“What are you doing?” Johnny finally finds his way into the house. “Why do you have that bag?” He points at my shopping bag full of supplies. He seems to have left the rest of the whiskey in the garage, which is probably a good thing. Neither of us needs any more liquid courage for what I have planned. In fact, it’s probably best if we sober up a little. I set up the coffeemaker and get it started brewing while I grab us each a bottle of water from the fridge.
“Drink this,” I say, tossing him the bottle, which he promptly drops on the floor. “We need to be sober-ish before Devon gets here to pick us up.”
I reach into the cupboard above the coffeemaker and grab two travel mugs. We’re going to need as much coffee as we can get.
“Oh sweet. Devon’s coming? That’s awesome, man. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll decide for sure once we get there. I have a few ideas though.” I sit beside Johnny at the counter and explain my plan to avenge Rhea while we wait for the coffee and for Devon. If all goes well, this guy is going to have a lot of explaining to do to his neighbours tomorrow. And I, for one, can’t wait.
Chapter 25
Rhea - Giant Dick
The sound of my phone buzzing on my nightstand wakes me up and a look over at the clock tells me it’s only 2:00 in the morning. I stretch and grab my phone, sitting up while I answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey, get dressed. I’m coming to pick you up.” Kaden barks into the phone. He sounds pissed off. “Your boyfriend is doing something stupid.”
“I’m sorry. My what?!” I sit up in bed and rub my eyes. Something strange is going on and I have a funny feeling I know exactly who is at the bottom of this. The dumbass.
“Aiden called Devon for the address of the guy that got you fired. So Devon called me to get it, and to let me know to meet them there. Just to make sure nothing gets too out of hand. I figured you may want to deal with this yourself.” I can hear him shuffling around in the background, keys rattling and doors closing, before he starts his car.
“Oh, for crying out loud. He’s not my boyfriend. And clearly he’s a dumbass.” I roll my eyes, but I get out of bed and pull on my joggers, anyway. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“See you shortly,” Kaden says, and hangs up.
That fucking idiot, Aiden. What the hell is he thinking? Doesn’t he realize that anything he does to this guy is just going to blow back on me? Plus, getting into it with this guy is only going to get him an assault charge. I don’t think the rest of the guys in his band would be too happy with that, considering they’re starting to settle down and have families now. The last thing they want is bad press because one of them doled out some vigilante justice for someone he hardly even knows.
I grab a hoodie from my closet and walk out to the living room while pulling it over my head. The peanut butter cup wrappers are still on the coffee table where I left them, so I clean those up and drink a glass of water in the kitchen. I wish I had a coffee but Kaden will be here right away and I don’t have time to make one. I’ll get him to drive through somewhere after we stop whatever idiocy Aiden is getting himself into.
Making sure I have my keys and my phone, I leave my apartment and go downstairs to wait for Kaden in the entryway. He lives nearby, so it’s not long before he pulls up in front of the building in his beat up old pickup truck. He says it’s red, but the only colour I’ve ever been able to pick out is rust brown. Because it’s so rusty, I can almost see through it.
“Oh, good,” I say, climbing into the passenger side. “You brought a nice reliable vehicle.”
“Haha, very funny, Ryan,” he says, glaring at me with tired, red eyes. “This thing is going to last until the end of time. Nothing can stop this beast.”
“Yeah, it’s just like a cockroach that way.” I smile at him and he shoots me a dirty look.
Kaden loves this truck because his grandfather gave it to him years ago, and he won’t get rid of it until it’s impossible to fix. He hasn’t said as much, but when that happens, I’m pretty sure he’s going to use it as a lawn ornament or turn it into a fountain or something. To be fair, all the rust on it is the same rust that was there when he was given the truck. He takes care of this thing like it’s a three hundred thousand dollar Bentley instead of the rusty bucket of bolts it is.
“So what’s going on, anyway?” I ask. He didn’t really explain what that asshole Aiden was up to, just that we needed to stop him.
“I’m not totally sure,” he says, navigating his beast of a truck away from the curb. “Devon just told me to meet them there. I don’t think he knows what Aiden and Johnny are thinking.”
“Johnny is there too? These guys are a lot dumber than I thought.”
“Maybe not. Sounds like they just want some justice for what this guy did to you. Maybe their methods aren’t sound, but it is kind of nice. If I weren’t a cop, I might have been tempted to do the same thing. It’s not right that they fired you. That was a clean arrest. I’m pissed off that my word means nothing in your defence.” He’s been ranting about this off and on in text messages and phone calls ever since the police commission denied my first appeal.
“Well, if the precinct would have been on top of things and gotten body cams into the budget a long time ago, like they promised they would, then this wouldn’t be an issue. We would have had the whole incident on film and his story wouldn’t have meant shit.” Not that I’m too upset at his denial of the facts. That’s to be expected from abusive dickheads like him. I’m more disappointed that the wife wouldn’t press charges against him. “I just hope his wife is okay. He won’t stop until someone stops him, or until she gets away.”
“Thank god they don’t have any kids. When she decides to leave, she can make a clean break and she’ll never have to see him again.”
Kaden knows about my mom, and he feels strongly about getting children out of abusive situations. I’m lucky I was young when I got away from her, and I’m even luckier that my foster families weren’t as bad as some of the horror stories you hear about. Aiden was relieved about that too, if I remember correctly.
The asshole’s house is on the same side of town as Connor and Alex’s place, just in a slightly less exclusive neighbourhood. Alex’s place has a large parcel of land, and it seems like it isn’t even in the city anymore with how private it is. This guy’s neighbourhood is expensive, but you can tell the builder wanted the biggest houses on the smallest lots possible, to maximize sales. It’s one of those places where all the houses look like matching out-of-place monstrosities and you just know that you can see into the neighbour’s bathroom.
I’d rather my tiny apartment downtown any day. For as close as it is to everything, it’s actually very private.
