Page 10 of Give Me Peace

Which leads me to believe it was all ploy, because had the listing been real, someone would have bet on Saylor. She’d have gone for far more than the initial asking price, and when whoever won her was deprived of their prize, they’d have come looking. So, Sheriff Fuckstain either got really lucky and pulled one over on some very powerful people, cashing in on a hefty payday in the process, while somehow not getting tracked down for the betrayal, or he’s got friends in high places who helped him orchestrate the entire thing.

I hate both options.

If it was real, then someone—undoubtedly shitty and evil—believes they are owed one Saylor Radley. And I imagine they’re pissed after being screwed over for the past five years. If it wasn’t real, then who the hell does this small-town sheriff know that’s been helping him? I click away at my keyboard, rapidly flipping from one screen to the next as I pull up everything I can find on the piece of shit. But nothing of interest pops out at me. He’s a nobody. His bank account has been frozen, likely Agent Denvers doing. There’s no family listed aside from his mother. No additional properties.

And that’s a whole other can of worms, because where the fuck is he? On paper, Liam Price has no one to turn to. No one who’d stick their own neck out for him, or any off-grid place to hide. Next, I pull his deputies’ backgrounds. He worked day in, day out with those men, so they’re the closest connections he has. Everything I find, which is fuck all, I forward to Loch.

Pushing back from my desk, I rub a hand across my jaw. I feel like I should be doing more, but there isn’t more to do. I hate I didn’t flip that town upside down before ruling it out. I thrive off getting answers, and I thought I’d had them. I was certain just a few hours ago I knew what had happened to Saylor Radley after she’d been taken five years ago. I couldn’t tell you the lead up or the exact execution of her kidnapping, but I was confident in where she’d ended up.

And I was wrong.

It makes me question my ability to be a productive part of the team. It’s literally my job to gather intel, to be sure that my findings are absolute in their entirety, and I somehow fucked that up with Saylor. I can’t help but wonder what else I’ve missed. Were there times when I gave the guys’ half-assed information? All it’d take is the absence of one minor detail for a case to go sideways. Someone could wind up hurt or worse because I dropped the ball.

That’s a lot of responsibility, and old wounds make it hard not to question if I’m really the right guy for the job. I might be the most closed off of our group, but it’s taken years to get the shit out of my head that’d been beaten into me. We met Loch and Ro at a really low point in our lives. Kash and I had been one more hit to the head away from catching a premediated murder charge. We’d taken as much as we could, pushed beyond our breaking point, and the only way out seemed to be if one of us left in body bag. And I had no intention of that being my brother or me.

When our mom met our stepdad, we’d been thrilled. He had money, something we lacked and were desperate for. Not because we wanted a three-story mini mansion or a private school education. Our excitement came from having a stocked fridge and clear tap water. But nothing is free, and the payment for our new luxuries was collected every time our stepdad’s temper required an outlet. Kash and I were his favorite punching bag, and as much as I tried to take the brunt of his anger, he took a special liking to Kash’s soft demeanor.

Where’d I’d fight back and hurl insults just as quickly, Kash would beg him to stop. Archie Sellers, millionaire entrepreneur and ruin-er of lives, clearly had a degradation kink. It made him gravitate to Kash, knowing he could break him far easier than me. It wasn’t the physical beatings he loved to hand out that fucked me up, though. I could take his fists any day. For me, it was the near constant lash of his words. He loved reminding me, every chance he got, that I was nothing but a waste of space. A failure and fuck-up of the highest degree.

It was easy to brush off in the beginning, but after years of hearing how worthless you are, how unlikeable, it slowly starts to wear you down. I didn’t even realize it at first. I’m not sure when I started to believe him, but Archie’s hate had slithered beneath my skin, infecting my body like a slow spreading cancer. By the time it’d reached my mind, it was too late. I believed him, as ridiculous as it sounds.

It didn’t help that our mother stood by and let it happen, too enraptured by her new life to risk putting a stop to the abuse. I guess we’d become a sacrifice she was willing to make. Like I said, nothing’s priceless. The few times Archie beat her, too, it was somehow my and Kash’s fault. Over time, she grew to blame us. The hits became so frequent, our old bruises wouldn’t have a chance to heal before we were gifted a fresh set.

Call it happenstance or divine intervention, but Roan—a complete stranger at the time—witnessed Archie’s rage get the best of him. He’d been careful up until that point, always keeping a leash on his temper until we were behind closed doors. He was a prominent business with a reputation to uphold, after all. But out of the blue, Kash decided he was going to grow a backbone in the middle of downtown Seattle on a random Tuesday. He’d pissed Archie off so badly, he snapped without a second thought to any onlookers. He backhanded Kash so hard his lip split, causing blood to splatter across the sidewalk.

I’d never seen my brother so murderous, but it was there that day, shining in his eyes. That dark gaze that matched my own promised death, and I was whole-heartedly on board. Then, out of nowhere, some big fucker stepped in and laid Archie flat on his ass with a swift right hook. It’d taken me a minute to process, but then I’d folded in half, laughing so hard my goddamn side hurt.

Ro and Loch became a fixture in our lives after that. We had a place to escape to, a safety net and support system. To two fifteen-year-olds, they’d seemed godlike. I’m certain they hadn’t planned to stay in Washington for as long as they did, but they wouldn’t leave without us. Kash and I had tried to report what was happening, but we’d been made out to be shit-starters. Money talks, and so does a statement from your own mother refuting your claims.

So, we sought justice the only way we could. I breached the multitude of offshore accounts Archie had been amassing, draining each and every one. And as a special little fuck you, we sent all of his illegally earned money to nonprofits for victims of childhood abuse. After that, I gathered as much damning evidence as I could against him—racketeering, embezzlement, even his unpaid parking tickets—and forwarded it to the district attorney. It didn’t happen overnight, but Archie Sellers was eventually charged and sentenced to twenty-two years in federal prison.

He might not be there for the reason he really deserves to be, but it’s amazing what you can find on the dark side of the internet. There’s a whole fucked up world out there, right at your fingertips, if you know where to look. It wouldn’t take much to secure a contact in a place like Washington State Penitentiary who has a particular dislike for men who enjoy beating on kids. Whatever torment Archie’s enduring is well deserved, and I hope like fuck it hurts.

I wouldn’t change how things happened, but a part of me, some twisted piece that’s broken, wishes I could’ve put a knife through his chest. A couple hundred times. People joke about killing someone, might even mean it, but when the time actually comes, they can’t go through with it. Not me; I know I could. After everything I’ve seen, I wouldn’t think twice about ridding this world of the filth inhabiting it. A lot of lives would be saved if we stopped trying to rehabilitate the unredeemable. Tax dollars, too.

“What’s up, little bro?” Kash saunters in, a lollipop hanging from his mouth and a cup of too-sweet tea in his hand. He was born nine whole minutes before me, a fact he’ll never let me forget. I roll my eyes, rocking back against the office chair we paid way too much money for.

“You got that thing going on.” He waves a hand in the general direction of my face. “Where your eyebrows scrunch together and make a wrinkle form between them. I can never tell if it’s concentration or constipation.” He smirks at the annoyed look I give him.

“Contemplation,” I state.

“Oookaayy,” he drags out, waiting for me to elaborate. “Is this about our two brothers from another mother who bailed in the middle of the night without so much as kiss goodbye? You know those two are connected at the dick and can’t go anywhere without the other.” Kash flops down, his own chair just a few feet from mine.

We have no room to talk about co-dependency.

I almost laugh but manage to bite it back. It’s true, Loch and Ro are close as fuck, but I feel no jealously over that. As much as I love them like brothers, Kash and I will always be closer, so I understand how the shit they’ve gone through has made their bond as tight as it is. I’m not even annoyed they left without giving us a heads up. More like insulted they thought we didn’t know the second they went out the door. Tech is our expertise, including the multitude of security cameras that case the perimeter of the house. It’s like they forget we have them. I got the alert as soon as the garage opened.

“Nah. It is about why they left, though.” I run my tongue over my teeth, lost for where to start. “They found Saylor.” Straight to the point it is. Kash is spinning his chair around, like a fucking child, when he stops so abruptly, he nearly lodges his sucker in his throat. He proceeds to cough and gag for a good minute before getting his shit together.

“The fuck?” he rasps, his eyes watering from all the hacking. “Like…in what way do you mean found?” I see the flash of vulnerability in his eyes, but it’s gone a second later. We’ve both done a damn good job of not attaching ourselves to anyone, the guys excluded. Kade less so than the others because he’s an even bigger asshole than me. While Kash took on the role of being the guy who takes nothing too seriously, always cracking a joke at the worst possible time, I went the opposite direction. I shut down and quit letting people in so easily. I feel shit, I just don’t want to. We all cope differently.

“Alive.” His jaw drops at my response. It’s probably the last thing he thought I’d say. I go over all the information Lochlan relayed, most importantly being that Saylor’s stable but still unconscious. Just retelling the whole ordeal leaves me exhausted, so I can’t imagine how Loch and Ro are holding up.

“Shit, man.” Kash is pacing, his sucker flipping from one side of his mouth to the other every few seconds. It’s a tic of his. When he’s anxious or stressed he bites the candy, crunching it to bits, and then it’s gone and he’s reaching for another to repeat the process. But when his stash is running low, he tries to refrain, which has him bouncing the damn things around his mouth like a fiend itching for a fix. “This is…amazing. But also, crazy. Where’s Kade?” He stops moving, his eyes holding mine as he waits for me to answer.

“Loch thinks it’s best to keep things quiet for now.”

“He what?!” Kash sneers. “That’s fucked up, and you know it.” He points his finger at me accusingly, like I’m the reason behind Loch’s piss poor decision.