Confessions: Bailey (Confessions Series Book 6)

by Ella Frank

As niggling guilt tried its best to resurface, Henri pushed it aside, determined to steal this moment at any cost, ran his hands up Bailey’s back, kissed him softly, and said, “That’s because I do. I’m head over heels, crazy in love with you, Bailey. How’d you do that?”

  Bailey ducked his head into Henri’s neck and kissed him there. “I loved you right back.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  CONFESSION

  What do you do when the man you love

  turns out to be a complete stranger?

  “IF IT DOESN’T ring in fifteen minutes, call the cops.”

  At the sound of Henri’s voice, Bailey’s eyes popped open and his ears pricked up. Henri’s tone was soft, almost a whisper, but just like the last couple of times this had happened, it was all said with his eyes closed and his breathing uneven.

  Henri was back inside that nightmare. Bailey wondered if he should wake him from it, then felt a deep sense of shame flood him. He should’ve asked more about this when it happened the other day.

  God, how selfish am I? Here he’d had the perfect opportunity to press Henri for information, to try to understand what troubled him. But instead, they’d gotten into a discussion about Bailey’s insecurities regarding Henri and Priest’s past relationship—and while that was important, Bailey was starting to suspect there was something much more complex behind whatever plagued Henri’s sleep.

  Bailey plumped his pillow up under his cheek, deciding to wait and see if Henri would settle down on his own. He’d read once that it was dangerous to wake a person who was sleep-talking or -walking, but maybe that was just a myth because how was it better to let them suffer? He wasn’t sure, but as he lay there in the most peaceful place on the planet, Bailey couldn’t help but wonder what haunted Henri.

  What is he running from? Does he even know? He’d said that the dreams had just started recently, but nothing more than that. So maybe if Henri could pinpoint them, identify why he was suddenly experiencing them? Maybe then, he’d be able to sleep.

  Bailey studied the thick lashes and sharp angles of Henri’s cheekbones, and thought about the way Henri had held him out on the dock tonight.

  Close, hard, and tight, as though he’d been afraid to let Bailey go. And Bailey had been clinging to that moment as though they’d never get one so beautiful again, because that was what it’d been—beautiful. He’d felt closer to Henri in that moment than he’d felt with any other in his life.

  Yet it hurt more than Bailey could ever imagine that he couldn’t ease Henri of this terror that seemed to taunt him every time he closed his eyes.

  The moonlight shimmered through the curtain across the open door, which billowed gently in the soft breeze. The only other sound was the water lapping at the wood below—but then it started again.

  At first, Henri’s legs kicked out, the left and then the right. Bailey caught his breath at the violence behind each kick. They were sudden, jagged moves that would hurt if they connected. But luckily, Henri kicked toward the bottom of the bed and Bailey avoided contact.

  Next, Henri’s head jerked, and the movement was so abrupt that Bailey imagined it would leave a crick in Henri’s neck when he woke. The moves were agitated, frantic.

  “You’re done, Jimmy. You can’t win here tonight.”

  Jimmy? That name was new, and Henri said it the way someone would address the devil himself.

  Bailey was confused. Priest? Jimmy? The cops? Was this something to do with an old case Henri had worked on? Maybe one Priest had gotten called in on as a lawyer?

  Bailey had no idea. But before he could think too much about it, Henri said something that brought him up short, something Bailey wasn’t sure what to do with. Because what could you do when your boyfriend, the man you had taken inside your body and admitted you loved more than you ever thought possible, said, “I’m going to kill you, and no one is going to care.”

  “HENRI.”

  THERE WAS a firm voice and a palm on his arm shaking Henri awake. He opened his eyes and focused on Bailey, who withdrew his hand the second their gazes met.

  It was still dark, so they hadn’t been asleep for long. Henri noted the tangled sheets around his legs and realized he must’ve had one of those fucking nightmares again.

  Jesus Christ, what was the matter with him? Here he was in a tropical paradise with the man of his dreams, whom he was likely scaring off by talking in his sleep every time they got into a bed together. At the rate he was going, he’d be lucky if Bailey didn’t have him committed, or at least say he didn’t think it was a good idea if they had sleepovers anymore.

  Henri needed to get this shit under control. But as his sleep brain left and he became more alert, Henri realized Bailey was watching with a curious expression. He looked almost wary. Henri offered up a half grin and was about to apologize for whatever it was he’d done—shit, maybe he’d kicked Bailey.

  “Who’s Jimmy?”

  Nothing—and Henri meant absolutely nothing—could’ve shocked him more. He lay there momentarily paralyzed, waiting for his brain to catch up.

  Who’s Jimmy…

  Who’s Jimmy…

  Who is Jimmy? No fucking one, that’s who, Henri wanted to say. But judging by the look on Bailey’s face, that answer wasn’t going to fly. Bailey looked more serious than Henri ever remembered seeing him. As his cop shifted and sat up on the mattress, Henri racked his brain, trying to think of an explanation for the piece of shit that was Jimmy Donovan.

  “I don’t mean to be pushy or nosy,” Bailey said. “But these nightmares of yours get worse every time you close your eyes. And each time a new name pops up, a new ghost to fight off. I just wish I knew more, so…maybe I could help fight them with you.”

  Henri stared up at Bailey. The moonlight illuminated the netting surrounding them, making Bailey appear almost…ethereal.

  Yeah, maybe that was it. Bailey was an angel come to save Henri from his demons. Or maybe sent for him to confess his darkest deeds to?

  Hell, maybe it was both, because why else would someone so good, someone as pure as Bailey, be in love with the likes of him? It made no sense.

  “Henri?”

  Henri licked at his suddenly dry lips and wondered if Bailey would mind if he excused himself to get a drink—or three. He felt like he’d spent five days in a desert, his throat was so parched, and he couldn’t help but think that a shot or two might ease the tension headache he could now feel forming. “I—”

  “Before you say it’s nothing or that you don’t remember, I want you to know that nothing you say to me will make me change the way I feel about you.” Bailey reached out, and it wasn’t until their hands connected that Henri realized his were shaking. “I love you. Please, let me help you the way you helped me. Trust me with your secrets.”

  As Henri stared into Bailey’s eyes, he felt as though his heart was about to split in two. What Bailey was asking, Henri knew he couldn’t give. It was too risky, too illegal, and involved too many people that he cared about to share that kind of information with a cop.

  But Bailey wasn’t just a cop. He was the man Henri had fallen in love with, had held when Bailey had been too broken, too weak to stand on his own, and though every voice inside Henri’s head told him no, what came out of his mouth next was: “They aren’t just my secrets to tell.”

  Bailey swallowed, but the determined look that flashed in his eyes was one that Henri had seen before. He wasn’t about to let this go.

  “Trust me, Henri. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

  Henri looked down to their joined hands and memorized the way their fingers fit together, because after this, after tonight, he knew that Bailey would never want to touch him again.

  Chapter Twenty

  CONFESSION

  The devil is in the details.

  How I wish that wasn’t the case tonight.

  “IF I’M GOING to try to explain this, then I need to start at the beginning. Back in New Orleans.”

  Bailey nodded
as Henri slipped his hand free and moved to the edge of the bed. He pushed aside the netting and climbed out, then picked up his shorts and pulled them on.

  Bailey shifted on the bed, his eyes locked on Henri, who walked over to stand by the sliding door. The breeze had died down now, and the night felt still, as Bailey waited in silence, not daring to breathe…not daring to move.

  He was equal parts concerned and anxious for what was about to happen here, because something in his gut—the gut his father had always told him to listen to—was currently screaming that whatever Henri was about to say was going to change everything.

  Not his feelings, of that Bailey was certain. He loved Henri, and nothing said here would change that. But there was still a niggling inside him that what was about to be revealed was something he wasn’t quite prepared for.

  “That’s where I grew up,” Henri finally said, breaking the silence in the room. “Was born, raised, used, and abused in good old New Orleans. It occupies a fucked-up place in my heart. A part I don’t look at or think about if I can help it. But ever since that night in Oshkosh, it’s been harder to ignore. Ever since you.”

  And there it was, the first piece of the puzzle that had been so confusing to Bailey—the why behind these nightmares and the reason they had started. Here he had been under the misconception it was because of Priest and residual feelings. But the truth was that it was actually because of Bailey, and new feelings.

  Henri had been the first to admit he wasn’t looking for a relationship when they met. One and done was all he’d been after, a warm body to help him forget his ex was getting married again—something Bailey had been more than fine with.

  But now that one and done had been replaced with “I love you” and “I’ll take care of you when you break.” What did that mean for a man who was an expert at erecting walls and building bridges to keep the “good people” away? And what could he possibly be hiding that made him think he was so…bad?

  “I already told you that Joel and I grew up together,” Henri said as he glanced back to Bailey, and just like that, Bailey understood that these secrets weren’t just Henri’s. They were Priest’s also, which was why they were so important, and maybe the reason Priest had been so apprehensive about them getting closer.

  “We came from the same shitty place and the same shitty situation. The wrong side of the swamp, so to say. But our fathers didn’t let that hold them back; they made the most out of the hand they were dealt, or more likely stole. They were the very best at being the very worst men in town. And I’m not talking about ‘slappin’ around their ladies and their kids’ kind of bad. I’m talking about providing the less-than-upstanding citizens of New Orleans with any kind of drugs they wanted, guns they wanted, murder for hire they needed.” Henri turned to face Bailey head-on. “Joel’s piece-of-shit father was numero uno, and my dear old dad was his right-hand man. Their men were terrified of them, and so were their sons, even after they wound up in prison.”

  The flat expression in Henri’s dark eyes made the hair on the back of Bailey’s neck stand. It was cold, detached, and far removed from the Henri that Bailey knew.

  Then again, what Henri was describing sounded truly terrifying, much more organized than the local dealers and everyday, run-of-the-mill criminals Bailey had come across on patrol. It sounded more like the kind of stuff that the guns and gangs units dealt with, the ruthless assholes that Sean hunted down. Bailey wondered what exactly Henri would’ve had to do in order to walk away—especially alive.

  Henri leaned back against the wall beside the open door. “Want to go find that speedboat you were talking about earlier?”

  Bailey knew Henri was trying to feel him out, trying to see if he was okay with all that had been said. But nothing so far made Bailey believe anything other than what he’d always believed: that Henri was a good man who had fought his way out of a horrible situation.

  “No,” Bailey said, and shook his head. “But I do want to know the rest of the story.”

  Henri looked away, toward the open door, and Bailey got the impression that maybe he was looking for that speedboat.

  “Bailey…”

  Shit, Bailey knew that tone. Henri was shutting down. Those bridges he’d burned through? That wall he’d knocked down? Bailey could see them all re-forming right before his eyes.

  Henri ran a hand through his hair. His jaw was bunched tight and he looked everywhere but at Bailey. All color had drained from his face now, and he looked as though he were going to be sick. Bailey got off the bed and walked toward him. Henri looked his way, and their eyes collided.

  Fear, worry, and heartbreak stared back at Bailey, and when he took a step closer, Henri shook his head.

  “Don’t.”

  Bailey felt as though he’d been hit by an arctic blast, and his feet automatically froze in place.

  “If you touch me right now, if you come any closer, I’m going to do the one thing I promised I never would with you.” Bailey frowned, and Henri said, “I’ll lie.”

  Bailey blinked, and Henri pushed off the wall and closed the space between them.

  Henri cradled Bailey’s face between his hands. “I’ll lie because I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll lie because I don’t want to disappoint you.” Henri bent his head until their foreheads met, closed his eyes, and whispered, “But most of all, I’ll lie because I never want you to look at me any other way than how you’ve looked at me since yesterday.”

  Bailey’s stomach knotted and his heart raced at the desperation in Henri’s voice. He cupped Henri’s face and said, “Then trust me. Trust that I love you, and trust that I’ll understand whatever it is you’re going to tell me.” Henri opened his eyes. “Tell me the rest of the story, Henri. Let me in.”

  What Henri told him after that was a story that was so horrendous, it was difficult to believe it was true.

  It was of two young boys who were the sons of monsters. Friends by accident, each other’s champion because they had to be, and with every word Henri spoke, it became more and more obvious as to why he and Priest shared such a strong bond, even after their romantic one had been severed.

  Those two little boys had lived through hell, and though one had gotten out and the other had stayed behind, they’d somehow come out on the other side intact for the most part.

  Bailey wasn’t sure how long he sat there listening, perched at the end of the bed with Henri pacing back and forth. But as words like crime boss, prison, threats, and murder left Henri’s mouth, that niggling, anxious feeling Bailey had had earlier morphed into a gnawing sensation in his gut.

  Henri stopped in front of him and said, “Have you heard the name Jimmy Donovan before?”

  The room plunged into silence as Henri waited for an answer. And like one of those dreams where a person found themselves falling or running or trying to get away from what they knew was going to be the worst possible ending, Bailey blinked and hoped to God he hadn’t just heard Henri right.

  Jimmy Donovan? As in the Jimmy Donovan the cops had fished out of the Calumet River after he’d killed a couple of guards back in Louisiana and escaped prison? Of course Bailey had heard of him. Every cop in Chicago had heard of him, because it had been so strange that one of the most notorious crime bosses had—

  Bailey stopped, licked his suddenly dry lips, and tried to swallow.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Bailey knew he needed to say something, or at least ask the question that was rattling around in his head. But talking now seemed close to impossible, probably because he couldn’t seem to make sense of what his brain was now piecing together.

  Priest was the son of numero uno?

  Priest?

  My friend, Priest?

  Joel Priestley was Jimmy Donovan’s son? Holy fuck. How was that even possible?

  “After what happened between me and Joel, when we were…broken up, I guess, I went back to New Orleans but fell off the map. I became a ghost, but I made sure to keep my
eye on the two fuckers rotting away in prison. I knew the way they worked; my dad had already told me that Jimmy had an eye on Joel. But I figured as long as I kept an eye on them, I’d be able to warn Joel if anything happened.”

  Henri took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and shook his head.

  “You have to understand, I made this…this stupid vow when I was five. Joel, he…” Henri shrugged. “He stood up for me with Jimmy. He saved me, and I vowed that I would always be there to…I don’t know—”

  “Save him?” It was the first words Bailey had spoken for some time, and his voice sounded foreign even to his own ears. It cracked a little with shock, disbelief. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure where this conversation was going or how it was going to end. But with every new revelation, every word out of Henri’s mouth, everything Bailey had heard Henri mumble or shout in his sleep was starting to come together, forming a picture Bailey wasn’t sure he was going to be comfortable looking at.

  “Yeah,” Henri said. “I guess that’s it. I’d be there to save him or help him if he ever needed it.”

  Bailey’s stomach dropped as Henri looked to his feet, and the fact that he was no longer able to look Bailey in the eye did nothing to ease the mounting dread swirling inside.

  What had the two boys who had gone through hell done to the devil who’d lorded over them? Bailey wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer.

  “So Jimmy came to Chicago because of Joel, am I right?”

  Henri raised his eyes and nodded. “He was pissed that Joel had left all those years ago. He’d expected to mold him even from inside prison, just like they did me. Wasn’t real happy to hear his boy had up and vanished on him.”

  “So he came after him,” Bailey said, slowly beginning to make sense of what he knew. But then Henri threw in a twist.

  “No. He came after Julien and took him.”

  Bailey’s mouth fell open. “Took him?”