Striding quickly down the hall, I ducked into the door Braddox had told me to get to and snapped it shut. I took a deep breath as my adrenaline ramped up. I turned into the group, narrowing my eyes as I scanned the room.
Multiple monitors lined the desk along the wall, stacked in an offset layering that made it easy to glance from screen to screen. The simple interface was purely set up for video and open circuit. Editing and uploading were pretty much the limitations of the system.
As I sat down, I scanned the work station. Pulling the box closer to me that Braddox had told me about, I grinned at the sight of USB drives and CDs. Exactly like he’d said. There was state-of-the-art equipment in there. Oh, the things I could do, if I had the time.
I couldn’t help the twinge of worry as it hit me just how much I’d trusted my brother by coming down to that room based on the mere things he’d claimed. What if he was setting me up for something? What if he was trying to pin something on me? I wouldn’t put it past him. Nothing he did was going to surprise me, not anymore.
Braddox wasn’t on my side. He’d never been on my side. The sooner I accepted that, the better off I’d be. I would be able to discern the truth from his deceit and that had to be more important to me than the possible relationship advances we were not making.
Braddox was proving himself an ass in more ways than one.
But for a minute, I didn’t mind the sensation that we worked together. That we might be getting to a better point with each other. It had been so long and he’d always been my best-friend. Was it really that bad for me to want us to have a relationship I could rely on again?
I pulled up the DOS screen and punched in some rudimentary commands. Braddox had mentioned the original file might have been deleted.
Breaking into the backend of the memory bank, I pulled up everything that had been on the computer in the last six months.
Picking out a 124-gigabyte thumb drive, I shoved its pinned end into the slot on the tower.
Transferring the files to the drive, I clicked through the items, noting their time stamps were all for the same time frame. Going back into the main folders, I transferred the hour blocks around the one of interest.
When I had a chance to peruse the videos that Braddox was interested in, I wanted to see the context. He was looking at the finite where I needed to see everything leading up to and following the events.
Right then was not the moment for me to look into things. I had no idea how long I had in there before someone caught me. Braddox had mentioned he’d be back after a couple hours. Why and what was he doing?
After everything was transferred, I removed that USB drive and tucked it into my jacket pocket which I zipped shut to secure it inside. Wait… my pockets were empty, except for my wallet in my back pocket.
Patting around in my hoodie and pants pockets, I took a deep breath. My phone was gone. I half-stood, patting my pants down completely. Yep, it was gone.
I hadn’t done anything with it that would have made it accidentally fall out.
Clenching my jaw, I sat back down in the chair and pulled out another USB drive from the box. This one had smaller memory access. I shoved it in the slot and transferred the edited video.
Something in my gut assured me I wasn’t wrong about my suspicions that Braddox had taken my phone. He had to have. There was no way it fell out in the car or on the bed. My pockets were more than halfway zippered.
Rather than let anyone else know what had happened that night or let Braddox have access to the videos at any point in the future, I deleted the files permanently from the hard drive, burning them out with a sealing program I coded with a few keystrokes.
The only reason Braddox would steal my phone would be because of Olivia. Thankfully, she’d claimed she was going to be at Stephanie’s for most of the night. I’d been tempted to go over there, but Braddox wouldn’t dare mess with Stephanie and Olivia when they both knew him well enough to figure out he wasn’t me.
I trusted Olivia to make the right decisions regarding Braddox. She’d been burned by him enough and in some of the worst ways. She wouldn’t be taken in by him again.
Our time together was coming, but I didn’t want to rush it. Especially since she’d felt like I was only into her for the physical part from the beginning. The sex was going to be amazing when we finally went that route, but I didn’t want to push her into something that was still too new for her. I got it. Plus, Braddox was a pushy bastard and the last thing I wanted to be was anything like him.
The physical attraction between us was pretty significant, but wasn’t the whole deal. She had to understand that and see it by now. I didn’t want to lose my chance with her because I pushed too hard. Like Braddox. Why did I keep coming back to that?
The screen beeped when it was finished, the sound soft and subtle in the silent room.
I didn’t even want to see what was going on in that room where Ryan was left unconscious. I knew Braddox wasn’t in there. That would have to be enough.
Also, Braddox had warned me about staying at Donnie’s house until morning. If Braddox wanted me to stay at the house, then that meant I needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
I couldn’t help wondering what Donnie had in mind for me when he finished with Ryan. He had to assume I was as passed out as the douchebag they’d drugged.
Donnie had no idea I was tipped off by Braddox. If he did, he probably wouldn’t have let either of us leave.
Clenching the other USB drive in my fingers, I ducked from the room. Glancing left and right down the hall, I continued walking toward the front of the house.
I didn’t know the nature of Donnie’s household. Were his parents there? Was I going to come up against some random security detail? What about maids or butlers? Anything was possible in West Shores and I wasn’t going to be stupid and think it wasn’t.
I zipped up my hoodie, tucking my hands into the pockets and moved as close to the walls as I could. Not a lot of lights were on and I moved carefully, making sure not to run into anything in the perimeter of the room.
A side table with a vase of flowers caught the light from outside. The rooms I passed through smelled of money and expense. Scented fresheners marked every room I crossed into. The cloying odors wrapped around me, mocking my lack of freedom and my attempts to flee.
When I finally reached the front door, I pushed open the panel on the right. A dinging sound filled the air, piercing and shrill while red lights flashed in a circular motion from a dome light overhead.
I didn’t wait around to see what happened next. Ducking out the door, I sprinted across the front yard, past the curbing and the red lava decorative rock, through the bushes and over a waist high fence.
A dog barked somewhere in the distance. My imagination went into overdrive and I could almost see a pack of dogs tearing after me. I pumped my arms harder, setting my jaw. I wasn’t going to get caught. Donnie had no right going after me, or holding me.
Reaching the road, I stopped short. Scanning the street and the surrounding yards was nearly impossible in the dark and the spaced-out streetlights only made things harder. Money bought you space but it also meant you had to provide your own security.
I could go back to Dad’s place but that wasn’t going to be safe since Braddox thought I was still at Donnie’s. Which brought up the question of where Braddox had gone with my phone. I couldn’t get that out of my head.
I narrowed my eyes and turned toward the east side of town. The west wasn’t going to be where I was safe. I hated that I had to leave Olivia alone without my protection, but she was at Stephanie’s. Her friend wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. I couldn’t go that way either. Stephanie needed time to adjust to what had happened with Ryan.
Plus, I didn’t want to drag either of the girls into the mess with Braddox and Donnie.
With no phone and no way to really do anything else, I had to find a place to hide out until morning. Better yet would be a place w
ith a computer where I could figure out just what it was Braddox wanted with the video.
Something was on there Donnie didn’t want Braddox to know or didn’t want Braddox to know he knew about. And Braddox wasn’t sharing with me what information he was looking for which only made me want it more. He wanted it enough, he was willing to trust me – somewhat.
I tucked into the shadows, mindful of every car that passed by – though there weren’t many – as I moved at a steady pace toward town.
One way or the other, I had to figure out what exactly had happened that night and I had to do it before I faced Braddox again. Handing over the copy I’d made of the edited clip wouldn’t hold him off. He’d do whatever it took to get the original files, I just wasn’t sure why he wanted it.
Hadn’t he already proven that by pretending to be on my side for the first time in years?
Mulling things over in my mind, I walked miles and miles. I finally reached the east side of Shores where most of the houses, apartments, and businesses were all dark with the early morning hour.
I passed buildings I’d become accustomed to, that had quickly become pieces of my home as I’d run around the east side of Shores trying to survive. The comfort of the poverty-stricken side of town was at a juxtaposition to what everyone expected. Money was supposed to bring comfort, but there was less betrayal, less nefarious activity, less overall cost associated with being poor.
I might have food at my dad’s and power and running water, but I couldn’t sleep fully knowing that my brother stalked the hallways and Olivia was his prey.
When I was just a block from Crenshaw’s, the truth hit me. Braddox wanted me occupied and stuck at Donnie’s so he could go after Olivia. He’d taken my phone.
He was the type of guy who would try to pass himself off as me.
Relief washed through me as I continued walking, closing the distance between Crenshaw’s and myself. I had nothing to worry about. Olivia would know it wasn’t me. She’d be able to tell the difference. I just wished I could be there when she slapped him.
She was feisty and I loved that about her. She didn’t back down when someone was doing something she didn’t agree with. That kind of courage was rare.
To think she’d chosen me. For some crazy reason, she’d picked me over Braddox, over all of the other guys she could have picked. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t going to take it for granted.
As I got closer to the business, the smell of smoke rode on the air. I picked up my pace. What was on fire? What was going on? There weren’t enough homes in that area for it to be a wood fire to stave off the chill of the spring night.
No, a business was on fire. Something in my gut told me it was Crenshaw’s. As I got closer, I could make out the billowing smoke as it worked its way upward into the dark sky, clouding the stars from view.
If Crenshaw was there, he’d be in back. While it was too late for business hours, he often stayed at the office when I wasn’t using it because his wife snored – or so he said. I think it was more that his wife was a busybody and usually had her sister over and they talked well into the night. Crenshaw loved his wife, but he loved the quiet more than he loved his sister-in-law.
Flames flickered through the barred front window and the smell of oil burning filled my nose. I turned my head, coughing at the acrid odor. Blinking at the irritating smoke, I rushed around back, holding up my arm as the heat of the flames struck me in the face.
A car had been set on fire. Someone had rolled it or driven it through the rear-access garage doors where Crenshaw accepted deliveries and larger vehicles, leaving the garage doors crumpled and bent inward.
I ducked my head, trying to see under the smoke and around the flames to the door. Pushing further away from the building, I crashed through the damp underbrush leading toward the surrounding trees and then scrambled out to get to the building.
My heart pounded hard in my chest. “Crenshaw?” I yelled over the crackling flames. They’d gotten ahold of some good fuel, sending black smoke into the sky.
I kicked some tires out of the way as they’d been stacked against the wall under the windows. Some were already cracking while others had missing panes or broken jagged shards of glass protruding from the sill.
“Jaxon? That you, boy?” Crenshaw’s shaky voice reached me through a broken window. He coughed, pulling me closer toward his position.
My heart rate increased. I glanced back at the shop, the fire working its way through the wooden walls. The barred window led to the office. Crenshaw leaned against the wall, staring out at me. He’d been cracked over the head, blood seeping slowly from a split in his forehead.
My stomach hurt as I stared at him. “What are you doing? What happened? We need to get you out of here. Come on. Who did this?” The bright red on his pale skin scared me more than I wanted to let on. I moved toward the door but stopped when he called after me.
I turned back to him, furrowing my brow. “Seriously, Crenshaw, this isn’t funny. I can get you out. Come on.” Why wasn’t he trying to get out of there? The backdoor was completely covered yet. We could still make it.
He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder and then back at me. “No, boy. I’m in this for the long haul.”
I blinked at him, going still at the discouragement in my old friend’s voice. “What’s going on? What are you talking about?” I couldn’t breathe, but not because of the heat or the smoke. What was going on?
We could still get him out.
Crenshaw coughed, clutching at his chest, sadness deep in his eyes. “I… When I hired you, it wasn’t because of your skills. Your father paid me to. He wanted you to have opportunities. I tried investing that money and now… it’s all gone. I owed some people and… my wife can’t pay the bills. You know? She wants to move and we can’t because we owe too much. They’ve even started threatening her sister.” He coughed a laugh but looked at me with sad eyes full of regret. “As much as I don’t care about Margaret, I can’t have her pain on my conscious.”
What was he talking about? He couldn’t be saying what he was actually saying. That wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. I licked my dry lips and blinked at my old friend. “So, what? You’re going to kill yourself? That’s not going to help anything.” I could read between the lines. He was doing something to escape. Suicide wasn’t the answer. It couldn’t be.
He reached up and gripped the edge of the window as he stared at me. “There are more secrets at play here than I have time for. I want you to leave. Run back to your life and get the most out of it that you can.”
I copied his movements and placed my fingers over his. I didn’t care what the reason was that he hired me or even why he’d watched out for me over the years. “You’ve always been a safe place, Crenshaw. I don’t want you to do this.” Blinking back tears, I clenched my jaw. Men didn’t cry. Even with incredible loss. I’d learned that there at the shop. I couldn’t break the code of manliness. Not even a little bit.
Crackling and popping as the fire gained more of a hold on the building and its contents.
“Life insurance and insurance on this place will take care of my wife and the employees for a while. I’m in too deep, Jax.” He blinked at me and turned his hand over to grip my fingers in his. “You became like a son to me, you know that? You made this old man very proud to know you. Thank you.” He turned away, pulling something from his desk and slipping it through the bars of the window.
He waited until I’d gripped it in my free hand before continuing. “The guys and I saved up. We were going to give this to you for graduation.” He smiled sadly, then glanced back at the shop. “You need to get out of here. I have a tank of brake cleaner that just came in. I’m not sure how it’s going to react to the flames.”
But he knew. He’d worked around the flammability of brake cleaner for most of his life. It would blow up, the flammable fuel and the pressure it was under would combine with the flames for a fantastical explosion.
My breathing quickened as I realized I wasn’t convincing him to come with me. I carefully took the laptop. They’d saved up and bought me a used laptop. The guys didn’t have a lot of money but they’d pooled together and made it happen for me. I blinked back more tears at the ridiculousness of the fact that Crenshaw thought it was too late for him.
I shook my head, wincing at the heat pushing me away from the building. “Come out. We can figure this out. Please.”
“They’ve already done this to me, Jax. They aren’t going to stop. She’s… She’s another kind of ruthless, you know?” He shook his head, patted my hand, and then backed up, dropping his fingers to his sides. “Get going. I don’t want you to be seen around here. I’m seriously, Jaxon.”
In the distance, the sirens blared with an angry squeal. He was right. I would be tagged as the arson or some other person of interest. I couldn’t afford to get thrown back in jail. There was nothing I had to offer to Braddox at that point. How much damage could he create, if I was gone all weekend and then some?
I backed away from the building, the heat pushing me as much as my fear that Crenshaw wouldn’t come with me. I looked at the options before me. I could rush into the shop and force my way in to grab Crenshaw. I was stronger than him. I could make him do something. That’s what I had to do. I could force him. We might get burned, but at least we’d both be alive.
Just as I primed myself to sprint through the flames licking at the man door entrance, a shot rang out from the direction of the office.
I fell to the ground, gripping the laptop to my chest as my knees came to rest on the grass-speckled dirt as I stared at the office window.
He’d shot himself. Holy shit, he’d shot himself? I pushed myself up and ran back to the window, blinking and squinting through the waves of heat.
Crenshaw lay slumped over his desk, his head to the side and blood splattered over the edge of the desk.
Forbidden: A bully romance (An Academy Twin Rivalry Series Book 2) Page 16