by Becca Steele
“Okay. Well, it all started with my dad…”
I told her the entire story, holding nothing back—why I’d come to Alstone, the reason the Four had been so hostile to me to begin with, and our suspicions about my mother. Throughout it all, Kinslee sat, a stunned expression on her face, her eyes filling with tears as I spoke about my dad, widening as I recounted meeting Petr, and then narrowing in anger as I got to the final part, where I’d stupidly decided to go to the docks alone.
“If you weren’t so bruised still, I’d throttle you for being so careless with your own safety. Seriously, Winter. You’re lucky that nothing worse happened to you.”
“Kins. Not now.” Cass frowned at her, and she sat back in her seat with a huff.
The Four took it in turns to recount their side of the events, glossing over the details of their evening at Alstone Members Club, and concentrating on how they’d received my message when they’d left, and come to find me straight away. I added how I’d driven to the docks and seen the boat and the three figures, and someone had hit me over the head.
When I recounted my time in the basement room, and my experience with my captor, the atmosphere in the room grew strained, to put it mildly. Caiden pulled me onto him and banded his arms around my waist, tension rolling off him in waves. Zayde flicked his knife open and closed, over and over, his jaw clenched, and Weston stood, pacing up and down, his eyes darkening. His expressive face showed everything he was feeling—fury, worry, helplessness—they were all there.
“What we need to know now is, what the fuck is going on at the docks.” Cassius slammed his hand down on the table, making me jump, and my head started pounding again.
“And more importantly, who hurt Winter,” Caiden said in a low voice, close to my ear, speaking through gritted teeth. “Make them fucking pay.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to get those answers. Just add it to the ever-growing pile of questions.” I sighed, rubbing my temples.
“You’ve got me to help, now. If you’ll have me.” Kinslee spoke up. “I don’t know how much I can do, but from everything you’ve told me, I can’t sit back. I need to help. I could always speak to my brother, since he worked at the docks last summer?”
“That’s not a bad idea, y’know.” West flashed her a grin, and she smiled back, pleased.
“How do you feel about looking at gory pictures?” Z suddenly asked me out of nowhere.
“Huh? What do you mean?” I frowned, turning to face him.
“My contact forwarded me a photo of the dead guy we found at the docks. His face is…damaged…” he said, carefully. “But if you can cope with the blood and gore, you might be able to work out if it’s the same guy that held you captive.”
“If it helps us, I’ll look.”
He nodded, sliding his phone across the table to me.
Fuuuuck.
Damaged was so not the word I’d use.
My stomach rolled as I studied the image of the body, his head completely smashed in, his face almost unrecognisable. Steeling myself, I zoomed in on the photo, trying to avoid looking at the worst bits, concentrating on the intact parts.
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I think that’s him. The hair is the same. And what I can see of the clothes.”
“So if that’s him, who rescued you?” Kinslee spoke the question I was sure we were all wondering.
“Another one to add to the list.” I shrugged, sliding the phone back to Zayde.
As if the nausea from looking at that image wasn’t enough, a sudden zing of pain shot through my head, and I bit my lip to stifle a groan. Caiden didn’t miss it, though. “You need your painkillers,” he stated. Moving me back to my own seat, he pushed back his chair, the legs scraping against the floor, and headed out of the kitchen. He reappeared a couple of minutes later with two tablets, which I swallowed with my Coke.
“I need to rest. Sorry, I feel really wiped out.” I rubbed my head again. “I thought I was okay, but I guess not.”
“You can’t expect to recover that quickly. You had a traumatic head injury, not to mention all that bruising on your face. You were out of it for almost five days straight.” Cass gave me a severe look. “We’re not gonna let you do anything except rest and recover, until you’re back to normal.”
“But—”
He held up a hand. “Sorry, we already agreed. Kinslee, too.”
I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. They really did care about me. In such a short space of time, the people in this room had become the most important people in my life. “Thanks,” I managed to say.
“C’mon.” Caiden pulled me to my feet, and we headed into the lounge, where he set me up on the sofa under a blanket. He then crossed to the door and spoke to someone on the other side, then closed it firmly behind us.
Time to have the conversation I’d been dreading. I could only hope that Caiden believed me.
SEVEN
Returning to me, Caiden sank down next to me on the sofa and turned to meet my eyes, his stormy gaze troubled, torn between concern and the clear need to know what had gone down with me and James. “You up to talking? I asked the others to leave us alone for a while.”
“Yeah. Listen, I was in the library, and James tried to kiss me. I pushed him away as soon as I recovered from the shock. I don’t know what’s going on, but…” My voice trailed off as I stared at him. “Cade? You do believe me, don’t you?”
He scrubbed a hand across his face, and the hesitation before he answered told me everything. Everything I didn’t want to hear.
He exhaled heavily, staring straight ahead. “I want to. I mean, I do. Look, you have to understand how fucking bad that video looked. I see my girl all over Granville, hugging him and touching his face, then the next minute, you’re kissing him.”
“Are you serious right now? Don’t you trust me?” I couldn’t help the frustration, and yeah, anger, that bled through my tone.
He was silent for a long moment, his eyes meeting mine again, just looking at me, letting his walls down so I could see the torment in his eyes. A pain started in my chest, spreading the longer he remained silent, and I dug my nails into my palms to give myself something to concentrate on to stop myself from crying.
“Fuck…Winter. It’s not— I find it hard to trust,” he finally admitted in a low, defeated voice, and my eyes filled with tears.
“Caiden. Do you want to be with me? Like in a real relationship?” I leaned closer to him, watching him intently as all his emotions played out on his face.
“Yeah.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “If we don’t have trust, what do we have? How can we have a relationship if you won’t let yourself trust me?”
He closed his eyes, his jaw tightening. “I don’t know. Fuck.”
I steeled myself. It was clear he needed to get things straight in his own head. “I-I think we should take a step back and re-evaluate things. Just be friends for now. Maybe it’s better if we just concentrate on getting to the bottom of whatever’s going on with my mother.”
His eyes flew open, and he looked at me, his expression shuttered. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s not what I want, but if you can’t trust me, we can’t have anything real, or solid.” Somehow I managed to get the words out without my voice cracking, even though they broke me to say them. I’d thought he trusted me, especially since he’d told me about his mum, something that was personal and clearly still haunted him. Maybe he’d even thought he trusted me. I could deal with his possessiveness, and his jealousy, but now the incident with James had happened, and if he was doubting what I was telling him, then it proved just how fragile that trust was.
If he couldn’t trust me, then we couldn’t be together.
“Fuck.” He took a deep breath, bringing his hands up to cup my face. “Listen. I want you, but I can’t help the way I feel.” Clenching his jaw, he bit out, “I still feel fucking rage every time I think of his hands on
you. You’ve got history together. Rationally, I know you’re not lying to me, but…” He trailed off and shrugged helplessly.
“Okay. I can’t do anything more to change your mind, you know that, right? You need to decide you can trust me.” I leaned forward, kissing him softly on the lips, trying so hard not to lose it, my vision clouding as my eyes filled with tears. “Friends, then? For now?”
“I…” He sighed, defeated. “I guess so, yeah.” His voice was low and unhappy. “Friends it is.” He ran his thumb lightly across my cheek, placed a kiss to the bruise that was still prominent on my cheekbone, then he got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Snowflake,” he gritted out, and then he was gone.
As soon as the door closed behind him, I breathed in and out deeply, counting under my breath, suppressing the misery that was trying to rise to the surface. I didn’t want to give anyone yet another reason to worry about my well-being.
And I still held out hope.
Hope that Caiden would realise that he could trust me. Maybe this would be the push he needed. Somehow, that broody man had worked his way under my skin, and I couldn’t give up on him. On us.
Weston sauntered into the room, took one look at my face, and his own face fell. “Do you need me to kick the shit out of my brother?”
I snorted, despite myself. “You think you could take him?”
“Easy.” He winked at me, then flopped down on the sofa and lifted his arm. “C’mere.” I curled into his side and relaxed against him, listening to his steady heartbeat, letting him soothe me. Kinslee joined us, sitting on my other side. She was quickly followed by Cassius, who grabbed the remote, and soon we were all engrossed in a movie. I felt safe here, in this secure house, with the Four and Kinslee. Right here, right now, I could pretend that everything was normal, that we were just friends spending time together, without any threats or danger hanging over us.
Tomorrow would come soon enough, but we’d face it. Together.
EIGHT
Not even three days later, and I’d temporarily moved into the Four’s house—into the guest room, to be exact. Not out of choice. If I’d thought it was bad when they were shadowing me everywhere before I really knew them, it was nothing compared to now. One of them accompanied me everywhere anytime I left the house.
They’d offered Kinslee a place to stay, too, but she was adamant that she’d be fine. I felt guilty, leaving her alone, but she’d brushed my concerns aside.
Still, I made sure that the hacked feed from the cameras facing her apartment building was monitored regularly, and Weston had installed his security app on her phone.
I was sitting with Weston in what I still called the “spy room,” playing with my shiny new phone. It had turned up in a box on my bed when I’d moved in. No note, but I had a feeling that Caiden may have been responsible. He hadn’t said anything, but I’d caught his pleased grin when he’d seen the phone in my hand, when we were all hanging out on the first night I’d stayed with the Four.
Dragging my attention from my phone screen, I focused on Weston as he showed me how to select and enlarge the various camera feeds, when his phone buzzed with a message. Glancing at it, his whole body tensed, and he leaned forwards, typing furiously on the keyboard until the image in front of him was replaced with a blank screen with a blinking cursor in the top right corner.
“What are you doing?”
He typed in a string of letters and symbols that made no sense to me, and a login screen appeared. “Dark web. Mercury wants to speak to me.”
Mercury. My heart skipped a beat, and I hoped with everything in me that this meant he had information for us.
“I might be a while. You wanna get a drink, or something?” He flashed me a quick smile, before returning his focus to the screen.
“Good idea.” I left him to it, knowing how engrossed he’d be and trusting him to update me with everything afterwards. Heading into the lounge, I picked up my own laptop and started working on an assignment I was partway through. I couldn’t concentrate, though. I’d been cooped up in this house for the past two days, and after I’d managed to write a grand total of five words after staring blankly at the screen for fifteen minutes, I closed the laptop lid with a bang.
I had to get out of here. Get some fresh air. Go somewhere.
“Winter.” Zayde appeared in the doorway, leaning on the wooden frame, the shiny red helmet I’d worn on his bike before dangling from his fingers. His voice was slightly muffled by the skull bandana covering his mouth, and I raised a brow. “Coming?” He threw the helmet to me, then strolled away without a backwards glance.
“Where are we going?” I jumped to my feet, hurrying after him, no idea where we were going, but the need to get out of the house overrode everything else. He didn’t answer me, of course, just stopped to grab his own helmet and leather jacket from next to the front door.
I picked up my jacket, zipping it up tightly and lifted the helmet to place it over my head. Then I remembered.
“Z?” He turned his head to face me, his gaze blank, as usual. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go on your bike. Um…the doctor said I shouldn’t do stuff like that until I was recovered.” He didn’t respond, and I hurried to continue. “I mean, I think I’m fine, now. I just… I probably shouldn’t risk it.”
His expression didn’t change, but he dropped the helmet he was holding onto the console table by the door, and swiped Caiden’s car keys from the hook on the wall. I followed his lead, placing my own helmet down, and heading out of the front door behind him.
Flying along the coast road in Caiden’s Audi R8, I felt the tension drain from me as I revelled in the feeling of freedom. Yeah, it was an illusion at best, but at this moment in time, I was making the most of it.
The car slowed as we neared a turning onto a small road that sloped down to a car park, next to a small sandy beach littered with pebbles. We came to a stop at the bottom, facing the road, and Zayde unclipped his seatbelt, turning to look out of the window. I followed suit, pushing my dark sunglasses up on top of my head.
“Now what?”
He remained facing the road. “We wait.”
Exiting the R8, I took a seat on the low stone wall that edged the car park, dangling my feet over the edge, watching the sea lapping against the rocks. I’d only ever seen it angrily clashing against the cliff face—here, though, it felt calmer, less deadly. I turned to watch Zayde as he climbed out of the car, then prowled around aimlessly, kicking up dust and small stones with his boots, his bandana pulled down and a joint dangling from his lips.
His head shot up as the low purr of an engine sounded, and I followed his line of sight, spinning to face the road as a large black SUV rumbled down the slope and came to a stop in front of him.
The passenger window rolled down, and Zayde flicked away the stub of his joint, grinding the remains under his boot, and leaned into the car, effectively blocking my view before I could catch a glimpse of the occupants. He spoke in a low voice for a few minutes, then stepped back as the driver’s-side door opened.
A hooded figure climbed out, tall and intimidating. I could barely make out his face under the hood, the dusky sky making it even harder, but then he started heading towards me, and I launched to my feet, brushing the grit from my palms.
“This is new.” The stranger pushed back his hood enough to expose his features. My eyes flew to his—glittering, almost golden in colour and framed with thick lashes, popping against his rich bronze skin. A small scar ran across his left cheekbone, although I barely noticed it, his bright gaze holding me captive.
As I studied him, his lips curved into a grin, softening his harsh features. “Z never brought a girl before. You must be the one causing all the trouble, I take it?”
I returned his grin with a wry smile. “Yeah, you could say that. I’m Winter, Winter Huntington.”
“Creed.” He clasped my hand briefly, then stepped away. “I’ve got news for you.”
Who was he? My g
aze darted between him and Zayde, but I kept my mouth shut as he continued.
“We couldn’t ID the body, but we have this.” He handed Zayde a clear Ziploc bag, which he quickly pocketed, but not before I saw a flash of red and the gleam of something metallic inside. “My boys have been keeping eyes on the docks, but security’s been stepped up since the guard went missing. As far as we know, no one knows you were there, and I suggest you keep it that way. Lay low for a while, yeah?”
Zayde nodded once. “Cheers. Appreciate it.”
Creed inclined his head, then started backing towards his car. “We’ll be in touch if we find anything else.” He called to me as he reached his door. “Winter. Pleasure to meet you.”
I gave him an awkward wave/salute thing, mentally rolling my eyes at myself, then turned back to Caiden’s R8. Once we were both settled in our seats, Zayde powered up the engine, and we left the car park behind, speeding along the darkening roads, back towards Alstone.
“House meeting in five.” Cassius poked his head around the door frame of the kitchen, where I was finishing up my assignment, perched on a stool at the island, Spotify playing softly in the background.
“House meeting?”
Cassius nodded. “Yeah, Got to divide up the chores.”
“What?” I stared at him, confused.
“Not really. We pay people to do the chores. All the cleaning shit, anyway.” He gave me a cheeky grin, and I was reminded of how different our lives were. Or not, I guess, since I now lived here for the foreseeable future.
“I’m always happy to do my share of everything. You know that.” Swinging myself off the stool, I picked up my glass of water, ready to head into the lounge.
“Yeah, I know. I’m only fucking with you.” Cassius watched as I came to a halt in front of him, then pulled me into a hug, sending my water sloshing out of the side of my glass and onto his bare chest. “Fuck, that’s cold.” He shivered, laughing and pulling me closer, rubbing his torso into me so my top soaked up the droplets.