existed. His dad explained what was down there—just old, rusted equipment. His eyes drifted past the barn and into the misty woods… and the path Ezra followed from his house over to Henry's place.

The backpack slipped from Henry's hand, and he turned toward the barn. He walked numbly past the huge structure and into the trees beyond, following the worn path that Ezra had so recently walked. Henry's throat knotted and fresh tears rolled down his chilled cheeks.

"Why did you leave without saying goodbye?" Henry sobbed as the woods blurred around him. "What am I gonna do without you? I love you. I love you so much. We were supposed to always be together." Henry dragged his sleeve across his eyes and coughed. "You said you would never leave me… that no one could keep us apart."

Henry choked on his sobs and kept going forward along the path. He jumped across the small stream where he'd met Ezra in the woods just a couple of days ago, or so. When he'd told Ezra about his dad's weird behavior. Henry didn't stop and continued through the darkening woods that were filling up with mist. There was a time when it would've scared him to walk the woods alone like this, with all the mist and shadows, but now he didn't feel anything. His greatest fear had already happened—Ezra had left him. Nothing else seemed more frightening than that.

He came to the edge of the trees across from Ezra's house before he realized he'd walked that far. Henry stood at the tree line and stared at the two-story house. All the windows were dark… no sign of life. Henry's chin trembled; Ezra was really gone.

Henry stood there and cried, hugging his cold body. He backed away into the woods to go home when he heard a rig coming up the drive. Henry froze as an irrational spark of hope zinged through him. His heart pounded wildly, and his eyes widened when headlights cut through the thick fog.

Ezra? Had they come home, after all?

Excitement exploded inside him, and he started to race out of the trees. He hadn't cleared the tree line before his feet abruptly rooted to the frozen ground as he watched his dad's truck pull up in front of the house. The excitement turned sour and made his heart beat rapidly in a different way.

The Sheriff exited his rig and walked over to the tool shed and around the side. He squatted down for a moment, then stood and pulled open the doors to a root cellar and disappeared down inside.

What was his dad doing over here? Why was he going into their root cellar?

Daniel Pruett remained in the cellar for what felt like a long time but was probably only ten or fifteen minutes. When he finally emerged, he closed the doors and returned to his truck.

Henry felt weird but wasn't sure why.

His dad backed the Bronco around and headed down the driveway. Henry needed to get home. If he ran, he could get there before his dad. But his feet wouldn't move as he stared at the doors to the root cellar. As soon as his dad's truck was out of sight, Henry burst from the trees and ran across the unkempt lawn to the cellar doors. He halted abruptly when he saw they were padlocked shut.

Like the cellar door in the barn.

Henry felt sick and creeped out, still not knowing why. He ran back into the woods and raced for home, barely making it in time. He scooped up his backpack from the driveway as his dad's rig rumbled up the drive, only the headlights visible in the deepening darkness and fog and rushed inside the house. He hurriedly stoked up the fire, then went into his bedroom, pulled out a textbook, lay on the bed, and pretended to be doing homework. But his mind was back at Ezra's place, his head filled with the image of his dad going into the root cellar.

Cole never discovered what was in that cellar. He was too afraid to ask his dad and admit he'd seen him at Ezra's house. It was less than a week later that his dad revealed the monster living within—and Henry began to put the pieces together; Ezra and his foster parents hadn't up and left at a moment's notice… his dad had done something to them. He'd considered sneaking into the root cellar to see what was down there, but after learning what his father was… he was terrified of what he would find.

"You all right, son?"

Son.Cole cringed. "Ezra didn't leave me," he whispered with a tremor and looked at the monster through watery eyes. "You took him."

Daniel inquisitively raised one eyebrow. "You think I killed the boy—"

Cole's cell phone vibrated, and he flinched hard. The device was turned face-down on the table, and he stared at it, heart pounding, as it continued to hum against the tabletop. Who was calling? Someone looking for Gabe? No one knew Cole had Gabe's phone, not even Devlin.

Daniel reached over and picked up the phone, looked at the screen and the caller's identity, then looked at Cole. "Who is… Clint?"

Clint.Clint was calling Gabe? Why now? Had someone told him what was happening?

"A… friend." Cole swallowed, his head throbbing. He didn't want Clint involved—as much as it brought him a measure of comfort—because this monster wasn't like the others the gangsters had battled. Or maybe he just seemed so much more dangerous because he had terrified and traumatized Cole from a young age.

"Your friend… or your husband's friend?"

"Both," Cole whispered.

"But we can assume he's calling for your hubby, am I right?"

Cole swallowed with effort and nodded.

"Clint," Daniel mused as the phone continued to vibrate in his hand. "Sounds like a cowboy. Is he?"

"Sort of," Cole mumbled, his heart racing.

"Is he someone I should know about?" Daniel wondered. "I don't like surprises." When Cole just stared at him, an ominous grin split the monster's face. "I guess I'll decide for myself." Daniel answered the call and put it on speaker so Cole could hear.

"Gabriel?"Clint's southern drawl surged through the cell with urgency. "Gabriel, are you all right? Where are you?"

"Gabriel isn't here right now," the monster replied casually. "May I take a message? I'll be sure and get it to him."

An extended silence filtered through the phone before the cowboy spoke, low and dangerous. "Who the fuck is this?"

"A worthy messenger, my friend."

"If I don't know you—you're not my friend. Where is Gabriel?"

"I only give out classified information to my friends." Daniel squinted at Cole, amused at himself. "Say you're my friend and I'll tell you." A brief pause as his eyes sparked with sinister glee. "Though you may not like the answer."

"Listen to me, motherfucker,"Clint snarled with a viciousness that made Cole flinch. "If you so much as touch him, I'll fucking skin you alive."

The monster's grin stretched. "Too late, cowboy, I've already touched him. But since you have such a sexy voice, maybe I'll send him back to you… piece by piece." He ended the call before Clint could reply and turned off the phone. The creepy grin remained as he looked at Cole. "Wasn't that fun?"

Cole shook; he just made Clint—the cowboy gangster—believe his brother was dead! Or would be soon.

"What's wrong?" the monster chuckled. "Was it a mistake to play with him?"

"I guess we'll find out," Cole whispered shakily, praying with everything inside him that it was the last mistake of this monster's wretched life.