Defiance Falls Boxed Set: The Complete Defiance Falls Trilogy

by Dean, Ali

  Afua’s eyes darted away, embarrassed. Melissa had been white as a sheet since we got out here and was looking sicker by the second. Kylie’s cheeks were turning bright red but she refused to back down.

  She was the one who responded, “Does it matter at this point? We saw what we saw. We can either go to the cops to tell them or we can show up to varsity practice on Monday. Your choice.”

  Shit. Three witnesses. What were the guys thinking? How had that happened?

  Cruz, who had been hanging back, keeping an eye on our surroundings, took a step toward the girls. His eyes were lethal as he stared them down, and even I shook a little at the silent threat he seemed to be making in his stance alone.

  “You said you saw all of us?”

  Afua managed a little nod.

  Kylie said, “Not Hazel. Just the five of you guys.”

  “Huh. Already a hole in your story, ladies. I was at the beach with Hazel until two AM. Dropped her off at home at 2:30.”

  I really thought Melissa might puke. Or pass out. I almost felt bad for her. I felt a little sick myself. That night at the beach had been special to me. I hadn’t known what the guys were up to, I’d only know it was my first time alone, really alone, with Cruz Donovan in years. Had I only been an alibi to him? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. He had done what he had to do.

  We all heard a car coming down the drive and Melissa and Afua looked relieved. I wondered if it was their ride. They probably didn’t even have their drivers’ licenses yet.

  Kylie wasn’t giving up. “Those are your choices, Hazel. You can let me know at school on Monday what you decide. I’ll find you at your locker.”

  With that, she turned to leave. Afua and Melissa scrambled to follow her, but Bodhi and Moody were blocking her path. Moody wasn’t giving off his usual detached vibes. No, he had a sly smile on his face when he patted Kylie sympathetically on the shoulder. “Trying to stick your tongue down my throat one night and accusing me of murder the next. You set the bar high for others trying to make our list of crazy girls to avoid. It’s impressive for a sophomore. Not sure anyone else is gonna surpass it this year.”

  Moody moved aside and made a grand gesture for her to pass just as a car pulled up beside us. We watched Afua and Melissa slide into the backseat while Kylie took the passenger seat. The driver was illuminated when the doors opened and he looked like someone’s dad, no one I recognized. He watched us before pulling away, an odd expression on his face, like he was torn about shooting the guys a warning look but was also slightly nervous. I’d seen grown men appear intimidated by the guys over the past year, like they recognized the power they held somehow. I don’t think I’d ever actually acknowledged it for what it was though. I’d imagined they only saw five troublemakers they didn’t want to deal with. As the man’s gaze pulled away and he drove off, I understood it was more than that.

  Bodhi was strung tight and I worried he’d make it worse but he managed to stay still and keep quiet until we were alone in the driveway.

  I felt my body sag as the adrenaline left my body. Em caught me and pulled me to his side. “You did good, Haze.”

  I huffed out a sound that I think was supposed to be a laugh. But then I glared at my cousin. “I did good?” Anger swept in then and I pushed him away. “They saw you!” I hissed. “That could mess up everything!” I wanted to shout but I kept my voice low, not entirely confident we didn’t have people trying to eavesdrop from the windows.

  Cruz moved toward me and took my hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here to talk about this.”

  I wanted to have it out right now; I was tired of being patient. But he was right. We had to leave. The front door opened as I was getting on the back of Cruz’s bike. Louise stood there. I nearly growled at the sight of her. I was already wound up and seeing her in the doorway, eyes wide in fake innocence and mouth parted in surprise, my blood boiled. I was willing to let it go and forgive her yesterday. I wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

  She called my name but I shook my head and squeezed Cruz harder, urging him to go. He revved the engine and I turned my head away from her as we drove away.

  I might have been willing to let her betrayal go yesterday but I saw now that I didn’t live in the kind of world where forgiveness was always wise. If someone wasn’t loyal to you, they were as good as an enemy. We couldn’t have any more enemies.

  Thoughts of Louise fled when I realized we were headed to the Spot on the outskirts of town. It was a warehouse for an old papermill that still looked abandoned from the outside. The guys had apparently bought it with money they made from their “security” business. It was the only place the Malones didn’t know about. Each time I’d come here before I’d felt a little uneasy. I hadn’t understood why they needed this place, and it seemed strange to me, like maybe I didn’t belong. Now, I recognized it as the safest place we could be.

  “Why here instead of going back to Gramps’s? More beds for everyone to sleep?” I asked Cruz as he punched in the code and we walked inside.

  “No. I don’t want Gramps to hear about what went down tonight. He has enough to deal with. We can handle this. It’s three sophomore girls.”

  He was trying to make it sound insignificant, but we both knew this threw more than a little wrench in the plan we’d hashed out earlier today.

  The rest of the guys had arrived at the same time and we settled onto bar stools around the kitchen counter.

  “I don’t think they’re bluffing,” I said. “They were legit scared of you guys.” I looked at Cruz. “Sure, maybe they think they saw you too because they saw the others and assumed it was all five of you, but that doesn’t mean they made it up. It was dark.”

  Moody leaned forward on his elbows, back to his nonchalant demeanor. “It doesn’t really matter, Haze, whether or not they pulled it out of their asses. Either way, one of the negotiation points tomorrow is getting the charges against Cruz dropped. We’ll just make it clear it’s not only about Cruz. The case needs to go back to being closed. Permanently.”

  I clenched my fists. “And if the girls don’t let it go? What then?”

  “They’ll let it go,” Spike said, all confidence. “Don’t forget the Malones have people everywhere. They’ll shut those girls down fast if it means protecting the longevity of their empire.”

  “Shut them down fast? What does that mean?”

  Spike shrugged. “Threaten, pay off, acceptance to Harvard… whatever it takes.” He didn’t mention hurting them, but it was an unspoken answer to my question that made me shiver.

  “That is, if the Malones didn’t put them up to it in the first place,” Cruz said quietly. “The Malones know it was us. They don’t know which one of us. They either took a lucky guess and are messing with us, playing off the arrest to scare my family further, or they suspect the five of us of being involved.”

  “No way,” Bodhi said, lifting his beer bottle. “We pull off the partying athlete squad perfectly. People know Moody and Cruz have some brains in there but everyone thinks me, Spike and Em are dumb jocks.”

  “Wait, I am a dumb jock,” Spike said, tapping his beer bottle against Bodhi’s. “But I am also a damn good fighter.”

  “Nah man, you aren’t that dumb,” Bodhi argued.

  “Guys, seriously, what am I supposed to do about these girls?” I asked.

  “I say kick ‘em off JV or kick ‘em off New England Elite,” Spike declared.

  “Or both,” Moody added.

  “No,” Cruz said, suddenly sounding tired of all of it. “Just ignore them. Your dad’s meeting with Seamus tomorrow. If this was set up by the Malones, it’ll either get resolved with the deal or it won’t. If it doesn’t, we’ve got bigger problems.”

  “Bigger problems than all of you going to jail for murder?” I clarified.

  “The Malones won’t be in position to get that done if they don’t take our truce offer. The only evidence they’ve got is these three girls, coming from a party probably dru
nk. They thought they saw the guys, who were coming from the same party, leave Flynn Malone’s house.”

  “You guys hit up that same party that night?” I asked, unable to hide my amazement.

  Emmett looked a little insulted by my reaction. “Yeah, we covered our bases, Haze. We got our own alibis. Sure the timing’s not perfect, but everyone was wasted so no one will remember details. Dropped off all our leftover alcohol from Cruz’s birthday the night before.”

  I looked around the table. None of them seemed half as panicked as I felt about this recent development. Maybe I needed to chill out and trust that these guys knew what they were doing. They’d planned this for years. All the partying had been a part of the plan. They were plugged into the social scene for a reason. It allowed them to set up alibis quickly.

  “Maybe I’ll take one of those beers after all,” I said to no one in particular. “Anyone want to play foosball?” I asked. It took a second, but the guys went with it. I understood how this worked now. I could’ve gone back into myself, pissed I still wasn’t entirely on the same page about everything. But instead, I was seeing that I would have to trust these guys if I wanted to make it with them. If I wanted to be an asset instead of a weakness. And that meant dealing with business and letting it go once it was dealt with. Or as dealt with as it could be for the moment.

  This was not the way I was used to rolling through life. Half of me still wanted to go over every contingency, every possible scenario and outcome. I needed to analyze all potential strategies and choose the best one. But I also needed to accept that I wasn’t alone anymore. I had a team. This wasn’t like my soccer team, where everyone put their faith in me to be the star, run the show. No, if anyone was the leader here it was Cruz or my dad. And that’s because this was their fight first and foremost.

  Chapter 13

  Cruz

  It was one of the best nights. We didn’t have any secrets between us, and Hazel was still here. She fit. We all felt the relief, the rightness of it. The meeting between Jeremy and Seamus was like a ticking time bomb, yet we spent hours playing around, laughing, being us. There’d been glimpses of it over the past couple weeks, on the beach, at the Spot, but that was before Hazel knew what was at stake. She’d known we were keeping something huge from her, and didn’t know why she’d been left behind in the first place.

  Now, despite not knowing what would go down with Seamus and Jeremy’s meeting, things seemed to have clicked into place. Whatever came, we could fight it.

  That meant that first thing tomorrow morning, I’d be taking Hazel to the firing range to teach her how to handle herself.

  The guys left sometime in the early morning hours. They had space to sleep here, but they’d given us privacy. I could tell Hazel needed to crash though and she slept hard for ten hours straight. I took a few more than my usual three hours a night just because I had her in my arms and didn’t want to move. Now, my patience was up.

  My fingers couldn’t stay still a moment longer with her skin beneath them. She didn’t keep clothes at the Spot like we did and she’d borrowed a pair of my boxers and a tee shirt for bed. I let my hands trail over her backside and down her legs. She stirred, but her breathing remained steady as my hands made their way back up. I slipped my fingers up the inside of her thigh and she let out a little humming noise. Hazel was tucked into my side and I couldn’t see her, so I shifted her onto her back, wanting more of her body available to me.

  She was waking up now as my hands roamed under the shirt, pushing it up past her waist and exposing her breasts. They heaved and I glanced up to find green eyes watching me. She didn’t say anything, waiting to see what I’d do next.

  I wanted her. So badly, it made everything in me ache. With Hazel, it didn’t matter what the next minute, hour, day, or week brought. She made me want to be right here in the present, soak it in, and make the most of it.

  I tried to show this to her with my mouth, my hands, my lips. The curving of my fingers when I slid them inside of her was a promise. A promise that whatever came our way, we still had this. When she cried out my name, begging me for more, I needed to hear her say it. Yes, it was written all over her face, in the way her body came to life beneath me, but I needed the words from her lips.

  “Tell me what you want, Hazel.”

  “I want you, Cruz. Please.”

  I moved my hands off of her, only to slip one under my own boxers.

  “Hazel, I need more than that.” I couldn’t spell it out for her. She knew what this meant to me. I prayed it meant the same to her. But this was Hazel Ross. She loved me, she respected me. That meant she wouldn’t make promises she didn’t intend on keeping. Not to me.

  I saw her blink away the remnants of sleep. She swallowed down the cloud of lust. I gripped myself, needing to be inside of her with a fierce desperation, but needing something else from her so much more.

  Then, she smiled. It hit me with such ferocity, that smile, I almost shot my load from the sheer warmth of it coating me, filling me up. That was before the words. With them, I was done for.

  “Cruz Donovan, seeing you begging me with your eyes, that adorable little blush you have only ever had for me, it’s making it awfully hard to concentrate.”

  I was on my knees, not hiding where my hand was or that I was stroking myself. I didn’t stop though. She seemed to be concentrating just fine.

  She smiled wider and then she sat up a little to take her own shirt off. My boxers were halfway down her legs already but she wiggled them all the way off and flicked them away.

  “It’s only ever been you, Cruz. You know it. I love you hard enough that I can forgive you just about anything. Even breaking my heart. But if you don’t slide on one of the extra-large condoms in the next ten seconds, I’m giving you the silent treatment for at least a week.”

  I did it in four seconds. And when I pushed inside her, I had to pause immediately. “It’s a good thing you love me so hard because this first time? It’s going to be over fast.”

  I wasn’t lying. There was no way in hell this woman could expect me to last when she’d been torturing me with her body for years without even knowing it. I’d been dreaming about this moment, picturing her even when I shouldn’t, at the most inappropriate times.

  Fortunately, we had an entire box of condoms. I did explode within seconds of being inside her that first time, but I was ready again just as quickly, the second round able to slow things down and find out more about what exactly my girl liked.

  By the time we got out of bed, I’d nearly forgotten what was going down today. My mind was lost in the feel of Hazel’s skin, the way she’d owned me with her body just as I had hers with mine. This connection between us, it had always been undeniable. Now? Now it was locked tight. There was nothing between us anymore and I couldn’t take my hands off her. Not while I popped some frozen Eggos in the toaster, or started the coffee machine. Not while we ate breakfast, or as I explained the plan for the day with her.

  I knew Hazel was nervous about her dad. “You want to go by your place and see him? There’s an hour before the meeting.”

  Hazel’s eyebrows furrowed as she shook her head.

  “No. Dad’s got to stay focused. I’m sure he went home yesterday and crashed. Now he’s probably getting his head ready. He needs to be in the game. I don’t want to pull him away from that.”

  “You know your dad can handle himself, right? Yeah his jobs for the Malones are behind computer screens, but a lot of times, he’s been on the ground too.”

  Hazel’s eyes flashed. “On the ground?”

  “Yeah. Some of the work he did was on site. Like for Braven, they brought him in undercover as a maintenance guy in order to set up whatever he needed on our systems to direct it to his office at home. That’s how they first started siphoning shipments.”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “I’m sure not all the businesses they infiltrate go quite so smoothly,” she said.

  “No. Like
I said, pretty sure your dad knows how to handle himself.” I’d seen it first-hand, more than once. The first time was years ago when he’d done the reverse -- broken into the Malones’ drug warehouse to get evidence for our side. Now wasn’t the time to explain it to Hazel. She was already on information overload as it was.

  “Right.” She sat up straighter. “Time for me to learn how to use a gun then.”

  This was my girl. She was all business now. After a night of fun with the guys and one hell of a morning, Hazel was getting shit done. She might have needed a hug from her dad, sure, but she also understood the man like no one else. He needed to focus, and he struggled big time with multi-tasking, especially when it came to looking out for his daughter. She was his reason for getting into this mess, his weakness, but also his purpose, his reason for risking it all to get out. Hazel knew that, and she knew what she had to do. She had to be strong and get on board. And she had to do it fast.

  I saw all this going on inside of her, and I was so damn grateful she’d chosen me. Chosen us.

  “Cruz?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re kind of out of it, in your own head. That’s not like you. Everything okay?”

  I felt the side of my mouth lifting and I went with honesty. “I’m just so damn in love with you, Hazel. You blow my mind.” As soon as the words came out I knew how dumb they sounded, but Hazel just laughed.

  “Yeah, I know exactly how you feel. Let’s get out of here before we get naked again. We got shit to do.”

  We were on my motorcycle on the way to the firing range a few minutes later. Having her at my back on my bike, knowing how deep her trust ran, it was one of the best feelings in the world. I was powerful, invincible, untouchable. I could believe it all with the wind on our faces, the roar of the engine vibrating between our legs.

  My phone went off as we parked at the range. When I checked the message, all the superpower sensations I’d had flowing through me a moment earlier flew away, and it wasn’t because we were getting off the bike. Dad had two full-time caregivers. One of them was running late for his shift, and the other asked if I could come home to fill in.