by Paula Cox
“I haven’t—”
“Again,” Bennie growled out, cutting her off sharply, “save it. I know.”
“How?” Alyssa asked. She said it defiantly, but she was also genuinely curious. “How could you possibly know?”
“I have my sources, and I have my ways.”
Alyssa stared at him in suspicion, and then realization finally hit. “You had him followed, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And you, too. I know he was here last night. I also know you’ve paid a certain other Wheeler a visit earlier this morning.”
Alyssa swallowed hard. “Mr. Wheeler doesn’t know anything,” she said. And how disappointingly true that was! She couldn’t believe she was in this awful predicament because of something that had turned out to be a huge waste of time.
“I know he doesn’t,” Bennie said. “He and Prince haven’t spoken in years. But you didn’t know that. What’s you’re angle, Alyssa? What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” Alyssa said. She prayed she hadn’t said it too quickly. “I’m up to nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Bennie spat. “You want him back, don’t you? Prince?”
“No.”
“Good,” Bennie said, even though it was all too clear that he didn’t believe her. “Because you can’t have him, you’d better get it into your thick skull right now.”
There was a savagery in his eyes and brimming underneath the surface of his voice, past the anger and the fury. She was very, very scared, and she didn’t feel any shame over admitting that to herself; she would have to be crazy not to be afraid of him right now.
“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next,” Bennie said. “You are going to board a flight to Canada, and once you get there you’re going to stay there. If you ever, absolutely have to come back to Pinebrook because of your parents’ affair or whatever the fuck goes on in your life, you are going to pretend that Prince Wheeler doesn’t exist. In fact, Prince Wheeler is dead to you starting now.”
Alyssa didn’t know what possessed her at that point, but all of a sudden she couldn’t take it anymore. The threats, the intimidation, the rage… Alyssa was angry, and in a split second, she decided that Bennie Lenday was going to see just how furious she was.
“No,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “He isn’t. Now get away from me and get out of my house. And once you’re out, stay out.”
Bennie Lenday didn’t move. He looked as though he had turned to stone. Alyssa couldn’t tell if he was trying to come to terms with her abrupt rebellion or if he was struggling to keep his infamous temper in check and not explode in her face.
They say that you’re not supposed to look a predator in the eye, because they’ll feel challenged and they will attack. And that was exactly what happened. Bennie Lenday attacked.
He stepped forward and grabbed Alyssa by the throat, pushing her so that the small of her back slammed against the counter. She let out a gasp of surprise, and before she knew it, she found herself immobilized and with a very limited air supply. Bennie’s crazed eyes were only a few inches apart, and her heart was slamming against her ribcage so hard and fast and furious that she could almost hear it.
“You are a very stupid bitch, Alyssa Kelley,” he growled in her face. His features were a mask of fury.
In the instant that he let go of her throat, he lifted his other hand. His open palm smacked hard across her face and Alyssa went flying. She crashed to the floor, and it took her a few moments to regain her bearings. She was bleeding from her nose, the blood running down her face and into her mouth. It tasted like iron and humiliation.
Bennie was towering over her, even taller with fury.
“This is my second friendly warning,” he spat. “If you choose to ignore this one too, the next time I can promise you I won’t be so kind.”
He stood still for a few moments, looking down at her with disgust written all over his face.
“Also,” he said, “you should know the only reason I haven’t killed you yet is out of respect for your father. But that only buys you so much time. You’d better keep that in mind.” He spat on her floor, the ultimate gesture of utter contempt. “I’d start packing if I were you.”
He left her there, bleeding and confused on the floor of her parents’ kitchen.
*****
It took her a long time to drag herself up. Tears of humiliation were streaking down her cheeks, and the pain she felt had little to do with her wounds.
She stumbled to her feet and to the kitchen’s sink, spitting blood and saliva into the basin. Before she knew what was happening, her stomach rebelled to all the tension and she was dry heaving in that same sink, her whole body shivering.
Her head was spinning with the remains of terror and with dazed thoughts that chased each other within the walls of her skull. She had been very stupid in underestimating Bennie’s threats and, more importantly, the tools at his disposal. Pinebrook was his. Did she really think he wouldn’t find out? Did she really think Prince could come to her in the middle of the night and no one would notice?
Stupid, she thought dazedly. So fucking stupid.
If anything though, this latest visit from Bennie Lenday convinced her that Prince needed to get out of there, and that he needed to be gone soon. She wasn’t a fortune teller, but she knew his fortune would be non-existent. She wasn’t a psychic, but she knew his future would be short-lived. It was only a matter of time before Prince got killed—whether in a fight or by the Devil’s Fighters themselves—and chances were that time was running out.
Still shivering, Alyssa grabbed a clean cloth and pressed it against her still bleeding nose. She stumbled to the kitchen’s table and sat down heavily on one of the chairs. Her hands were trembling—hell, her whole body was trembling. She knew she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t do what Bennie “asked.” She couldn’t hop on a plane and leave Prince behind. She had never realized just what madmen he had to deal with until now. Things had never looked so crystal clear before.
Bennie Lenday was a madman, a sociopath, and a murderer—and it was only a matter of time before that savage nature of his turned on Prince more fiercely than it already had when he had recruited him to fight in his rings.
Alyssa’s heart was still beating a mile a minute. She was terrified, but the more the minutes ticked by the more that fear morphed until it ceased being about Bennie Lenday. She was still afraid—terrified, in fact—but now she was afraid for Prince. She was terrified and horrified for him. She no longer cared what he thought. She no longer cared what he would do once he found out she had been to his father earlier that day and inadvertently revealed his big secret to the old man. Let him hate her if he had to. All Alyssa cared about at this moment was getting him out of Pinebrook and this pseudo-life he was living—no matter the cost.
The only trouble was, she still didn’t know how to go about it. Bennie’s visit had proven to her that he was much more dangerous than she had first imagined—which really was saying a lot—and that she didn’t quite have the tools to challenge him openly. Hell, she didn’t even have the tools to challenge him indirectly, seeing as how he had seen right through it at record speed.
She didn’t have a clue how to go against Benedict “Bennie” Lenday and his Devil’s Fighters. All she knew was that she had to do it, and she knew now that it was vital that Prince get on board. She just couldn’t do it alone.
A knock at the front door made her jump out of her reverie and nearly out of her skin. Her heart, which was just beginning to slow its erratic beating down to a normal cadence, picked up the pace again. Alyssa swallowed hard. The thought that Bennie Lenday may have forgotten something chilled her to the bone.
Chapter Twenty-One
The sight that greeted her when she finally gathered up the courage to open the door wasn’t of Bennie Lenday. It wasn’t even of Prince. It wasn’t of Lynn. It was of Rick. The man’s hazel eyes widened when he took in her appearance.
“Oh my God!” he cri
ed, appalled. “What happened to you?”
“I fell,” Alyssa said automatically.
She turned on her heels and went inside. She didn’t bother to tell him to come in; she didn’t have the energy. She heard the sound of the front door closing again and of his footsteps hurrying after her. She didn’t go to the kitchen; Lenday’s spit was still on the floor and she didn’t have the heart to clean it up right now—the humiliation was still burning too fiercely within her. Instead, she veered for the living room and once there let herself flop heavily down on the soft cushions of the couch.
Rick sat uncertainly next to her. “Can I get you some water or anything?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He lifted a dark blond eyebrow. “Sure you are,” he said, his tone dripping with irony. “Seriously, darlin’, what happened?”
Alyssa shrugged. She watched him past the cloth she still held pressed up to her nose and instantly knew she couldn’t lie to this man; he would see right through her. Just like Prince, Rick had seen too much to be fooled that easily…possibly to be fooled at all.
“Promise you won’t tell Prince?”
“Scout’s honor,” Rick said immediately.
Alyssa suddenly felt like throwing up. “That’s what he said, too,” she said before she could stop herself. “When he said he just wanted to talk.”
“Who’s ‘he’, sweetheart?” Rick asked gently.
Alyssa hesitated. She took a deep breath. “Benedict Lenday.”
Rick’s eyes hardened at record speed. “Bennie was here?”
“He left just before you got here. I’m surprised you didn’t cross paths.”
“I’m coming from Prince’s,” Rick said absently. “I guess I came from the opposite direction.”
“How is he?” Alyssa asked.
Rick shrugged. “Confused as hell. You’ve got quite a hold on him, girl.”
Despite the circumstances, Alyssa felt herself blush.
“So Bennie did that to you?” Rick asked, nodding to her bleeding nose and the bruise that was rapidly blossoming across her right cheekbone.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Alyssa blew out a frustrated puff of breath. “He came to tell me I should go back to Canada and act like Prince doesn’t exist.”
“And I’m guessing you weren’t too happy with that?”
“Yeah,” Alyssa said quietly. “I told him I wasn’t going to do it.”
Rick cringed. “Bad move.”
Alyssa’s eyes flared. “Well, I’m not going to do it,” she growled fiercely.
Rick smirked and held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa. Easy there, tiger,” he said, chuckling. “I know you’re not. But Bennie didn’t need to know it.”
“Even if I had lied, he would’ve found out.”
“Yes,” Rick conceded, “but you would have bought yourself some time. And trust me, when you’re dealing with Bennie Lenday, time can be of the essence.”
Alyssa stared at him. “I get Prince told you about why I’m still in town?”
“He did.” Rick smirked. “He doesn’t like it either.”
Alyssa huffed. “I don’t care if he likes it or not. I’m getting him out of here. Period.”
Rick looked at her, impressed. “You’ve got balls,” he said. “That’s why I want to help you.”
Alyssa stared at him, intrigued. “How?”
“I don’t know yet,” Rick admitted. “But I came by to tell you that you have an ally. Possibly even an inside man,” he said with a wink.
Alyssa gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
Rick nodded and reached out to take her hand, squeezing in support. A comfortable silence descended upon them.
“You’re not going to tell Prince what happened with Bennie, are you?” she asked after a few moments, breaking that silence.
“I think I should,” Rick nodded. “I mean, think about it,” he said quickly when Alyssa opened her mouth to protest. “It’s perfect.”
Alyssa frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s mad at you right now, isn’t he? He’s trying to push you away, right?”
“Yeah,” Alyssa said gloomily, scowling as she remembered her fight with Prince from the previous night. “So?”
“So, I’m pretty sure that if he knew you were hurt, he’d come rushing over in a second. And that’s exactly what we want, isn’t it? You can’t save him if he’s not around.”
Alyssa thought about it. It sounded reasonable enough, and yet she was unconvinced. “I don’t like it,” she admitted after a moment. “Who’s to say he won’t get pissed off and confront Bennie? That could get him killed.”
Rick had begun shaking his head even before she had finished her sentence. He gave her a small, bitter smile. “Believe me, Prince isn’t that stupid. We know how to deal with Bennie by now.”
Alyssa cringed. She didn’t want to imagine how they had learned. “All right,” she finally said, relenting. “You can tell him…I guess.”
Rick’s smile broadened. “You’ll see, he’ll be back here in no time.”
“And then what?” Alyssa asked, feeling weary and disheartened all over again. “He doesn’t want to be saved. He acts as though he doesn’t think it can be done, or as if he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.”
“I guess it’s a little of both,” Rick admitted. “But that’s also where you come in to play. You need to change his mind. You need to make him see that he can be saved and, most importantly, that he deserves it.”
Alyssa arched an eyebrow. “Most importantly?” she repeated. She wasn’t sure she shared Rick’s priorities. To her, the most important thing was to get Prince out of there. Whether or not he thought he deserved to get out was something they could work on later.
“Self-esteem is everything,” Rick said, and he looked and sounded like he believed it. “Until he thinks he deserves it, he’s not going to let you take him anywhere, even if you find a way.”
Alyssa thought about it. It made sense…sort of. It made sense given the circumstances and given the damage that eight years of living like he had lived must have done to Prince’s psyche, as well as to his body.
She nodded her understanding.
“So why are you here?” she asked then.
“I came by to ask you not to give up on him,” Rick said. “But I see I didn’t need to worry about that.”
“No,” Alyssa said fiercely, “you didn’t.”
Rick stayed for a short while after that. He insisted to return part of the favor she had done him when she had patched him by helping her clean up. After that, he was gone, claiming “club business”…a sentence that sent shivers down the whole length of her spine.
Now that she was alone in the house, she locked both the front and back door and went upstairs. She stopped by the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. The bruises were already evident. She would be black and blue by the next day, and she had no idea how she was going to explain that to Lynn. There was no way she could avoid her until she was completely healed, but there was also no way she could tell her the whole story. Even if Lynn had offered to help her, she was still very reluctant to involve her in her rescue plans for Prince.
She wondered what would happen now. She wondered if Rick was right, if Prince was really going to rush over to make sure she was all right—which she wasn’t, by the way. It was barely noon, and already she felt like she was ready to go to bed and call it a day.
She wondered if her being hurt would be enough for Prince to forgive her for “outing” him to his father. She wondered if he would care that Bennie had threatened her so strongly this time. And then she shook her head, because she was being stupid. Of course Prince would care. He thought he could cover up everything and anything, but Alyssa could still see right through him when it came to certain things.
She couldn’t pinpoint the moment when she
had first figured it out, but she was sure he had never stopped loving her, just as she had never stopped loving him. Prince was still in love with her, and the only reason why he was pushing her away was to protect her. Alyssa knew this, and she wasn’t going to let him.
Still, even with the fact that she had just found a new ally in Rick, she was beginning to feel doubtful about her chances. Rick seemed to think that it could be done, that she could really get Prince out of Pinebrook. But Alyssa was starting to have her doubts. She couldn’t even go behind Bennie’s back for two days. How was she supposed to sneak one of his own away without him noticing?