Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
But instead of leaping into Frank’s arms, he pushed his hands into his hair and tugged, uttering a breathless, “Fuck.”
Frank glanced back at Jag, his senses on high alert. The pallor of Ezra’s features was so stark in the lamplight. “Is this something you need to talk about in private?” he asked, nodding toward Jag.
Ezra swallowed, peeking Jag’s way before nodding. “It’s just… the car… it shouldn’t stay here,” he said stiffly as his gaze darted toward the dark woods beyond the fence.
Frank didn’t like the sound of this at all. “Okay,” he said and headed out to retrieve the vehicle, because whatever spooked Ezra so much was worth paying attention to.
Once he drove in, he opened the door for Ezra, while glancing to Jag. “Close the fence and stay alert. Don’t come over to mine unless absolutely necessary.”
Ezra hesitated before addressing Jag too. “Tell no one I came here, okay?” he asked before turning Frank’s way as he sank into the passenger seat. “Is that okay?”
“We’ll find out,” Frank said grimly and drove off, leaving Jag to it. As soon as they were in the privacy of the car, driving toward Frank’s home, he spoke again. “What’s going on? I didn’t expect you here.”
Not tonight, not ever, not when I look like shit, smell like a hog, and my house is a pigsty.
Ezra stretched his legs and grabbed the lapels of his coat as he stared at the mounds of junk revealed by the glow of the headlights. But as ashamed as Frank was for him to see it all, something distressing must have happened, and out of all people, Ezra had decided to come to Frank.
“I’m sorry. I’m a mess. This is difficult,” he said and hid his face in his hands.
“I’m a mess too. It’s okay,” Frank said, forcing a smile and pointing to his dirty sweatpants, but Ezra didn’t laugh.
He finally looked up again. “How well do you know Paul?”
Fuck.
“We go way back, but don’t see each other often,” Frank said dryly with the meat on his bones already cooking with rage. “What did he do?” If Paul put his hands on Ezra in ways that they hadn’t agreed on, then Ezra came to the right person to deal with it. At least it would give Frank somewhere to exert all the violent energy he’d been struggling with all day.
The shivery breath Ezra took next tugged on all of Frank’s heartstrings. “You’re not gonna believe me. I can’t believe it myself, and I was there,” he said, rubbing his hands on woolen pants in a pale tartan pattern.
This didn’t sound promising at all. For a moment, Frank considered turning toward Shane’s house, which was nice and clean, but then he’d have to explain the puppies, and sooner or later, the truth about his place would have come out anyway.
“Try me.”
“He killed someone,” Ezra said in a voice coming from deep inside his chest. He shifted in the seat, bending one of his legs and resting it on the seat as he faced Frank.
What would a normal person do? Frank had to ask himself in moments like this. “What the fuck? Did you witness it?” he asked with a scowl as they reached the used-to-be white picket fence around his bungalow.
Ezra shook his head, which gave Frank the tiniest bit of solace. “No. I came to his place to return something. The back door was open, so I went in and—” He put both his feet down and faced away as his body convulsed as if he were about to puke.
This was the confirmation Frank dreaded. Ezra would never accept Frank for what he was, but he needed help now and would accept it from a monster like Frank as long as he didn’t know the truth.
Frank parked the car and hovered his hand over Ezra’s back, unsure what the protocol was now that he no longer had an arrangement with Ezra.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can tell me.”
Ezra took a deep breath, and then leaned in, tucking himself into Frank’s arm. His aloe-scented hair tickled Frank’s neck, a painful reminder that Frank himself smelled like a skunk. “There was... a saw, and rags, and... a guy just butchered like an animal. His head was in a stew pot!”
Goddamn it, Paul! The bastard was getting sloppy.
“Jesus Christ…” Frank said for Ezra’s benefit and hugged him, since that was what he seemed to need. What a fucking shitshow. “I knew he could be a dangerous man.” Because we both used to be killers for hire.
“You did?” Ezra asked, grabbing Frank’s wrist as if he needed a lifeline, and Frank was honored to be the steady presence he chose. “He suggested he has contacts in the police force. I didn’t know what to do.”
Frank’s mind worked at full speed on how to get Ezra out of this mess. “He does. Ezra… more importantly, did he see you?” He hoped the answer was no, because the chances of Paul spotting Ezra and letting him go were close to zero, but the pregnant silence that followed his question made his throat dry.