by Katy Kaylee
My mind was racing. I wished that I could go back in time and take back all of the hateful and hurtful things that I’d said to Paris. Back when she had been a little kid, sold by her dad to a drug dealer, it had been no one’s fault but her asshole of a parent.
But now, I was the reason why Paris was putting herself in danger like this. If I hadn’t thrown her out of my house and made irrational demands, she wouldn’t have done this. She wouldn’t be in some hotel with that motherfucker, Angel, and god knows what kind of men who wanted to buy her lovely body.
It was enough to drive a man to murder, I thought as I drove faster and faster. I called Steve and put him on speaker, pushing my foot harder and harder against the gas pedal.
“Harrison, what?” Steve barked. “You find anything out?”
“Meet me downtown, at the Luxury Towers hotel,” I snapped. “And bring back up.”
I could tell from the terse silence that followed that Steve was full of questions, but I didn’t have any time to waste and I ended the call. I’d never driven as recklessly as I was driving now, and I couldn’t seem to slow down. I sped along the highway and the other cars seemed to stand still as I whirred past them.
I saw Steve’s car pulling to a stop at the valet parking of the hotel, and I double-parked on the street across, ignoring the protests and yells of the valet. With my badge in one hand, I ran into the lobby of the hotel and flashed my badge at the front desk man.
Steve and I ran over to the concierge, huffing and puffing and breathing hard. With our badges still out, I glared at the bored-looking young woman in a suit and tie, like a bellhop.
“Can I help you?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.
“There’s an illegal prostitution ring working out of your hotel,” I snapped loudly. “And I need to know what room they’re in.”
That got her attention, but to my consternation she didn’t give in.
“I’m sorry, but if you’re just here on suspicion, I can’t disclose any private information about our guests,” she said.
Hot anger boiled inside of me.
“It’s more than just a suspicion,” Steve barked. “We’ve been working this case for months.”
“The owner of a strip club has a drug ring, and he has his girls hooking on the side,” I said. “You really want your hotel being involved in that shit? Something could go bad – like, real fucking bad, lady – and that would be on you. You’d lose a fuck ton of money if some asshole got rowdy and fired a gun in your penthouse.”
The girl’s face went pale and her eyes got wide.
“I ...” She trailed off, looking nervously over her shoulder before leaning in and lowering her voice. “I saw a couple of guys who looked like real bigshots and some girls dressed like strippers in the elevator,” she said. “They went all the way up to the top floor, but I don’t know which room.”
Bingo.
Steve thanked her and we, plus two other officers, got in the elevator. It seemed to take forever to arrive and my head was racing. All I could think about was Paris, Paris, Paris getting into bed with some sleazy asshole who would hurt her and use her and ruin her life.
“We don’t have a warrant,” Steve reminded me. “And no evidence of a crime other than Madison’s word, according to you.”
“I don’t care.”
Steve stared at me. “Harrison,” he said, drawing my name out slowly like I was a child. “That won’t hold up in court, and you know it.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I said. “If I lose my badge over this, fuck it. I’m not letting them do that to Paris.”
The elevator was silent.
“If you want to leave, fine,” I told Steve and the two other cops. “But I’m staying. If you don’t want court trouble, I get it, but this girl is too important to me. I can’t see her do this.”
Steve put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re like my goddamned brother,” he said. “And I’m staying.”
After a moment, the other two cops nodded their heads. I should have felt better, should have felt confident, but all I felt was blind dread and panic. This was my worst nightmare, and I was in its midst.
There was only one suite on the top floor, the penthouse, and I could hear loud music playing before the doors of the elevator even opened. Clearing my throat, I covered the peephole with one hand and knocked on the door with my other.
“Room service!” I called brightly. “Who ordered champagne?”
“Those fucking greedy bitches must have,” a voice muttered on the other side of the door. It swung open and the four of us stormed in with our guns drawn.
There were two large men sitting at opposite ends of the couch, with two strippers crawling all over them, fully naked. Angel was standing there, glaring at me with rage in his eyes. The scene was tawdry and filthy, but that didn’t even register to me.
The only thing I noticed was that there was no sight of Paris anywhere.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Angel snarled at me. I didn’t even bother to flash my badge again, just shoved my gun in his face.
“Where is she?” I growled loudly. “Where’s Paris?”
Angel didn’t answer. Just as I was about to punch him, I heard a scream from somewhere else in the suite. It had come from behind a closed door just behind the suite’s vestibule.
“Stay on him!” I yelled to Steve, then smashed through the door with my shoulder. Pain seared and flared in my shoulder, but I barely felt it. There, on the bed, a big, hairy man was pinning Paris down to the mattress. She was nude, and she screamed again as I barged into the room. I grabbed the man by his shoulder and pulled him off of her, throwing him to the ground and socking him in the jaw with a powerful fist. Blood spurted from his mouth but that wasn’t enough to make me stop, and I punched him in the nose and kicked him in the gut.
“Man, stop!” Steve yelled. He and one of the other cops rushed into the room and yanked me off, but that wasn’t enough to stop me. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to make him suffer and bleed for what he’d done to Paris, wanted to torture him.
Paris.
Pulling my arms free from Steve’s grip, I ran to her and covered her with one of the sheets from the bed. She was sobbing, and her lip was bloody and swollen. There was another bruise forming on her cheekbone, just under her eye, and the sight of it made me want to break down.
“Keep an eye on her,” I said softly to the other cop. Paris’s lip began to tremble and I had to fight the urge to kiss her and pull her into my arms.
“He’ll keep you safe,” I told her.
“Where are you going?” Paris asked me. Her auburn hair was disheveled and sweaty and her eyes were huge with fear.
“To confront Angel,” I told her. “I promise, you’re safe now.”
16
Paris – Sunday
I was in a total daze. My head was aching and spinning and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably, to the point where I could barely hold the hotel bedsheet around myself. Harrison, my hero, had saved me once again. He’d come in, gun blazing, like saving me was his one true purpose in life.
I had no idea how it had happened. The hotel party hadn’t been my scene, exactly, but the Texans had seemed ... well, normal. But as soon as I’d gotten alone with him in the bedroom, he’d started grabbing at me.
I guessed that he’d decided dancing wouldn’t be enough to satisfy a man of his wealth.
The thought made me sick to my stomach, and I curled up in a ball in an armchair. The Texan was still lying on the floor, bleeding and grunting like a stuck pig. He looked pathetic and sad now – it was hard to believe that just minutes before, he had been trying to rape me.
Rape. Just thinking about the word gave me the chills, and I wondered if that had been Angel’s intention all along. He’d said just dancing, but what if he’d only done that to protect himself legally?
Or what if he’d only said that to make sure that I’d come along willingly?
“Hey, it’s
gonna be okay,” the other cop said. He looked tough, but awkward, and I wondered if he’d seen this kind of thing before. He seemed nice enough, but he was no Harrison, and I was feeling far too shy to speak to him.
I wasn’t scared anymore, though. Not now, not that Harrison had saved me once again from a horrible fate. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I pulled the sheet tighter around my body and moved into the living room so that I could see what was going on. I didn’t even know how Harrison figured out where I was, or what I was doing, but I was so deeply relieved that he saved me that I felt like crying. The urge to throw myself into his arms was strong, but I resisted as I watched from a distance.
Clearly, there was more to his presence at the club than dating Madison. I felt like an idiot now – how could I truly have believed that he wanted her, that he preferred her to me?
Just because he doesn’t want her doesn’t mean he wants you, I thought.
But there had been more to Harrison’s actions – there had to have been, right?
That’s what I so badly wanted to believe.
“I’ve been undercover at your club for months,” Harrison told Angel. “I know you’re running drugs.”
Angel sneered at him.
“And we’ve got enough evidence to take down the club,” Harrison continued. “And furthermore, you’re going to help us do it.”
“Why the fuck would I do something like that?” Angel spat.
Harrison smiled, but it wasn’t the friendly smile I was used to seeing. It was cold, and almost frightening.
“Because,” Harrison continued. “If you don’t, I’ll put word out on the street that you’re a narc, and your partners can have their way with you.” He paused for a moment. “You know what they do to narcs, right?”
“It won’t make any fuckin’ difference,” Angel sneered. “Everyone’s going to know that I’m a narc when the cops start banging on their doors.”
“That’s true,” Harrison countered. “But then they’ll be in prison, not out on the streets looking for you.”
Angel didn’t say anything else, and Harrison crossed his arms over that brawny chest of his that I loved so much.
“Cuff him,” Harrison called to Steve.
“What? The fuck, why?” Angel asked, incredulous. “This is a party. Everyone came of their own volition.”
Harrison pointed at the coffee table, which was littered with the cocaine that Angel had brought.
“Possession, for one,” Harrison said. “Maybe even enough to distribute. What do you think, Steve?”
Angel scowled, but stayed silent.
“And pandering,” Harrison said. “And money laundering, which I know the club has been doing.” He smiled again, that evil grin that almost frightened me.
“And we’ll make sure our boys downtown give you all the ... special treatment that you deserve,” Steve said, joining Harrison and smirking down at Angel.
For the first time since I’d met him, I saw fear flash across Angel’s face. He looked like he was watching his life disappear before his own eyes, before he sighed and bowed his head.
“You feel like talking now?” Harrison asked, almost teasingly.
Angel looked up and nodded slowly.
“Good,” Harrison said.
“I’ll take it over from here,” Steve said. “You want to take her home?” He nodded at me, and in that moment I wondered how much Harrison’s partner knew about his relationship with me.
Harrison put his coat over me and draped an arm over my shoulders, leading me out of the hotel through the back entrance. I wanted to ask what was going to happen to everyone, to Livvie and the other stripper from the club, to the Texan who had nearly raped me. But I pushed those thoughts out of my head. Now that I was with Harrison, I was safe and nothing bad was going to happen to me. I felt content and relaxed despite the horrible evening I’d endured.
It had been less than an hour since Harrison had come to rescue me, and it already seemed like the events of the evening had happened years ago. As Harrison put me in his car (he even fastened my seatbelt for me, which I had to admit that I liked), I closed my eyes and yawned.
When he first rushed into the bedroom, I’d felt relief, of course. It had cooled all over my body like a wave of adrenaline. But when that had faded, I’d felt anxious. Surely, Harrison was going to be really angry with me for getting myself into that situation.
But if he was, he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t yell, or scream, or even talk. He just drove, with a muscle ticking away in his jaw and his hands clenching the steering wheel.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Harrison asked. The implication in his voice made me wince: he was obviously asking if I needed a rape kit.
I shook my head. “No,” I said softly. Clearing my throat, I added: “I think a warm bath would probably just be the best thing.”
Harrison nodded.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” Harrison said, and for a moment I wasn’t sure he was talking about the fiasco in the hotel or the words we’d had between us.
There was emotion in his voice, which surprised me. I’d seen emotion on his face before, but never heard it in his voice ... at least, not for years.
“You can stay with me and Hollie for as long as you want,” Harrison continued. He swallowed, still staring out the windshield at the dark Chicago night.
“Thank you.”
“And I promise, I’ll keep my hands to myself,” Harrison said.
There was a beat, and I wondered what he wanted me to say. I was so filled with emotion and confusion and exhaustion that I didn’t know what to say. My body was sore and shaking from almost being attacked.
The main thing I felt was relief. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to go back to stripping and find my own way in the world ... at least, not for now.
And while I was sad that we wouldn’t be continuing our relationship, at least I finally had proof that Harrison cared about me.
17
Harrison – One Month Later
Monday
A month later, and it still felt like the events that happened at the Luxury Towers hotel were lingering everywhere. Walking around Paris on eggshells wasn’t easy, but I’d done it for her own sake. When I told her that she could still stay at my house, she seemed so relieved that I was immediately glad that I’d done it.
She was so shaken up after what happened, and hell, who wouldn’t have been? I was a veteran cop and even I had been freaked out. That had passed, at least, but now I was left to wonder what effect the incident had had on Paris, and her mental health. Mental health was hugely important to her – she was studying to be a counselor, after all – and I found myself wanting to talk to her, wanting to tell her that it wasn’t healthy to keep things bottled up.
But what right did I have to do that? I had been a cop for years, and then a detective. We weren’t exactly a talkative bunch when it came to our mental state. Even Steve, my partner, and I didn’t really discuss our personal lives beyond what was necessary in the job.
He’d only known about Krista leaving me when the divorce had been finalized.
The thought that someone would hurt Paris like that still filled me with rage, a deep kind of rage that nothing could cure. Normally, in the past, when things like this had upset me, I’d just gone to the gym and worked out until my body was spent and I was dripping in sweat. I was going a lot now, several times per week, and it wasn’t doing shit. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her beautiful, naked body splayed out on the bed. Saw the fear and hurt in her eyes as I’d ripped that jerk off of her loveliness. Saw her curvy frame shaking with panic after I’d wrapped her in a sheet.
Clearly, I had some issues of my own to work on before I could bring anything up with Paris. The bruise on her cheekbone had healed, and her lips looked as pouty and perfect forever, but I sensed that she was carrying around a lot of trauma from what had happened. And worst of all, I was still dying to know just what she’
d been doing in such a seedy situation in the first place.
Was she really that desperate for money? What the hell was going on, exactly?
One night, Hollie and I were alone in the kitchen. Paris was upstairs, taking a nap, and I got up and poured two glasses of wine.
Hollie gave me a strange look. “Wine, Dad?” She asked skeptically. “I don’t think I’ve seen you drink wine since Mom left—I mean, um, in years,” she said, flushing hard.
“It’s okay,” I told her. I wouldn’t have admitted this to Hollie, but now, Krista was the furthest thing from my mind. “I just realized that we haven’t talked in a while.”
Hollie still looked skeptical, but she nodded and took a sip. Giving me a guilty look, she said: “I know I haven’t been home much.”
“Neither have I,” I replied. It was true – just the gym alone had been keeping me out of the house, but work was ramping up. Steve and I were getting closer to wrapping up all of Angel’s dealers and thugs, and I was often spending long nights at the office, leaving only when the sky was tinged with the first light of morning.
“Hollie,” I said, clearing my throat and taking a sip of wine. “Do you know what’s going on with Paris?”
Hollie was quiet for a long time. “No,” she said finally. “I mean, I’ve asked. I feel like a really bad friend. We’ve barely talked or hung out this summer, and we’re living under the same roof.” She bit her lip and looked down at her lap. “Why? Did she say anything to you?”
I shook my head. That night, when I’d brought Paris home, Hollie had thankfully been asleep. Paris had gone upstairs and taken a bath – the next day, she told Hollie that I’d given her a ride home because her car had broken down. We’d come up with a story – there had been an accident at Paris’s job, and she was on leave.
I hated lying to Hollie, but right now it was for the best.
Still, I wasn’t sure that my perceptive daughter hadn’t picked up on anything more sinister than that.
