If You Dare (Dare Series Book 3)

by Shantel Tessier

  “You will be,” Cole tells him. Then he looks at me. “Call Bennett. Tell him to get his ass here.”

  “No … no … no,” Kellan cries frantically.

  I dial Bennett’s number. He answers on the third ring. “Hey, Deke ….”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Get your ass up to the cemetery behind the Lowes’ Estate.”

  “Everything okay?” he asks quickly.

  I look down at Cole as he straddles Kellan again. He wraps his hand around the butt of the knife that sticks out of his side. “Fuck you, Kellan.” He yanks the knife from his side, tosses it away, and then begins to punch Kellan in the face again with fists still covered in Austin’s blood. Kellan tries to fight him, but it’s no use. He’s lost too much blood, and Cole is a killer. When you become his target, he doesn’t stop until the job is complete.

  Kellan knew this would only end one way. Even if Cole had to track him down, the outcome would have been the same.

  Death.

  And I was going to help my best friend achieve that goal. No matter what I had to do to make it happen. Because we’re sharks. And what do sharks do? They kill.

  “Deke …?”

  “No, Bennett, it’s not.”

  “The town did call off the search.” I shrug. They were never going to find his body. Bennett arrived and dropped him off in the ocean—attached to some dive tanks. He was never going to resurface. I’m sure the sea creatures took care of what was left of him. “With no body recovered, that leaves a lot of questions.”

  He sighs. “I’ll call Bennett in the morning and see if he’s got anything new.”

  “Has he found any information on who owns the cabin?”

  He shakes his head again.

  “So we’re just supposed to wait around for the fucker to throw something our way?” I growl.

  “I’m just as pissed about it as you are, but until we know who it is, there’s nothing we can do.”

  A silence falls over us, and I finish the cigarette. I stand to walk inside when he steps out of the pool, and asks me, “What if it’s not her?”

  I turn to face him but don’t answer.

  He picks up his towel off the ground and wraps it around his neck. “Her name was on the list. So she’s either behind it or about to be thrown into it.”

  “Your point?” I quirk a brow, wondering where he’s headed with that statement.

  He runs his hands through his hair, shaking off the excess water. “My point is what are you going to do if she’s not behind it?”

  “We have never killed someone for the hell of it. If she’s innocent, then I’ll protect her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  DEMI

  I PULL UP to Austin’s house and knock on the door. Rocking back and forth on my heels, I wait for someone to answer. There wasn’t a car in the driveway, but I’m sure her Range Rover is in the garage. The guys aren’t here. I only came over because they have practice. I haven’t even gone home. I came straight from school because I wanted to get this over with before they returned home.

  Just when I’m about to give up and turn away, the door swings open. Austin stands before me in a pair of dark jeans, a white T-shirt, and her hair up in a messy bun. And she doesn’t look very happy.

  “I’m sorry,” I say immediately. I never meant to hurt her.

  She lets out a long sigh and steps to the side, allowing me to enter. “It’s not your fault,” she says, shutting the door.

  “I should have never read it. I should have told you …”

  She waves me off and walks to the kitchen. I follow her. She goes straight to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of wine. “Do you drink?”

  “Yes.”

  She pops the cork on the bottle, then she pours two drinks. “I prefer Fireball, but since it’s not five yet, I’ll keep it to a glass of Merlot.” I take the offered glass, and she raises hers. Knocking them together, she says, “To the friends we lose, and the lessons we learn.” Then she takes a big gulp of hers.

  I sip on mine. “Have you heard from her?”

  She nods. “She’s called me. I’ve ignored them.”

  I look down at my drink. “I hate that she hurt you, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “I’m not mad about the journal. I mean, I am, but it’s what she said to me.” She sets the glass down, and her eyes meet mine. “I’m not with him because—”

  “I know.” I interrupt her. “You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Austin.”

  My sister read her journal, and anyone who knows Cole and Austin knows that their love is real. Becky just wanted to hurt her and knew exactly what to say in order to accomplish that.

  She gives another nod and throws back her wine.

  I take another sip of mine.

  “So enough about me and onto you,” she says, faking a smile.

  I sigh. “There’s nothing about me to be said.”

  She quirks a brow. “Deke Biggs,” she says, and this time when I lift the glass of wine to my lips, I take more than just a sip. “You love him.”

  I choke on it. “Hell no.”

  She tilts her head to the side. “Then why did you sleep with him?”

  “Did you love Cole the first time you slept with him?” I counter. I know she didn’t. Their first time was in a bathroom at a party. Deke stood outside the door and recorded it. Then someone uploaded it to social media the next day. I hate to say that I tried to find it, but it must have been taken down because it’s nowhere to be found now. I’m sure Cole made it disappear once he realized he loved her.

  “No, but he also wasn’t previously in love with my sister. And I wasn’t a virgin.” She eyes me skeptically. “You slept with him for a reason, Demi. He may not know that, but I do.”

  I fall onto the barstool and place my elbows on the marble island. “Would revenge make it any better?”

  “I told you I’m not going to judge you.” She shrugs. “Everyone does something for a reason. I’m just trying to figure out why you did what you did.” She refills her drink. “I know why he slept with you.”

  “Because he wanted to make my sister mad.”

  She shakes her head. “It had nothing to do with her and everything to do with you.” I frown. Taking another drink, she smiles at me over the rim of her glass. “So I’ll ask you again. Do you love him?”

  DEKE

  I stand at my locker with a towel at my bare feet and my jeans pulled up to my hips but still undone. My shirt lies on the bench behind me.

  Cole walks up next to me, also fresh out of the shower, and all he’s wearing is a towel draped around his neck. He yanks his locker open and picks up his phone. “Bennett called me.”

  “And?” I ask.

  He throws his phone back into the locker. “And I missed it. He left me a voicemail. I’ll call him back on the way home.”

  I sit down on the bench and put my socks and tennis shoes on as Cole throws his towel down to the floor. He’s still pissy. This morning, Austin wouldn’t even look at him. As I suspected, she woke up pissed when she realized he had broken into Lilly’s room and carried her up to theirs. If I didn’t know she loved him, I’d half expect his clothes to be on fire in the front yard when we get back to the house.

  The guys walk around the locker room after swim practice. We’ve just finished our showers. I’m ready to get the hell home and go to bed. I’m tired. I can’t survive on no sleep like Cole does.

  “What did you do last night?” a guy by the name of Peter asks his friend Braden.

  Cole and I aren’t close to the guys on the swim team like we were back in Collins. We keep our distance. They don’t try to be our friends, and we don’t go out of our way to be theirs.

  “Seth came over,” he answers, sitting down on the bench a few spots down from me. “He brought his hot little girlfriend with him.”

  Cole looks over his shoulder at me. I ignore him and keep listening to the guys.

  “Damn, the high sc
hool bitch he’s fucking?” the guy asks.

  He nods.

  “Fuck, I’d be all over that every chance I got.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, it was weird, though. She just sat there and drank while playing video games. They didn’t even talk much.”

  Cole throws his towel into his locker and steps into his jeans without even bothering with his boxers.

  “You should have jumped on that. I bet he would have shared her with you. I hear they have an open relationship.”

  My hands fist. Is that what you call it? Then why did he get so pissed when he heard she was sleeping with me? I’ve seen him in class since then, but he’s sat down on the front row. He’s the last to show up to class and the first one to run out once the professor releases us. He thinks he can run from me, but he can’t.

  “Maybe that’s what he was waiting on,” the guy jokes.

  “I know I’d share if she was mine. I’ll take that sweet ass while you take her mouth.”

  And I’ve heard all I need to know. What the fuck has Seth been telling his friends? She was a fucking virgin, so I know they haven’t done much. Hell, he’s never even eaten her out. And I saw the way she looked at my cock. She’d never seen one before. What makes these guys think that he would share her?

  I stand and turn to face him, but Cole grabs my upper arm. “Don’t.”

  I look over at him and growl. “What if it was Austin?”

  He lets go of my arm and nods. “I got your back.”

  “Fuck that mouth, I want her pussy …”

  I step forward, gripping the guy’s hair, and I rip him from where he sits on the bench and shove him headfirst into the lockers.

  ________________

  “What the hell happened?” Coach snaps as we all gather in his office.

  I only got a few punches in before he came running into the locker room and broke it up. The bastards got off lucky.

  “They jumped us,” Peter barks.

  I snort. Fucking rats. I place my bloody hands behind my back and step forward. “They were discussing in much detail how they planned to, for lack of a better word, fuck a girl. At the same time. A girl who I know, Coach. And I didn’t feel comfortable listening to their derogatory comments. Especially since she is underage.”

  Coach’s face instantly goes red. Our fathers taught us to do our research so before I took the scholarship at the University of Texas, I did some on Coach here. He has three sons and once had a daughter. She was an all-star athlete. Head cheerleader, played soccer, softball and ran track. One Saturday morning, she left her parents’ house for a run. They called the police three hours later when she didn’t return. Two days later, they found her body twenty feet off the running path. She was completely naked. The man had sexually assaulted her and strangled her with a shoelace. He pulled it so tight that it was still embedded in her neck. She was only a junior in high school. The report went on to say that her boyfriend told the police to look at Rodger Simmons, a swimmer at UT, because he had been calling and harassing her. I knew I wanted to come here when I read that he left town and never returned. Never to be heard from again. Of course, Coach was a suspect in his disappearance, but it’s all about what you can prove, not what you think. That’s why he’s here with us, and Rodger’s rotting corpse was never found.

  “Coach …” Braden begins.

  “Shut the fuck up!” he orders, placing his fisted hands on his desk and leaning over. “If you want to keep your scholarships, you will not breathe a word of it to anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Coach,” we all answer in unison.

  “Get the hell out,” he snaps.

  We all turn to exit, but he stops us. “Except for Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Biggs.”

  Cole and I turn back around, and he points at the two seats in front of his desk. “Sit.”

  We do as we’re told.

  He walks behind his desk and picks up two manila envelopes. “I’ve read your files, boys. And I didn’t like what I saw.” He looks at Cole. “You were arrested back in Collins for shooting your girlfriend and killing her stepmother.”

  I watch Cole’s body go rigid out of the corner of my eye, and he grips the armrest on his chair. He still only wears his jeans. He didn’t have time to put a shirt on when I started throwing punches, and he jumped in.

  “I was taken in for questioning, Coach. And released after proof of my innocence was found.”

  “Ah, yes. And the friend of yours who committed the crime has never been seen again.” If I’m not mistaken, I would say Coach looks at him with pride. It takes a lot of planning and patience these days to kill a man and not get caught. If only he knew we did it by the seat of our pants and within minutes after we found him with Austin’s body. Sometimes you just have to work with what you got. Then he looks at me. “I have no doubt you helped him.” He quirks a brow.

  I just cross my arms over my chest, and he nods once as if he understands that my loyalty lies with Cole.

  He goes on. “Your father shipped you off to boarding school at the age of ten.” My teeth grind. “Wanna tell me why they kicked you out after three months?”

  “They said I was unteachable,” I answer honestly. “And they believed I was possessed.”

  Cole chuckles, and I smile. It’s the truth. My father sent me to an all-boys boarding school in Switzerland. I found him in the kitchen with his hand around my mother’s throat, and I ran at him with a knife. After he beat the shit out of me, he shipped me away. The man was afraid I was going to kill him in his sleep. My mom begged me not to. It wasn’t until years later, once I was older, that I understood why she was with him and put up with his shit—money. Bitch loves money as much as he loves having his options of pussy.

  They had it out for me the moment I arrived at the boarding school, so I had to live up to my reputation, of course. I played a few pranks here and there, which all landed me in deep water. But the final straw was when I beat the shit out of three boys at once in the boys’ bathroom. It didn’t matter that they jumped me, and I kicked their ass. They kicked my ass out. Even my father’s money couldn’t keep me there. They had a no tolerance rule and told him I was the spawn of Satan. If they only knew how true that was.

  He gives us his back and looks out his floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooks the courtyard of the university. “Your accolades spoke higher than your behaviors.” He spins back around and stares at both of us. “Don’t make me regret giving you both this chance.”

  “Yes, Coach,” we both say.

  He nods and sits down in his chair. “Go home, boys, and come back tomorrow ready to swim until your muscles ache to the point you’ll have to crawl out of the pool.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DEMI

  “THAT MOTHERFUCKER DESERVED more than a broken nose.”

  I sit on the couch next to Austin sipping on a new bottle of wine when we hear Deke’s voice.

  “Then let’s go pay him a visit tonight,” Cole offers.

  “I should go,” I say. Standing, I grab my phone to get an Uber. I wasn’t thinking about how I was going to get home after I finished my second glass. I’ve been here for over three hours. I colored some pictures with Lilly before Austin put her to bed, and then we sat down to talk, and time just got away from us.

  “You can go if you want, but this is my house too, and you’re more than welcome here,” she states before walking out of the living room. “What the hell happened?” I hear Austin gasp.

  I make my way into the kitchen to see Cole standing at the fridge and Deke in front of an open drawer.

  “Some guys were talking shit about Demi,” Deke answers. “Me and Cole broke some shit.”

  “What?” I ask, taking a step into the kitchen.

  Everyone turns to face me. Deke’s jaw sharpens, and Cole runs a hand through his hair. Deke looks at Austin as though he expects her to explain my presence. As if I’m not welcome here. She doesn’t.

  “What?” I ask again. “Who was
talking about me?”

  Deke ignores me as he reaches into the open drawer and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Slamming it shut, he stomps out of the kitchen.

  “Cole?” Austin demands.

  He arches a brow. “Oh, now you’re talking to me?” He realizes his fuckup the moment the words are out of his mouth and looks away from her.

  “Fuck you, Cole,” she growls and goes to leave as well, but he grabs her by the upper arm, preventing her escape.

  “A guy on the swim team was talking about him and another fucking Demi.” He looks at me. “At the same time.”

  I frown. Who the hell at the University of Texas would know me? “Do I know them?” Maybe they meant another Demi.

  He lets go of her and shrugs. “They didn’t seem to know you very well. One mentioned that you were over at his house last night with Seth.”

  “Ahh,” I say, remembering that Seth did tell me that when he introduced us last night. I didn’t pay much attention. “Seth knows him through his sister. Last night was my first time to meet him.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go back there if I was you,” he warns.

  “Noted.” I nod.

  “Did you get suspended?” Austin asks through gritted teeth.

  He snorts. “Hell no. Coach yelled at us and then told us to go home. He can’t afford to lose us.” He looks at me after answering her. “You need to figure out whatever the fuck you and Deke have going on.”

  “It’s nothing.” I just needed to use him one time.

  “I’ve known Deke all of my life, and he wouldn’t have jeopardized his scholarship for a girl he didn’t give two fucks about.” Then he looks down at his future wife. I can see the regret flash across his face for just a short second before it disappears. “May I talk to you?” When she doesn’t answer, he adds, “Upstairs.” Then he too exits the kitchen, not waiting for a response or giving her any room to protest, leaving me and Austin alone.

  “I’m gonna go—”

  “No,” she interrupts me and turns to the fridge. Opening the door, she pulls out a half-full bottle of wine. We finished off the first one earlier. “Here.” She holds it out to me. “Cole is right. You and Deke need to talk this out. And you are more than welcome to spend the night in the spare bedroom.”