Page 29 of Hard Ruck

Frost stared at Storm, naked fear on his face. “Ice said he’d help me to channel my feelings in a productive direction.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Storm snapped.

“It means someone who enjoys killing can be useful,” Ice said easily.

“Enjoys killing,” Storm echoed vaguely. “What sort of fucked up person are you?”

I bristled at the accusation aimed at my brother, but Ice only laughed again.

“That depends on the given day. Some days, I’m more fucked up than others. But I get paid for it. Just like you get paid to smash the crap out of people on the footy field. Don’t say you don’t enjoy it.”

“Of course I fucking do,” Storm said, “but I’m not killing anyone.”

Ice leaned forward towards him. “Have you ever wanted to beat the shit out of someone who deserved it? Someone who maybe, I don’t know, hurt a person you care about? How would it feel to do that and not have to worry about the consequences?”

Storm shifted in his seat.

Ice leaned back. “That’s what I thought. You don’t have to commit to anything now, but if an opportunity like that arises, I know where to find you.”

“I really should get that lock changed,” I said.

Ice chuckled. “It’s too late for that. It was too late when Frosty here wrapped his hands around that woman’s throat. Some would argue it was too late when they met you.”

I wanted to argue against that point, but I found I couldn’t. I knew sooner or later it would come to this. It certainly could have been worse, Ice was right about that. Anyone could have walked in on Frost. They could as easily have killed him as helped him.

“What happens now?” Storm asked. “Are you getting the police involved? Or the team?” He quickly added, “I’ll tell them Frost was with me all night.”

“It’s taken care of,” Ice said. “No one needs to know but the four of us. And Mannix Cassani. He’s the Brantleys’ right-hand man here in Dusk Bay. One of them. Nothing much happens here that doesn’t go through him. Don’t worry though, his bark is worse than his bite. Although, his bite is pretty good.” He grinned.

“Mannix is Ice’s boyfriend,” I explained. He wasn’t the kind of person to be screwed with lightly. He’d screw back, twice as hard.

Storm rubbed the heel of his hand up and down the centre of his forehead. “Any minute now I’m going to wake up and find out this is a bad dream.”

I squeezed his bicep. “It’s not a dream. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. If you prefer to stay out of things, you can.” ‘Things’ had a way of choosing for us, but now wasn’t the time to tell him that.

Storm looked at Frost past the side of his hand. “Are you going to be killing people for this guy?” He gestured towards Ice with a flick of his fingertips.

“I…maybe,” Frost said. “You have no idea how it felt. It was…” He looked as though he’d experienced his first orgasm. “I felt fucking powerful. I watched her life end. Imadeher life end. Me.”

“Murdergasm,” Ice said. “I feel like that every time. It never gets old.”

“You’re both sick as fuck,” Storm said. He lowered his hand and shook his head. “I can’t listen to any more of this. I need some air.”

No one stopped him as he got to his feet and stomped out the door.

“He might never talk to me again,” Frost whispered. His eyes widened and he blinked a couple of times. “What happens if he goes to the police?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Ice said.

Frost’s face paled. “You’d kill him.”

“Or you could,” Ice said.

“No one is killing Storm,” I said. “He’s not going to the police. What would he say anyway? You’ve taken care of any evidence by now. If they investigate, there won’t be anything to find.”

“There will be, but it’ll point to someone else,” Ice said easily. “Even if he were to walk into a police station and admit what he did, there’s nothing to prove Frost had anything to do with it.”

“People might have seen her follow me into the bathroom,” Frost argued.

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