Lyla winced and my heart sank, knowing what she was about to say before it even passed her lips. "I'm so sorry, Rogue. But Fox Harlequin damn near busted my door down and he was yelling threats at me, demanding to know if I'd seen you. I tried telling him that you'd asked me to look after Mutt if you didn't make it back that night but he-"
"It's fine," I cut her off, sighing as I swung the door closed. "He'll be looking after him. He's just using him as bait to make me come back to him.”
"Details," Di demanded, moving to take a seat on the little table to the right of my living space. Bella squeezed in beside her and flipped the lid of the pizza box open and I followed Lyla as we took the seats opposite them.
"Well, I don't really know where to start," I admitted. "Why don't you tell me what's been going on here and I'll fill in whatever blanks I can." I grabbed a slice of pizza and sighed contentedly as I took a big bite.
"JJ has every sex worker in the town looking for you. Any whispers of a girl with rainbow hair have to be reported to him immediately," Bella said before dropping her voice conspiratorially. "He said he doesn't care if there is a dick buried in us at the time - we have to pick up the fucking phone and dial."
"Yeah, and Fox has every member of his gang hunting the streets. Honestly dude, I wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't already ratted you out to them. He's offering ten grand for information that helps him get you back. We've all been freaking out over what the hell must have happened to you," Di added, her eyes filled with concern and my heart swelled a little as I realised that the three of them had chosen to come and talk to me rather than rat me out for that pay day. Loyalty really did matter to these girls and I was damn pleased that they'd decided to count me in on their ride or die mentality.
"I don't get it," I admitted, chewing that information over more thoroughly than I was chewing my food. "They took me out on a job and let me be the fall guy. They knew I was arrested, so why the big freak out over where I was? They clearly didn't give a shit about letting the cops catch me so why make such a big deal over finding me after I got out of the holding cell?"
The girls exchanged a look and Lyla started shaking her head. "That doesn't sound right to me, babe. Fox Harlequin was legit losing his shit over trying to find you. If I didn't know that man has a heart carved from ice, I'd have said he was head over heels in love with you. No fucking way do I believe he sold you down the river. If you ask me, he'd have killed a cop rather than let them take you."
I scrunched my nose up at that assessment, but the others were nodding along.
"JJ too," Bella said. "I've seen him on the war path more than once. He looks after his working girls and if any of us get hurt on the job he goes full fucking psycho. But the way he's been over finding you is next level. I'm telling you, if he could rip the sky apart to find you, he'd have done it. Damn the consequences. As far as I see it, he'd have rather died than let those cops take you. No way did they let you take the fall intentionally."
"But they did," I said firmly. "The four of us were pulling a job on the ferry to Belina Island. We got separated and..." I trailed off as I thought it through. Chase had been with me while we led the guards away from the others. He'd been using his phone to stay in contact with Fox, but I hadn't actually seen what he'd been saying to him.
"What about Chase?" I asked slowly, piecing together a puzzle which was beginning to fit into place all too fucking easily. "What's he been doing?"
"Shit dude, there was such a scandal over him. No one knows for sure what he did, but it seemed like Fox kicked him out of Harlequin House," Di said in a low tone, her eyes darting towards the door like she thought someone might be listening. "And then, he didn't go stay with his girlfriend or with one of the other gang members or anything like that."
"So where did he go?" I asked, sensing how juicy they felt this bit of information was by the way the three of them were all tensing up, looking ready to burst with it.
"He spent three nights sleeping rough under the old pier down on the beach," Lyla said, sounding scandalised.
"He was drunk off his ass the whole time too," Bella added, twirling a lock of red hair around her finger. "I saw him there myself. One of my johns took me down to the beach to fuck me and I looked right at him, laying there beside a bottle of jack and a puddle of vomit."
I pursed my lips as I thought on that. So poor little Chase had been kicked out of the house by the big, bad badger for letting the cops catch little old me. Unless I was being totally conceited about it - but it sure sounded that way. The other two had been hunting for me and he was cast out in the cold. The question was, had he done it on purpose or was it really all just some big fuck up? Had he lost me onboard that boat and not been able to find me before the guards caught up to me? Or had he chosen to leave me there?
"What is it, Rogue?" Di asked, reading the suspicions etched all over my face.
"I'm thinking," I said, devouring another slice of pizza. "And if I'm right then this kind of changes everything."
They all exchanged looks but none of them pushed me to be more specific. They knew I was in deep with the Harlequin Crew and they knew that there was a line drawn in the sand unless they wanted to get in as deep as me too. You didn't ask questions about the Harlequins in Sunset Cove unless you had a death wish. Their business was their own and if I knew something about them, then the chances were that it was best for their sakes if they didn't have any responsibility for that information.
The suspicions building within me kept growing while we ate our pizza and I filled them in on where I'd been. Di whistled long and low when she realised I'd been messing with The Damned Men too and their questions quickly dried up. I didn't blame them. They didn't want to be caught in the crossfire between the two gangs and I was more than happy to protect them from it.
By the time we'd eaten every scrap of food and they'd finished catching me up on the things they'd been up to while I was gone, I had a pretty strong idea about what had really happened on that boat.
The girls called it a night, wishing me luck with the Harlequins tomorrow and just about managing to conceal their concern for me. It was sweet that they were worried about what Fox might do when he found me standing on his doorstep, but I wasn't concerned about that. I was a dead girl walking after all and what didn't kill me again only made me stronger.
When I locked the door behind them, I took my time walking over to the pink cell phone which I'd left charging on the kitchen side before taking it into my grasp and moving into my bedroom.
I changed into a band tee and a pair of shorts to sleep in and slipped beneath the sheets, pulling them up over my head before powering on the phone.
Messages and missed calls started pouring in and my pulse thumped heavily in my chest as I opened up the messages which dated back to the night of the ferry job.
Badger:
Where are you?
Badger:
Are you clear?
JJ:
Where are you, pretty girl?
Badger:
I need to know you're okay, hummingbird.
Badger:
Just let me know you're alright.
JJ:
We're starting to freak out over here...
On and on the messages went, getting more and more irate and my pulse kept pounding a solid tune in my chest as I let my gaze run over them one by one before hitting call on my voicemail next.
"Where the fuck are you?" Fox's freaked out voice came down the speaker. "Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea. I need to see you, hummingbird. I need you back here. Call me."
The truth settled over me like the softest caress on my soul and the darkest stab of hurt my heart had ever known. Because message after message poured in from Fox and JJ, most of them from that night, the two of them panicked and fearful, begging me to be okay and to come back to them. But then there were more as the days passed and they failed to find me. JJ's voice cracking as he told me he couldn't survive losing me again.
/>
But the final nail fell in the coffin of my suspicions as I listened to a voicemail from an unknown number and Chase's rough and clearly drunk tone filled my ear.
"Fuck you for ever coming back here," he slurred. "From the moment I laid eyes on your face again after all those years I knew you'd be the death of me. I knew you'd carve my beating heart from my chest and spit on it the same way you did back then. I knew you'd always make the other choice. The choice that fucking ruined me..." The line went quiet and a choked noise escaped him that spoke of his pain and anger and made my own heart crack open like an egg and bleed all that I was onto the ground, impossible to put back where it had begun. When he spoke again, his words were like a dagger directed at my soul. “Fuck you for making me do it. Fuck you for being so fucking hard to hate...just...fuck you, Rogue Easton. Loving you was always going to break me. So I guess I broke you first."
The line went dead and I switched the phone off again, plunging myself into darkness beneath the sheets.
There were tears lining my cheeks but there was a dark truth lining my soul now too. The Harlequin boys hadn't betrayed me. Only one of them had. The one of them who I'd once wanted to rescue more than any other had thrown me to the wolves to save his own skin. Worse than that. He'd done this on purpose. I wasn't just the fall guy. He'd wanted me gone for good.
Well tough luck, Chase Cohen, because I wasn't going anywhere. And tomorrow he was going to find out exactly what payback looked like.
I wasn’t sure which was worse. The guilt or the anxiety. I was in turmoil. If I’d thought I knew hell after Rogue had been ripped out of our lives all those years ago, now the world was proving that I hadn’t even been close. Knowing she’d been stolen away by Maverick all because of my actions was a special kind of agony that left me in a fucking state.
The rum wasn’t even much of a help until it knocked me out. Every waking, conscious moment of my mind was now laced with an acute suffering which made me want to tear the broken pieces of my heart out just so that I didn’t have to deal with the way they throbbed and burned anymore. I’d cast them into the sea and pray this pain went with them. Unfortunately, the organ had other uses, like keeping blood moving around my body, and though I wasn’t afraid of choking on my own vomit in my sleep, or falling off my motorbike and hitting the sidewalk, or a shark dragging me underwater in the sea while I was surfing, I wasn’t the type to just up and end my life. I’d dealt with pain my whole existence, and there really wasn’t a flavour of it I couldn’t bear the brunt of. I would have welcomed a gunshot wound over heartache though.
Mostly, I tried to avoid Fox and JJ, fearing my truth would be written into my face, but if I was being totally honest, it was because I knew I’d let them down. I’d fucked everything up and I’d put Rogue’s life in danger in the process. I’d never wanted that. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. But maybe I really was just as useless as my father had always believed.
“You piece of shit,” Dad spat at me. Drunk again, the scent of PBR on his breath, his teeth yellow and bared at me while his hand locked around my throat. “What do I go working all those hours out fishing for, huh? For my little rat of a son to rob me blind?”
“It was just a couple of cigarettes,” I growled, but I knew that wasn’t gonna fly. I could have stolen a piece of lint from him and he’d have been out for my blood for what I owed him.
“You don’t take what’s mine, boy,” he snarled, his fingernails biting into my neck. “I work for every penny I have and I spend ‘em on what I want.”
“Got it,” I forced out as his fingers tightened and started to cut off my air supply.
“I don’t think you do,” he hissed.
My momma was out of the house for once, fetching groceries from the local store. And my dad was always ten times more dangerous when she wasn’t around to take his attention from me. But I didn’t want her doing that anyway. I wanted her to divorce his ass and run for the damn hills. She was either too fucking loyal to him, or too afraid he’d find her. I was only fifteen, I wasn’t able to get her out of here myself. But a couple more years and maybe I could get a job, rent some place she could escape to.
“I think you’ve got all kinds of thoughts in your head, boy. You’ve been hanging around with Fox Harlequin too long and his arrogance is rubbing off on you. But you know the difference between you and him?” He got even closer to my face, nose to nose with me as his too-long fingernails drew blood from my skin. “He’s going places. He’s got good reason to lord it around this town like he’s gonna own it someday. ’Cause the fact is, he is. And you’ll be left in the dirt for him to walk all over and use how he likes, ‘cause you’re worth nothin’ to no one.”
My jaw gritted as I gazed into his eyes and tried not to believe those words, but they cut too deep, slicing into my insecurities and making them bleed.
“It’s why he keeps you around, you know?” Dad continued. “He can use you how he likes, get you runnin’ around for him, doin’ his dirty work. But his daddy will soon teach him there ain’t no point keepin’ boys like you around for any other reason than you catchin’ a bullet in your skull to protect him.”
“Fox is my friend,” I snarled, though the doubts were creeping in, crawling under my flesh like ants. “And his dad’s a better one than you’ll ever be.”
My heart beat furiously in my chest as Dad swung me around and slammed me down onto the kitchen table. The back of my head impacted with the wood and my skull rang from the collision.
I pushed his shoulders, terrified of what he might do as his eyes swirled with darkness and rage. But he was too strong and his body was fuelled by the fury of alcohol.
“You worthless piece of shit,” he snapped, his fist cracking into my left eye as his other hand released my throat.
He kept beating me until his anger was sated then left me on the table to bleed into the wood.
When I was sure he was gone, I slid off of it, staggering toward the back door and taking in a desperate breath of the morning air as I made it outside. I grabbed my bike, hurried through the side gate and peddled down to Sinners’ Playground as fast as I could, gritting my teeth through the pain of my injuries.
I hid my bike under the pier then made my way to the ladder we’d carved into one of the struts which would get me up into the amusement park, clutching my aching side. I tried to climb it three times before I had to give up, the pain in my body too much and not allowing me to make it.
I gazed at the amusement park above with an ache in my soul, wondering if my father had been right and I really was just going to remain down in the dirt my whole life. Fox wouldn’t use me though, he was one of my best friends. Nothing was going to change that.
“Ace?” Rogue called to me from behind and I stilled, heat rushing to my cheeks in embarrassment at her finding me here like a tenderised piece of meat. She’d seen my bruises plenty of times before but today was an extra shitty example of my weakness, so I remained facing the pier strut, not wanting to turn and let her see the state of my face. I hadn’t even seen it myself yet, but the way my left eye was throbbing, I was sure it was swelling up like a bitch.
Her hand suddenly took mine and all the warmth in the world seemed to flow into me from her. I turned my head away as she tried to get a look at me, my stomach in knots.
“Lemme see,” she said gently, already knowing exactly what had happened.
“I don’t want you to see,” I admitted, but she cupped my cheek gently, turning my head towards her.
Her ocean blue eyes glistened, but she didn’t look sad or pitying, she looked furious, a whole sea storm raging within her gaze. “Wait here,” she said decisively then let go of my hand and ran away up the beach.
I moved into the shadows beneath the pier, my ribs hurting like hell as I sat down and rested my back against one of the struts. Rogue soon returned with a tub of Phish Food flavoured Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
“Where’d you get that?” I smirked, though t
hat movement just made my face hurt even more.
“Stole it off a vendor while he was looking down some girl’s shirt,” she said with a grin.
She reached out and gently pressed the tub to my puffy eye and my brows arched at the reason she’d stolen it. She moved up close beside me, just holding it there while I stared at her and my heart rate slowed to this calm, flowing beat that made me forget all the pain in my body. But then I shifted a little and winced, clutching my ribs.
“Shit, let me have a look,” Rogue said, biting her lip as she lifted my hand and placed it over the ice cream tub to hold it against my face.
“It’s fine,” I gritted out.
“It’s not if something’s broken,” she said seriously and I humoured her, letting her pull my shirt up and start tiptoeing her fingers over my ribs, applying a little pressure to each one.
I was so distracted by her hands on my skin that I didn’t even give a shit about the pain blossoming over that area.
“I think they’re just bruised,” I murmured, but she didn’t stop her inspection, working back down my ribs again and skating her fingertips along each one. Her dark hair brushed her sun kissed cheek and I had the urge to push it behind her ear and find out how it felt between my fingers.
“Looks like you dodged a bullet.” Her eyes suddenly snapped up to meet mine and she dropped my shirt, nestling against me once more. “Fuck your dad.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, lowering the ice cream from my face and popping the lid off of it. It was starting to melt but it looked like the best food I’d seen in a long time. I dipped my fingers into it, sucking them clean as the sugar burst over my tongue then offered it to Rogue. She did the same and we sat there eating it like that, watching the tide roll out and taking all of my anxiety with it.
I crept downstairs in my gym clothes at quarter to six before the others woke up, my eyes burning from a hangover and lack of sleep. I was living on the odd takeaway meal, but mostly I didn’t eat. I just drank until my stomach didn’t growl anymore.
Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2) Page 18
