Chapter 7

7

LANA

T he weight of one intruder is easy enough to manage as I squat down, pull him up by the zip ties, and hoist him over my head to lay across my shoulders.

“Fuck, you are strong.” Aiden smiles as he walks in to grab the other guy. He mimics the same movement, deadlifting and snatching the intruder to get him across his back like a weighted barbell.

We carry them out to the garage and drop them in a heap in the middle of the cement floor. I pull out a vial and syringe from one of the pockets in my tactical belt. I inject one of the intruders with synthetic adrenaline to wake him up.

He takes a deep breath, gasping and struggling to break through his zip ties.

“Fuck, get this shit off me,” he snarls.

Aiden takes a step back before getting enough leverage to kick the hell out of him. “You think you can just break into my house and threaten my family? Who sent you?”

The man groans in pain but manages to hiss out his words. “Fuck you.”

The words enrage Aiden, sending him into a fit of fury and unleashing blows and kicks against the intruder. The other guy tries to curl into a fetal position, but it’s useless. Aiden delivers blow after blow until I move into the line of fire to stop him.

“We can’t get answers if you break his jaw, Aiden.” I hold my hands up to show him I’m not the enemy, to break through his blind rage.

“Fine,” Aiden huffs, flexing his fingers into a fist and releasing them. His knuckles are bloody and bruising. The intruder gurgles a bit and coughs up blood.

“Fuck. Tell him what he wants to know, or I’ll be forced to finish what he’s started,” I warn the guy.

The intruder sniffles and cries. “Okay, fine. Someone named Sam, Sam Rogers, hired us. We’re supposed to grab the kid and meet up later.”

“How many more of you are there looking for the kid?” I ask him.

“It’s just us two. That’s it. That’s all I know.” He whimpers and lets his head rest on the ground. The adrenaline is wearing off.

Sirens blare in the distance, and Aiden storms out of the garage. I follow him outside just as the police arrive. He paces in a circle while the officers get out of the car. There are only two, but that’s more than enough to haul these guys away.

Aiden tells them what’s happening but leaves out the information we got from the one intruder, who’s now unconscious. The police thank us for our effort and leave us with the two perpetrators in the back seat of their squad car.

“So, are you going to tell me who Sam Rogers is, Aiden?” I ask him once we’re inside his car.

“Jeremy’s mother, Samantha,” he growls.

“What? I thought she didn’t want anything to do with you or Jeremy.”

Aiden’s jaw clenches, grinding his teeth as we drive at breakneck speed back into town. “She doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense why she’s trying this kind of shit now.”

“Where are we going?” I ask him. “And can we slow down?”

“There’s a gated community just outside of Avonia. Her mother has a house out there. It’s where I caught her the first time.” Aiden grimaces, white-knuckling the steering wheel as he continues speeding toward our destination.

“The first time?”

He snaps his neck, glaring at me for a moment before he refocuses on the road. “The first time I caught her cheating on me. She fucked the landscaping guy, and I saw through the window. I think she enjoyed knowing that I watched her.”

“So if she’s there, what do you have in mind? Police or would you like to handle it on our own?”

“I’d like to handle it myself?—”

I cut him off. “No, you don’t. Aiden, listen to me. Technically, she’s only been implicated. We looked at the security footage from the school. She’s not in any of it from the past week. Although, I’d like to go back further and look. But if you see her in this state, you’re liable to kill her.”

“So what?”

“What about Jeremy, Aiden?” I ask him with the hope of getting through. I need him to dial back his anger to be reasonable. “I can take care of it. When we see her, let me handle it, Aiden. Please.”

I touch his hand on the gear shift, but he remains silent. The rest of the drive is quiet until we pull up to a security booth outside of some cookie-cutter townhouse neighborhood that looks like it was pulled right out of the 1950s.

Aiden talks to the guard, who immediately lets us into the community. We drive for a minute or so before turning down one dead-end street. He pulls the car into a driveway and shuts it off.

“Who lives here?” I ask him, hoping this isn’t the house his ex happens to be inside.

“No one. I rent it out and a few other houses here. I bought it years ago so my private investigator could use it to spy on Sam and the people she cheated with. The house she stays in is two streets over. There’s a shortcut through these yards.”

He doesn’t wait for me as he checks the clip in his gun, holsters it in his waistband, and stalks between two houses. I stay about a foot behind him as he weaves around hedges and stoops down once we’re close to the house he undoubtedly plans to break into.

“It’s this one right here.” Aiden’s voice is low. “Thank you, Lana.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see if she’s in there and take it from there. Thank me after all three of us leave this place alive.”

I tip my head forward, giving him a signal that I’m ready to go inside if he is. Aiden skulks toward a side door and tries slipping a key off his keychain into the lock. When it doesn’t work, he nods.

“It was worth a shot to see if she ever changed the lock,” he says.

“Let me take a crack at it,” I tell him, and he steps aside. I pick the lock easily and let us inside. The inside is normal enough. It’s nowhere near as big as Aiden’s home or his parents, but that’s a good thing.

We take our time, quietly moving through the house. My heart races as we get closer to the sound of two people talking. The woman’s voice is loud and clear as she says, “What do you mean they were arrested?”

“I mean, I saw them getting hauled away in the back of a police car. They’ll probably call me for bail and a lawyer,” a deeper voice replies to her. “Sam, this isn’t what I signed up for. You said we were getting your kid from his abusive father. The kid looked fine, and now my people are behind bars. I’m out of here.”

Aiden pulls his gun out, cocks it, ready to fire, and forces me to do the same.

“What the hell?” The woman, Samantha Rogers, puts her hands up immediately.

“I told you this was going to end badly. I told you that this morning after that bitch fucked up the plan at the school, Sam. I told you—” Her accomplice shakes his head.

“The police are on the way, but I want to know why you did this,” Aiden growls at the woman.

She shrugs and rolls her eyes. “You have everything and left me with nothing.”

Aiden shakes his head. “What are you talking about? You get money from me every month.”

“It’s not enough,” she shouts.

I keep my gun trained on the guy while Aiden has his on her. Her accomplice takes a step to the side and forces me to follow him.

“Stop moving,” I command him.

“This has nothing to do with me. I’m only the middleman. I set up a meeting for a conversation. That’s it.” Her accomplice takes another step away from Sam.

“Don’t move,” I warn him.

“This is your new bitch, huh?” Sam spits.

“Security,” I reply with my gun sticking to her accomplice.

“Of course, you have private security. You closed on that consulting deal, and our agreement says I can’t take you back to court for an alimony adjustment. Jeremy wasn’t going to get hurt, Aiden. I swear. I was going to hold him until you paid a ransom, and then you’d never see me again,” Sam explains.

However, her explanation only infuriates Aiden. Samantha’s accomplice takes another step toward the front door. I squeeze off a shot that stops him. Samantha shrieks, and Aiden moves closer to her accomplice, knocking him out before he tries to escape.

The sound of her accomplice collapsing onto the floor draws an agonizing screech out of Samantha. She scurries over to the man lying in a heap, crying and hovering over him.

“Aiden, back up,” I tell him, but my words come too late as Samantha jumps up to knock Aiden backward. She goes for his gun, but I move swiftly. I knock her back as Aiden sidesteps her attack.

The sound of me releasing the clip and sliding it back into place is enough to get Samantha to stop moving. But it’s not enough for me as I ball my fist and knock her out, forcing her to slump over her accomplice.

“Thank you, Lana. You saved me from ruining my life by stopping me from taking hers.” Aiden’s voice is low but full of gratitude.

“Come on, Aiden. I hear the police coming.” I pull him away from the criminals.

I hate that it came to this, but I’m glad it’s over.