I gave a forced bark of laughter. “No, Dad, of course not.”
“I thought the two of you were really close.”
“That’s the thing, we are. I’m worried about him, Dad. He’s gotten himself caught up in something with the guys he plays in the band with, and he thinks by breaking up with me, he’s protecting me, somehow.”
He frowned. “What sort of thing?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s been borrowing his foster parents’ truck and heading off to places, though. I don’t know if it’s connected, but he’s been acting strangely ever since it started. I’m so worried about him.” Tears were close again. Cole had made me believe whatever he was doing was illegal, but I didn’t plan on telling my dad that. I knew how he felt about Cole being caught up with the band. I just wanted some advice from him about where to go from here.
“I have to admit that I’m pleased to see you out of it, Gabi. You know how I felt about those boys.”
“Dad, please. I don’t need a lecture. I just need to know what I’m supposed to do about Cole.”
“I don’t want you doing anything. It’s not your place. He’s still under his foster family’s roof for the moment, so they should be the ones to handle whatever trouble he’s gotten himself into, not you.” He thought for a moment and then said, “Would it help if I had a word with him?”
“No! Please don’t, Dad. That won’t help at all.”
“Maybe I should have a word with his foster parents instead. If I was able to convince them to keep him home, or not let him borrow the truck, would that help?”
I allowed my heart to lift with faint hope. “I don’t know how much, but maybe a little.”
“When does he need to borrow it?”
“Tomorrow night, I think.”
My dad nodded. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”
I didn’t want to get Cole in trouble, but I had to do something. He was under his foster parents’ care for the moment, and perhaps it would be a good thing for Emily and Stephen Cowen to speak to him. Even though Cole had butted heads with them on occasion, he did respect that they’d done their best for him. I didn’t think I had any other choice. He wasn’t going to listen to me, and he’d hate it if my dad tried to talk to him—in fact, if he knew I’d spoken to my dad about this at all, he’d go crazy.
I just hoped they would be able to talk some sense into him.
I WENT TO SCHOOL THE next day, trying to ignore all the whispered comments and nudges that followed me as I passed through the halls. I’d hoped Cole’s treatment of me in the hall the previous day might have been forgotten, but it clearly hadn’t.
Jasmine caught up with me. “Hey, how are you doing?”
“I’ve been better. Have you seen Cole today?”
She shook her head, but glanced away.
I frowned. Why did I get the feeling she wasn’t telling me something?
We went to class, and I sat through my lectures, not listening to a single word said. My mind stayed on Cole the whole time, wondering if my dad had been to see his foster parents yet, and if Cole would hate me for saying something. I hoped he’d understand I was desperate. Plus, it didn’t matter if he hated me as long as he agreed to stay away from Ryan and his gang.
Jasmine and I decided to have lunch outside. I was happy to find a tree, where I could sit in the shade and hide behind the trunk. People were still looking at me, though I did my best to keep my head down and ignore any comments, though I couldn’t miss a couple.
“—going to be a cat-fight when she finds out.”
More giggles.
“—cut off his balls ...”
I turned to Jas. “What are they talking about?”
“No idea. I’m sure it’s nothing about you and Cole.”
But as soon as she said it, I knew she was lying. “Jasmine, just tell me.”
She shrugged. “It’s nothing, I’m sure. People are just gossiping ...”
“About what?”
Her eyes widened, staring in the direction of the building which housed the gym. I followed her line of sight and my heartrate skyrocketed. I’d have recognized Cole anywhere, even from behind as he was standing now, one hand pressed against the wall, his head ducked slightly as he talked to someone. The position made my stomach drop and I suddenly felt sick. He had someone pinned up against the wall, and it wasn’t in a violent, aggressive way. Quite the opposite. I could tell from the way his body was positioned that he had no intention of fighting the person he was speaking to.
Jasmine’s hand on my arm drew my attention momentarily. “Come on, Gabi. Let’s go back inside.”
I tugged my arm away. “No, I need to see this for myself.”
I suddenly understood what all the gossiping in the halls was about. It wasn’t just that Cole had dumped me in the middle of school yesterday, it was that he was now hooking up with someone else.
With my heart pounding, I stomped across the grass toward him.
He must have sensed me coming, because he glanced over his shoulder and spotted me. I thought seeing me might have made him jump away from whatever tramp he had cozied up to, but he did quite the opposite. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist, ducked his head, and kissed her.
I froze.
This wasn’t a ‘peck on the lips’ kind of kiss. It was a full, ‘bodies pressed together, tongue in mouth, dry-humping’ kind of kiss. The same kiss we’d shared on so many occasions.
Well, never again.
And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I realized who the bitch was he was kissing.
Taylor.
With blood pounding in my ears, the world distant and faint around me, I turned and ran. I only wanted to get away from there. I was done. With my friends. With school.
With Cole.
Chapter Thirty-six
Cole –Eleven Years Earlier
THIS WOULD BE THE SECOND and last time I would ever do anything for Ryan. To say I resented the guy would be the understatement of the century. He’d taken everything from me by making me push Gabi away. She hated me now, and I didn’t blame her. Everyone had warned her I was trouble when we’d first gotten together, and it had turned out they were right.
I’d had to make sure Ryan would hear that we’d broken up, and by her seeing me making out with Taylor, I’d known the news would spread and Gabi would hate me. Ryan couldn’t use her if she no longer wanted anything to do with me, and he didn’t know where I was.
As soon as I’d made this drop and got my money, I was getting the hell out of town. I didn’t know where I was going yet—my plans went no further than packing my stuff, taking the money I’d made, and the little extra I had saved up from doing chores over the years, turning up at the bus station, and taking whichever bus was heading out of town next. Everyone would find life better if I wasn’t around.
I collected the parcel from Ryan. I wanted to kill him, but he had Adam and Mike standing around him like his fucking bodyguards, and short of buying a gun and shooting the son-of-a-bitch, nothing was going to get rid of him. I figured I was in enough trouble already without heading down that route.
No, my best option was taking the money I made and leaving as soon as possible. I tried not to think about Gabi, the crack in my heart steadily widening as each hour passed, knowing I would be leaving her for good. She’d never want me back now anyway, not after seeing me kiss Taylor like that. I didn’t think it would make any difference if I told her I’d hated doing it and had been thinking of her every moment of the kiss.
She’d tell me I was sick in the head, and she was probably right.
I drove for a little over an hour. I reached Norburn and pulled into the spot where I was due to meet Ryan’s contact. I was nervous, but not as much as the last time. At least now I knew what to do and how to act. We weren’t friends meeting to hang out. This was business only, and would be quick.
No one was waiting for me when I arrived, so I stayed in the
truck, the bag containing the couple of kilos of weed sitting on the passenger seat beside me. I was glad when I’d be rid of it, and heading back to town. I would hand over Ryan’s money and be out of there.
Headlights lit the parking lot behind me, and I turned to see another vehicle pulling in.
Inhaling a steady breath, I opened the driver’s door, grabbed the bag, and climbed from the truck.
“Hey, you Ryan’s friend?” the guy called out.
“That’s right.”
“You got something for me?”
I lifted up the bag, so he could see it in the car’s headlights. He waved an envelope, which I assumed contained a wedge of bills, at me in return.
I handed the bag over at the same time he passed me the envelope.
Sudden sirens blared through the night, making me jump, my heart lurching. My first thought was a storm warning, but then the roar of engines filled the air and a number of vehicles tore into the parking lot, the headlights blinding me. People jumped from the cars, doors slamming like gunshots. I was surrounded in a rush of movement, and noise, and men shouting. Confused, I lifted my arm to cover my eyes, squinting at the new arrivals. Police. I was surrounded by the cops. What the hell was going on?
“Get down on the ground!”
“Hands in the air!”
The whole of my insides plummeted as I realized the men were shouting at me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I had no choice but to do what they asked, letting the envelope I had been clutching drop to the ground. It broke open, and instead of the twenties I had been expecting, hundred dollar bills spilled out onto the asphalt. My mouth dropped. There must have been thousands of dollars scattered across the ground.
The guy I’d met up with copied my movements, dropping the bag to the ground and lowering himself down.
“No one move,” one of the cops told us, and I saw weapons pointed in both our directions.
“Let’s see what we’ve got here,” said the officer who appeared to be in charge.
He went to the bag I’d brought to the scene and opened it, pulling out the couple of fist sized, tape-wrapped, bundles of marijuana. Taking out a penknife, he cut open the first of the bundles, but instead of dried leaves falling, he pulled out a white powder.
Nausea washed over me and the world spun in a circle.
“What you got, sir?” another cop asked.
“Looks like cocaine, and a lot of it.” He turned to his colleague. “These boys are going to be going down for a very long time.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Gabi – Present Day
SHAKEN TO THE CORE, my heart shattered into a million pieces by Taylor’s revelation about the night she’d spent with Cole, I stumbled into my house. I only wanted to be alone for a few hours, but when I walked into my living room, I discovered someone sitting on my couch.
I froze. “Ryan?”
He got to his feet and smiled. “Hello, Gabi.”
I looked around, frantic, for my dad, but as far as I could tell, he was nowhere to be seen. “How did you get in here?”
He held up something small and metallic between his fingers. “You left me a key, didn’t you?”
Damn it. The key I had been leaving out for Cole. The thought of him stabbed a knife into my heart, but I had other problems right now.
I reached out to snatch the key from Ryan’s fingertips, but he jerked back and laughed.
“That wasn’t meant for you, asshole,” I spat. “Now get the hell out of my house.”
His eyes narrowed, a muscle in his forehead twitching. “Now, that’s no way to welcome an old friend.” His tone, initially jovial, gradually grew colder. “Where are your manners, Gabriella?”
My stomach lurched. Shit. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d walked into a dangerous situation. Without moving my head, I tried to glance toward the living room door, trying to judge if I could make it out of the door and slam it behind me before Ryan moved. I wanted to try, but I knew my leg would make me a lot slower than a fully-functional, grown man.
He must have seen the look on my face. “Uh-uh, Gabi. Don’t even think about trying to make a run for it.”
“What do you want, Ryan?” I tried to keep my voice level, though my heartrate thrummed.
“I need you to convince Cole to do something for me.”
“Not a chance. He’s not going to listen to me, anyway.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know about that. You must know he only ran those packages for me because of you all those years ago.”
“I know you threatened me. But Cole was only a kid back then. He’s a grown man now, and he’s not going to let you push him around.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think Cole is pretty protective of you. If I let him know I’ll blow your fucking brains out if he doesn’t do as I tell him, I think he might wise up to the situation.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
He reached into the back of his jeans, and pulled out a gun. “You heard me, bitch.”
I felt sick, a sudden rush of heat blasting through my body, followed by ice-cold water though my veins. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I wanted to believe he wouldn’t shoot me, but I had no idea what kind of man Ryan had grown into, or what he’d been doing these past ten years. I could only guess from the fact he was here in my house now, holding a weapon and threatening me, that none of it had been good.
But when the initial shock ebbed away, I realized it wasn’t fear I was left with but anger. I was suddenly furious he was doing this, coming into my home and threatening me. I’d been threatened by men with guns on numerous occasions in the Army, though of course then I’d been armed myself, and the playing field had been even.
“What’s your obsession with Cole?” I said, anger burning hot inside me. “He could have handed your name over to the cops when he was arrested, but he didn’t. He kept his mouth shut. You should be thanking him, not trying to churn up shit with him all over again.”
“The thing is, Gabi, that’s what makes Cole a trustworthy guy. Trustworthy guys are people I like to do business with.”
I tried not to think about Cole and Taylor. Just how trustworthy was Cole?
“Well, he’s not going to want to do business with you,” I said. “In case you didn’t notice, the last time didn’t turn out so well for him.”
He waved the gun as a gesture, and I reared back, inhaling a breath. “I’m trying to help Cole,” he said. “I want to give him the opportunity to make a better life for himself.”
I snorted, unable to help myself. “Like the last ten years have been better?”
His face hardened, his eyes narrowing. “I tried to help that kid. He was a nobody who was going to be homeless within a few months. He had no job prospects and nowhere to live. It’s easy for you to judge with your family, and middle class home, but what do you think guys like him always end up doing? It wasn’t my fault something went wrong. In fact, Gabi, I can’t help wondering a few things.”
Prickles of unease pinched my skin. “What?”
“What’s your father doing these days?”
I stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“Over the years, I couldn’t help wondering just who was the untrustworthy one? I guess I joined the dots. It seems like more than a coincidence that Cole told you I’d threatened you—or perhaps you told him about that stunt you pulled when you got all feisty about me being a little friendly—and then he gets arrested when he was doing one of our runs. We lost a lot of money that night, Gabi. It wasn’t just that Cole was arrested. We were down several hundred thousand dollars. Can you even imagine how much money that is?”
He moved in closer, the weapon held between us, the muzzle pointed at my stomach. “So, Gabi, what did you tell your daddy-dearest about Cole and the rest of us? Was it malicious or just sheer stupidity? I mean, it’s not as though you didn’t know he was a cop.”
I held my breath. He was right. My dad had been
a cop back in those days, before his drinking had taken hold. He’d been discharged from the force, but he’d still been on active duty the day I’d told him about Cole getting into something he couldn’t handle. He’d told me he would speak to Cole’s foster family, and stop Cole from borrowing the truck to do the run, but instead he’d used the information to get Cole busted and sent down. It was part of the reason I’d left town, together with the fact Cole had cheated on me and broken my heart. After I graduated, I’d reinvented myself completely. I’d thrown away the bookish girl who’d been happy to stay in her room and keep herself to herself. Where many would crumble, I decided to go the other way. I realized to get through life I needed to be strong, physically and mentally. I started running and lifting weights, pouring my heartbreak into exercise. I knew I couldn’t go back to a school setting, not after everything that had happened, and so when I’d seen an advertisement for recruitment for the Army, I’d locked onto it. It was perfect. I knew now I could be stronger than I’d ever thought possible, and the job would take me a long way from Willowbrook Falls, and from my dad. My resentment toward him had reached the point where I couldn’t even look at him, never mind live in the same house.
As I’d grown older, some of that resentment had faded. Perhaps it had been time, or distance, or simply that by growing up I’d realized not all of it was his fault, but my own guilt had set in about abandoning him. He’d betrayed my trust, but he’d also believed he’d been protecting me.
“So the thing is, Gabi,” Ryan continued, “both you and Cole owe me a hell of a lot of money. I know you don’t have that kind of cash, so I think Cole needs to work off his debt, and I have a couple of perfect jobs for him to do.”
I shook my head. “The police will be watching him. He’s an ex-con. Surely there’s someone better to do your damn drug runs for you. He’s just going to end up back behind bars, and you’re going to end up broke again.”
“Yeah, and what about you, Gabi? What’s your punishment for blabbing to your father? Does Cole even know you were the one responsible for getting him locked up for ten years?”
Dangerous Encounters: A Romantic Suspense Boxed Set Page 20
