My eyes flicker from his chest to his eyes as I say, “I do.”
His lips twitch into a smile and he leans forward to kiss me. It’s chaste and quick, but he rests his forehead against mine, his hand still on my jaw.
“I don’t like this,” he whispers.
I can’t respond. The words are caught in my throat and I have nothing to say other than, “I love you too. I’ll wait with you.”
Chapter 30
Evan
I stare down at the paper and then look back to Mason. I’ve known since Kat told me. Samantha’s the reason that coke was laced, and it wasn’t meant for me at all. It was James she wanted dead. I’m a fucking fool.
Anger rolls through me like a low tide. Slowly rising and each wave threatening to take more and more of me away.
“She was fucking him,” Mason says.
“Fucking who?” Kat asks, still clinging to my side. With my arm around her, I pull her in closer. She insisted on coming and at first, I didn’t want her here. I didn’t want her involved in this more than I already had.
Now though, knowing she went to Samantha, that she spoke to her, and was inside her apartment, so close to a woman capable of murder, I need her here with me.
She’s not allowed to leave my side until this is finished.
I rub soothing circles along her hip as I look past Mason and out through the picture window in his sitting room. I need to feel her. I need to know she’s still here, alive and by my side. Away from any danger.
“Samantha was fucking Andrew, the dealer. They planned to kill James and it went sideways. He was supposed to do the coke, not give it to Evan to share with Tony.”
“Do you have evidence?” Kat asks, and I look down at her. She’s standing there as if she just asked for a receipt for an item she wants to return to Nordstrom, not at all affected in the least.
“Enough of it,” Mason answers and I look back at him when I can feel his eyes on me. “Shots of her with Andrew taken from his own surveillance feed. You can’t tell it’s him, since it’s his back and he’s wearing a hoodie. More importantly, my guy was able to grab a sample.”
We can plant the tainted coke. That’s easy enough. Send the picture anonymously to Detective Bradshaw, plant the coke and boom, there’s the evidence they’ve been after. There’s the matter of what she’ll say when they come for her, though. Who she’ll blame and throw under the bus.
The details still need to be decided, but the truth is there. Now we know what happened.
“She wanted James dead because the divorce wasn’t going to leave her with anything?” Kat asks Mason and he’s quick to respond.
“She’s the one who cheated and according to their prenup, if we go by the gossip columns, a divorce would leave her without a penny to her name.”
“Better to kill him than to finalize the divorce,” Kat comments under her breath and steps away from me, walking to the far side of the room to pick up the cup of hot tea she left on the side table.
“What about James?” I ask him. “He really had nothing to do with this?”
Mason shrugs. “Still a prick, and now he’s onto his wife because of the nudge we gave him, but I don’t have shit on him.”
I break eye contact and wipe a hand down my face. I feel like a fool. Guilt and regret swirl together, and the mix of emotions makes me numb. I have to remind myself that all I need right now is Kat, just my wife.
“You were wrong,” Kat says from across the room.
“I wanted to kill him … I would have,” I admit to them, and it hurts to do it. The past few nights I’ve lain awake, thinking about all the ways I considered murdering him. As I stood outside of his house, I knew it’d be easy. I craved to see his body lifeless on the floor.
“It’s because of her,” Kat speaks lowly, but her breathing picks up as anger gets the best of her.
“It’s not hard to focus on revenge,” Mason says as if reading my mind. “It’s not your fault for wanting this over so you could protect your wife.”
The clink of ceramic on glass gets my attention as Kat sets down her mug and makes her way back to me.
“So, what do we do now?” Kat asks then leans her back against my front.
Mason smirks at her and looks between the two of us. “See, this I love,” he says, tapping the folder in his hands.
“We came up with a plan. The cops have to find out. James and Samantha need to be focused on each other and forget about me.
“So … what’s the plan? Leak it to them somehow?” Kat questions.
Mason steps in and says, “James is going to post about how Samantha’s fucking a drug dealer. He’s going to write all about how he found coke and a grab bag of pills in her office and that’s why they’ve split.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because my guy has access to his email account. And he drugged him about two hours ago. James is going to wake up with a hangover and unleash hell when he realizes he emailed his contact at the News Journal, who’s eager to post anything at all about this case.
“The cops are itching for something and they know they have nothing. This city talks, and Derek at the News Journal will foam at the mouth to have the inside scoop before anyone else,” Mason answers Kat.
I hope it’s enough to satisfy her. She can’t know the last piece. Just one more secret. One final release.
“James will be relieved more than anything else,” I add, trying to ease her worry. “He’s a time bomb of paranoia waiting to go off.” Mason backs up, leaning against the back of a sitting chair as he adds, “And Samantha will be behind bars by morning.”
“She can’t deny the pictures of the evidence,” Kat murmurs, grasping the plan, but quickly licks her lower lip and shakes her head, seemingly finding a gap in the details. “She’ll make bail.”
“With the cops James has in his back pocket?” Mason looks at her with disbelief. “No way. She’s done.” He’s good at convincing her this will work, even though I’m still not convinced. If anything, I know nothing is bulletproof.
A moment passes and I let my hand slip to the small of her back. It takes everything in me to assure her, “It’s done. This will work and it’s done.” There’s a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, knowing either one of them could mention my name. I could go down too. But it’s a risk I have to take for all this to be over. I can’t outrun it and I’m willing to take a deal, I’m willing to do anything to put an end to it all.
“Good,” Kat says with finality.
“Do you need me to do anything?” I ask Mason as Kat cradles her body against mine.
“I can take it from here, but I’d stay inside and keep a low profile until there’s word about the arrest.”
I give him a tight smile then lean down to kiss Kat’s hair, savoring every moment. I’m doing it for her. With my throat tight and everything inside me ringing, I whisper, “Let’s go home, baby.”
One week later
“Is he in there?” I ask Mason as we sit in the car.
Andrew Jones, also known as Mathew Staller, is about to meet his maker. The man who sold Samantha the drugs, helped her plan a murder, and got off with nothing has to pay for what he’s done.
He didn’t get a single charge that stuck to him. Not a damn thing. Samantha protected him and pled guilty when it came down on her. So did James, accepting the weaker charges that were merely slaps on the wrists. I slipped under the radar, although I’m certain Mason had something to do with that.
Andrew got off completely. Until now.
“Yeah, this is his address,” Mason answers as he unbuckles his seat belt. The click is loud in the still night air.
I watch the light at the end of the street turn green, but there’s not a single car down the road where Andrew’s house is. Not a person in sight, in fact.
It’s only him and us.
I guess he liked being out here for his privacy, away from the city in a Podunk area … maybe it’s where he cook
s up the drugs. Or maybe he’s lying low since it all went down only days ago.
I don’t know, and I don’t give a fuck. All I want is for every person responsible to pay the price.
As I step out of the car, the chill of the evening creeping into my bones, I tell Mason, “You better never tell Kat.”
He grins at me and says, “It’s our secret.”
The doors to the car close softly, although they cause a gentle thud to resonate in the bitter cold. I keep my gaze on the warm yellow light coming from the upstairs of the two-story house.
“Sticking to the plan?”
I nod at Mason’s question, not stopping my pace, and not taking my eyes off the light upstairs. Duct tape and rope are in the trunk.
I crack my knuckles one by one, all the pent-up anger and fear from the past couple of weeks raging through my blood, begging for revenge.
I came so close to losing everything because of this fucker. My wife would have been a pregnant widow. And it’s because of this asshole.
“Yeah, stick to the plan,” I answer Mason.
He grins at me. “I’ll get the front, you get the back.”
Just as we break, the man of the hour walks right out the front door, hoodie on and straight out onto the sidewalk, only feet from the car.
“I don’t do meets here, get the fuck out,” he informs us with a threatening tone that only heats the rage coursing in my blood.
“Not here?” Mason questions as if we’re here to buy or sell or whatever the hell Andrew thinks we’re here for.
“Yeah, like I said, I don’t do meets here,” Andrew repeats and then opens his coat, flashing a gun tucked in his waistband. “So get the fuck out.”
Dumb prick should have had the gun in his hand.
The rage turns my vision red.
Before I know what I’m doing, I go for the first punch, slamming my fist right in his jaw. It’s reckless, but it’s a damn good release of all the tension I’ve been carrying. My blood rushes in my ear as he and Mason both fumble for the gun. Mason grabs it from him as a bullet goes off, flying through the air and ricocheting off the car. Crouching down, I get in another punch, stunning the dealer. It’s cold and the freezing air bites into my white-knuckled fist. Over and over I feel my muscles tighten, gripping onto his collar, then letting the rage pour out of me, blow by blow. My teeth grind against one another as I don’t hold back a damn thing.
Crack! The prick’s jaw snaps and I feel the bones crunch under the weight of my fist. I see the images that haunted me for weeks.
Andrew pulls back his arm and lands a single solid punch to my cheek. It’ll bruise, but it barely affects me. Nothing can pull me from this haze of vengeance. My head snaps to the side as another punch lands on my chin. I throw all my weight forward, pushing him to the ground and feeling my body fall on top of his, slamming hard onto the concrete sidewalk.
“Fuck!” he screams out just as I pin him under me and throw punch after punch. His nose cracks under one of them; I don’t know how many I get in. I can’t stop.
“Evan!” Mason cries out, his fingers prying into my shoulders then my chest, desperately pulling me backward, but I get one more hit in that snaps Andrew’s head to the side and for a moment, I think he’s dead. He lies there nearly lifeless. Blood’s covering his face and soaking into my knuckles. Red lays in streaks everywhere.
Andrew spits blood onto the street next to him and coughs it up as I attempt to rein in my heaving breaths.
“Snap out of it. It’s not the plan.” Mason repeats, “It’s not the plan. This isn’t the plan.” There’s a ringing in my ears that won’t quit. One that balances out my tunnel vision and the stinging pain that shoots from the split knuckles on my hand.
When I finally catch my breath, Mason is on top of him on the ground, pinning him down. Andrew knees Mason in the stomach, desperately trying to win a losing fight. But I’m too quick, grabbing his own gun and shooting him once in his thigh.
I don’t want to kill him. That’s not my job to do.
He’s not for me. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t love beating the piss out of him.
Andrew screams out in agony and Mason, still wincing and holding his gut, socks him right in the mouth.
Mason catches his breath as he slowly stands up and Andrew stares up at us, begging for mercy.
“Are you Andrew Jones?” I ask him and he hesitates to answer, so I fire a shot off right next to him.
“Yes!” he screams. “Fuck! Yes!”
I crouch down in front of him, gun still in my hand. “The same Andrew Jones that left those messages for Samantha? The ones convincing her to murder her husband?” The blood drains from his face as I talk. I’m not some dealer looking to get more turf. I’m not a cop. True fear permeates the air as the fool shakes his head. “The same Andrew Jones that gave her tainted coke so she could end his life and pay you half of what the insurance company was going to give her?”
“I don’t know any Samantha …” he tries to lie, and I shoot off the gun again, feeling the shockwaves run up my arm. It’s closer to him this time and Andrew screams out.
“He pissed himself,” Mason comments and when I look, sure enough, his sweats have a dark wet ring around him. He’s pathetic.
“That Andrew Jones?” I ask him.
“She wanted him dead!” he yells. “She was going to do it whether I helped her or not.”
“You can tell her husband that; I’m sure he’ll understand,” Mason says and then tosses handcuffs at his feet. “Put those on. First your feet, then your hands.”
“Please,” he begs. But there’s no mercy for what he’s done.
It takes a good fifteen minutes to tie him up. The gagging was the hardest part.
The trunk slams shut, and the dark night seems so empty. Empty is what I needed, though. It’s done and over.
Mason turns the car on, the keys jingling in the ignition before it roars to life and we leave in silence, listening to the fucker in the back. It’s already starting to snow. They’re calling for ten inches and that will wash away any evidence of us being here. Not that anyone will come looking for a while. Like he told us, he doesn’t do meets here.
My heartbeat slows, and the end feels so fucking close. Every loose end is finally being resolved.
“Thanks for doing this,” I tell Mason, ignoring Andrew’s muted thumps in the trunk as we go over a speed bump and then another.
“No problem.” His nonchalant response is as if I’ve only thanked him for picking up milk on the way home.
“I just needed to do something about it all.” I feel the need to explain. We could have let Mason’s guy take care of him. I needed some kind of part in seeing this through, even if I promised Kat I’d stay out of it. It’s the last secret and I’m done. One last deal to see through.
“It’s not like he doesn’t have it coming to him.”
I nod at Mason’s comment and listen to Andrew’s muffled screams.
“You sure he’s going to be here?” Mason asks me as we pull up to a vacant lot.
Even as the car slows, I can see James inside, moving aside a curtain in the bedroom.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I tell him.
I know James is here. He’s waiting for sentencing and not going anywhere near the city. He’s hiding.
I know what that’s like.
“You ready?” Mason asks me, and I nod once again. “Let’s do this.”
We’ll leave Andrew bound and gagged on James’s porch. And the hard copy photos James kept of me are already in my possession.
It’s a truce of sorts. I give him his final piece, he gives me mine.
More than likely he won’t see a day in jail and half his charges were already dismissed. His wife is sentenced to prison for life, his worries behind him. All but the drug dealer. He was foaming at the mouth to get him.
It was an easy call to make.
Andrew’s slamming every which way, but it’s 4:00 a.m. in the suburbs. T
here isn’t another house for nearly half a mile. Even if I took the gag out of his lying mouth, there’s no one here but us and James.
James is right there in the doorway, rifle ready.
“Just leave him here,” I tell Mason and we let Andrew drop to the ground with a muffled scream piercing the air. “James will take him from here.”
With the cold air blowing in my face and the city skyline lighting up the dark night, I finally relax into the leather seat. The bite of pain that hovers over every cracked knuckle is all that’s left of what happened. It’ll heal and my life will go on.
I’m done now. It’s all done.
It’s just me and Kat now. Just the two of us.
No. The three of us.
Chapter 31
Kat
“Do you think he told the cops anything to try to get a lighter sentence?” I ask Evan as the newspaper in my hand rustles.
Samantha pled guilty to multiple attempted murder charges and got life in prison.
James pleaded guilty to his charges as well, but his sentence is nothing compared to hers even though they found him complicit in his client’s death. It’s rumored that he gave up information to cut a deal. He’ll be out of jail in a year or less according to what the rumor mills are saying. The dealer got off scot-free and now people are saying he skipped town in case more evidence comes in.
“Told them what exactly?” He doesn’t look back at me. Instead he lifts a picture frame off the wall of his parents’ dining room. He considers it for a moment before wrapping a handful of bubble wrap around it like he has the others.
The moving company is going to be here tomorrow, but Evan wanted to box up the pictures and a few other things himself. The valuable things is what he told me when we left this morning. All he’s packed up so far are pictures and I wish I could steal the pain away that reflects back in the glass as I catch his gaze.
“That you were there,” I say, whispering the words quietly as if it’s a dark secret no one can ever know. “With Tony,” I add. A part of me thinks it’s just too easy. I can’t shake it just yet. I can’t quite grasp that I get to have my happily ever after with Evan.
You Know I Need You: Book 2, You Know Me duet (You Are Mine Duets 4) Page 17