Recoil Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Recoil

  Evelyn Drake

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  1

  Tobias

  Tobias held his gun steady, its barrel pointed at a man with hands the size of hammocks. The man’s enormous chest heaved with excess adrenaline, and at his feet lay his teenage daughter, turning blue from a crushed throat.

  The big man took a step toward Tobias and Tobias emptied three shots into the center of his chest. The big man looked down at the holes the bullets left in their wake, and then he gripped Tobias around the throat and began to squeeze.

  Alarms sounded all around him as Tobias’s airways closed, and his feet were lifted from the ground until only the tips of his shoes scraped its surface. The gun clattered to the ground as he scratched and clawed at his neck as if to dig his way toward air.

  Tobias’s body spasmed, making the world around him shake and creak as he jerked and thrashed. Then, sitting up in bed with a violence that had the headboard banging the wall, he gasped in air to fill his burning lungs.

  It took several deep breaths before his heart’s hammering settled enough that he didn’t feel as if he were on the verge of a heart attack.

  “I already killed you, you fucker. Don’t make me exorcise your ass.”

  Glancing around the dark room, still slightly disoriented, he spotted the cause of the alarm that he’d heard in his nightmare and picked up his ringing phone.

  “Sohbier,” Tobias’s strained voice answered.

  “There’s been a murder. You’re up,” Montgomery’s voice chimed, and Tobias had to hold back his biting annoyance at the officer’s late-night, upbeat mood.

  “Where?”

  “Fifth and Houston. The Derriere.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty.” Tobias ended the call.

  Tobias felt a frigid hand tighten around his heart, making it hard to breathe. Closing his eyes, he said a small chant of a Tibetan prayer for which he didn’t understand the words but which always managed to fill him with peace.

  The pressure on his heart eased and his cold chill passed. Opening his eyes, he focused on where he was: the feel of the soft sheets, the sound of the heater, and the smell of the sandalwood candle on the bedside table. It grounded him. It kept him safe from anything beyond.

  Getting out of bed, Tobias stood and then rolled his thick shoulders back until he heard his spine pop between his shoulder blades. The release in tension it brought him helped, but he still felt like a hunted and haunted man—never able to truly rest.

  Heading into the bathroom, he flipped the light on and then looked in the mirror at the red, angry welts from where his nails had clawed his neck as he’d dreamt. It wasn’t a dream he’d had before. The nightmares—or the hauntings as he’d grown to privately think of them—were always different.

  Getting into the shower, he turned the water to just below scalding and breathed a sigh of relief as the hot water stripped away another layer of tension. Dipping his short, black hair under the spray, he washed and was out of the shower in three minutes.

  His routine was solid. Get up. Get clean. Grab a bite and a cup of hot, black coffee and walk out the door. By the time his condo’s door locked shut behind him, only eight minutes had passed since the call had come in.

  He was in his car thirty seconds after that and on site by the time a total of twenty minutes had passed. He felt like a machine. Put in a coin—or give him a midnight call—and watch him run.

  Glancing in his rearview mirror, he adjusted his snug turtleneck, making sure that the scratches he’d left on his neck weren’t showing. Satisfied, he got out and made his way over to Frank Porter, the uniformed officer who was often his righthand man during investigations. Overhead, the neon sign that read, “The Derriere” blinked a couple of times and then went dark. A streetlight across the road offered dim visibility without the added glow of the business’s overhead sign, but the headlights of a couple of police cars made the scene more workable.

  “Catch me up,” Tobias said as he surveyed the mashup of humanity before him. One girl was kneeling with her back pressed against the wall. Her cheeks were streaked black from tears mixed with mascara, and her thin, silk robe stood open to expose the sparkling bikini she wore beneath, her platform shoes the item of most substance on her body. Next to her, an officer knelt taking notes—name, address, phone number, how long she had worked at the club, that kind of thing.

  “Murder vic is inside in a supply closet. Caucasian woman, mid-20s. Apparent cause is blunt force trauma.”

  “Murder weapon?”

  “Unknown. Right now it just looks like she fell and hit her head.”

  “She’s got gouges on her neck and a split lip.”

  The double doors to the club, located just under its dormant sign, burst open as a man flew through it to land five feet away on his back. The man looked like a squat toad, thick and short with an almost non-existent neck.

  Tobias turned his attention away from the man on the ground to look at who stepped through next. He had sandy brown hair and boyish features that did nothing to mask the intense hatred that burned in his eyes, and his 6’3 frame was wrapped in layer after layer of thick muscle. Despite his disarmingly sweet face, he was intimidation incarnate.

  Tobias’s eyes squinted even in the low light, his eyes fixed on the giant’s face as the man’s movements niggled at his memories. Tobias barely took notice as the big man bent and picked the squat man off the ground by his jacket. All of Tobias’s attention was on his face.

  “I know you did it. I know you killed her!” the big man growled before spinning the toadish man around to march him over to the nearest uniformed police officer.

  A wave of nausea passed through Tobias as his knees buckled. Oh god, it’s happening when I’m awake now! The dead really were haunting him.

  But, he hadn’t killed this one.

  He’d loved this one!

  “Hey! You okay?” Officer Porter grabbed at Tobias and managed to steady him.

  “Who’s that?” Tobias’s hoarse voice whispered as he waved a finger at the big man.

  “That’s the club’s main bouncer—Kyle Rivers.”

  The breath whooshed out of Tobias as if someone had just gut punched him.

  Alive?

  It had been sixteen years since he’d seen the once-boy—sixteen ye
ars since Kyle’s mother had told him that men had dragged Kyle into an abandoned field, carved “fag” into his forehead, and kicked and stoned him to death.

  The sound of his own blood rushed in Tobias’s ears as he watched the only person he’d ever loved turn around to face him. That was when it happened. The big man movement’s faltered and his eyes widened with recognition.

  Their eyes locked. It lasted only a second, but the moment seemed to stretch out for what felt like heartbeat after heartbeat. Then, just as quickly, it was swept away.

  As if nothing had passed between them, Kyle moved to lean against the club’s brick wall and crossed his anaconda-like arms over his chest.

  Tobias willed Kyle to lift his eyes again, to look his way, but Kyle didn’t, as if on purpose.

  He’s bigger. It was a simple thought, yet a deeper, more malicious voice within Tobias scoffed. Of course Kyle was bigger. The last time that Tobias had seen his foster brother was when they were fourteen. Kyle had been a tall, gangly boy then.

  Tobias had been brought into the Rivers family as a foster child, and for eight years he and Kyle had shared everything about themselves with each other with the innocence of children.

  As they’d gotten older, their affection for one another had deepened. Their days and their nights had been filled with stolen kisses, holding hands, and secret love letters. They hadn’t explored anything more, but it was a love that had surpassed and overshadowed every lover Tobias had known since.

  No one had ever lived up to his memory of Kyle Rivers. The intensity of his love for Kyle had been frozen in time, unmarred and undiminished by the changes and challenges life had brought.

  The fucker’s alive. All this time. He’s been alive.

  The gut-kick of rejection hit Tobias next.

  He’s alive—and he let me think he was dead.

  The day their parents—for Tobias had thought of Kyle’s parents as his own, too—had discovered their love had been the last day Tobias saw Kyle alive, or so he’d thought.

  In that one day, he’d lost his greatest love and his parents. He’d lost the only family he’d ever known.

  Kyle’s unsolved murder had been the reason he’d become a police officer, and it was why he had pursued an assignment to homicide. He’d needed to find justice—if not justice for Kyle, then justice for someone. It had been like a black hole inside of himself that had demanded be filled, and Tobias had made it his life’s work to make other killers pay by proxy for what had been done to Kyle.

  All this time he’s been alive…

  Tobias saw Kyle finally spare him a look from the corner of his eye, and in that instant, years of grief turned into a roiling anger inside of Tobias.

  How dare he turn up alive?

  2

  Kyle

  Kyle’s shoulder blades pressed into the unforgiving wall of the club’s red brick exterior. His large arms were crossed over his thick chest, and he stared determinedly down at the concrete sidewalk in front of the club. Overhead lights gave ten foot swaths a harsh glow of reality, which made the scene even more surreal since it was out of character for this type of establishment.

  Fifteen feet away from Kyle was a man he knew so very well… or rather, had once known.

  What the fuck’s he doing here?

  Kyle could feel the dark gloom of his mood hang over him like a malevolent cloud.

  I don’t need this. Not tonight. Not now.

  Inside the club, someone he cared about lay dead. It was impossible to think she was gone now, her body a vessel that no longer held life. And at the same time, this man he’d once known. Once cared for.

  The dark-haired man stared at him, burning his insides. He wanted to tear someone to shreds. If he’d known that Tobias would be the next face he saw, he would have spent more time working out his frustration and anger on Therman Johnson, the creep so obsessed with Victoria.

  He killed her. I know he did.

  That wasn’t true. Kyle didn’t know that Therman had done it. The timeline didn’t fit since Therman had spent most the night making eyes at Grace instead of Victoria for once. Of course he’d spent half of that time looking around to see if Victoria was there to notice, as if he were trying to make her jealous.

  Whatever the case, Victoria was now dead, and Kyle wanted to make someone pay.

  A shift of weight from Tobias caused Kyle to glance his way out of the corner of his eye, and as their gazes connected, Kyle’s body reacted. His breathing turned shallow. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, and his heart failed to beat in anything resembling a steady rhythm. Worst of all, his lips tingled and his heart ached.

  He knew that it was his fault that Tobias was standing before him now. It had been him who had tracked down and had followed Tobias here—to Portland, Oregon.

  Tobias had never once made any effort to reach out to him, not once in the sixteen years since his parents had torn them apart. No, Tobias had turned his back when things had gotten hard. Instead he’d moved on and had abandoned Kyle to all of his parents’ efforts to turn their gay boy straight.

  Maybe if Tobias had come back for him, maybe… just maybe, his parents wouldn’t have succeeded.

  Now, the thought of being with another man made Kyle’s stomach twist and his fists tighten to sledgehammers. It made him want to fight. It made him want to run.

  “You.” It was said as an order, and that order came from Tobias. “Inside.” Looking at Kyle, he motioned toward the club doors. “Talk me through what you know.”

  Kyle remained frozen for a moment, his arms crossed and the flat of one foot pressed against the wall. He considered telling Tobias to shove off, just like he’d done all those years ago. But Tobias was here in an official capacity, and someone Kyle cared about was lying dead on the floor inside, so he stamped down his hate and anger and pushed off the wall. Not waiting on Tobias, he threw open one of the double doors that led into the club’s interior and stepped in. But then he stopped.

  With the lights on, without the the usual heavy bass music thumping, the club’s main room looked wrong. It looked sad and somehow sick. It looked like a graveyard for dreams.

  The sound of the doors behind him alerted Kyle to Tobias’s entrance. Determined to keep the conversation on the murder and nothing else, Kyle pointed across the room at the club’s backstage entrance. “Through there.”

  “Hold up.” Tobias voice was strained, as if it were holding back a tide of unexpressed emotion.

  Kyle refused to turn around and look at him. He refused to give any recognition to what they used to be. A hard shove from Tobias told Kyle that his one-time love had other plans. While Tobias was a good four inches shorter, Kyle was surprised at the strength that Tobias was able to put into propelling him toward one of the curtained booths that lined the main dance hall.

  Kyle wasn’t sure why he allowed himself to be handled in such a way. If he hadn’t wanted to be moved, he wouldn’t have moved. It would have been like pushing against a hundred year old oak. Kyle wouldn’t have budged.

  Why he automatically moved for Tobias, then, was something he’d have to think about later. For now, he was caught in a small, oyster shaped room with a curving bench lining three quarters of the wall.

  “What’s your name?” Tobias whipped the thick velvet curtain closed before pacing around Kyle. Though the space was small, he still managed to move with a restless energy.

  Kyle shot Tobias a razored glare. “Kyle Rivers,” he growled.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Where the fuck you think I’m from?”

  “Answer the fucking question!” Tobias yelled with an explosive push on Kyle’s chest.

  Kyle leaned in, his fist balling as his arm pulled back. It was reflex, nothing more. He didn’t actually want to hit Tobias—not yet. It was too fun watching him twist. He wanted the chance to watch Tobias flop around on the ground a little bit before he cut off his head.

  “I’m from South Dakota. A little t
own called Chesterville. Maybe you’ve heard of it…” He let his words roll out like velvet over shards of glass, but his brows arched and his heart skipped a beat when Tobias reached for and unsnapped his holstered gun, as if on impulse, before snapping its safety clasp back in place and then running his hands through his short hair several times as he continued to pace.

  “That’s funny.” Tobias laughed but there was no humor in it. “See, I knew a family named Rivers who lived in Chesterville, South Dakota, when I was growing up. In fact, I lived with them. The funny thing is, though, that their boy was dragged out into an abandoned field and murdered when he was fourteen—at least that’s what his momma told me.”

  “What?” Kyle said, going still, but Tobias didn’t seem to notice.

  “And here’s the really funny part,” Tobias exclaimed as he stopped his pacing and faced Kyle straight on, “I believed them.” His voice was dead, all of its former animation gone.

  “Bullshit.” It wasn’t the most eloquent of comebacks, but it was all Kyle had.

  A month into being padlocked into his parents’ basement, they’d told Kyle that Tobias was dead. They said the rednecks on the edge of town saw him on his knees sucking some old guy’s cock. They’d hunted him down, shot him, left him to rot in an alley.

  So, that Kyle’s parents had told Tobias that he was dead wasn’t beyond the realm of believability. Still, though, had Tobias believed them? Not even checked it out, once? Not Googled his name? Not questioned why the cops didn’t come talk to him?

  Kyle had needed him, but Tobias had opted to believe their lies—the easiest of options. While Kyle had the hardest option, which was no option at all: being held captive, submitted to mind- and body-breaking torture for months. That had been his excuse for believing them.