Shatter (Unbreakable Bonds Series Book 2)

by Jocelynn Drake

  “In a nutshell.” Lucas’s tone held a thread of something that raised the hair on Jude’s arms.

  He got it. Completely. He was ready to tear someone apart. He thought of the trust Snow had put into him the night before and closed his hands into fists.

  Hollis strolled back to get him. He’d lost the wet jacket and possibly towel-dried his hair because now it stuck up in blond tufts all over his head. “Hey Vallois, come on back with us. While this guy’s giving his statement, I need to talk to you and Snow about another matter.”

  Lucas nodded and stepped to follow, his lawyer on his heels.

  “They won’t need a lawyer for this,” Hollis said, smiling broadly at Sarah.

  Sarah lifted one blond eyebrow high. “My clients aren’t talking to anyone in this place without me.”

  He just shrugged. “Come on then.”

  Chapter 11

  Snow had been in the tiny interrogation room for so many hours, he’d memorized the location of every stain on every wall. He’d also become used to the smell of coffee and the pungent cologne one of the cops had apparently dunked his suit in that morning. Lucas’s lawyer, Sarah Carlston, made sure he kept to the facts and he’d repeated the same set of them the last time through gritted teeth and glares that should have caused the grilling officers to spontaneously combust.

  What he hadn’t done, was make sense of anything.

  He felt caught in a surreal nightmare and it was a feeling he knew all too well. He’d lived in one the months his mother slowly suffered to death, then in the years of hell with his father afterward. He even knew who had done this to him, but not the why. Why set up something so elaborate? What was this psychopath’s game?

  When the door to the holding room opened, Snow had his head buried in his hands. Images kept running through his mind, especially the blood splatter over the bed. His stomach kept lurching and he was pretty sure if he was forced to stay in this room much longer, he would be adding another kind of acid to the coffee-stained walls.

  “You look like shit.”

  Snow’s head came up with Lucas’s voice and he stared, so damn happy to see him. Unlike Snow, Lucas looked well rested, not like he’d made out in the rain up against a dirty brick wall in the middle of the night, spent time at brothel, then had sex until the early hours of the morning. And certainly not like he’d come home to find a naked, dead man in his home. Lucas wore a suit, which meant he had probably skipped a meeting to be here.

  “God, you should see your expression.” Lucas walked around the table, tugged Snow out of the chair and into his arms. He held him tight against his strong form and Snow let himself absorb some of that strength—even if it was only imagined. For a brief moment, his world felt a little less unbalanced. Lucas had held the power to right his world from the time they’d met as kids. Snow had always joked that it was his superpower.

  Lucas pulled back, but he kept his hand on shoulders as if trying to keep him upright. “Your home won’t be available for some time, so I already sent Candace out to pick up clothes for you. I’ll be taking you to my place when we leave.”

  Snow almost smiled. He would have if his heart didn’t feel like it weighed more than the rest of his body. Lucas and his tendency to take over a situation had never been more welcome than it was right then. “I think I have to stay at the station. It looks bad, Luc. Really bad.” He saw that damn splatter again and squeezed his eyes shut. Lucas’s hands tightened on his shoulders, grounding him again so he could continue. “You won’t believe what happened to that man inside my home,” he whispered, wanting to tell Lucas about the bat and worse, about that split in the man’s cheek. But Hollis Banner and Sarah had followed Lucas into the room and sat in the chairs across the table.

  They gave him the time he needed to get himself together. Lucas’s solid hand on his arm helped. He worked to push the blood from his head, leaned into Lucas and the second hug that followed helped even more.

  Lucas pointed to the chair. “Sit down, Ash. You look like you’re going to collapse.”

  Snow nodded and sat, gaze locked on his hands as if he could will them to stop shaking.

  “So, doc, your man showed up,” Hollis said. “He’s out there now giving a statement.”

  Startled, he looked up. “My man?”

  “The paramedic you spent the night with showed up. He came running to your rescue the second he saw the news. Nice job, by the way.” He winked.

  Snow resisted the urge to lunge across the table and punch that expression off the annoying cop’s face. “You’re being awfully flip at a time like this.” He thought of Jude with Hollis and felt that heave in his stomach again. “Also, I doubt you’re his type,” he muttered.

  Lucas jerked next to him and Snow didn’t look at him, knowing he’d find shock. And questions he couldn’t answer. Yeah, that had most definitely been jealousy thickening his voice and Snow simply didn’t have the energy to think about it.

  The corner of Hollis’s mouth went up. “I’m everybody’s type, doc.”

  Snow curled his lip. He didn’t want the cop anywhere near Jude and before he could share that feeling, Hollis held his hand up.

  “Listen, in my job, it’s imperative to keep my perspective in place. We find humor where we can.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table, his blue eyes full of curiosity. “So you spent the night with a date, came home and found someone had sex with and killed a man in your house. Inside your fucking house.”

  “That sums it up,” Sarah said, her frown fierce. “Dr. Frost has gone over and over that repeatedly with other policemen here. And now he has a solid alibi. Someone is obviously trying to set him up.”

  “Obviously.” Hollis’s tone dragged with sarcasm, his slight southern drawl more pronounced than usual. “Regardless, this isn’t going to be that easy for the doc. Not since he was seen by a lot of witnesses fighting the victim last night. His every movement before and after will come under scrutiny and the fact you guys buried a loved one just yesterday, only makes things worse.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Hollis, the man has an alibi attesting to his whereabouts all night.” Lucas ran his hands through his hair and leaned back against the wall. “That should steer you guys toward finding the real bad guy here.”

  Hollis glared at Lucas. “He’s also got a reputation as…let’s just say…a rough date. He has a kick-ass security system that wasn’t tampered with, and we have a couple of men telling us that he took them to that same room on the second floor for sex. Hey Vallois, this isn’t a black-and-white case here for your best bud. It looks bad.”

  “You think I did this.” Snow didn’t bother to make it a question, his heart picking up beats.

  The cop’s sigh was loud. “Off the record…no, I don’t actually think you did this.” There was a long pause and Snow didn’t need to look at Lucas to know that his friend heard it too. Hollis still had an axe to grind over events that happened during the fall and the disappearance of the man behind the threat to two of Cincinnati’s richest citizens as well as the death of a third.

  “You don’t strike me as a dumb ass,” he continued at last, “and you’d have to be to do all that in your home. Plus, it didn’t look like there was a huge struggle. The damage downstairs looks like two tough guys making out and not paying attention to their surroundings. But whoever killed the guy was strong and he was pissed. Split the victim’s cheek in two with that baseball bat in the first blow.”

  Snow glanced at Lucas, knowing only he would understand the tightening of Lucas’s features in that moment. Hollis would write it off as disgust over hearing the details. Snow knew Lucas was remembering another time when Snow had tracked down Gratton after he’d taken Ian.

  Green-gray eyes locked with his and nausea filled Snow. Did, no, could Lucas think him capable of something like that again? He hadn’t actually killed the man that time and he’d been provoked. Hell, they’d all been provoked. If Snow hadn’t found Ian and Gratton first, Lucas
or Rowe would have done something similar. They’d all been out for blood—both Gratton’s and Jagger’s.

  “There’s more,” Hollis said, pulling their attention back. “And it’s not about what happened last night or this morning—we still haven’t heard from the ME.” Hollis paused, dropping his eyes down to where his large, rough hands rested on the table. The detective looked uneasy for the first time, as if he were debating whether he should continue. “This is about Ian’s accident. We found a witness who saw the truck that hit Ian and Melissa. He said it was no random accident—but we’d already suspected that. But the witness said the person driving the truck deliberately drove into them at a high speed and only stuck around long enough to watch the outcome. With that particular off-ramp, it had to have been perfectly timed, too. Someone had to have been following them.”

  “Wait.” Lucas straightened off the wall. “You’re saying that Melissa was murdered.”

  The cop nodded. “And Ian nearly was.” His lips thinned. “Trust me, I want to know exactly what happened myself.” He looked up at Lucas. “Spoke to your ex-bodyguard and he said that Rowe usually drove that particular company car, but Melissa had taken it because her car was in the shop.” Hollis paused. “So, who the fuck did the three of you piss off?”

  “Three?” Sarah asked. “You’re including Lucas when I’m hearing that Rowe and Snow are the intended victims here?”

  “Did we not become acquainted because someone pinned a target on Vallois’s ass not too long ago?” His eyebrows lifted. “You’re telling me this is separate? That the other situation was resolved?”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “Stop fishing, you pain-in-the-ass cop.”

  “I’m paid a not-so-pretty penny to be a pain in the ass. It’s my job. What’s your excuse?”

  “I pay her a very pretty penny to be,” Lucas said. He pulled off his coat and draped it over his arm. “Can you have someone bring us another chair, Banner? I want to hear every detail about both last night and the night Ian and Melissa were hit.”

  Snow finally let one corner of his mouth raise in amusement. Exhausted or not, he appreciated his friend’s high-handed attitude and settled in for more stale coffee and hopefully, enough details to bring Rowe back into their fold. Now that they knew Melissa had been murdered, none of them were going to need Hollis involved any further. If Snow was hampered as the city’s number one suspect, Lucas and Rowe would move in and take care of Gratton. He was the only man who knew exactly how things had gone down the day Snow had found him with an unconscious Ian. The only one who could have staged that scene at Snow’s house.

  That psychopath needed to be put down once and for all.

  Chapter 12

  Jude heard through the UC grapevine that Snow was staying with Lucas Vallois. He heard a lot more than that because the hospital vine grew wild and free, invading every nook and cranny of the building. It chapped Jude’s ass that so many thought the surgeon was guilty. Not his own surgical team—they were standing behind the doctor— but to the rest, this was juicy, delicious gossip. It looked bad, yeah. He’d seen the spilled details on the news himself—details that spread the horror of that murder into a fickle public that was always ready with torches and pitchforks.

  It was all he could do not to blurt out that he’d spent the night with the man, but Snow didn’t need more crap to deal with. And the only gossip more popular than murder was sex. People chewed on sex gossip like a habitual nail biter gnawed nails to the quick.

  It would come out in the end anyway. He had every intention of doing anything he could to help the doctor. It scared him to death that someone had gone to so much trouble to set the man up—and the only way he could have known about the guy from The Dock was if he’d been there. Watching them.

  A killer was stalking Snow.

  Every protective hair on his body was standing on end. He needed the man in his line of sight; needed to put his hands on him and make sure he was okay.

  So there he was, standing in front of the penthouse door of The Ascent. Tracking down Vallois wasn’t that hard. A rudimentary search on the Internet gave him several news stories about the man’s purchase of the place. The pictures he’d seen splashed across the news when The Ascent was finally opened after two years of being built hadn’t done it justice. The combination of white walls, tall windows and gleaming silvery steel made it feel like the occupants were living in a piece of modern art. Silence pervaded the entire building as if he were walking through a mausoleum.

  Jude smoothed his hands down the jeans he’d changed into after work and wondered for the third time if he should have chosen a nicer shirt. He wasn’t usually the type to let rich people make him nervous. He was proud of his Spanish and Greek heritage, his job—confidence had never been a problem for Jude. Not even when he’d realized he’d rather yank the bigger and tougher basketball captain Boyd Travers under the bleachers in high school and nail him instead of one of the cheerleaders. He hadn’t tried to hide his sexuality after that—even when it had awarded him some pretty violent fights. He’d just learned to fight hard and fight dirty.

  But surprisingly, he’d quickly discovered that smiling and treating his sexuality as normal seemed to disarm bullies faster than fists. One of his friends in college had once told him that his easy-going, laid back personality made most guys just shrug his gayness off. Whatever that meant. He didn’t care who had a problem with his love life. He was who he was.

  Being nervous now when he was strung tight inside over Snow wasn’t going to work here, so he shoved it away and knocked. When the door opened, the ex-bodyguard stood there, tall, with his black hair in a short tail at the back of his neck. He looked at him in shock.

  “How the hell did you get past security?” He crossed his arms, pulling his long-sleeved red T-shirt taut over pretty impressive arm muscles.

  “Someone put my name on the accepted list. I’m assuming Snow. Jude Torres.” He held out his hand. “Is Snow here?”

  Amusement twisted his nice lips as he nodded and shook Jude’s hand. Then he stepped aside to let Jude in. Jude could see why the famous land developer had come out so spectacularly in the papers for this man. He had the sort of poetic beauty that would inspire sonnets from both men and women. It might have even worked on Jude before, but not anymore. Now, he had a thing for hot, bossy, and emotionally damaged. A bad thing. He tightened one hand into a fist. He’d hung around the police station as long as he could, hoping to see Snow that morning, but had been forced to leave because he was needed at work. Throughout his entire shift, he’d burned to make sure the general was really okay.

  “I’m Andrei.” He motioned toward the dining room. “I heard you already met Lucas.”

  Jude nodded. It had been big news when Vallois started showing up in public with the bodyguard socially. But it seemed Lucas subscribed to the same attitude as Jude. He’d casually moved the man from obvious bodyguard to obvious boyfriend without making a fuss so the news died down. A few still sought out pictures of the two men out together, but most of them made it onto celebrity sites—those followed by men and women who got off on the thought of the two men together.

  Jude looked around at the open, curved space with the massive floor to ceiling windows and had to work hard not to gape. The sun had set hours ago, so that Jude had a glowing view of the city. Yet the furniture surprised him more because it was comfortable looking instead of show floor fancy. The fanciest thing in the room was the man sprawled in one of the dining room chairs, a glass of something amber dangling in his long-fingered hand. Even in a pair of sweatpants and a black T-shirt, he looked elegant. There was something seriously wrong with that.

  Lucas lifted one black eyebrow and took a sip of his drink. “I’m the one who put your name on the list,” he announced, causing Jude’s lips to part in surprise. “Snow is using the guest room on the second floor. Would you like a drink before you go up?”

  “No, thank you.” He paused and cleared his throat. After t
alking to the gruff man at the police station, Jude hadn’t been sure what to expect when it came to seeing him again, but it wasn’t … this. “I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I wanted to see if he’s okay.”

  “He’s as okay as he can be considering what he found in his own home.”

  Jude’s lips tightened. He couldn’t imagine what that had been like. “I’ll just go check on him now, if you don’t mind?” He knew he was being rude, but he was about to burst with the need to have his hands on the general.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “Thanks.” He turned, following Andrei to the stairs at the end of the main room. He knocked on the door to the first room and the warmth that filled his chest when Snow opened the door shocked him. Then his heart clenched as he took in the bruised, exhausted, and obviously still in shock man in front of him.

  Snow stood, stiff and silent, dressed liked the men downstairs in gray sweats and a blue T-shirt that made his eyes look darker—like a stormy sky. His beautiful mouth, stretched thin, wavered as he stared back at Jude, his surprise evident.

  Jude heart unclenched and slumped in defeat. He was so in over his head already and that expression just pulled him to the bottom of what he knew was going to be a rocky, rocky river.

  “Hey,” he said, putting his hand on the man’s chest and gently pushing him back into the room so he could shut the door and lock it behind him. He kept going then, crowding Snow, loving the way the man slowly moved back until he bumped into the foot of the bed. He stopped and Jude slid one arm around that taut waist and hauled Snow against his body. He slid one thigh between his legs and rubbed lightly against his groin.