Mischief (Circuit Book 2)

by Lacey Dailey

  A laugh spiraled out of me. “He pulled me back into bed and we stayed there for like twenty-four hours.” Not a lot of talking took place. It was hours of lovemaking and whispered promises. A heap of tangled limbs and beating hearts. A reel of moments just for us. A moment for us both to shut down our brains and focus on love.

  It was a welcome distraction. A mini-vacation from how overwhelmed I’d felt. He dropped three years of complied secrets and information on me in less than two days. My mind was still filing it all away in its respective folders.

  Everything in my life was changing. Down to my relationship status and career.

  “I guess now I’m just scared of not knowing what comes next. I trust him and what Mischief is capable of, but that’s my person, ya know?” I picked at the top of my muffin. “When he offered to skip work this morning, I shut that down immediately. Because I was fine. I really was, Sage. And then I was sitting at the counter, eating lunch by myself, and I just wasn’t anymore.”

  “Oh, Brett.”

  “The possibility of all the things that could happen next just sort of whopped me across the head. My chest seized, and I had a miniature breakdown on the kitchen floor thinking of all the ways somebody could snatch him or hurt him.” It was borderline unbearable. Panic wrapped its evil fists around my neck and squeezed. Worry strangulated me and pain consumed me. I’m not sure how long I sat there, searching for Ace’s voice and the reminder to breathe before I shook my limbs out and peeled myself off the tile.

  “Can I ask you something, B?”

  I flicked a crumb off my knee. “Sure, yeah.”

  She hesitated before asking, “You ever think about talking to someone?”

  A shudder left my body. I knew what she was suggesting. And honestly, I’m surprised she hadn’t brought it up months ago. “Every damn day.”

  “Really?”

  The astonishment in her voice made me laugh. “Of course I do, Sage. How could I not?”

  For years, I flat-out refused to believe what I went through classified as trauma. It was just too mild compared to what she suffered through. But after hours of research, of spending time around her therapist, I learned there are all different types of trauma.

  “Why haven’t you seen someone yet? I’m sure Mandy could refer you.” She angled her upper body to face me. Her forehead dipped with her frown. “Are you worried you won’t qualify for basic training? Is that it?”

  “Sage, you do know I have to pass a psych evaluation before I’m ever going to qualify for training?”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Well, yeah, sis.” I gave her a look of amusement. “Everybody who makes it through testing has to pass one before they qualify for training. You think they are just going to hand over a gun, a taser, and the responsibility to protect this city if they think somebody is a nutcase?”

  Her lips thinned. “Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.”

  “I’m not worried I won’t pass it. I think that evaluation is really to ensure nobody is confusing revenge for justice and joining for the wrong reasons.”

  “Then what the hell is stopping you?” she demanded. Her eyebrows raised with a challenge.

  “I guess for a while I believed it would make me weak. I was convinced I had to be strong for you. When I had these spells of not being able to breathe, and relied on Ace to make them go away, I got disgusted with myself.”

  “Brett Daniel!”

  I held up a hand and shut down the lecture I was about to get. “I know better now. I was worried at first that Ace was just another thing that weakened me. Fed into my need to be coddled, but now I look at everything I’ve done for myself since meeting him and know the truth.”

  “And the truth is?”

  “Loving him doesn’t make me weak. Ace gives me strength and a reason to fight. He is the hand that holds me up and provides me with the amount of courage I need to conquer each day. I can't think of anything more powerful than his love and what it's gifted me with.”

  Her voice came as soft as her gaze. “Please, tell me you told him that and he cried like he does when watching the Titanic.”

  “Told him yesterday,” I confirmed with a stupid smile.

  “Well, who the hell knew?” she burst out.

  “Knew what?”

  A mischievous smile spread across her lips. “That we’d both fall in love with a criminal and end up bonding in their secret lair over muffins and code names.”

  “Correction.” I bit into my muffin with a huff. “You have a code name. And it’s totally unfair.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get one. Cruz says it’s a precaution or whatever.”

  “Why? You think somebody will get bugged somehow?”

  “Oh no.” She dismissed that with a wave of her hand and a bite of her muffin. “The elevator has fancy sensors or something. It would detect a bug the second somebody stepped on.”

  I choked on a blueberry. “Fucking Christ! Is Cruz a billionaire or what? Jesus, this place is funded better than a government facility.”

  “Don’t even ask me about Cruz. The man is a total mystery.”

  “I know. It pisses Ace off.”

  “Ace and his questions.” She shook her head with an amused smile. “I voted for fresh mozzarella.” I held up my fist and we pounded it out. “It’s so cool you guys are in love. It’s a shame you can’t make babies.”

  Little sisters.

  You find yourself a partner and they start asking for babies. She was worse than my mother. “Slow your roll there, kid. I haven’t even met his mom yet.”

  Her face twisted. “He needs to get it together.”

  I gave her a look. “He’s a little busy being stalked by the devil.”

  “Touché. But I’ll say he’s really damn good at being Mischief. Whatever this is about, he’ll figure it out.”

  As if the universe were trying to prove her point, a loud bang followed by the rattle of a keyboard echoed through the space. “FUCK!” I sprang off the couch at his bark. My feet were halfway down the staircase before my eyes caught up and found him across the room. He was standing up, his face contorted into a look of disbelief and amazement. His hair was unruly and eyes red-rimmed from being focused on a monitor for too long.

  Twenty-six eyeballs were now staring at him while he stared at his screen. “It was an accident,” he said, slamming his finger onto the mouse. The flat screen lit up with crime photos taken from the scene of a horrendous looking car accident. Intermixed with those photos was a mugshot. A mugshot of a much younger Kade Wilson.

  17

  Ace

  Drugs.

  They were the complete opposite of a good skin care regime. I wasn’t normally a man who passed judgment on others, but Kade Wilson was an ugly bastard. Uglier now than he was sixteen years ago. All thanks to the little demons referred to as drugs. If Kade wasn’t the evil spawn of the devil, I might’ve been able to admit he was slightly good looking sixteen years ago.

  The decade old mugshot showed Kade in a somewhat sober state. His eyes were glassy, but he could hold his head up and was lucid enough to scowl at the camera. The shaggy brown hair that fell to his chin looked as though he took the time to wash it every once in a while. His skin was smooth and free of wrinkles. You almost didn’t know there was a black hole in his chest and a junkie inside his body.

  Compare that mugshot to the one taken after we squashed his drug operation, it was like looking at an entirely different man. Sixteen years of non-stop drug use didn’t just fuck up a man’s brain. It fucked up his whole look. The red scabs down the side of his face and neck made me shiver in disgust. The teeth that used to look white were a dingy yellow. His shaggy hair looked like a total grease bomb. It’s only chance of redemption was to shave it off and start fresh. His skin looked like plastic was stretched over it, and his eyes were so fucking foggy; I wondered if he even knew he was being arrested.

  “Holy shit!” My head swirled on my neck and the eyeballs inside found
Sage standing at the bottom of the staircase, gawking at a young Kade Wilson. “He almost doesn't appear repulsive. Don’t do drugs, kids.”

  A laugh escaped my lips. If I had to guess what sort of reaction Sage would have seeing the man who abused her on a screen bigger than the car she drove, that was not it. Her strength never ceased to amaze me.

  “Was this the first time he was arrested?” She shuffled across the room and found Wren. As if on instinct, he stood up and gave her the sunshine chair, perching on the corner of his desk.

  “No.” I bent in half and made a few clicks, pulling up his arrest record. It was longer than the mega processor that stood proudly in the back of the room. “He was in and out of jail from the age of eighteen.” I pointed at the screen. “This was actually one of the last times he was arrested before he went underground.”

  “You mean to sell drugs, weapons, and humans on the internet without being caught?”

  “Uhm, yes.” I cleared my throat, stunned by the murderous gaze marring Sage's face. “That’s what I meant.”

  “Sunshine, you need a time-out?”

  “No, Wren Wilder. I do not,” she huffed. “I need some answers.”

  “Me too.” A body stepped forward, taking a stance in the center of the room. He looked a little out of place but made no move to leave. His frazzled eyes found mine. “Babe, what is this? Is this the accident he was talking about?”

  “Don’t know yet, sugar. But it’s a start.” I gestured my head, beckoning him to come stand next to me.

  He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, moving across the room purposefully yet apprehensively. His eyes darted to the screen a dozen times during the five-second walk. Instead of relaxing into the chair I tried to offer him, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against my desk. The tension saturating his body was palpable.

  With a rough breath he exhaled through his nose like some kind of dragon, he snapped his head down. It took a moment before his eyes were able to find mine and another moment before they cleared.

  “It looks like this is the only accident Kade was ever arrested for.” Cruz’s eyes were zipping up and down the screen, studying the rap sheet. “And it was the very last time he was arrested before he went underground.”

  I scratched my chin. “Is it possible there was something about this accident that forced Kade underground?”

  “He went from being a reckless little shit that gave the police hell to completely disappearing.” Wren was looking at the screen, dumbstruck. “Why the sudden shift?”

  “The Kade I knew wasn’t reckless,” Sage said. “He was meticulous. He had backup plans for backup plans. He didn’t hold room for error in the shit he did. All that?” She flung her hand at the record lighting up the screen. “Stuff he could’ve avoided.”

  “This accident has to mean something.” Plopping back down in my chair, I replaced the record photos with photos of the daunting accident. “This was the last arrest before a complete personality shift. Not to mention his crimes tripled in intensity.”

  “It’s listed as a drunk driving incident.” Cruz rubbed the top of his head. “Not surprising with the blood alcohol percentage recorded on the police report.”

  “How did he even survive this?” Brett spat, a hint of awe in his voice. “The car is totally mangled.”

  The word mangled may have been an understatement. Calling it a car didn’t seem right either. It looked like an empty can of beer after I smashed it against my forehead. It was difficult to even make out the hood from the trunk. The car appeared to be old and in need of a paint job. It looked grimy and shabby. It was obvious it was supposed to be some form of the color blue. The spots of wear made it look like hundreds of people took steel wool and worked their elbows into arthritis scratching all the paint off. Really, it looked like he jacked it from a junkyard. A junkyard I’m sure it was sent directly back to after a tow truck towed away the remains.

  According to the police report, the accident happened on the I-66 heading into Washington at exactly 1:31 in the morning. Kade’s drunk ass managed to drive over four lanes of traffic and wrap himself around a telephone pole on the Theodore Roosevelt bridge. It’s a real pity the pole stopped him and he didn’t go flying into the Potomac River where he was trapped and died a terrifying death.

  It was some kind of joke he survived at all. The heap of junk he was driving was practically folded in half. He should’ve snapped like a flimsy twig beneath a gust of wind. Figures some kind of miracle happens to the least deserving bastard on the planet.

  “Can we find anything that lists his injuries?” Brett inquired, shaking his head with a look of skepticism. “He should be dead or at least paralyzed. He barely looked scathed in that mugshot.”

  “The mugshot was taken in the hospital,” Cruz announced, speed reading. “Looks like he was taken by ambulance to MedStar.” He angled his head into the room and barked. “Somebody find those hospital records. Vamos!”

  Wren flew off his desk like a donkey bit him in the ass. He slid Sage aside and crouched down, listening to Cruz ramble off facts as he broke through MedStar Washington Hospital Center’s firewall.

  “He passed out in the ambulance on route to the hospital.” Cruz squinted at the screen in front of him and used two fingers to zoom in. “Looks like he was handcuffed to a gurney and treated as a suspected criminal. Two officers attempted to interview him after treatment but Kade refused to talk. They technically made the arrest in the hospital but he was not brought into custody until a week later. They had a guard posted outside his hospital room door at all hours.”

  Studying the police report, Brett cocked his head. “Can you find where it says what he was officially charged for? A DUI charge in the state of Washington is worth at least a year in jail. Probably more. Not to mention the possibility of at home monitoring and court-ordered rehab.”

  Pride encircled my chest as I watched a crease form between my boyfriend’s eyes. The tip of his tongue poked out from between his lips and resided there. His big ol’ brain was working double time, summing up everything he could remember about DUIs and reckless driving accidents. Since picking up his textbooks, he’d been walking around the apartment, recounting laws and the various penalties that went with them. There was not a single one he couldn’t remember. The man could recite me my Miranda Rights backward.

  Wearing his intensity like a second skin, the need to provide this room with answers consumed him. I could tell just by the vein bulging in his neck and the sweat pooling at his hairline. He wrung his hands together as if it helped him think and cocked his head, tapping his foot against the ground in a combination of thought and impatience.

  I realized after only a moment I was not the only one studying Brett. We were all watching him, and I knew we were all reflecting on the same truth.

  He’s going to make one hell of a cop.

  “Alright.” Cruz clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “Looks like Kade was charged with driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, and possession of prescription drugs. He spent two years in Washington Corrections Center and went through various stints of rehab while in there. Jesus Christ, his corrections records show he was in some sort of religious group.”

  Sage made a noise. “Holy shit.” Her face went stricken. “That manipulative fucker played the whole system. No way was he religious. He always talked about God being a joke. He used to tell me the reason he always made it out alive was that darkness held more power than light. The only God he ever believed in was himself.”

  It was incredibly disheartening to think Kade Wilson held enough brain power to fool the entire prison system. That he could keep up an act and fully immerse himself in playing a version of himself he clearly wasn’t. He was not created like an ordinary person was. There was some sort of glitch in him. A malfunction he suffered from. He held all the traits of a psychopath: pathological lying, lack of remorse, manipulation, high estimation of himself, impulsivity. The lifestyle he led was e
xtremely parasitic and toxic. It enraged me he was able to make it out of there raising no red flags.

  Placing my hands on my hips, I blew out a breath. “The more we discuss this man, the more convinced I am that he isn’t human.”

  “Humans wouldn’t have survived that accident,” Brett grunted. “No fucking way.”

  “MedStar records show a broken right leg, a shattered collarbone suspected to have been caused by the seatbelt locking, eight stitches in his hairline, a concussion, and a body full of bruises.” Wren’s pointer finger moved across his mouse wheel. “No internal bleeding was reported.”

  I snorted.

  “Fucking hell,” Brett sighed and scratched his scruff, pacing around the center of the room. “What about the injuries the passenger sustained? Surely, there is no way they just got up and walked away. Not unless a spawn of Satan climbed up from hell and dragged them away.”

  “B.” My brows tightened. “There was no passenger.”

  “He’s right,” Cruz said. “There is nothing here that says anything about a passenger. When officers got to the scene, Kade was lying facedown on the asphalt next to the car. According to this, he told the doctors he crawled out.”

  Brett reared backward, surprise passing through his features. “Ace, can you pull up those photos again? The crime scene ones?”

  “Uhm, yeah. One second.” With a few clicks of my fingers, an assortment of gruesome photos were displayed.

  There were dozens. Some were basically useless. Just photos of a cone with a number stamped on it, perched next to a piece of debris. Others were more disturbing. And by others, I meant the ones that captured the state of the inside of the car. Dark spots of blood covered the cloth seats, turning the light gray color almost black. I wasn’t sure what Brett was looking for or why he looked so fucking confused, but I was my own brand of confused contemplating how he could stare at them without getting barfy.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he mumbled.