by Eve, Jaymin
My head felt light and airy, like my brain had disconnected from my body. “That’s why my father made us go out. He insisted on it despite the crappy conditions. Dante had tried to warn him, but instead he’d scared him.”
“Weren’t you going for dinner or something?” Evan asked, his eyes locked on me.
“Yes,” I started before more of the memories from that night came back to me. I’d deliberately not thought about it, which was stupid considering I was a key witness to what had happened, but who wanted to relive the worst day of their life? “We were going in the wrong direction. I didn’t really question it at the time, but … we were kind of heading out of town.”
My dad had seemed somewhat agitated.
I almost dropped the phone in my haste to get to the next text.
Dante: How could you? How could you kill her parents? They were all she had in this world. You’ve destroyed her. You’ve destroyed your daughter.
I could feel his anger and anguish in that message, and all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe; my chest tight, I attempted to suck air into my lungs. This was my irrefutable proof that it had been Catherine.
“Breathe, baby,” Beck said in his soothing voice. “In and out, count in your head, one, two, three, four, five. You’re having a panic attack, and you need to ground yourself.”
At first, I could barely hear him, but after some time, his words penetrated, and I started to count in my head, forcing the air in and out, forcing my body to stay alive because I needed it to finish this. To stop Catherine. Destroy her.
“My mom was alive when we crashed,” I said softly when I was able to breathe easily again. The memories were hitting me now, hard and fast. Flashes of that night. That chill in the air. The screech of our tires. My fear as we tumbled down the embankment.
“When our car stopped in the embankment, she was alive.” I was almost positive.
“You said her neck was broken on impact,” Dylan reminded me gently.
I shook my head. “That’s what they told me, but I was there. I might have blocked out what happened at first, but … I remember now. I heard her voice and her gasp. Someone got to her just after we crashed. Probably my dad too. They were murdered.”
And those fucking seatbelts. Definitely the work of Debitch.
Pain twisted inside me, and a small sob escaped my lips before I clapped a hand over them. Now wasn’t the time for weakness. There was a long, weighted silence while the guys clearly scrambled for the right thing to say. But there was no “right thing” in this situation. Catherine had orchestrated the murder of my parents—my real parents—and this was proof.
“I’m going to make that bitch pay,” I whispered into the conversation void. “She’s not getting away with this. Not this time. She’s pushed her luck too fucking far.”
Beck made a small sound, smoothing his hand down my spine. “Don’t plan anything rash, Butterfly. We’re in this together, remember? We’ll take her down together.”
No doubt he was thinking about how I’d run off in the middle of the night with no plans past possibly putting a bullet in my bio-mom’s skull. Put like that, I guess he had a point.
Leveling a hard stare at Beck, I took a deep breath, considering our newfound togetherness.
“Promise me,” I ordered him. “Promise me we’ll make her pay for this, Sebastian.”
His huge palm cupped my cheek, his steady, unguarded gray eyes meeting mine for long enough that I couldn’t doubt his sincerity. “I swear to you, Butterfly,” he vowed, “Catherine’s going down.”
* * *
I’d thought it would be such a simple thing. We were all in agreement that Catherine—and the rest of the Delta council—had abused their power for way too long. They all needed to answer for their various crimes, and the successors would be the ones to see justice done.
But apparently, it wasn’t as easy as just marching up to a judge and presenting our evidence. For one thing, we still didn’t know who was on Delta’s payroll, and for another, how would we prove the legitimacy of our evidence?
“I knew this was too good to be true,” I groaned, tossing the stack of papers back on the coffee table some hours later. I collapsed back into the couch and scrubbed at my sleep deprived face with both hands. We needed ... more coffee. Yes, maybe more coffee would make more brain power.
“Hey, Jasper?” I called out, knowing he was rustling around in the kitchen a few moments ago. Hopefully he was still there and could sort out the caffeine situation. “Can you—”
“No!” he shouted back, then appeared in front of me with a slick smile and a handful of sandwich. “You’re cut off from the coffee pot, hot stuff. Orders of the big man himself.”
I shifted in my seat to glare at Beck who was engrossed in some financial document that had been in Dante’s folder of dirt. He didn’t even look up from his page, but I saw his lips twitch with a smile. “You’re exhausted, Butterfly. You need to sleep.” He looked up then, casting his tired eyes around the room. “We all do.”
Feeling stubborn, mostly at being told what to do, I shook my head. “No way. We have a board of megalomaniac assholes to take down and a murder charge to overthrow. Do you really think Dante is getting much sleep while being held for rape and murder?”
Beck arched a brow at me in challenge. “He betrayed you. Lied to you for your entire fake friendship. Why do you care if he goes to jail for killing Katelyn?” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “What makes you so sure he didn’t do it?”
I glowered back at him, my anger simmering beneath the surface. “He didn’t do it,” I snapped. “The betraying me was because of Catherine. Not a life he chose. Besides, I know him. It wasn’t all an act.”
Please don’t let it have all been an act.
Beck stared back at me for a long time then gave a cavalier shrug. “If you say so, sweetheart.”
The tone of his voice raised my hackles, and I pushed to my feet. My hands were propped on my hips and I glared down at Beck. Fucking Beck. “What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded.
His flat look only served to enrage me further.
“Nothing at all,” he replied with a sharp edge of sarcasm. “Only that you clearly know him so well. If you say he wouldn’t assault, rape and murder a girl, then clearly you know better than us.”
I didn’t know what the fuck had gotten into Beck, but I was too fucking tired—physically and emotionally—to put up with his drama. The heavy sarcasm said pretty clearly he thought Dante was guilty, so what the hell had given him that impression?
It didn’t matter. He was probably just letting his dick do all the talking and seeing how jealous he’d been of my friendship with Dante since day freaking one…
But it was a fake friendship. Wasn’t it? So maybe he had a point.
“Fuck you,” I snarled.
“Okay,” Jasper interrupted, physically stepping between me and Beck and breaking the death glare staredown we were engaging in. “That’s enough of that. Weren’t you two all loved up and confessing undying vengeance on our parents a few hours ago? What the hell happened while I was making a sandwich?” His accusing glare shot between Beck and me, but it was Evan—who’d been standing behind Beck’s chair—who replied.
“I’m guessing it has something to do with Dante’s assault conviction from three years ago,” he announced, reading from the paper still clutched in Beck’s hands. I guess he must have moved on from the finance docs. “Aggravated sexual assault against a Miss Hailey Tabot, age fifteen. Looks like the charges were dropped after a healthy donation into the Tabot family trust account. Courtesy of Catherine, I’d guess.” Evan flicked his gaze up to me, but I couldn’t speak past the huge lump in my throat.
Holy shit.
Aggravated sexual assault? No way. This had to be one of Catherine’s set ups.
Still, a little voice in the back of my head whispered poison, reminding me of a night three years ago…
“What date?” I croaked out, scarcel
y capable of words. “What date was the report?”
“December twenty-fourth,” Beck answered my desperate question, his jaw set in anger. “He attacked that girl on Christmas Eve.”
It was like my strings had just been cut, and I dropped back into my seat when my legs gave way. Fucking Hailey Tabot. Dante’s only serious girlfriend and my arch-nemesis. We’d all been at a party on December twenty-fourth, three years ago. Dante had given me my butterfly a few months back, and I was taking every opportunity to race her ... to Hailey’s disgust.
Some shit about how he clearly loved me more than her, and how everyone could see it. Total bullshit. Dante freaking loved Hailey... it’s what made me so fucking sure that assault was another Catherine stunt. Except, on that night I’d had a huge fight with Hailey. She’d been caught tampering with my car before an impromptu race, and when I’d confronted her, shit had turned nasty. Like bitch fight level nasty.
Dante had pulled her off me and driven her home. I hadn’t given it another thought ... not really. Not when Dante showed up at my place the next morning with scratches on his face, or even when Hailey and her parents suddenly moved to live with her grandma in Florida.
Had I just been a stupid trusting dickhead?
I mean, I had missed the whole “paid to keep tabs on you” thing.
Fuck. How dumb had I been all these years?
8
Beck and I didn’t talk for the rest of the night. Eventually I ended up in bed, and I had no idea when he joined me, but he was gone by the time I woke the next morning. The only evidence he was there at all was the fact I’d had no nightmares, that comforting “Beck scent” still surrounded me, and his side was warm—I’d only just missed him.
With a groan, I pulled myself up. It sucked that we were mad at each other right now, especially when we were in the midst of trying to take down Delta, but despite all the evidence presented to me about Dante and his possibly evil side, I couldn’t bring myself to write him off completely. Not yet. He deserved a chance to explain himself, especially about Hailey. She was a bitch of the worst kind, and that in no way meant she deserved to be sexually assaulted, but it did mean that I wasn’t going to just blindly trust the allegations against Dante. Hailey had lied to me so many times that I wasn’t sure she could actually tell the truth.
Entering the bathroom, my sleep-addled brain finally registered the fact that the shower was running. Through the top of the glass, I could see his broad, muscular shoulders. Hands against the glass, his head was resting forward as the water beat down on him, and before I could stop myself, I was padding quietly toward the glass door.
When I stopped on the other side, Beck’s head lifted slowly, and he turned to face me fully. It was like he knew I was there, even though I hadn’t made a single sound approaching him. As our eyes locked, my body tightened, the tiny panties I’d worn to bed already damp. Beck fucked me with one look. The rest was a pure bonus, because there was no one in the world that could do to me what he could.
His face was expressionless, but his eyes were blazing, storm clouds building there as the gray darkened. I wanted to step inside, but I couldn’t fucking move. He slowly pushed the glass open, skimming past my body, and in a split second, I was jerked into his hard, wet body.
“Fuck,” I groaned, arching into him. Jesus fucking Christ. I needed him. Right now. We could be mad at each other later.
“You belong to me,” Beck said softly, that expression never wavering from me. “Dante might have some of your past but that’s all it fucking is. The. Past.”
I probably should have been arguing with this possessive Neanderthal, but I was beyond the wording and the sentences and the arguments. There was still some fire in me though, as I lunged forward, slamming him into the tiles, and taking him completely by surprise. I practically climbed him to get to his face, and then we were kissing, hard, punishing kisses. Sometimes kissing Beck was like waging war, each of us trying to come out on top. War with a hell of a lot more pleasure involved.
Beck’s hands wrapped around my thighs as he yanked me up into his body. I tried to wrap my legs around him, but the wall got in the way, so Beck move forward slightly. I arched again and again, rubbing myself up and down his naked body. It was slippery from the water, and I needed to get my clothes off right now.
I needed more.
“Fuck...” I was all but begging him.
Fuck me, Beck.
My underwear and top disappeared in a heartbeat, Beck managing to both tear and drag them off me in the same instance, then he kept me elevated with one hand, while his other slipped up my thigh and grazed across my pussy.
“Butterfly,” Beck said, and I somehow managed to pry an eye open and try to focus on words.
“What— Fuck!” I cried out as his fingers slid inside of me, first one and then another, The thumb on his other hand, the one holding me, shifted so it was pressing against my ass, circling in teasing strokes.
“You belong to me, Riley Jameson. Say the fucking words.”
I shook my head, and his thumb pressed harder, and I was about to fucking combust at the feeling of his fingers stroking me.
“You’re not going to win, Sebastian,” I said, unsuccessfully keeping the moan from my words. “I will submit to no man.”
He stopped moving his hands and slowly dragged them away from my aching center, and I tried really hard not to punch him.
My head shot up so I could meet his eyes. “Don’t use my body against me,” I said, huffing every word out in forced anger. He watched me for many long moments, still holding me like I weighed nothing, hot water beating down on us as we waged this dominance war between us.
I caved a little. “Please, Beck.”
His jaw twitched and he didn’t look happy. “Don’t call me Beck.”
It was the very thing I used to distance myself from the over-fucking-whelming emotions he created in me. And he knew it.
“I love you, Sebastian Roman Beckett,” I said softly, “but that’s not going to be enough for you to control me. If that’s the sort of chick you want, you’re with the wrong fucking person.”
I wiggled down, and for a beat, as his hands tightened on my thighs, I didn’t think he’d let me go. But then he did.
Stepping out of the shower, I was wet—really fucking wet—and pissed off, but I knew I’d done the right thing. Beck was strong, a leader ... someone used to getting his own way no matter what, and I couldn’t let him take whatever sliver of independence I had left. If he knew—truly knew—how much he affected me, then it would all be over for me.
“Just remember, Butterfly,” Beck said to my retreating back, his words soft but there was no mistaking the darkness underlying them. “Dante is the one who has lied to you for half your life. Consider this when you take his side.”
I wanted to scream and yell and cry and punch walls—I was starting to act like Beck in that sense. Maybe it was because I partly knew he was right, but I also was loyal to the fucking bone. I would not give up on my best friend. Not yet. And Beck was going to have to learn to live with that or … I wouldn’t even consider the or in this situation because I was pretty sure, despite all of my strong independent stance, I couldn’t live without Beck.
I took a few minutes to get dressed, then made my way out into my kitchen. I could not function today without coffee. Hopefully, we hadn’t used it all last night because it was the only way I was waking up even though it was— Holy shit, 12:30 p.m.
We’d wasted another day and that was not okay with me.
My movements grew faster as I started to get all of the coffee goodness together, pausing at the doorbell.
That’s odd.
None of the guys would ring the doorbell, and since we’d taken over the entire building, there shouldn’t have been anyone in here. Deliveries even went downstairs.
I was just about at the door when Beck appeared like the silent ninja he was, stepping between me and the door, knocking back my hand that h
ad been reaching out to open it.
“You didn’t even check the peephole,” he muttered, his jaw clenched. “You’re going to be the death of me, Butterfly.”
Even pissed at each other, he still cared. Fucker.
Beck lowered his head and peered out for a second before he pulled back, an odd expression on his face. I noticed the gun in his hand, and when he gestured for me to get behind him, I didn’t argue. Something was bothering him, and that meant whoever was out there was not a friend.
He opened the door slowly, his eyes assessing every inch like there was a bomb or tripwire that would blow us up if he opened it too quickly. I tried my best to peek around him, but he was too fucking huge, his broad shoulders mostly blocking the opening.
When the door was finally open, he didn’t say a word, and I wondered if he was doing a silent stare off with the person. Then he stepped aside.
Nobody?
Just a vase of flowers sitting innocently in the middle of my mat.
“What the…” I trailed off.
Surely Beck didn’t have enough time to order me flowers, and it was totally not his style anyway. Not to mention he was currently stalking along the hall, knocking on the doors of our friends, and checking in the stairwell and cleaning closets.
Leaving him to … whatever that was, I turned my attention to the flowers. Four blood red roses, two pure white ones, and a black rose dead center. A splash of red lower down caught my eyes, and as I leaned closer to peer through the glass vase, a gasp left my lips. The roses were covered in thorns, and each of the thorns was dripping red.
It spilled into the water, one droplet at a time, before sinking to the bottom, which I only just noticed was completely red. What the actual fuck? Was that blood? Or maybe paint?
Please let it be paint.
“Don’t touch them,” Dylan said as he rushed along the hall, wearing nothing but a pair of soft sleep pants. His body was ripped as fuck, just like Beck’s, and I felt marginally safer knowing these badasses were here to protect me from whatever fuckhead decided to leave me morbid roses.
