As bad ideas go, this one is way the fuck up there.
“Eli,” I say, snagging his elbow on the stairs. He jerks away from me and huffs angrily.
Letting me know he’s pissed.
That I stepped over a line.
Which, you know, I already knew. I know the kid better than I know myself, sure as fuck better than he knows himself. I knew pushing the Gabriel issue would piss him off. It’s why I’ve avoided it for so long.
“Sorry,” I offer simply.
He eyes me for a minute and then, “I’m not ready to talk about it.”
Which of course, kicks my curiosity and concern into overdrive.
Eli is a pretty open book. There’s very little he doesn’t share with me.
I hesitate, and then, “You good?”
He flashes a smirk, one that isn’t as real as I want, but it’ll do the trick for the moment. “Golden, bro. Come on. We’re late.”
I nod, some of the tension melting away.
It’s not a lot. It doesn’t stoke away all the nerves and concern—until I know what the hell is happening with my brother and the blond baker, I don’t think anything will. But it’s enough because Eli won’t ever lie to me. Not when I ask him outright like that.
And answers will have to wait until later.
I shove all my shit aside and rap on the door to the Chief’s office.
“Come in,” a deep voice barks and I take a deep breath. Steadying myself. Catch Eli’s concern before I shove the door open and step inside.
“Sir,” I say, respectful.
Peter Billings nods at me, and motions to the seat. The Mayor, a lithe redheaded woman named Abbi Emery, watches as we take our seats.
Here’s the thing. Green County is a big place. We sprawl over four different townships, almost a hundred-thousand people all told, and the majority of us were here. In the county seat.
We have sheriff departments for the outlying townships, these tiny little hamlets that are barely a blink. But most of the GCPD is focused here.
And we have a very small department of detectives. Eli and I are a third of it. And we’re good, very good, at our job. Maybe because we enjoy it, or enjoy making the County safer. Whatever. Billings trusts us and Emery trusts him.
She doesn’t like me at all. Maybe because I fucked her a few years ago, when she was a hot shot ADA, working to close the case that would eventually win her the Mayor’s office.
At the time, I thought it was fun. No strings. Good release after another shitty day in court.
Looking back, though.
Abbi Emery didn’t believe in no strings. She never had. She wanted something.
She wanted Brandon Archer in her bed and on her arm.
And that? Yeah. That didn’t sit with me. I wasn’t arm candy. I wasn’t here to make a pretty, ambitious, bitch happy.
Eli said that all the shit with Abbi was my own damn fault because I can’t keep my dick in my pants.
He’s probably right.
But. You know. Sex.
“We’d like you to look into this,” Billings says, sliding a file across his desk. I let Eli pick it up, and watch him skim it. His face tightens.
Eli hates when we investigate the prostitutes. He says it’s wrong to target victims and paint them as criminals. Peter says it’s hard to call them victims when they’re breaking the law.
And I tend to agree with Eli. But. We do our job.
“Sir, we do this every year. Nothing ever comes of it.” Eli says stiffly. “Why are we wasting our time?”
“Because your Mayor told you to,” Abbi says, her voice silky.
Shit.
“No offense, Abbi, but we don’t take our orders from you,” I say, leaning back and linking my hands behind my head.
“I don’t want you to just drag in the working girls,” Billings says, cutting in before Abbi can lose her shit completely. “I want you to turn one.”
I glance at Eli quickly and see the same curiosity in his eyes.
Because this is new.
“You want us to make a working girl an informant?” I say, carefully. “Chief, the girls—that’s dangerous as fuck.”
He nods at the file. “We had three girls killed in the past year, Archer. We can’t just ignore the problem because it’s dangerous. I want you to bring in a girl who can help us. As high in the trade as we can get to work with us. The new girls aren’t gonna do shit—all they can tell us is who their madam is.”
I arch an eyebrow. “How high are you hunting, Chief?”
He flashes me a smirk, all wolfish intensity. “The top of the food chain, Archer. The fucking top.”
I stare at him for a long moment and then nod. “Okay. But the girl gets clear. We aren’t trying to tie these kids up for doing what they have to do to survive.”
“They’re breaking the law,” Abbi drawls, and I frown over at her. She’s letting Chief lead this little dog and pony show so maybe she isn’t a complete fucking idiot, but I can see her struggling with it. With letting me and Eli run this.
“Why us?” I ask, abruptly.
They both freeze and Eli tenses at my side, sliding a glance at me.
He wants this. My brother has always felt for the girls who work Victory, who fuck they’re way through the soldiers to keep ahead of their bills or their addictions.
I feel for them, but it’s in a save the victims distant sorta way.
Eli cares.
He wants this case.
And I want to know why the fuck we got tapped for it.
“Because it’s a hard case and you’re the best to clear it. And because Beasley already has contacts there.”
I slide a quick searching look at Eli, see the fury and the red coloring his cheeks and I nod. Shove to my feet. Because enough of this shit.
“If you don’t mind then, sir, we’ll get to work.”
Billings nods, and Abbi makes a noise, like she wants to argue, wants to hold us up and force more of her damn agenda down our throats, but I don’t give a fuck what the stupid little mayor wants.
I don’t answer to her.
God, I should never have fucked her.
I nod at my brother, and he proceeds me out of the office. Let’s me take the rear until we’re downstairs and collecting our service weapons from Casey and I give the poor kid a quick, fake smile before I’m pushing Eli out the door.
I can still fucking feel Chief’s eyes. Can feel the small, knowing smirk on Abbi’s fucking face, while she watches us and those words drop like tiny explosives in the office.
Beasley already has contacts there.
I wait. Until we’re halfway back to the station, the purr of my car, a soft rumble beneath us, and then. When my heartbeat is settling and I don’t feel this ridiculous need to protect, I let out my breath and say, “Want to explain what the actual fuck just happened, Elijah?”
Gabriel is still staring at me like I’ve grown a third head, after the waitress clears our plates and retreats, leaving us in a kind of awkward silence over tea that isn’t cold anymore.
“Say something.” I say, softly.
“What do I say, Hazy? I thought we trusted each other and I was wrong. Not a lot to say to that, is there.” His voice is something I don’t hear often, and it makes me shiver, and lean back. Away from him.
Bitter. Angry. A little bit self-loathing.
That last bit doesn’t make any fucking sense, and I lean forward, smack Gabe lightly on the arm. “What the hell, Gabe?” I say, sharply.
“Are you going to leave again?” he asks, ignoring my not-so-subtle demand for more information. I grit my teeth and his honey-gold gaze finds mine.
Begging.
I sigh. “I’m not going to leave again. I’ve done all my leaving.
His lips twist, and he looks away before I can call him on the grief I see pooling in those strange and distinct eyes of his. “I get tired, of people leaving me.”
Ah.
So this isn’t about me
. At least, not all of it. I’d venture a guess and say not even most of it. Most of it is about the brother who left him. The family who left him.
Gabriel Delvin, the sweet, snarky bastard who always acts like he doesn’t care, and who cares too much.
“I’m not Aidan,” I say, softly.
His lips twitch in a grimace. “Aidan has his reasons. I know what the hell those reasons are. With you, I don’t even get a phone call telling me you’re leaving. I get a lame- ass excuse four years after the fucking fact.”
“Four years ago, if I had told you that I was in love with Archer, you would have—”
“Supported you,” Gabe says, low and furious. “Because I was your best friend, and that’s what I’ve always done. Even when you’re making stupid fucking decisions.”
I look away. “He was my brother, Gabe.”
He scoffs. “Archer is a lot of things, but your brother has never been one of them.”
I hesitate, looking at him. Really looking, my gaze raking over him and I sigh.
“Do you still love him?” he asks, suddenly, and my gaze darts up, wide and a little bit afraid. And he’s watching, too close for me to play it off. A tiny smile plays on his lips and he leans back in his chair. Shakes his head, and laughs. “I thought—well. Doesn’t matter does it.”
“Don’t,” I say, weakly.
“Don’t what? Don’t give a fuck that even now you’re lying to me, and that I can’t do a damn thing about it? Or. I know. How about the fact that I’ve waited six fucking months for you to give a shit about me. To remember that I’m down the street. But you haven’t. You’re home but you’re still in Boston, doing whatever the fuck was so damn important all these years.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, weakly.
“You came home and you fucked up everything. Eli—”
He cuts off, as abruptly as if I had ripped out his voice box, and I frown.
Shift in my seat. Study him, study the flush that’s in his cheeks.
No. Not fucking possible.
“What about Eli?” I ask, my voice low and sharp.
“Nothing,” Gabriel says, tossing a handful of twenties on the table and leaving.
The bastard just jumps up and fucking walks out, like I’m not sitting here, like we aren’t having a fucking conversation.
Nothing in Green County changes. Not really.
I chase after him like he’s stolen my fucking bio homework and run off.
Except now, the bio homework has something to do with my brother and there’s no way this tricky bastard is gonna get away from without answers first.
I grab his arm and jerk him around, grateful, not for the first time, that Gabe only has a couple inches on my five-four. It makes it an almost even playing field.
“What the actual fuck is happening between you and my brother, Gabriel Delvin?” I snarl and he goes still.
Shrugs, a tiny almost helpless thing and that kills me.
Fucking kills me because it’s not Gabriel.
My Gabriel has never been helpless. He doesn’t know how to be helpless. Seeing that in his eyes.
It hurts.
“Nothing, Hazy. Nothing is happening. Not anymore,” he says, and it’s bitter.
Which tells me. Something. Once. Holy shit.
“Holy shit, Gabriel, my brother?” I snarl.
“You don’t get to be pissed, Hazel. You don’t get to be angry that Eli and I did whatever it took to survive. You left me, you bitch. And you never gave a fuck. So yeah. I used him. I said fuck dignity and I used him to find out whatever I could about you and how you were doing, and I refuse to apologize for that.”
“And that required you to fuck him?” I spit.
Gabriel flinches, and he falls back a step.
How the hell did we end up fighting? How the hell did we go from happy and finally finding a place together again, to this.
Oh. Right. He took all of Eli’s damage and fucked him.
He used my brother.
“You know,” I whisper. “All of his shit, all of the girls—you know what that’s done to him. And you used him anyway, because you missed me? What the actual fuck, Gabriel.”
He stares at me, and his face is blank. So damn blank. But sad, too. I can see that like a fucking beacon, in his eyes.
“Are we done? Are you done?” he asks, shaking himself and I let go. Because his voice is cutting, mocking, angry.
Gabriel has never used that tone with me. He used it, so often, when we were growing up, slapping the idiots at school into place, jocks who thought I was easy and teachers who just annoyed him. Even Archer, when he was being a dick, which, let’s be fair, was more often than he wasn’t.
But Gabriel never spoke to me like that. I was his favorite, and that showed in every fucking word and smile and joke.
He unwraps a sucker, one of the handful he’s always carrying. Cocks an eyebrow and gives me a testy smirk. “He’s a sweet puppy, Hazel. You left him all alone here and then you want to give me shit, because I took the puppy home. Seems a bit hypocritical, even for you.”
“Fuck you, Gabriel,” I snap, and he smiles, wide and wolfish.
I bolt, before he can say it.
Before he can turn using my brother into a joke. I don’t think I’d be able to forgive him, if he did.
So I bolt, away from him, and down the tree-lined street, toward a park where I can hear kids playing, and mothers gossiping and I can get lost.
The problem is, memories. They slam into me as I slow, stepping into the playground and letting my breath out, finally. Letting my tension unravel in the quiet calm here. For a long time, I sit on the bench and, silently and watch the playground.
How many times had Archer brought me and Eli here, that first year? And then, as the years turned and we got too old to care about swings, he’d bring us here and we’d watch him hook up with girls, flirting and teasing.
Eli used to meet Amy here.
Gabriel and I would get high here, after Archer joined the Marines, and I stopped giving a fuck what people thought about me.
I wonder if Archer realizes how much I spiraled, when he left to serve and protect.
Even though I understood it. The reasons behind it. Better than Nora and Eli, I understood—I still hated it.
I shouldn’t have come to the fucking park. There’s too much open space, too many memories and regrets.
That’s fucking Green County, though.
All the memories and regrets.
The kids on the park are giggling and laughing, two little girls being watched and teased by a dark-haired, little boy, but it’s sweet. The boy is careful, even as he heckles and pushes the girls, coaxing and gently bullying them until they’re at the top of the highest slide.
The youngest slides down with no hesitation, all shrieks and skirts and laughter.
So carefree and innocent it actually hurts, even as it pulls a smile from me.
But the other two.
The little blond girl is watching the slide with these big, wary eyes, like it’s a trap she refuses to trust, and the boy is crouched at her side, talking to her patiently. Coaxing but not pushing.
Waiting.
The littlest girl scrambles back to the top, and slides down three times, while they perch there, until the girl finally, finally nods, and slides down, her eyes squeezed shut and her voice twisted up in a shriek.
When she lands at the bottom, she’s up and dancing, her entire body an exclamation point of excitement as the boy at the top shouts and screams encouragement.
Fucking Green County. It never changes. It’s always going to be sugar sweet and childhood and Eli and Archer. Even now—alone and furious—I’m shoved into my memories of them. Of how Archer would coax and wait, so damn patient, for me to come to him.
“Hazel?”
I stiffen. Let a smile twist my lips up, and it looks real, even if it feels fake as fuck. Turn to face the owner of that low gruff voice.
I don’t need to see him to know that it’s Michael. Don’t need to look to know that John is only two steps behind him.
Here’s what I know about the twins: they’re close. Almost too close, even for a place as dysfunctional and backwards as Green Co. can be. I’ve known them most of my life, since I was thirteen and we were in high school together.
And I think I’ve seen them separated twice.
Once was when Michael got himself arrested for beating the shit out of a football player from the next county over.
And that brings me to my second point: they’re volatile.
Michael is all cold ice, and careful judgment. He’s the one who will watch with sharp black eyes, waiting for you to fuck yourself up just enough that he can destroy you, all without ever lifting a finger.
John, on the other hand.
He was all brute strength and quick anger. He was action and force, where Michael would wait. John was impatient. He didn’t care that waiting meant you’d be even more screwed in the end. He wanted quick and dirty and bloody, and I’d seen the ugly bruises on the kids he beat the hell out of, the men he tore to pieces, often enough that being here, without my brother and Archer, alone in public with the twins—well, I’m a sane girl after all.
But there’s something about this that bothers me, and that is the third thing I know about them.
“Where is Hanna?” I ask, softly.
Because if I have rarely seen the twins without the other, I’ve almost never seen them without their sister, eight months younger, a girl as delicate and lovely as they were cruel and violent.
I liked Hanna even if I did think the too close relationship and the way Michael and John watched her bordered on a creepy that made my stomach turn when I thought too much about it.
“She wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed home,” Michael says smoothly, a hand touching John’s elbow. “But she’d love to see you. You should come by, in a few days.”
I study him, and everything in me, everything that makes me a damn good journalist and reporter, no matter what the hell happened in Boston that says otherwise—it’s screaming now.
It’s telling me that something is very wrong about all of this, and I take a deep breath to force myself to stay still. To not fall back a step, or worse, to bolt away and find my brothers.
Dirty Sexy Secret (Green County Book 1) Page 6
