I cross the room and cup the back of her head, kissing her hair. “Any luck?”
“Not yet.”
Maybe that’s a good thing, I think grimly, partially hating myself for being so disrespectful to the memory of my dead parents.
It takes her another minute to give me her attention. I rub her shoulders and neck until her lashes flutter and she makes an appreciative noise. She’s tense and I don’t know if I’m good with her running herself into the ground like this. My mind whispers with the idea again, we could just leave and find the ocean. I slide my lips together and sigh. I miss the damn salt air and I want to breathe it in with her by my side.
“Don’t forget to take a break. You’ve been at it for days.” She nods, tilting her face up to accept the quick kiss I drop on her mouth before I pull away. “I’m going to workout.”
I put on some music and lean my head side to side as I warm up, loosening my muscles until my limbs are ready. The first hit against the bag always feels the best. I let myself go, channeling all my rage at Nexus Lab and Stalenko Corp into my workout.
Feeling her gaze roaming over my form not long after, I smirk to myself. I’m not one to puff out my chest and preen, but it feels good to show my girl what I’m capable of as I unleash hit after hit to the punching bag. Sweat rolls down my body and I push myself harder for her benefit. The air in the room thickens. I have half a mind to abandon my workout and pin her to the bed instead, vent out the rest of my frustrations with my cock buried deep in her body.
It’s a temptation that’s always there, but I refocus on my breathing and go again.
Almost an hour later, Maisy sucks in a sharp breath and punches both her fists in the air. “I did it! Holy shit, I found it.”
My gaze swings around, instinct always drawing me to her, and the heavy bag thumps into my side. I grunt, lifting my hands to steady it, then swipe an arm across my face to clear the sweat.
“You got in?”
“Yeah. There was a passcode with a number sequence tucked away within a subfolder.” She rolls her lips between her teeth as she pushes the laptop away on the bed. “Um, the numbers line up with the date of the crash.”
I scoff.
Of course they do.
Smug assholes, hiding everything in plain sight like they can’t get caught for what they covered up. I blow out a breath and stalk across the room. Anxious ripples move through my stomach the closer I get to the bed, to Maisy, to the laptop with the answers I’ve been waiting for.
“So what’s in the termination file?” I brace one hand behind her, leaning over to see the screen.
She pulls the laptop close again and scrolls through. “It’s a notice of resignation. Your parents signatures are both on it.”
I squint at where she points. “That’s forged. Mom never made a loop for the L in Wilder. I remember because I used to try to copy her signature.”
“It looks like other than that there’s a PDF email thread, like it was printed out.” She clicks on it, but the screen prompts her for another password. She tries the one she used to open the file and her shoulders relax in relief when we’re granted access. “I think this IP address at the top means it was on a private company server. Look, it’s from your dad’s email at Nexus Lab, but it isn’t with the company.”
“That’s your mom’s email.” I jab at the screen, unable to stop seething. Another email address catches my eye. “Wait, it was all of them and someone from Stalenko Corp. Why would they keep that if it connects them all? Password or not, if anyone found this it’s solid proof. Scroll down.”
My eyes fly back and forth, reading so fast the decade old email conversation blurs. The words jump out at me as I try to process what I’m seeing.
Previous payment is insufficient…risk of the supply chain tracing distribution of controlled substances back to the source…file a patent if our demands aren’t met…
The responses from Stalenko Corp are clipped and unrelenting. They don’t say it outright, but the threat between the lines is clear: cooperate or face the fatal consequences.
My fingers dig into the sheets and I lean over far enough that Maisy ends up almost folded in half beneath me while I try to get closer to the screen. As if being closer will change what’s in front of me.
“Fox, are you okay?”
Maisy twists to put a hand on my chest. It caves as I stumble back from the bed, shoving my fingers into the sweaty roots of my hair.
“Fox.” Her voice is gentle and tentative. She reaches out to brush my back. “Talk to me.”
Thoughts collide in my head one after another. The undeniable truth is right there in black and white. Even Colton couldn’t find it out.
My parents hid the samples and the patent paperwork they started in the garage because they were extorting Stalenko Corp for more money in the middle of helping them plan for Ridgeview to become the main manufacturer for the Russian syndicate’s drug empire. They were in on it the entire time with Jacqueline Landry. Modern day criminals, working out their business deals over email instead of meeting in back alleys on foggy nights.
Memories from my childhood reshape and crystalize, moments where I saw them as innocent viscerally replaced with the harsher clarity of their whispers at night when they thought I was asleep.
Money.
They were always arguing about money and what they were going to do.
No.
In a swift move I grab the laptop, intent on throwing it through the goddamn window.
“Fox,” Maisy says sharply, placing a hand on my inked arm.
My grip flexes as I drag in labored breaths. Red floods my vision and my heart pounds. I let her pry the laptop from my grip and she sets it aside. The ache in my jaw makes me rub at it and it takes effort to unclench my teeth. Spinning away from her, I begin to pace in time with my furious heartbeat.
A lie.
That’s what I’ve chased for ten fucking years.
A lie.
That’s what broke my heart and tore away my childhood strip by bloody strip until all that was left was what I am now—cold, savage, hellbent on going after what I want, what I thought was right.
A lie.
That’s what plagued me with nightmares.
A goddamn lie.
Air burns my lungs as I struggle to catch my breath. Everything I thought I knew is a lie—lies on top of lies, that’s all my life is made up of. An awful, broken sound echoes off the industrial windows and I realize it came from me.
“I thought,” I choke out.
They were innocent. My family was murdered.
“I know,” she murmurs with this sympathetic look that wrecks me.
“Fuck. It was just a dirty business deal gone wrong, so Stalenko took them out. I’ve fought to make this right for them for so fucking long.”
I dedicated every ounce of energy to this. Fueled my thirst for vengeance with hatred for my best friend over a broken promise that didn’t even matter. Because my parents were in on it all.
I knew corruption ran deep through the streets of Ridgeview, but I never thought it poisoned my parents.
“Fox, come on. You have to breathe.”
She hovers close at the edge of the trail I’m burning into the concrete, unafraid of the violent fury coming off me in waves. I can’t even look at her. I came back here ready to destroy everything in her life. All because I believed for so long that her family caused the destruction of mine—believed I was making things right when they’ve never been more wrong.
I should’ve pushed harder to let it all go when I was ready, because then we wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t know the truth about my parents. Wouldn’t know what really happened to them.
“Fuck!”
The yell bursts from me and the dam breaks. As I pace, the anger and hurt spill over, my heart beating faster and my vision tunneling. I kick hard at the couch and the heavy furniture scoots several inches. Maisy backs up a step and another rage-filled shout from me ech
oes off the walls.
Grabbing the next nearest thing blindly—the twisted scrap metal I worked on that she brought upstairs, calling it a conversation piece with a proud smirk—I hurl it across the room. It crashes somewhere in the kitchenette, the sound of breaking glass and carnage still not enough to make any of this better.
It’s all I’m good for—destruction.
“All the goddamn shit I’ve done to get here! So many things, all of it bullshit. I dragged Colt into this. Dragged you in.” The words slip free with each ragged gasp. The fragile control over myself is a whisper away from snapping entirely, leaving me dangling close to becoming unhinged. I feel myself dangerously near the edge as my thoughts take on a manic energy. “Destroy lives, that’s what I came to do and I fucking did it. I fucked with yours like it was a game, plotted to take down your parents, made sure your brother’s future crumbled. What was the goddamn point?!”
Maisy freezes. The patient concern for me disappears as her spine straightens.
“Wait, hold up, what?” Her voice rises. “What did you just say?”
Fresh betrayal shines in her hazel eyes.
It rips me from the precipice of losing control, reality crashing back over me as some of the overwhelming anger clears from my head. Panting and disoriented, I replay what I said and curse silently.
Holden was the first friend I ever made, before I became friends with Maisy, too. He taught me how to ride a bike when I was jealous Maisy learned before both of us. We’d race home from the bus stop, run into our houses, and meet back up to trade Pokémon, or play any of the latest games. He knew all my secret fears, and I knew his. We grew up side by side, partners in troublemaking.
We were best friends. Brothers before I had Colton and the Crows.
The rushing tide of memories of my childhood with the Landry siblings makes my chest constrict. Each one is more bittersweet than the last. I lost every good thing I had. Lost them. And what do I do? I come back and make enemies out of them. Because I wasn’t satisfied with Jacqueline and Richard. I wanted to punish them all for the years I suffered.
Invisible shards of glass rake my throat and acidic self-loathing swirls in my stomach. “I took away his future by having his draft offer reversed. To make sure it stuck, I sent the college video clips of the fights he organized at the quarry in high school. He’s…his face is clearly visible in them and sometimes he’d wear his letterman jacket.”
“What the hell,” she whispers. “You hung around him because you wanted to blackmail him? I thought… Damn it, Fox, I thought you were his friend.”
The hurt lacing her tone is like being shoved onto hot coals with no protection from the blistering heat.
This was a long game. He used me as his enforcer and put me right in position to unravel the strings of his life. I took the video myself last fall in his senior year while making sure everyone else abided the rules.
Shaking her head, she begins to pace. “You know, when you messed with my grades, I didn’t really get all that torn up about it. The grades, the life plan—that wasn’t my dream in the first place. The rumors you stirred, even breaking into the yoga studio to freak me out, I moved past it. The car prank was disgusting, but it’s just stuff. It didn’t physically hurt me. I mean, whatever, right? You tried to break me with all that, but I’d have to care about those things for it to work. I was more hurt that you wouldn’t talk to me for so long, but hung out with him. That’s where your damage finally hit me hard.”
Hearing her lay out my mistakes steals the rest of the air from the room.
“I believed they were innocent,” I bite out, scrubbing my face. “Everything I did was for them and my sister. It didn’t matter what I had to do.”
I immediately want to take the explanation back. The words came out wrong. She doesn’t take my defensive tone well, halting and narrowing her gaze. I open my mouth to apologize and explain better, but she beats me to it.
“You know, Holden really did love football and wanted to keep playing. He hasn’t touched the game once all year. Hasn’t watched it, either. You really fucked him over. He’s told me he’s happy, but that was when he thought he didn’t earn that opportunity to play for a school he loved.” Her mouth purses in frustration and she flings out an arm. “How could you do that to your best friend? I get that I broke my promise and understand why you hate my parents, but Holden? He didn’t do shit to you and you destroyed his future as collateral damage. Don’t you have limits? There’s a difference between innocent people and the ones you think deserve to suffer.”
Guilt rakes over my nerve endings. I was willing to do anything—whatever it took to get my revenge. Holden wasn’t an innocent guy. He organized that fight ring and made money. Partied hard and lived his life wild. But he wasn’t part of this. I could’ve spared him.
Maisy folds her arms over her chest. The distrust flashing in her gaze cuts deep. My jaw clenches, even as my heart splinters with a thousand fissures, the damn thing on the brink of implosion.
This is it. She should’ve run from me from the first moment and now it’s happening. She finally sees the truth—what a monster I’ve become.
This time I can’t chase her. I need to let her go if that’s what she wants. I betrayed her and this is what I deserve for it.
I love her, but I went after everyone in her family. We don’t get to ride off into the damn sunset together with the ruinous outcome of my actions laying between our feet.
“I’m sorry.”
It’s gruff, jagged around the edges, but what more can I say? The damage has been done for over a year.
She stares at me for a long moment. “I want to believe that, but I think this made me realize something really important. I’ve jumped from living my life under my parents’ rules to living it for someone else. I got too caught up in all this. I don’t want anyone to control me.” She darts her gaze away, unwilling to look at me when she goes on. “I need to live my life for me.”
My throat constricts. Fuck. Everything in me revolts. I don’t want to lose her. Not like this. Not ever.
The confession of what I feel for her pushes to the surface, but I swallow it back. I have to respect her choice.
“I never want to take that away from you,” I mutter. “I’m not holding you prisoner here.”
She looks so lost for a moment that it eats me up inside. My stubborn, headstrong girl has spent too many years under someone else’s control. I swallow, throat working as I close the distance between us. Regret tastes sour, sitting in the back of my mouth as a reminder of everything I’ve ruined for ghosts that didn’t deserve my fierce loyalty.
Maisy touches my face and I close my eyes, breathing in deeply so I’ll always remember her sweet, soothing scent.
“Take the Charger.” A small gasp escapes her at my offer. “I don’t want you to feel stranded. It’s yours for as long as you need it. Go.”
Across town, across the country, go wherever you want, little daisy.
“Okay.” She sounds as wrecked as I am. “Thanks.”
Her touch drops from my cheek and I already miss it. She rummages around the bed for clothes, her shoes. Keys jingle across the room, the sound ominous and final.
I keep my eyes closed the whole time because I can’t stand to watch her go. Not when this is my fault.
As soon as I hear her drive off in my car, I sink to the floor, leaning against the back of the couch, and stare at nothing. The energy drains from my body like I’m slowly bleeding out. I expect to look down at the dusty concrete and find a pool of blood, but there’s nothing there.
Just emptiness, like the hollow feeling carved out in my chest.
Thirty-Two
Maisy
It’s weird driving Fox’s matte black Charger. The windows have been fixed, but I can still hear the sound of the rear and driver’s side windows shattering from over the weekend.
The muscles in my stomach tighten and I focus on taking measured breaths, rubbing my thumb o
ver the quartz inlay in my brass bangle bracelet. Once my heart rate calms, I step out of the car and climb the steps to Thea and Connor’s apartment with nothing but my phone because I left everything at his place like I’d be back.
Except his converted warehouse is the last place I want to be right now.
I need to get my head and my heart back in balance before I fall under someone else’s control. I can’t jump from my parents' rule to his.
First I drove around for a few hours, stopping at a peaceful grassy field to watch the sunset dip behind the Rockies while I meditated. Nature has this magic power and sitting there centered me. Once the warmth of the summer day bled away, I texted my best friend and she welcomed me with open arms because we always have each other’s back.
Thea and Connor live in a chic, newer part of town in an apartment building built near the shopping district in the center of Ridgeview. The black metal railings leading up to their unit are modern with tension wire.
Letting myself in with a key Thea gave me, I shout, “Don’t be naked!”
Thea’s laughter rings out from the kitchen, her favorite spot in her home. She pokes her head around the doorway and beams at me. My heart swells at the sight of her, auburn curls piled on her head with flyaways framing her face.
“I thought you have no problem with nudity,” she says as I kick off my shoes in the hallway, relishing the feeling of the cool tiled floors on my bare feet.
So much for letting her and Connor enjoy their private time as newlyweds. At least they welcomed me to couch surf with open arms. I definitely can’t go home.
Not just because I don’t know how I’ll look my brother in the eye knowing I’m partly to blame for his college football draft being stolen from him. I’m still disgusted by what Fox and I discovered about my parents and I don’t want to see either of them. There’s no way I’m putting myself back in their clutches to try to control me again. Never.
Thinking of them only reminds me what I uncovered earlier in the afternoon that sent Fox flying off the handle. As mad as I am at him for keeping what he did to Holden from me, my heart is heavy for him. That was a shitty way to learn his parents were just as corrupt as mine.
Savage Wilder: Dark New Adult High School Bully Romance (Sinners and Saints Book 4) Page 27