by Brook Wilder
I mimicked her stance with one of my own, trying to remember how we had gotten to this point tonight. This had not been in my plans, not even close. “You promised me.”
Something flashed in her eyes before she dropped her stance, suddenly looking weary. “Just take me back.”
So, I did. We didn’t even speak on the ride back to her motel and the moment I pulled up in the parking lot, she was jumping out and slamming the door behind her, hard enough to rattle the car. Though I wanted to go after her, to make her see that her revenge on Julian wasn’t worth dredging up the past, I drove off, clenching the steering wheel with my hands. Jill had tried to cross a line and luckily, she had failed, but what other lines was she willing to cross?
Who else would she hurt in the process?
“Fuck,” I swore as I pointed my car home. I didn’t want to fight with her, nor did I want to make this rift between us even wider, but something told me it was far too late for me to be thinking about that.
***
The next morning, I rolled into the clubhouse in a dark mood. My sleep had been shit and I had spent half the night staring at half a bottle of whiskey, daring myself to finish it off.
I hadn’t, which was part of my issue.
As if I could drink Jill out of my system.
Sabs was already at her computer when I dropped into my chair, rubbing my face with my hand. “You look like shit,” she said matter-of-factly. “What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I muttered.
She let out a short laugh. “Yeah, if you think that I am gonna let you off that easy, you need to get your head checked. Let me guess. It has to do with Jill, right?”
I sighed loudly. “She tried to go after Leigh.”
“That bitch,” Sabrina said in a low voice. “Please tell me she didn’t get to her.”
“She didn’t,” I confirmed. “But she’s clearly not happy with the information I have been giving her and she wants more.” I didn’t know what kind of warpath she would be on now, after what had been said between us, and the thought scared me for her, not for the club. We could cover up whatever she leaked, but if Chains or Widow Maker got wind that she was now a threat, I wasn’t sure what they would do.
Or make me do.
“You have got to keep her reined in,” Sabs was saying, gripping my arm tightly. “Keith, do you hear me?”
I shook off her touch. “I hear you, okay?” I just didn’t like the fact that by doing so, she was going to hate me for it. I had grown to care for her, starting to think about what life might be like with Jill after this was all said and done.
Hell, I probably was half in love with her already.
“Listen,” Sabrina said after a moment. “I know you like this girl, like really like her, but she’s dangerous. We have to stop her before she takes away everything we love. What if Two Tone finds out or Chuckler? They won’t take kindly to her trying to go after their wives.”
I knew that too. Jill would likely not be part of this earth any longer if she crossed either of those guys.
Sabrina patted my back, a sorrowful look on her face. “You really care about her, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said, not even bothering to hide it. “I do.”
She hugged me. “I’m sorry, Keith, I really am.”
Blowing out a breath, I eased out of her embrace. “What do you think I should do then?”
Sabrina thought about it for a minute, her expression grim. “You could threaten her.”
I snorted. Yeah, like that was going to work. My stomach churned as I thought of another option, one that was sure to have Jill hating my guts when she found out. “We could wipe her computer.”
Sabrina rubbed her chin as she thought it over. “Not a bad idea. Girl doesn’t seem to be the most security-conscious. If I had to guess, her laptop probably doesn’t even have firewall. Would take me five minutes, tops, to restore her factory settings and delete all her files. Or, you could just run a magnet over her hardrive a couple of times.”
I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Jill was a hard worker. She had done a lot of shit to get the information she had on us. Based on our conversations, if she was to lose this story, she would feel like a failure.
I would be handing her that feeling. I was supposed to care about her.
Not supposed to. I did care about her. “It will make her hate me.”
“I wish there was another way,” Sabrina said. “But the club…”
“Always comes first,” I said, a bad taste in my mouth as I spoke the words. Did the club really come first now? I wasn’t so sure. I had never had another reason to doubt my loyalty, but Jill had given me a glimpse of what a future could like outside of the club.
And I was going to lose it.
A few hours later, Sabs and I sat outside of the motel, watching Jill’s room. Her car was still in the parking lot, but I knew she would be leaving soon, mainly because Sabs had made an anonymous call to her stating she had information on the Jesters.
Based on how desperate Jill was for information, I knew she would fall for it.
Sure enough, Jill suddenly exited the room, hurrying to her car. I soaked in her form, my hands aching to touch her body as she climbed in the car and pulled away without ever glancing in our direction.
God, I missed her.
“Come on, lover boy,” Sabrina muttered, opening the door. “We’ve got work to do.”
We both approached the motel door and Sabs pulled out her lock-picking kit, a present from her husband. In ten seconds flat, she had the door popped open and was moving aside for me to walk through first. I pulled my gun just in case, holding it close as I walked in, Jill’s perfume assaulting my senses nearly immediately.
Her presence was everywhere in the room; clothes strewn about the messy bed, her personal effects littering the dresser and small desk. I felt like I was invading her privacy by being here, but when my eyes fell on her laptop, I knew I was here for a very important reason.
The club comes first.
“Wow,” Sabrina was saying, wrinkling her nose. “This place sucks.”
I swallowed. “I tried to get her to move. Even offered up my own apartment.”
“Thank God she didn’t take you up on that offer,” she answered, walking over to the laptop. “Or you would be having a horrible night.”
I was already going to have a horrible fucking night. One that would probably involve a hell of a lot of drinking to get through.
I watched the door as Sabrina opened the laptop.
“Jesus, Joseph, and doggy-style Mary.” Sabrina muttered. “Does no one take security seriously anymore? Who backs up to the cloud but doesn’t two-factor authenticate?”
“Just get it done.”
“I’m on it.” Sabrina said, working her magic. If Jill came back and found us here, I wasn’t sure how I would explain it.
If I could even explain it at all. It wouldn’t take a genius to see what we were doing.
“Done,” Sabrina announced. “She could take it to a professional and maybe get some of the desktop stuff back, but it won’t be easy.”
The knot in my chest didn’t loosen now that the club was safe. If nothing else, it just tightened. “Let’s get the hell out of here then.”
Sabrina went first and I locked the door before shutting it. This place was a shithole. Anyone could break in.
We climbed back into the car and Sabrina let out a long breath. “Well that’s over. I’m sorry, Keith. I really am. I know you were happy with her. But she’s not just a girl. She’s the enemy, and we have to let the others break this story the way we need them to do it.”
I clenched the steering wheel as I eased the car out onto the highway, pulling away from the only fucking thing that had ever made me feel like my life was worth living besides the club.
Would she contact me once she found out what we had done to her information? I hoped not. I didn’t want to see the angry tears in her e
yes or hear her tell me about how I had ruined her life.
I didn’t want to feel that pain of knowing what I had done to her.
But something told me that Jill wasn’t going to just go away now that we had taken her ammunition from her and this wasn’t going to be the last we saw of her.
I just hoped that it didn’t end with one of us dying. I could take her not talking to me for the rest of my life, but I didn’t want her blood on my hands.
Chapter 21
Jill
I crossed my arms over my chest as I walked around the park one more time, attempting to look for anyone that was out of place.
Like me.
I had been walking around for the last thirty minutes, looking for the confidential informant that had made the call to me personally, saying that they had information about the Jesters that I would be very interested to learn about.
At first, I had thought it might be Alisha Owens or Leigh Greene, as the caller was definitely female.
Now I was starting to believe I had been set up.
Growling, I stalked back to my car as a light rain started to fall. I hated being stood up, especially when I had so much work to do.
My cell phone rang, and I fished in my jacket pocket as I climbed in the car, my hopes lifting. Maybe this was the informant. “Hello?”
“Jill.”
A slice of fear slid down my spine. “Julian.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t think you would know who I was, sweet.”
I hated that he used that nickname. That name had been full of promise long ago, a promise that had done nothing but turn into heartbreak for me. “What do you want? Another article?”
“Ah still full of fire, I see,” he answered. “I’ve missed you, Jill.”
I rested my forehead on the steering wheel, fighting back the urge to throw my phone out of the window. How long had I worked to forget his voice? “I wish I could say the same, Julian, but I miss you like a boil on my ass.”
He chuckled again; the sound no longer sounded as husky as it had before. “I know you are working a story. I have to admit, I’ve read some of your stuff on that shitty website. You still have talent, the kind of talent that could take you places, Jill.”
Surprised, I straightened. “You’re keeping tabs on me?”
“Of course,” Julian answered. “Why wouldn’t I? You were my favorite student, after all, in more ways than one.”
A mistake I would not be repeating, ever. “I figured you would have found an intern to cozy up with by now.”
“Tsk tsk, Jill,” he said. “I’m not a dirty old man or anything. Besides, I’m sure you heard my news by now. I’m looking for someone to join my team, someone like you.”
I felt sick to my stomach at the thought. I never wanted to see him again, much less work with him. Was he that delusional? He had made me lose everything. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to pass on that.”
Julian sighed into the phone. “That’s too bad, really. You could be a star, Jill, a real star.”
“Then admit you screwed me over,” I countered. “Admit that I am the reason you are so successful with your work, you asshole.”
“No need for name-calling, sweet,” Julian replied with a laugh. “I called your editor; you know the one from that website you write from. Following a lead in Castillo, Texas?”
I froze. He knew where I was. With all of Julian’s resources and money now, he could easily find out what I was doing here and take the story away from me.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Come to New York,” he urged. “I’ll put in a good word for you for an internship and maybe you can work your way up to columnist. I’ll even let you work on some of my articles.”
“Fuck you, Julian,” I seethed. “You are nothing but an asshole who takes advantage of people and I’m done letting you take advantage of me!”
“You need me!” he yelled into the phone. “You are just too stupid to admit it. You won’t ever make it on your own, Jill, ever!”
I pressed end on the call and threw my phone into the passenger seat, my entire body shaking with rage. I hated him. He still thought I would crawl back to him like he hadn’t ruined my life, my career.
I wasn’t desperate. I would rather starve to death than have him help me in any sort of way.
Starting the car, I pulled out of the parking lot, flipping on my wipers to clear the windshield. I needed a drink after that conversation and there was plenty of alcohol in my room.
I briefly thought about calling Keith but decided against it. My heart was still raw from our argument and I wasn’t about to be the first to cave and forgive him. He didn’t know what it was like to claw and scratch your way for every bit of information.
He didn’t know what it was like to have your life ripped from you and have no one on your side. Keith had his club, his best friend, and all I had was this glimmer of hope that I could pull this story off.
That was it.
It didn’t take me long to get back to my motel room. After shedding my coat, I walked over to the desk, grabbing the bottle of cheap wine that I had purchased from the corner market, drinking straight from the bottle instead of hunting down a paper cup. It was hot, but I didn’t care. Hot alcohol would do the trick just like cold alcohol would.
After a few sips to steady my nerves, I sat down in front of my laptop, raising the lid and starting it up. I would show Julian and Keith that I could do this. I wasn’t a weakling, nor was I stupid. I was a damn good journalist and had this story at the tip of my fingers, so close I could taste it.
I just needed to spin it around and the hell with what everyone thought or the trouble it caused.
When my screen flickered to life, I froze.
Everything was different. The background image was the default one. The apps were the default ones. My folder with all the information that I had stored on the desktop was gone. My notes, screenshots, and lists had been in there so that I could reach them in a pinch.
Even my cloud account was gone.
“No, no,” I started, opening the recycle bin to see if I had accidentally moved it in there.
My recycle bin was empty. I never emptied it. It was a weird quirk of mine, but I was always afraid that I would put something in there when I was drunk and not be able to find it. I had years’ worth of trash in there.
Everything was gone.
I slumped in the chair, my thoughts in shambles along with my emotions. There was only one person who knew I was staying here.
One person that knew I was close to having enough information to ruin a club.
One person that I trusted.
My eyes filled with tears and I angrily brushed them away, not believing that Keith would do something like this. He knew it would ruin me, destroy all the hard work that I had done during my time here. I had no backup drives, no way to recover the information that was gone.
He had effectively shut me down.
Well, he was about to learn how a pissed-off Jill looked.
It took me less than ten minutes to reach his apartment and bang on his door, knowing he was inside. “Open the damn door!”
The door opened nearly immediately and Keith stood in the doorway, not at all surprised to see me. “What the hell did you do?” I shouted at him, pushing at his chest. It was like hitting a brick wall.
He grabbed my wrists and dragged me inside, slamming the door behind me. “Calm down, Jill.”
I shook off his touch. “Tell me you didn’t do it.”
The look on his face was all the confirmation I needed, and I felt the last shred of hope that he wouldn’t do something so, so mean dissolve in my broken heart.
“That was everything I’ve worked on! Everything!” I forced out, my voice cracking.
Keith had the grace to look ashamed. “Listen, Jill, I couldn’t.”
I hit him in the chest, wanting to make him hurt like I was. “You had no right!”
He didn’t tou
ch me. “I had every fucking right. You were going after my family, trying to stir up shit that would hurt people all because you need some vindication against an asshole that hurt you. You are letting your own personal shit get in the way of what is right.”
I slapped him then, not even realizing I had until my right hand was stinging from the contact. He didn’t know what he was talking about. This had nothing to do with Julian and everything to do with me.
“I hate you,” I said, my throat clogged with emotion. “Don’t ever try to contact me again.”
