Page 4

Based on previous experience with Raya, I would have expected her to fall apart but she looks strong and she’s not shaking near as much as I expected. Derek struggles against Jumper and Gear’s grip, drawing my attention back to him as I wrap an arm around Raya’s shoulders.

“Get your hands off my woman, asshole.”

“Yeah?” I ask, fully embracing the role. Releasing Raya, I take slow, deliberate steps towards the fucker, letting a smile slowly stretch across my face. “What are you going to do about it?”

He struggles against the hold my brothers have on him, attempting to charge me and I wish they would just let him go. It’s been a while since I’ve had a fight and I’m getting itchy for a release. Plus, there’s nothing better than beating the shit out of someone who actually deserves it.

“I’ll fucking kill you.”

A laugh spills out of me. It sure would be interesting to see him try but there’s a reason everyone calls me Hyde when I step into a ring. Just like the story, I turn into the worst parts of myself, the evil I keep buried deep inside most days and in the four years I’ve been officially fighting, no one has ever beaten me.

Not once.

“Hey,” Gear says, pulling my attention back to him as he shakes his head, silently telling me to rein it in and I sigh, clenching and unclenching my fists as I nod in understanding. Once he’s convinced I’m not going to lose my shit on Derek, he looks around the room slowly and his brows furrow. “Where the hell is Joey?”

Raya gasps and I turn to look at her as she steps forward, shaking her head. “I don’t… Derek came out of nowhere and I lost track of him. I didn’t see where… He usually runs and hides when…”

“Don’t worry. Raya,” I tell her, taking a step back from the group as I scan the room. “I’ll go find him and y’all need to get the cops here to deal with this dipshit.”

“On it,” Jumper answers, pulling his phone out of his pocket as I turn toward the hallway. I only get two steps down the narrow passageway before I stop. The ladder to the attic is down and I look up at the small square hole in the ceiling, shaking my head.

Motherfucker.

He must have hid up there while Jumper came in to check the house. He and I are definitely going to be having a chat about that once I find the kid.

Turning my focus back to Joey, I step around the ladder and make my way to the end of the hallway where his room is. His bedroom door is cracked open and I give it a push, expecting it to give fairly easily but it doesn’t move. Shoving a little harder, I get it to move an inch and look down at the floor. Joey has balled up a couple blankets and shoved them under the base of the door, making it harder to get into his room and my heart cracks open at the sight. Memories from my childhood, memories I’ve worked so hard to bury for most of my life come roaring to my mind. I shake my head, shoving them back down as I give the door another shove and finally open it enough to slip inside the room.

The kid is obsessed with airplanes and Raya went all out decorating in here, painting clouds on the ceilings that look so fucking real it’s almost like you could reach out and touch them. There is a wallpaper border running around the room in the center of the wall and there are so many model planes that I can’t even count them but no Joey. There’s a kid’s suitcase on the bed, open and full of random toys that I’m sure seemed irreplaceable to a four-year-old. Clothes are spilling out of an open dresser drawer but nothing looks horribly out of place. The one good thing in this situation is that Derek never paid Joey much attention so while he had to watch his mom get knocked around, he was never hurt. Oh, that and the fact that Derek isn’t Joey’s dad which means Raya can truly get free from this monster.

“Joey?” I call, scanning the room for any kind of movement. “You in here, kid?”

A shuffling sound drags my attention over to the closet. One of the bi-fold doors is cracked open slightly and a beam of light shines on the floor underneath it. Fuck me. The memories assault me, making a last-ditch effort to invade my mind and I squeeze my eyes shut as I clench my fist and suck in a breath. I shake my head as I let out a slow, measured breath and shove them back down, hoping they’ll stay there this time as I make my way over to the closet and sit down on the bed, resting my elbows on my knees as I glance over at the closet door.

“Hey, bud. It’s Rooster.”

He doesn’t respond and there is no more shuffling but his beam of light swings around like he just realized it’s giving him away before it disappears entirely.

“Can you come on out, dude?”

“Is it safe?” a little voice whispers, followed by more shuffling and my chest aches something fucking fierce. Fuck. These goddamn memories, snapshots of the worse moments of my life do not want to let me be today and I’m going to need to hit something - a bag or an opponent - until I pass the fuck out soon.

“Yeah, kid. It’s safe now.”

The door opens a crack. “Is he gone?”

“No,” I answer, glancing back into the green eyes of one terrified little boy. “But he’s not going to hurt you or your mom ever again.”

“He always comes back and he always hurts mama.”

Clenching my jaw, I nod my head as I curl my shaking hand into a fist. “I know but it ends today. You and your mama are never going to see him again.”

“How do you know that?” he asks, looking up at me with the gaze of a kid who has seen way too fucking much in his short life. God knows I can identify with him. My only hope now is that we saved them in time for him to turn out way better than I did.

“Because me, Jumper and Gear are gonna take you guys home with us and we’re going to make sure he never hurts your mama again.”

He tilts his little chin up, narrowing his eyes at me, studying me. I have to wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Does he see the asshole everyone else does? Or does he see the kid who used to also hide in the closet when things got bad at home? Whatever he finds, it must convince him to come out because the door flies open and he flings himself into my arms.

Shit.