by Bella Jewel
“I don’t cook often,” he admits, flashing me a dazzling smile. “But, this is one dish I can get right. Teriyaki chicken stir-fry. I hope you like it.”
I put my fork in and take a mouthful of the delicious smelling food to find it’s equally as good as it smells. I moan and close my eyes, chewing. When I swallow my first bite, I open my eyes and look to him. He’s smiling at me, a gentle expression on his face. “That’s the best stir-fry I’ve tasted.”
“Thank you.”
We both eat in silence, and when we’re done, I help him clean up the dishes before heading out to my car to get home. He walks me out, and I thank him profusely for letting me come over tonight and learn so much from him.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Zariah. Thank you for your hard work.”
“Thank you for having me,” I beam. “It is such an honor.”
“It’s no trouble at all. You’re incredible to have around.”
Our eyes lock and, in that moment, I know he’s going to kiss me. There is an expression men get on their faces when they are ready to make a move. It’s like a soft, lusty, masculine look that screams their intentions. I take a staggered breath and tell myself to look away so he doesn’t get the wrong idea, but before I can do that, he’s leaning in toward me.
His lips touch mine and, for a moment, I’m stunned.
Not horrified in any way, but stunned.
His lips coax at mine, and I find myself responding even though I know I shouldn’t. He smells great, he’s handsome, and he’s kissing me with a softness I can’t honestly say I’ve felt before. The kiss deepens and our tongues dance together as our kiss goes from being caressing to sexual. His hands slide to my lower back and he pulls me closer, deepening the kiss, pressing my body to his.
I whimper and pull away before this can go any further.
I can’t risk complicating things with this.
Even though I will admit it feels nice.
Good, even.
My mind flitters to Kendric and the intense way he fucks me. He doesn’t kiss me. He barely touches me. He just takes me and brings me to heights I could never imagine.
Steven wouldn’t fuck like that.
He’s the kind of man who makes love to you. Who showers you with gifts and kindness. Who keeps you safe forever. He’s the man most women want.
Yet that very thing terrifies a woman like me.
“We shouldn’t,” I breathe, looking up at him. “I don’t want to complicate things ...”
“I understand,” he murmurs, his voice low and husky. “I do like you, Zariah.”
“I like you, too.”
“Have a safe drive home.”
He steps away, and I flash him a smile before slipping into my car and starting my drive home.
Well, one thing’s for sure ... That was an incredibly interesting night.
I’M LYING IN MY BED when I remember the photo I took on my phone. By the time I got home, put Jayden to bed, had a shower, and got into my own bed, I had forgotten about the picture. I take my phone from the bedside table and go into my gallery, finding the picture. It’s slightly blurred because it was dark where I was, but I pinch the screen and zoom in anyway. What I see has shivers running down my spine. I didn’t get the chance to read what was on the wall. I simply took a picture and then had to quickly put the boxes back.
I didn’t expect what I am seeing now.
On the wall, scratched in deeply, is a name, date, and a small piece of writing.
The name is Sophia Retland, the date is about three years ago, and the small piece of writing says, “I’ve been in here three years. He’ll never let me go. I will die here.”
My heart launches into my throat, and I feel sick.
I put my phone down and sit upright in bed, clutching my chest, fear, confusion and panic settling into my body.
Maybe this isn’t what it seems. Maybe it was there before he purchased the house. When did he say he purchased it? Five years ago. He said five years ago. No, this can’t be happening. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with him being involved in capturing and selling girls. There was nothing else in his house to indicate that. Nothing at all.
This has to be a mistake.
It has to be.
My head spins as I zoom in and out of the picture, certain I must be seeing things. Deep down, I know I’m not. I know that this doesn’t have another explanation. What other explanation could there be? Someone was stuck down in that basement, locked away from the world. They put that on the wall so maybe, just maybe, someone would find it. Someone would know. Does Steven even know it’s there? Or has he got those boxes in front of it for a reason?
If I wasn’t looking as hard as I was, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
Anyone just walking through that basement would never notice, because they wouldn’t be looking. I was searching the walls, looking for clues.
I stumbled across that by chance.
I pick up my phone, my hands trembling. So many things are running through my mind right now. This man is quite possibly the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, mostly because he feels like he’s the safest, which means he absolutely is not. That thought is terrifying. None of it makes sense to me. Why would he risk so much, to do illegal things? His whole world is based around bringing down criminals.
Why would he do this?
I don’t understand.
Alarick was right, though. He’s the only one I can go to with this information now. The club will be the only people that might help. Before I call him, though, I search Sophia’s name on Google. Her picture comes up immediately as a missing person. She went missing about a month before the date on the wall, and to this day, she is still missing. Her family has quite a large reward on offer for her safe return.
She wasn’t a junkie from the streets with a bad life.
This girl looked loved.
She has a family that want her home.
Whoever took her, they did it for personal reasons. There is no way she was just taken and sold—no way. The whole idea of what they do is to take girls with no family, no friends, and no life so that nobody tracks them down. Was Sophia a mistake? Was she someone they thought didn’t have a family? Why did they take her? Why was she different? I don’t understand.
My mind is absolutely spinning.
I dial Alarick.
It’s late, but I don’t care.
“Zariah,” he answers, his voice groggy.
“I need to see you. Right now.”
“What happened?”
“I just need to see you. I’ll meet you at the club in ten minutes.”
I hang up the phone, get out of bed, and change from my pajamas. I go into Jayden’s room, saddened that I have to wake him up, but I need to go see Alarick now. Luckily for me, when I walk in, he’s awake and sitting in his bed. Jayden is a night owl and often plays for a good few hours before falling asleep. He never cries, or screams, he just sits happily.
He’s quite an incredible child.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, walking in and lifting him out of his bed. “Want to go for a ride in the car?”
“Car!” he cries happily, leaning down for his toy truck.
I carry him to the car and put him in, then I make my way to the club. I arrive about fifteen minutes later and see the lights are on and there are quite a few people still up. I don’t love the idea of taking Jayden in here, but I have no choice. I get out of the car, hold Jayden’s hand, and walk into the clubhouse. We get stopped quite a lot walking through the living area, and Jayden loves the attention he receives.
We reach Alarick’s office, and I open the door, stepping inside to see he is already here with Briella, Samson, Cohen, Bohdi and, of course, Kendric. I didn’t ask him to invite half the club, but I also don’t have time to worry about it. Briella looks at Jayden and her eyes light up. “Aww, you brought him. Hey, little man.”
He goes over to her, his little face lightin
g up. He likes Briella, and she adores him. She picks him up and tells me she’ll take him for a walk so I can talk to Alarick. When she’s gone, I turn to the group and exhale slowly, then I take in a deep breath and tell them what I found tonight. “You were all right. Steven is involved. I found something on his wall in the basement tonight.”
I pull out my phone, going to the picture, and I hand it to Alarick. Everyone gathers around him and, as he zooms in, his eyes widen. He shows the other guys and then looks up at me. “This was in his house?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “In his basement, scratched onto a wall. It was hidden behind some old boxes. I wouldn’t have found it if I wasn’t looking. But ... I found a note in his car today and I just needed to check to make sure he wasn’t involved. I truly didn’t think he was and ...”
Alarick glances at the phone again, and then looks to Cohen. “I fuckin’ knew it.”
“What do we do now?” Cohen asks, all of our eyes on Alarick.
“Fuck. Fuck. This is huge. We have our in, he trusts Zariah. The only problem is gettin’ the info we need. If we fuck this up again ...”
“I go to fuckin’ prison,” Kendric murmurs.
I nod. “We’re not going to stuff this up, we’re going to figure it out, but we can’t do it right now. I just had to show you.”
“Write down his address, we might be able to find somethin’ now we know where he lives,” Alarick suggests.
I nod and walk over to the desk, taking a piece of paper and a pen. As I’m scribbling the address, I notice some handwritten notes scattered on Alarick’s desk. Notes with a very familiar style. I pick one up and glance at it. It’s written in the same handwriting as the note I found in Steven’s car earlier. I spin around, holding the paper up. “You left the note in his car?”
Alarick, who is talking to Samson, turns to me and his eyes fall on mine. He looks to the note, and then back to me again.
“You’re in on this,” I whisper. “All along, it has been you ...”
My heart is racing as I toss the note down, backing up, glancing at them all. Do I know any of these men? Why else would that note be in Steven’s car, in Alarick’s handwriting, if they didn’t have something to do with this? Is it all a set up?
“Zariah, it’s not what you think. We’re not workin’ with him.”
“Then tell my why that note was in the car!” I yell, my hand flinching toward a gun that isn’t there because I’m not in uniform.
“I put it there,” Kendric says, his voice hard. “I put it there because you didn’t believe us. You refused to look into Blanche and we were runnin’ out of time. We knew if you saw that note, it would put doubt into your mind and all it would take was for your cop brain to kick in and you’d start snooping. We were right.”
I feel like my whole world is spinning, like I’ve been slapped in the face over and over again. They used me. They set me up. They didn’t trust that I could get them out of this, so they used me to get what they wanted. Kendric, who has been fucking me, was going behind my back the entire time.
“You set me up?” I whisper, my heart aching, my whole world spinning.
“Not tryin’ to hurt you, Zariah,” Alarick tells me. “We were runnin’ out of time, as Kendric said.”
“You don’t trust me?” I say, my voice coming out angry.
“We do fuckin’ trust you,” Samson pipes in now. “But you’re a fuckin’ cop and you weren’t willin’ to look into one of your own, even though they’ve been behind all of this. We had no choice.”
“You could have let me do it my way!” I cry. “I was getting closer!”
“Too slowly,” Kendric says, his voice tight.
I look to him, so hurt. “You were using me.”
His eyes hold mine. His face is hard. “Never claimed I wasn’t.”
His words are crushing, they feel like a knife to my soul. Of course he was using me. He wanted me to trust him enough to let him in on my plans. Without them, they wouldn’t have been able to plant that note and get me to do their dirty work for them. They were never on my side, that much is crystal clear.
My whole world is crashing down around me, and it’s because of them.
People I thought I could trust.
“I’m done with all of you,” I say, a tear bursting forth and rolling down my cheek.
“Zariah,” Alarick says, his voice careful. “Gotta understand it’s not personal. We have been let down in the past, made some big fuckin’ mistakes that have affected our entire club. We can’t make those mistakes again. We can’t trust anyone. It’s got nothin’ to do with you and everything to do with makin’ sure my club is safe.”
“You tell yourself whatever you have to, Alarick,” I snap, my voice shaky. “In the end, the problem with your club is that you’ve got a rat. Have you even though more about that? Have you looked into it further? No, you’re sitting here, worrying about me when someone has probably been feeding information back this entire time. Don’t you dare thrust your excuses at me. You don’t trust me because I’m a cop. Plain and simple.”
Alarick’s face tightens.
“I’m done with you all. Good luck keeping him—” I jerk a finger at Kendric “—out of prison without my help. You’re already running out of time. Do you think you’re going to be able to get close enough to Blanche before the trial? I doubt it. I, however, can. I’ll figure this out on my own.”
I spin on my heel, fighting the tears, and rush toward the door.
“Zariah,” Alarick barks, and I pause, but don’t look back. “We fucked up. Get that. But we need you.”
I look back at him now. “You should have thought of that before you decided you didn’t trust me.”
My eyes meet Kendric’s, and my heart aches. It lurches in my chest in a way that makes me want to vomit. “You should be ashamed of yourself. All that talk about good men and who I raise my son around. One thing is for certain, I’m glad I’m not bringing him around you. I may have let you down when I didn’t stop those officers the night you were arrested, but I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t.”
For the first time since I’ve known him, his face cracks with something that could only be described as pain. Like I’ve punched him in the stomach. Good. Now he knows how I feel. Now he knows that what he just did to me feels like my insides are being ripped out. He used me. That’s one of the lowest acts. It takes a lot of balls to stand in front of someone and pretend like everything is okay, when deep down you’re plotting against them.
I walk out of the room, my heart heavy. I find Briella playing with Jayden out the back, and I walk over, trying to hold my tears in as I scoop down and pick up my son.
“Are you okay?” Briella asks, her eyes narrowed.
“Ask Alarick.”
With that, I leave.
For the final time.
17
ZARIAH
“You’re calling because Alarick has asked you to,” I say to Waverly the next day after she has been blowing up my phone with calls.
I know Alarick would have asked her to call me. After he called me, Kendric called me, Samson called me, Briella called me—I guess he figured I wasn’t going to answer. He has gone to the next best thing, my sister. He knows I won’t ignore her calls, because I would be worried something has happened to her. He would be right. I wouldn’t ignore her calls, which makes this convenient for him.
“He told me what happened,” she exhales. “I’m sorry. It’s not cool at all.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“You have to know that after what happened with me that they’re extra cautious. It doesn’t make it any better, I know that, but it’s not because they don’t trust you. They don’t trust anyone.”
“Stop defending them, Waverly. I know exactly why they did it, but the fact of the matter is that they don’t trust that I can get information for them. They set me up because I wasn’t playing their game as quickly as they wanted. They used me to get the
information they needed. I’ve been nothing but loyal to that club.”
“I know, I know you have. They need you though, Zariah. They are never going to get what they need without you.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“You like Kendric though ...”
I grit my teeth. I did tell her about Kendric, only briefly, but she can put two and two together.
“Kendric used me. He openly admitted to it.”
“He’s hurt, and he’s scared ...”
“Stop defending them, Waverly! Think for a god damned second how it made me feel to be fucked and used by a man who I’m trying to help, who I started to like and ...”
My voice cracks, and I force the tears threatening to burst forth back into their little cage. I clench my eyes shut, hold my breath, and do anything to make it go away.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were so hurt.”
“I’m not,” I mutter, my voice husky and broken. “I just need to get this finished so I can move on with my life away from them. I’m not going to let Kendric go to prison, I’m not a monster. I’ll find out what Blanche knows, but I’ll do it alone.”
“Honey, that’s not safe. It’s clear he’s dangerous. You’ll end up in trouble ...”
“I can handle myself.”
“Zariah ...”
“I have to go. Jayden is calling.”
I hang up the phone and feel immediately horrible about it. Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on the club for protecting themselves. I know I’m scorned. I liked Kendric and to find out he was just using me feels like a knife to my heart. It really hurts me in a way I’ve not experienced before, and I don’t like it. At all.
I shouldn’t take that out on Waverly, but right now ... I just need to focus.
A knock at my door has me forgetting the phone call for a second. I can only guess it would be someone from the club, but I might be wrong. I walk over and peer through a window to see Reece out front. He’s got something in his hands, papers of some sort, and he’s standing, waiting. When I don’t open the door, he knocks again.