Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter

Chapter Twenty

“Hello?” I say, somewhat cautiously. Everything makes me paranoid at the moment.

“Ever? Oh, thank god, girl I need your help. I was wondering if you could meet me somewhere?”

“Rylie?” I ask, shocked.

“Of course, who else would it be.” She asks, but her voice sounds strange and her laughter forced. “Anyway, I’ve got to go, can you meet me at the little coffee shop, in Humber? See you there at six, this evening, girl, love you!” Her voice catches as she hangs up.

“What the fuck.” Cash exclaims.

“How the hell did she get my number?” I ask, “We destroyed all of our sim cards.”

“Alright, downstairs. Its time wake up the rest of the house. It seems we have an issue.” Jensen says, hopping up and pulling on a pair of joggers.

I grab an oversized sweater and follow him out of the door. My mind in a tailspin. “I’m going to go and make everyone coffee.” I say getting up and making my way downstairs.

I make the coffee on auto pilot.

Arms wrap around my waist from behind and I lean back into a hard chest.

“Are you okay?” Rafe asks me, kissing me gently on my neck.

“Yeah, I just want to know what’s going on.”

He helps me take the coffees over to the table where everyone is looking bleary eyed and like they need at least six more hours sleep, apart from Trick who is watching me with laser focus.

“Alright, what happened?” He asks, once everyone has gotten their coffees.

“Rylie called me this morning asking for help, she didn’t really give me a chance to talk just told me where to meet her which is in the town we drove through last night, not far from here. She told me to be there at six o’clock this evening. Not only should she not have my number, but she didn’t sound right, and she shouldn’t be anywhere near here. Something’s going on.”

“Fuck.” Cash curses.

“Whose Rylie?” Atty asks.

“She’s my friend from back home.” I explain. “I need to get hold of the detective, he said he had people watching the guys’ family, but I don’t think he had anyone watching Rylie and if he did, I need to make sure that nothing’s gone wrong.”

Atlas and Rage share a look that I’m too freaking tired to interpret. It almost looks like they know something we don’t. Which is likely.

“That’s the first thing we need to do then.” Trick starts, his face serious. “We need to find out if Rylie is safe at her house. If she is, then we ignore the phone call and try to find out what’s going on. If she’s not, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I don’t know how to get hold of the detective though. He didn’t give me any contact details, just told me that he’d be in contact if there were any updates on my case, but it might take a while.” I say.

“Let me call my guy. I’ll see if he can help.” Atlas says, pulling out his phone.

I refrain from pointing out that not all people in law enforcement know each other so the likelihood of him being able to find the detective is pretty damn slim. Especially, since I can’t remember his name.

“Hey, listen, we’ve had a development here and I need you to get someone to look in on Rylie, she lives in the same town as the guys.” Atlas starts and then looks at me.

“I don’t remember her last name, but her dad owns a garage and they live behind it.” I tell him.

I’m such a shit friend, how can I not remember her last name?

“Did you get that?” Atlas asks into the phone, “Yeah, I need you to do it ASAP. Ever had a phone call from her this morning. Yeah, I know, man.” He finishes.

Confusion fills me, he’s talking to the guy like he knows him personally. Speaking to him with far too much familiarity. I understand that they’ve worked together for a couple of years now, but this seems a lot less professional.

“Yeah, alright. Let me know as soon as you find anything. Thanks.” Atlas ends the call.

I’m not the only one that is now watching him suspiciously. We don’t have time for that though.

“If he doesn’t get back to us, I’m going to that meet up, I can’t risk anything happening to her because of me.”

“That’s not a good idea, Angel.” Jensen says and I frown. “Hear me out, if she isn’t at her home nice and safe. Which we don’t know for sure that she’s not yet. Then it’s safe to assume that Liam or some of his men have her. Their sole purpose is to get to you. You’d be playing straight into their hands.”

“And we’re smarter than that. We’ll wait to see if she’s at home first. If she’s not, then there’s a big possibility that she won’t be at the coffee place either. We can arrive early and stake it out. When Liam’s men arrive to grab you, we can follow them back, hopefully to Rylie.” Atlas says strategically.

“I know you’re making sense, I do, and I’ll agree to it, but we need your guy to get back to us as soon as possible.”

“Okay Princess. He will, he knows this is important and he also knows she shouldn’t have been able to get your number. He’s on it, I promise. He hasn’t let me down yet.”

“So, what do we do while we wait?” Luc says.

“We could go to school, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea with tensions running high.” Trick says.

“I wouldn’t be able to concentrate.” I say.

“I’d suggest that those of us who can get some sleep to try, we might be out late tonight. If we need to stake out the coffee shop.” Luc says.

“I’m going to bake.” I say getting up from the table.

“What?” Rage asks, sounding thoroughly confused.

“She bakes when she’s anxious, it’s an Ever thing.” Rafe explains.

“Okay, sure. Can she cook though?” He says sounding slightly dubious.

“Yes, I can.” I retort.

*********

Atlas

Istay sitting  at the table while I watch Ever get up and start to pull out the mixer, baking trays, a cake tin, and various other things that I had absolutely no idea I even owned. They must’ve come with the house. I look around at the rest of the guys, all of them are watching her worriedly even Rage.

His behaviour since Ever and the guys arrived has been odd to say the least, the fucker keeps going from treating Ever like she’s going to fucking eat him to shocking the shit out of me when he pulled that protective shit when she got herself into that bike race. He holds promises in incredibly high regard and he doesn’t threaten to kill someone lightly.

He would’ve done it too; it wasn’t an idle threat.

There’s something going on with him and I know that Ever was the one that stitched him up after his job. It wasn’t something that needed to be mentioned at the time especially since he finally told her that he was the one that killed her dad, at the request of D. D didn’t really give us any information just the name and picture of the guy that needed to be taken out. If we’d known where she was, we could’ve got her out a hell of a lot sooner. I know that D was trying his hardest to come to an agreement with Ever’s father, knowing that he was a player in my fathers’ business. If my father ever found out that D had one of his guys taken out, then there would be hell to pay.

I need to warn him. I pull out my phone, glad for something else to focus on right now and surprised that I haven’t heard anything back from Alaric he normally gets back to me fairly quickly. I get a sinking feeling in my gut. This can’t be good. I shoot a quick text off to D letting him know to call me if he gets any problems. He’s a ruthless bastard and a fucking good guy. It still shocks the shit out of me that Ever knows Jynx, she definitely takes after uncle when it comes to being deadly and ruthless.

I watch as Rafe gets up and starts to talk to Ever, helping her make whatever it is that’s swirling around her brain. I can’t believe that she’s here, I told Alaric to make sure they were all fucking safe, but I didn’t think he’d orchestrate it for them to come here.

“Your guy got back to you?” Trick says keeping his voice low.

Jensen hops up and moves into the kitchen, plugging his phone into the dock and dipping Ever into an extravagant dance pose, even managing to pull out a smile. The music effectively covers up our conversation and with Rafe and Jensen distracting her with dancing, kissing and recipe ideas, we should be able to talk without worrying her further.

I won’t keep anything from her, never would I do that, but I will try and reduce her stress and worry until I have no other choice but to bring her in.

“No not yet, which is unusual.” I say.

“You thinking Liam’s got her?” Luc asks.

“Yeah, it’s looking likely.” I reply. “But he wouldn’t let her meet Ever at that coffee shop. He would have no leverage then.”

“He also seems to know what Ever is capable of. So, he wouldn’t risk Ever being able to take out whoever he sent with Rylie. He’ll need her to come with them willingly.” Rage adds.

“I don’t like that he appears to know so much about her.” Cash frowns.

“No, it’s definitely not a good thing. It also appears that he doesn’t want her dead. Which begs the question, what does he want her for.” I reply.

“Any chance we can convince her not to go? To let us go instead?” Rage asks, his eyes full of doubt, even he doesn’t think that’s likely.

“Not a chance.” Riot sighs. “We’re going to find it hard enough to convince her not to leave as soon as she’s baked herself out.”

“The best thing we can do is make sure she’s prepared and that she realises she’s not doing it alone.” Trick says, his eyes flashing with a mixture of worry and determination as they move to her, instantly softening.

“In that case, we should get ready. Work out what we’re going need from the weapons room.” Rage says.

“Good idea. We’re going to be outnumbered, I don’t have enough time to get one of the other teams or ask for some help from D.” I reply.

“Hopefully, you’ll hear something from your guy soon and we’ll have at least a bit more information to go on. I don’t like going in blind. Everything so far is guess work.” Trick’s eyebrows dip together as he frowns.

For as long as I’ve known him, he’s hated losing control, especially when it comes to the safety of the rest of us. I honestly think it stems from the times that he couldn’t protect us. Like with Jensen’s little sister and mom, Riot’s crazy ass parents. Luc’s demeaning and downright vile parents. Rafe’s hurt from losing Ever and as far as Ever’s concerned, her leaving in the first place and every single damn thing that came after.

None of it, he could’ve done anything about. Either he was too young, inexperienced or had no idea that it was happening.

“We do have the advantage of Rage and Atlas knowing the target though. They know how he works, that’s a good thing.” Cash reasons with him.

Trick leans back in his chair, reaching up, threading his fingers together and putting them behind his head. His gaze tilts up to the ceiling and he takes several deep breaths.

“You’re right. We have an advantage and we need to exploit it but first we need to work out the equipment we need.” He looks over to where, Ever is smiling with Jensen and Rafe as she tries to wrangle the icing off of Jensen. “Maybe we’ll just let her have this for a bit longer. I have a feeling shits about to hit the fan.”

“Agreed.” Cash grimaces his lips curling. He gets up, “I need more coffee.”

I run my hand over my stubbled jaw. We’ve been busier than ever since they all arrived and I’m not sorry. Sure, I wish Ever wasn’t in danger but she’s handling it extremely well, and I find I’m in constant awe of her. I watch her delectable ass as she places the last pan of something the oven. I never thought I’d find someone who I could trust enough to love. I made peace with being alone a long time ago. That she actually, wants me. All of me, she doesn’t judge, and she’s not scared of me in the slightest. Even when I’m pissed as all hell, she still stands up to me and it makes me love her even more.

“Are you planning to tell her the significance of that ring?” Rage asks.

My heartbeat pounds in my chest as soon as he mentions it.

“I will. When things calm down a bit.”

“I’d ask what the deal with the ring is but Ever really should be the first person that knows.” Trick says his eyes burning with curiosity.

“What if things don’t calm down?” Rage asks, his eyebrow raised.

“There’ll be pockets of calm. We can’t live nonstop, we’ll burn out.” Luc says coming to my rescue.

“That’s true. But if your father finds out and you haven’t told her yet, you’ll be leaving her vulnerable.” Rage presses, his jaw clenched.

“I know man, I’ll tell her after we sort this Rylie shit out. Okay?”

Rage nods, his shoulders relaxing. It’s clearly been playing on his mind since whenever he realised that I’d given it to her. He cares for her that much is obvious.

Ever puts the last of the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and then turns to where we’re all sat watching her. She moves straight for me, plopping herself down on my lap as she faces the rest of the table. My arms wrap around her waist and I try to think of anything that won’t result in my dick becoming hard just from her sitting on my lap, she’s not really helping as she moves about though and Jensen smirks, nudging Cash who hides a grin.

I reach up to itch my noes flipping them both the bird and making their grins widen.

“So, what’s the plan then?” Ever asks.

“What?” Luc replies.

“Come on I know you guys, I know you weren’t just sat here talking about fucking inane stuff. So, what’s the plan?”

Trick’s lips twitch as he fights a smile.

“Atlas’s guy hasn’t got back to him yet. Which is unusual.” Cash starts.

Ever tenses in my lap and I shoot him a glare.

“So, we’re thinking that Liam probably has her then?” She asks, sounding surprisingly calm despite the tension running through her small frame.

“Yes. Liam wouldn’t risk you saving her by letting her actually go to the coffee shop. We’re going to arrive a couple of hours early and stake it out.” Trick tells her, holding her gaze as he leans forward, resting his elbows on the table.

“When you don’t show up, he will call you again.” Rage says. “It’s how he works, he’ll make threats. However, by that point we will have already started to follow whoever he sent to pick you up.”

“If we can’t follow them for whatever reason. I can trace the phone call you will receive.” Cash chimes in.

I’m impressed. Between Cash and Luc, they have varying skills when it comes to computers and we’re lucky to have them on the team.

“What about Rylie? What’s he going to do to her when I don’t turn up?”

“He needs her as leverage, so he won’t kill her.” Rage says bluntly, I’m about to snap at him but she nods.

Apparently, she appreciates the bluntness. Good to know.

“Okay.”

“We need to figure out everything we might need. We’re going in somewhat blind. We have no idea where his men could lead us, we have no idea how much we’re going to be outnumbered by and we’ve got no idea why Liam wants you in the first place.” Trick mutters, his hand moving through his hair frustratedly the more he lists what we don’t know.

Ever gets up from my lap and moves over to him, settling herself on his lap. He immediately buries his head in her neck.

“So, we get to go explore the weapons room again?” She grins.

“Yeah Princess.” I smirk.

“Let’s go check it out.” Jensen grins, hopping up excitedly.

Trick gives Ever one last squeeze before letting her up. “Promise me you won’t go off without us?” He says seriously, and we all turn back to them, needing to hear the promise as well. “I am not above handcuffing you to something or someone to keep you safe.”

“As fun as that sounds.” Ever smirks, and my blood heats. “One, I know how to escape handcuffs and two, I am not suicidal. It would be impossible for me to do this by myself. And I am so fucking glad that I don’t have to. If I didn’t have you guys, I still would’ve tried to rescue her alone but I’m so glad I don’t have to. I promise I won’t go off by myself Trick.”

“Thank you, Sweetheart.” He replies, I think he knew what her answer would be he just needed her to verbalise it for him, to put his mind at rest.

Hell, I needed to fucking hear it.

“We’ll revisit the handcuff thing later, Il mio Cuore.” Cash grins his eyes heated.

“Ooo yes please.” She chuckles, sashaying her way from the room and to the weapons room.