Rebel: Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance

by Savannah Rose

  She goes quiet for a while and I wait for her to respond. “Okay. Fine. Let’s say he is innocent.” I nod even though I know she can’t see me. “What are you planning to do about it?”

  “I have to get him out.”

  “Okay, but what do you want to do? Have you spoken to dad?”

  I glance over at the driver’s seat. Dad has his eyes fixed on the road. Obviously he can hear me. We’re not more than a foot away from each other, but he doesn’t budge. If I know my dad as well as I think I do, he’s processing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But it’s not necessarily a good thing either.

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Well, you need to get a step on it, don’t you?”

  She’s not wrong. But I also can’t push him.

  I hang up from Cori and watch my father from the corner of my eye. His jaw is tense, his eyes trying hard to focus on only the things ahead of him. The street, the cars, the occasional pedestrian. He’s definitely processing. I’m not going to drag my feet when it comes to talking him, but right now is also not a good time.

  When we pull up to our house, dad parks the car in the garage and gestures for me to leave. The elevator doors open in front of me and I turn back to the car, thinking he’ll join, but he’s still locked inside the car, not looking like he has any intention of getting out.

  I’m nervous as I travel up and up through the house. And even more nervous when ten, fifteen, twenty minutes roll by and my dad still hasn’t popped in. Just as I’m about to go check on him, I hear the ding of the elevator. I stop just short of it and wait for dad to appear through the glass doors. He doesn’t look me in the eye as he steps into the house. Instead, he heads straight for the kitchen, leaving me standing like a statue, uncertain of which way to turn.

  “Dad,” I call after him.

  He doesn’t turn around, but he does answer. “I’ll take the case,” he says and that’s the last I see of him until five o’clock the next morning.

  39

  Janey

  I’ve never met anyone as strong-willed and loyal as Kace. I try to remind myself of this as I drive into the school parking lot on a bright and deceptively sunny Monday morning.

  There’s nothing to be so chirpy about, but there it is anyway. The sun, the fluffy white clouds, the world continuing to spin like nothing is out of order.

  This morning, when dad woke me up at the most ungodly hour, I didn’t hesitate to lay out all the facts for him. If he was going to represent Kace, he needed to know everything. He needed to know about Bubba and about Lucas. He needed to know about Kace’s brother, Josh. He needed to know about the time I found myself in the deep dark net that is Kensington and everything that happened during and after my ride on the bus. And so, I didn’t hold back even an ounce of the details, despite how much I could see that it killed dad to hear just how little he knew about what was happening in my life. I don’t hold it against him. He’s been busy. And apparently, so have I.

  If anything, my baring it all was a reminder that we needed to get back to how we were; to how close we were. Once I was done talking, Dad and I hugged for what felt like ages before he informed me that he was going to get an early start. If Kace was innocent, then he’d do his best to make sure that he didn’t spend any more time than necessary behind bars. But if he was guilty, he’d make sure that I had no choice but to stay away from him. It felt like a promise, coated in the words of a threat. I took it anyways, because I knew in every crevice of my heart that Kace wasn’t touting around pounds of heroin.

  My dad left at about six thirty to head to the precinct and have a chat with Kace about his options and his recommendations on the best courses of action to take. I showered and tried to get myself to look as okay as possible before forcing myself to make the ride to school.

  I didn’t expect to hear from my dad until later that day, so to say that I’m shocked to see a text from him pop up on my phone would be a gross understatement. I read the words. Once. Twice. And then I read them again. I shake my head, feeling like I’ve failed even before this whole damn thing has even properly gotten off the ground.

  After everything, Kace doesn’t even want to accept my help. According to my dad, Kace is hell bent on keeping me out of danger, even if it means spending the rest of his life in jail. He’s convinced that as long as he’s in there, his brothers have no reason to go after me.

  I stick the phone back into my pocket as though that will erase the anxiety the message caused to course through my veins. If I thought spinning this car around and heading back home would quell my anger and my fear, I’d do just that. As things are, school is the only damn option I have right now. And seeing as dad will be paying more and more attention to my whereabouts, it’s the option that I take.

  I exit the car, feeling like a shell of myself as I push through the bold front doors. I can hear the echoes of laughter floating around the halls and I’ve never experienced the kind of annoyance towards the joy of others as I’m feeling now. There’s nothing to laugh about. Nothing at all.

  “Hey there, Bradshaw,” an eerily familiar voice comes up behind me and I turn to find Lucas smiling down at me. Just my luck, walking into the last damn person I have any interest seeing. It takes everything in me not slap him upside the head, to yell at him, to scream all the things I’m not supposed to know. As I shoot daggers at him with my eyes, I can almost hear Kace’s voice in my head, begging me to keep walking. To move on. To act like Lucas is just any other guy in this school.

  “Hi,” I mumble, and proceed to step past him. The heavy thuds of his footfalls make it clear that he’s matching me step for step.

  “Had a great weekend?”

  I have to slowly hold my head down and let my hair fall to hide the scowl that immediately crosses my face. “Yeah. Got some work done. Had some family time. How about you? Did anything worth mentioning?”

  He shakes his head and smirks. Must be a nice feeling to get rid of the enemy. “Nope. Nothing worth mentioning.”

  “Well, here’s to hoping your week is just as eventless,” I say, rounding the corner, hoping to shake him off like a dried up tick.

  When he stops short, I know that I’m not that lucky. “Oh!” Lucas snaps his fingers as though forgetting something important. “Have you seen Kace anywhere?” And there’s that smirk again. Teasing. Taunting. Begging me to snap.

  I shrug. “He might be coming in today. He might not be coming in today. Your guess is as good as mine.” This time, I don’t count my steps. I speed away before my face starts telling Lucas all the things I wish to say.

  I can feel my pulse racing as I quickly push my way into the restroom. My hands feel like Jello as I lean against the sink, trying to steady myself with deep breaths.

  When I look up into the mirror, I am greeted by frizzy hair, swollen eyes, and defeat. I groan at the thought of going through the rest of the day looking like this. Kace is always going on about how beautiful I am, but I don’t think even he could bring up that lie looking at me now.

  Instead of going to my first class like I’d intended to, I head for the council’s office for a nap and some coffee and hopefully some divine inspiration. As I climb the steps, I think of my first time on the roof with Kace and how he pinned me to the wall when he found out I was following him.

  Always so careful. So guarded. So strong.

  The stairway is empty and I thank God that there’s nobody around to see me behaving like an invalid as I haul myself up the steps.

  “She’s here,” a voice breaks through my rampant thoughts. It’s quiet, as though wanting to go unheard, but not quiet enough that it actually does. I glance behind me in search of the culprit, but there’s no one there.

  “Yeah. He’s not here, though. She’s being casual about it. Yeah, I’m sure he’s there. I called Simon this morning. Don’t worry about it.” This time, I know exactly who the voice belongs to. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the hell Lucas is going on about.
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  I slowly go up a few more steps, just as careful to remain unheard as I am to stay invisible. Just in the distance, I can see Lucas’ outline.

  I slip into the room next to him and try to hold my breath as I take in his conversation.

  “No. He doesn’t know. I got Nirveek to do it.”

  I pull out my phone and turn it on silent before I start jotting down important points.

  First up is the name Nirveek.

  “I’m sure he thinks Cain is responsible so that’s who he’ll give up if it comes down to it. Either way, you win. Nah, I wouldn’t worry too much about her. I’ll keep an eye out though, but he got her arrested so I’m sure she’ll go off to college or some shit and forget about him.”

  Well, at least that seems to take me off his radar a little.

  “Yeah. We’re all meeting at Stone Rich Bridge later. I’ll keep you in the loop. You just handle your business, Gabe.” He continues talking for a while longer, rattling off too much information. Time, names, deals. Lucas is either stupid or too damn comfortable. Not that I’m complaining.

  I make note of Stone Rich Bridge and save all the information before emailing it to my dad with the word ‘URGENT’ in bright, bold letters.

  40

  Kace

  You’d think one night in jail would be enough to scare even the toughest criminal straight. This place doesn’t just smell like hell, it tastes like it too – so pungent is the aroma I can feel it solidifying on my tongue with each breath.

  I press my back against the makeshift bench, counting down the hours…the minutes…the seconds. There’s no point to it. As I’d told Janey’s dad, there’s no point in me even thinking about getting bailed out of here. Cain wants one of two things – me in jail or my head on a platter. He’s gotten the former, which means there’s no point in him keeping an eye on Janey. Like hell am I going to put her in danger. Like hell am I going to get out of here, knowing that it’s the equivalent of slapping a target on her back.

  I close my eyes, knowing I won’t be able to sleep, but trying anyway. I haven’t even gotten to the part where my thoughts are clear before Janey is floating into my mind again. This time, however, it’s her actual voice I hear, along with the rattling of metal as she clings to the bars of my cell.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. The question is more fitting for her. There are rings around both her eyes, so deep you could lose a quarter in them. And her hair is a frizzy mess, tied carelessly on the top of her head.

  “Are you okay?” I give back and watch as she shakes her head.

  Her eyes glisten a little as she looks me up and down. She sucks in a deep breath and straightens her shoulders. “I have a plan.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “I have a plan, Kace!”

  “Janey,” I sigh. “We don’t need a plan or a plot or anything in between. This is it. This is how the story unfolds.”

  She shakes her head again and reaches between the bars. Even though I know I shouldn’t give in, I take her hands in mine. Who knows when the next time will be that I get to hold her? Who knows if I’ll ever get to hold her hand again?

  “I’m gonna get you out of here, Kace.” She looks behind her, to where her father stands with his arms crossed over his chest. “Isn’t there supposed to be a room or something where we can talk in private.”

  “You said this would only take a minute, Janey.” Her father’s voice is deep, authoritative, just the way it was when he came in to speak to me earlier.

  “Well…I’d rather that minute be in private,” Janey counters.

  Her father sighs audibly enough that I’m able to hear it over the coughing of my cell mate. But then he turns away and rests his hands on the desk where the guards sit manning their computers.

  In only a matter of minutes, I’m ushered out of the cell and into the same room I’d been housed in for my meeting with Janey’s dad. I don’t have to ask to know that strings have been pulled for me to be sitting in here in front of her. She’s not a lawyer. Not even on her way to getting a law degree. But yet, here we are, across from each other, my hands freed from all restraints. Every part of me wants to touch every part of her. Somehow, I manage to keep my hands to myself. Of course, even just watching the wheels spin in Janey’s head is enthralling. The knowledge in her eyes. The determination in her brow. The fact that even with her hair untidy and her face void of every ounce of makeup, she’s still so fucking gorgeous.

  “Change your confession,” she says.

  I roll my eyes at her. “You know that I’m not going to do that.”

  Her arms find their way over her chest as she pins me with a gaze that doesn’t make her look any more imposing.

  “Change your confession,” she says again.

  “When you’re off to college, I might consider it.”

  She laughs at that and that one spark of humor allows her whole demeanor to change. On a sigh, she reaches for my hands again and squeezes them gently. “We have a plan,” she says, continuing before I can punch my two cents through any open slots. “A plan I’m pretty damn sure will work. I just need you to get your confession changed in advance. I need you out of here before I set the wheels in motion.”

  “You’re not a criminal, Janey. Whatever system you’re trying to play…it’s not designed to bend for people like you.”

  “Who says I’m trying to break the law.”

  I pull my hands away from her and rest my elbows on the table, really taking her in. “I said ‘bend’ not ‘break’. Plus…whatever it is, I won’t allow it. I’m not going to watch you go head to head with Cain. You know why, Janey? Because you’ll lose.”

  Her eyebrows dip, showing that my comment hit hard enough to hurt. “I’m smart,” she says, defiantly.

  “And smarts, unfortunately, aren’t going to win against people who aren’t afraid to bloody their fists.”

  She shrugs. “The Art of War. You know…that book you asked me to get before everything got turned upside down…”

  Now she really has me laughing out loud. So hard that I almost tip off the chair. Calming myself once again, I focus on her. “You’re not going to beat Cain with a book.”

  “Who is Nirveek?” she asks, throwing every damn thing I just said out the window.

  It takes a minute for me to catch my breath.

  “What do you know about Nirv?”

  “I’m asking you,” she throws back.

  The look in her eyes is everything I need in order to know that this conversation really is done. I push my chair back and move toward the door.

  “Kace,” she calls after me. She still hasn’t moved from her chair and if I know Janey the way that I think I do, I know she’s still got her arms crossed over her chest.

  I turn around, fully intent on making things loud and very, very clear. So clear that she’ll be able to see through my damn words and get just the fucking picture she needs in order to let this go.

  I walk right up to her, so close that I can taste her every breath. “Back the fuck off, Janey. You had your five minutes behind one of those cells out there. But you know what’s fucking worse than being in jail? Being dead.”

  She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t move. “I did some digging.”

  My fist pounds against the table, causing the air above it to jump like nobody’s business. “That’s exactly what the fuck I’m talking about. Stay the hell away from them, Janey. Jesus Christ!” My hands are in my hair, raking the shit out of it because I don’t know what the hell else to do.

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “No. Not with this. I want you safe, Janey. I want you off their radar.”

  “You should want yourself safe,” she hisses. “You should want yourself out of here.”

  She’s standing now, her small frame miniscule in comparison to my bold and angry one. When she reaches out to touch me, I swat her hand away. “It kills me to be in here. To not be able to hold you, touch you…kiss you. But Janey
, please…I’ll never forgive myself if your family ends up burying you because you decide to get involved with the part of my life that not even I want anything to do with.”

  There are tears in her eyes as she looks up at me. “Nirveek is a D’C Lackey. Loyal to Gabriel, not to Cain. You’re afraid of that name because he has blood on his hands. Because he’s the one your brother turns to when someone needs to be buried without the body having a chance to be found.”

  I nod. How would she know that?

  “He was in the car with Cain the night you saw him,” Janey continues.

  “Janey, please…”

  “You’re my first love, Kace. I’m not going to lose my life trying to protect you. But I’m also not going to lose you because I refused to fight.”

  “Janey, don’t get involved in this. I’m begging you.”

  “I’m already involved, Kace. Stone Rich Bridge. Later today, my father will ask you some questions. That’s the answer you give.”

  “Janey,” I call after her, more confused than I’ve ever been in my whole goddamn life.

  She smiles and knocks against the door. “You’re gonna be free, Kace,” she throws over her shoulder as the guard leads her out of the room.

  41

  Janey

  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I stalked Kace all the way to Kensington. Didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I suggested Kace should stay in my car. Or when I snuck him into my room. When I allowed him to kiss me. Taste me. Touch me. Make love to me.

  What I do know, however, is that I’m in deep. Too deep to turn my back on him. Too stubborn to know when to call it quits. Kace was right about one thing, I have no right sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. And against the steel muscles and even tougher ammunition people like Lucas and Cain pack, I don’t stand a chance. But I’ve always got one thing going for me, and it’s the very thing that I intend on using right now to get just what I want. My smarts. And maybe a hint of stupidity.