“No, there’s no try, Rex. You’re gonna do it. And you’re gonna do it for real. Swear it.”
“I swear, fuck, Dragon’s breath, Jessie,” Rex whined.
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Jessie clapped a hand onto his brother’s shoulder again, twisting him and shoving him forward. They got to the front desk where Katarina was collecting her purse and Rex his jacket when Jessie’s phone rang. He plucked it out of his back pocket and peeked at the caller ID. Picking up, he felt his blood go cold. “Ma?”
“Hey Jessie, I hate to do this to you, but I just got called in. My patient went into labor and she’s high risk. Your father’s fine to watch Bella till you crawl in, but would you mind taking her?Your fathers already agreed to help Elliot tomorrow with something or he’d just take her himself.”
Jessie let out a sigh of relief, “No, Ma, that’s totally fine. We’re actually leaving now. I’ll have Rex drop off everything you both baked tonight and bring her after we wake up in the morning.”
“Oh, that’s perfect. Thank you, Jessie. Love you.”
“Love you too, Ma.” He hung up, take a deep breath to regulate his heart again.This Executive or Bjorn guy is really fucking with my heart rate. Katarina spared him a confused, furrowed brow but he waved off. There would be time to explain it in the car.
Rex popped back up next to Jessie, tugging his jacket on. “All good?”
“Perfect! You got a bake sale in the morning and we’re going to go scoop up the kiddo on our way back home.” They’d drop him off, pick up the bug, go home for some quick shut eye—hopefully Nik would make his way home at some point—and then they’d go from there.
“What? Why!” Rex whined, head back and full childish stomp forward toward the doors. “This house is a prison!”
Chapter Thirty-five:
~Nikolai~
Nikolaiwasreallynothaving a good time. The woods were dark and they got progressively weirder the further he got. Trees got up and skittered away from him once he’d lost sight of the moon and was on a scent-by-scent basis. Returning to Bobby’s house, he followed the blood trail once more. While it was old, it was still pungent. Likely The Fridge already went that way, and if Frankie turned up with hands empty, Nikolai didn’t feelmuch more confident.However, unlike Frankie who was just in it for a paycheck, Nikolaihadto find Bobby.
The Executive threatened everyone he loved. The kid. Katarina. Jessie. And he wasn’t about to lose it after finally getting a family of his own.
So, after the blood dried up and he was deep in the belly of the beast, he went to the next best thing—pretending to be Bobby. The gnomish car salesman, for as long as Nikolai knew him, was lazy and predictable. He worked on a schedule and tended to take the easy way out.Probably how he ended up in this mess.Which meant, if Nikolai was Bobby—bleeding, panicked, needing a safe place to lay low—he needed to find easy but protected.
Nikolai found the first hollow tree that didn’t move around the was deep enough to hide a gnome away. He bent over at the waist, looking into the cage like roots that covered the opening.Curled up in the dark shadows of the tree, was a person. Nikolai reached in and yanked roughly, “You little shit.”
Bobby gasped, tumbling out of the knotted roots onto the moist dirt by Nikolai’s feet. Before Bobby could bolt, the exhausted mechanic pressed a boot to his back and kept him planted. The car salesman squealed, “Please, Nikolai, we can talk about this.”
“How the fuck did you avoid The Fridge?” He rolled Bobby like a pig on a stick roast. Bobby put his hands up in defeat, face covered with scabbed over marks and his nose was still broken, but otherwise alive.Which shouldn’t be the case.Nikolai was really not having a good time.Cause you weren’t supposed to be alive, motherfucker!
Bobby laughed sheepishly, “I took a bath in the river a mile to the east. Washed off all the blood, ate a bunch of the river kelp stuff, you know the real briny stuff, that covers up any stench. Then found a good place to hide. You’d be surprised what stuff just ends up out here. I’ve been camping out here for days!”
“Yeah,” Nik snapped with a sharp click of his teeth. “I know!”
“Look, I know Jessie’s probably still pissed about me, but I swear I didn’t know what The Executive wanted when he met me at the casino. He sent these goons after me, see he—”
“I know you have the prototype, Bobby.” Nikolai lifted his boot and grabbed the small, trembling man by the front of the shirt. “Give it to me and you can go back to trembling in your tree hole for all I care.”
“What! No! You don’t know what he’s going to do with it, man!” Bobby squealed, thrashing back and forth.
“You do?” Nik raised his brow.
Bobby stilled, eyes wide. Nikolai’s jaw locked up tight as he dropped Bobby. The gnome hit the ground like a heavy sack of bricks. Reaching into the hollow that Bobby stay in, he rummaged around quickly. His fingers met a hard steel product. Nikolai plucked the prototype out of the darkness and held it up in front of him. It was hard to see in just the hazy ghost light ofthe woods, but he could see the runes that were etched into the metal glow softly in reaction to his touch.
“Whoa! No! You can’t give it to him!” Bobby climbed to his feet, swiping at Nikolai’s leg. The bugbear bent his knee, keeping the dirt coated man away like one does a nosey, younger sibling. Holding it up, Nikolai tried to inspect it more, but the ever-consistent hand slaps against his calf and knee were distracting. He sighed, scruffing Bobby and holding him up in the air too.
“I don’t have a choice. Now, what’s he got planned?” Nikolai tucked the prototype into his pockets. Thankfully, while it was chunky and awkwardly shaped, his pockets were just black holes.
“I’m not telling you that. It’s my only leverage if he finds me!” Bobby thrashed again, back and forth in attempt to dislodge himself.
That doesn’t make any sense.Nikolai glared at him, “What kind of dirt do you really have on him?”
“I’m! Not! Talking!” Bobby squealed, kicking his legs back and forth.
