by Bella Jewel
He doesn’t move back. His eyes stay held on mine, and I want to beg him to close the distance between us and kiss me. I need his lips on mine so fucking badly. I inch forward just a little more, and his eyes go from smoldering and sexy to lusty and needy. He feels it too; I can see it in his gaze. He wants me as much as I want him right now.
“Fuckin’ hell. Kiss her already, man, before I fuckin’ do,” Kendric murmurs, his voice low.
I swallow and Mykel’s eyes drop to my lips.
He moves a little closer, closer still—Then my phone rings. It rings so loudly I jerk, and in that second, the moment is lost. Mykel pulls back and my heart plummets into my stomach. I take a few minutes to recover from that, and then I glance over at my phone, which is on the floor beside me somewhere. I shift around until I find it, and then I stare at the screen.
“It’s Dax,” I mutter, closing my eyes and exhaling.
“Take it,” Alarick orders.
I don’t want to take it.
Goddammit, I don’t even want to look at it.
But I do as I’m told, because that’s what I’m here for.
I bring a finger to my lips, telling everyone to be quiet, and then I answer the phone and put it on loud speaker.
“Hey,” I say softly, trying to make my voice sound like the voice he’s come to know, that of the fragile, gentle girl he thinks he’s falling for.
“Waverly,” he says, and I can hear the pain in his voice.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard another person’s voice sound so pained. So broken. For a moment, I have to remind myself who I’m dealing with so I don’t immediately fall for for his act and try to help him.
“What’s going on?” I ask him, glancing at Alarick who is now listening intently, his eyes narrowed.
“We’ve got a problem here. A big . . . a big fuckin’ problem. I need your help. I have nobody else to talk to and . . . can you come over?”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s better if you just come here and see for yourself.”
“Are you . . . hurt?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “But it’s worse than that. Please, just come here. I need you to come to me.”
Oh god.
This feels bad.
It feels so fucking bad.
I glance over to Alarick, who nods very softly. I glance at Mykel, and the look on his face screams that he is going to protest the moment I hang up the phone.
“I’ll be there soon.”
I disconnect the call and try to leave before anyone can stop me. It doesn’t halt Mykel, though. He stands and demands, “You’re not fuckin’ goin’ over there.”
“I have to head back,” I say, grabbing my things off the bench and turning to where everyone is now gathered. “I have to.”
“You’re high as fuck, for a start,” Mykel growls. “You can’t drive. Secondly, he sounded like he’d just fuckin’ murdered someone, and you’re about to walk in on that. It didn’t sound right and you shouldn’t be over there.”
He’s right; it didn’t sound safe.
But I also know I’ve made a commitment to this club, and I very much plan on following through with it.
“I have to go,” I say.
“I’ll drive you,” Merleigh says. “I’m not high. I’ll get you as close as I can. You’ll probably have to walk the rest of the way so I’m not seen.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“She shouldn’t be goin’, Pres,” Mykel snaps at Alarick.
“We’ll send some back up to stay nearby in case anything goes down. This could be huge, and it could be somethin’ we can use. She’s gotta go.”
“You’re not carin’ at all about her safety.” Mykel snarls, baring his teeth in an angry way that has even me taking a step back.
“Back down, brother. This is not your fuckin’ call.”
“Isn’t it?” Mykel barks. “I think we all get a fuckin’ say in this, and I say it’s fuckin’ dangerous.”
“I agree,” Briella says. “I don’t think she should go. She’s under the influence of drugs, and we can’t be close enough to protect her if anything goes down. It’d be different if she was in a clear headspace, but she’s not.”
“Gotta agree,” Cohen pipes up. “Tonight it ain’t safe.”
Fuck me.
They’re all making sure this doesn’t happen.
“Last time I checked,” I say, grabbing a coat, “it’s not up to any of you. I’m going. You can try and stop me or you can have my back. I’ll keep you all updated, and I’m not that high that I can’t think straight. I’m doing this.”
“Fuck,” Mykel growls and looks to Alarick, knowing that if Alarick tells me not to go, I won’t.
But he’s the only one who I’ll stop for.
The only one.
“You feel like you’re okay?” Alarick asks me. “You feel like you can think clearly?”
“I feel okay. High, but not to the point of not being able to make the right decision. I’ll keep my phone on me, and just see what it is Dax needs. Then I’ll report back and come home.”
“He didn’t sound right, Flick,” Briella pleads. “He sounded like he was off, in a really bad way. He said he was hurt. Anything could be going down there; it could be dangerous. If it is, there isn’t much we can do right away to help her once she’s at his house.”
Alarick runs a hand down his face, and exhales loudly. “Fuck, Waverly, I can’t let you go.”
What?
He can’t be serious.
“Alarick . . .” I try, but he puts up a hand.
“Briella is right. I can’t help you once you’re in there, and you’re not of clear mind. Not to mention we literally have no fuckin’ idea what you’re walkin’ into.”
“Dax won’t hurt me . . .” I try to say, even though I’m not entirely sure that’s true.
“We can’t be certain of that.”
“I’m only here to get information for you. Whatever happened tonight could be crucial. He doesn’t just call for no reason . . .”
“I’ve said no.” Alarick growls, his voice firm. “Respect it.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
I can’t.
I just can’t.
What if one of those girls has been hurt? What if something really important has happened that can bring this to a close once and for all? If I don’t go now, Dax may very well lose all respect for me, and then what? I’m going to be no different to the other girls and he’ll try sell me off as soon as he can, and any information I could have gained will be gone.
No.
I’m going.
I turn and walk towards the door.
“Waverly!” Alarick calls.
“I’m going,” I say.
“Fuckin’ stop,” Mykel barks.
I run out the front and towards my car. I know I’m making a huge mistake doing this, but I also know I’d be making a huge mistake if I didn’t do this. Either way, someone is going to lose here, and tonight, and I don’t want it to be another innocent girl.
I get into my car and hit the lock button before starting it up. Mykel is coming towards me at a pace that has my heart racing and my hands trembling. I throw the car into drive and lunge forward, before speeding out of the driveway.
I’m going to be punished heavily for this. I know that.
But I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.
Something has gone down at Dax’s place tonight, and I’m going to find out what that is no matter the cost.
10
WAVERLY
“Dax, what have you done?” I whisper, staring at the bloodied man lying on the ground, completely lifeless.
Constable Bennett.
I know who it is—Alarick once told me all about him and the role he plays in everything Dax is doing. Not to mention that my sister is a cop and has had issues with Bennett since she first started working in the department. He’s as crooked as they get, and he’s a very bad
man. He’s the reason Dax, Peter and this little group have been able to do what they do for so long, the reason they’ve been able to fly under the radar.
I try to look away from the bloodied form on the ground, but I’m finding it incredibly hard to tear my eyes off the scene before me. Bennett’s entire head has been beaten so badly he’s unrecognizable. The only reason I know it’s him is because of the very clear uniform he’s wearing, and the fact that I’ve seen him before so it didn’t take me long to figure it out.
Whatever Dax did to this man was brutal.
There are wounds on his torso—wounds that have bled out all over the floor.
I’ve never seen a dead body before. I’ve seen plenty of them on television. I’ve looked at pictures. Hell, I figured it wouldn’t actually bother me but this is making me incredibly unwell. I can barely keep the contents in my stomach down. My hands start to tremble, so I cross my arms and turn to Dax so I don’t have to face it anymore.
“I fucked up,” Dax keeps saying over and over, clothes covered in blood.
On the ground beside Bennett lays a dirty, bloodied knife. There’s no doubt Dax stabbed him to death—I can tell that from Bennett’s injuries alone, and the way his face is so mangled up. I swallow back the vomit once more.
“I fucked everything up. What have I done? Fuck. What have I done?”
What do I say to him? It’s cool, bro. You killed a cop and you’re a murderer, but it’s all totally fine and nobody will ever know.
Yeah, fucking right.
That’s not going to cut it.
“What happened here?” I ask, my voice shaky.
“He came in . . . he came in tellin’ me that he had a change of plans and if I didn’t do what he wanted, he was bringin’ me down. We got into a fight. I picked up the knife and just . . . I fuckin’ lost it. Fuck. Fuck.”
Lost it? You just lost it?
The man has been stabbed multiple times. That’s more than just losing it.
“What plans did he want to change? I don’t understand.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Dax, what plans? What are you keeping from me?”
I stare at him and his eyes meet mine, and they’re looking a little crazed, which is rather alarming. I keep it together.
“I’m a bad man, Waverly. I’m a bad man. You don’t want to know who I am. You don’t. You’ll leave.”
Oh god.
He’s right, but this is my moment to ‘prove’ to him that he can trust me. The only way for me to get in is if he thinks he has someone on his side. Now Bennett has been killed, we’ve got a huge piece of leverage to bring this operation down. Dax would go to prison for a long damned time if I could get enough evidence to send him there. And something on Peter, too.
I step forward even though everything in my body is screaming at me to stop, turn around and leave.
I don’t do that.
I force myself to move closer. I force myself to raise my hand and place it on the side of his face, to say in a soft, yet a little scared, voice, “Nothing you could tell me would make me want to leave. I want to help you. Let me help.”
God.
Don’t vomit, Waverly.
You’ve got this.
This is your chance to prove to everyone that you can pull this off.
“You say that now, but you don’t understand . . . not a fuckin’ thing.”
“I’m standing here next to the dead body of a police officer, and I haven’t run. How much worse can it be than that?”
“You have no idea,” he tells me, his voice hard.
“Let me in.”
He places a bloodied hand over mine and I want to cringe and yank it away, but I don’t. I keep holding his eyes as he studies me. Then, in a low voice, he says, “He’s a cop. He’s a cop, which means I’m done for. You can’t get away with killin’ a cop. You just fuckin’ can’t.”
He’s right. You probably can’t.
“We’ll find a way. There has to be a way.”
“They’ll come looking, and when they do, they’re goin’ to find out everything . . . When they find out everything, we’re goin’ down. I’m done for. This is the fuckin’ end of me. Peter will kill me. He’ll hang my fuckin’ head from the ceiling.”
Jesus Christ.
“You need to take a breath. Tell me everything, and then we’re going to figure out what to do with the body. We’ll can fix this.” Oh, we’ll solve it out alright. When I get the information I need, Dax is going to fucking hell where he belongs. So is Peter. And any other person who is involved in this. They’re all going where they belong.
“We can’t figure it out,” he roars, shoving me backwards so hard I slip in the pool of blood on the floor.
I land with a thud on the ground and when I lift my hand, and feel the sticky substance that is coating my fingers, I start to dry retch. There is blood all over me now—on my clothes, on my hands. Oh god. Oh god.
“Waverly!”
Dax steps forward and pulls me to my feet with one swift movement. Then he’s pulling me into his arms and cradling me like I’m some sort of broken doll. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Oh god.
This man is crazy.
One hundred percent fucking crazy.
I hadn’t seen it until now, but oh, do I see it so very clearly in this moment.
“Th-th-th-th-there’s blood on me,” I cry, my body trembling. “Get it off! Get it off!”
I start swiping my palms on my clothes to try and get the blood off, but it’s so sticky and so thick, it just makes me look even worse. Even then, it’s stuck to my hands like glue. I can’t seem to remove it. I feel the panic rise in my chest as my heart pounds like a drum. I have to force myself to calm down even though I want to scream and get the hell out of here.
I want to go home.
Oh god.
I stare down at the floor where Bennett’s body lays, and I feel sick.
Sick to my stomach.
“I’m sorry, Waverly,” Dax murmurs, releasing me. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
“We need to calm down,” I say, my voice shaky. “We need to calm down and figure out what we’re going to do here. We need a plan.”
“The other cops will figure out he’s missing, and they’ll link it back to me,” Dax says, running his hands through his hair.
I don’t tell him that he just put more blood in there, and I try not to look at him because he looks even more terrifying now. “Do the other cops know you two were acquaintances?”
Dax shakes his head. “No, but it won’t take long to fuckin’ figure it out. They’ll go through his stuff, find it out and track me down. I can’t be sure he’s left me untraceable. A man like him is smart – he’d have a plan in case something went wrong.”
“Then you need to make sure there’s nothing to find here. You have to make sure everything of yours is clean.”
“I can’t fuckin’ do that!” Dax roars. “I can’t fuckin’ clean it up. It’s too late for that.”
“I don’t even know what you’re doing here, Dax. I’m trying to help,” I say softly, forcing a fragile voice, though it doesn’t take much because I literally feel fragile right about now.
“I sell women, Waverly. I take them off the streets, and I sell them. I make money, millions of dollars. I’m running an illegal business that you couldn’t even begin to imagine.”
I blink.
He just told me.
Straight up told me.
I try to think of what the correct reaction to this is. I try to think of how I’d react if I didn’t already know. If I run out of here and freak out, I’m putting my life at risk. He’ll never let me walk with a secret like that, so it leaves me one option.
To play along.
“You give girls off the streets new lives?” I ask, my voice soft. “Girls like Bobbie and Amy, who have nothing else going for them?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t tell me
he sells them to monsters, but really, do I need to know that? No. All I need to know is what he does so he trusts me enough to let me in. When I’m in, I can take him down.
I step forward and reach for his hand, my stomach coil again. “I would never judge you for that. It might be wrong, but I can also appreciate what you’re doing here. How is Bennett involved?”
“He’s been involved from the start—a silent partner, so to speak. He finds people with money, sends them our way. He gets a cut and he keeps the cops off our backs. He makes sure we stay clean. Without him, we’re fucked.”
He’s damn right they are.
“One thing at a time,” I say. “We need to get rid of this.”
I nod down at Bennett’s body.
I feel sick at the very thought of ‘getting rid of it.’
A body, someone’s life, gone.
Just like that.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. We need to. We need to get rid of it.”
It’s time to sort this out.
So I can finish this, once and for all.
I’m officially done.
“YOUR TAIL WASN’T ABLE to follow you all the way. Where have you been?” Alarick growls the moment I step through the door.
I’m bloodied, I’m bruised, I’m covered in dirt, and I feel like my body is shutting down on me. My brain is numb and all I can think about is the blood that’s coating my hands. The sticky blood that’s all over my fingers, my palms, my wrists, my clothes—everything.
“Flick,” Briella whispers, and Alarick’s voice immediately goes softer once he’s taken a good look at me.
“What happened?” he asks, just as Mykel walks into the room.
I don’t look at him.
I don’t look at any of them.
I need to get this blood off my hands.
I need it to be gone.
“Bennett’s dead,” I murmur, walking straight past them and towards the bathroom.
I don’t answer any of the questions that are thrown at me after that. I just continue walking, keeping my head down, trying to stop my hands trembling and my body giving way on me. All I can see in my mind, over and over, is the moment when we dropped Bennett’s body into the hole we spent hours digging. A hole big enough that my stomach twists at the very thought of it.
