Damon, Will, and Kai emerged from around the corner, dressed in similar black suits, having just been out themselves, smiling over a shared joke.
Alex stepped quickly, trying to scurry past, but Damon caught her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Whoa, where do you think you’re going?” he teased, tightening his hold against her fake struggles. “Did Michael use his full hour already?”
Will laughed, shaking his head as he and Kai kept walking, making their way into the apartment.
Damon walked her backward, into the living room again, one of his hands squeezing her ass.
I leaned over to the chair, picking up the lounge pants I’d thrown there this morning. Slipping my legs in, I pulled them up and then whipped off the towel, tossing it on the floor.
“Just leave her alone,” I told him.
But his dark eyes, nearly black, drifted up to me, a challenge lurking there that I was getting fucking tired of seeing.
His lips curled in a smile as he reached into his pocket, taking out a roll of bills.
“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered against her cheek, holding up the money.
She turned her head, eyeing me, probably wondering what the protocol was. Was she supposed to indulge an opportunity while another was still in the room?
I didn’t care what she did. She was available, and when it came right down to it, it was her business, not her pleasure. I’d simply needed someone on my arm tonight for a private party, and Will knew her well enough to know she was discreet and hassle-free.
I was just sick of Damon’s antics.
But she turned back to him and slowly took the money.
And he didn’t hesitate. Yanking the top of her dress down to her waist, he picked her up and guided her legs around his waist.
“I lied,” he said, baring his teeth next to her ear. “I’m never gentle.”
He dived for her, covering her mouth with his as he carried her down the hall, disappearing into a spare bedroom.
I exhaled a hard breath through my nose, aggravated with the constant tug of war with him. It never used to be like that.
My friends and I all butted heads over the course of our friendship. Of course. We had our own temperaments, vices, and senses of right and wrong.
But those differences strengthened us back then. As individuals we had weaknesses, but as the Horsemen we were invincible. We each brought something different to the table, and where one lacked, the others stepped in. We were a unit, on and off the court.
I wasn’t so sure that was true anymore. Things had changed.
Kai sat down on the couch while Will walked for the refrigerator, grabbing a sandwich off the plate of leftovers and a bottle of water.
I twisted around and grabbed the game ball I’d been awarded after we’d won the state championships in high school and shot it over at Will, slamming him in the upper arm.
He jerked, dropping the bottle of water and glaring at me with a mouthful of sandwich.
“Ow!” he barked, holding out his hands. “What’s your problem?”
“Were you in 2104?” I shot out, already knowing the answer.
There was a reason we’d moved Rika to the twenty-first floor. It isolated her from neighbors. But I was also well aware that my friends probably wouldn’t let the vacant apartment next door to her—or the opportunity to fuck with her—go to waste.
They didn’t live in the building, but they’d somehow gotten a key to the apartment.
Will averted his eyes, but I caught the grin on his face. He swallowed his food and faced me, shrugging. “We may have brought a couple of girls back from the club,” he admitted. “You know Damon. It got a little loud.”
I shot Kai a look, knowing he wasn’t in on it but pissed that he hadn’t stopped them.
I combed my fingers through my damp hair and pinned Will with a stare. “Erika Fane may be young and inexperienced, but she’s not stupid,” I pointed out, looking between him and Kai. “You’re going to have fun with her. I promise. But not if you get her running before we have her where we want her.”
Will bent down to retrieve the basketball. At six feet tall, he was shorter than the rest of us, but his build was just as strong.
“Kai and I have been out for months,” he charged, pressing the ball between his hands in front of his chest and looking at me as he approached. “I agreed to wait so Damon could have his part in this, but I am done fucking waiting, Michael.”
His patience was wearing thin, and I’d known that for some time. He and Kai had received lesser sentences based on the charges, but to be fair to Damon, we’d held back doing anything until he got out as well.
“Like that stunt last night?” I threw back. “Showing up at her house in masks?”
He laughed to himself, all too pleased. “It was for old time’s sake. Give us a break.”
But I shook my head. “We’ve been patient this long.”
“No,” he retorted. “We’ve been patient. You’ve been in college.”
I stepped up to him, a good four inches taller, and grabbed the ball out of his hands. I kept my eyes on him as I shot it out to my side and let it roll off my fingers, seeing Kai catch it in one fluid movement.
“We wanted her in Meridian City,” I told Will, “and she’s here. With no friends and no roommates. We wanted her in this building with all of us, and there she is.” I tilted my head to the window behind me, gesturing. “All that separates her from us is a door. She’s a sitting duck, and she doesn’t even know it.”
His green eyes narrowed on me, still listening.
“We know exactly what we’re going to take from her before we take her,” I reminded him, “so don’t fuck this up. Everything’s going according to plan, but it won’t if she feels she’s in danger before it’s time.”
He hooded his eyes and looked away, still pissed but obviously letting it go. Taking a deep breath, he slid off his black jacket, tossed it on the sofa, and left the room, heading down the stairs into the private basketball court off the living area.
Within seconds, I heard the echo of a basketball pounding against the hardwood court.
Kai rose from the sofa and walked for the windows, crossing his arms over his chest and staring silently outside.
I stepped up next to him. Planting my hand on the windows, I followed his gaze, watching Rika run the roller up and down, her once-white wall now turning blood red.
“She’s alone.” I spoke low. “Completely alone now. And soon she’ll have nothing to eat but our goodwill.”
I shifted my eyes to Kai, seeing his narrowed ones studying her. His jaw flexed, and at times he could be more formidable than Damon. At least Damon was an open book.
But with Kai and his stern dark eyes and hardened expression, it was always a guess what he was thinking. He rarely spoke about himself.
“Are you having second thoughts?” I asked.
“Are you?”
I continued staring out the window, ignoring the question. Whether or not I wanted this or liked any of it, it was never a question.
Three years ago, curious little Erika Fane wanted to play with the boys, so we indulged her, and she betrayed us. There was no way we’d forget. Once restitution was paid, my friends could have peace.
Kai kept his eyes on her as he spoke. “Damon and Will are blind action, Michael. Over three years, that hasn’t changed. They act and react from the gut, but for two men that once believed money and power could get them out of anything, they now know that’s not true.”
He turned his head, locking eyes with me. “There were no games in there. No real friends. No hesitation. Act and commit. That’s what they learned.”
I turned my gaze back out the windows. In there. That was as much as Kai had talked about prison since he’d gotten out.
I hadn’t asked, either. Maybe I knew he’d talk when he was ready, or maybe I felt guilty, knowing that it was all my fault. I’d brought her with us that night, after all. I
’d trusted her. This was on me.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I never wanted to know what the last three years had been like for my friends. What they’d lost. How they’d waited.
How they’d changed.
I shook my head, trying to brush off his warning. “They were always like that,” I argued.
“But they were always controllable,” he challenged. “They were appeasable. Now they don’t have limits, and the only thing they truly understand is that they are the only person they can trust.”
So what was he saying? That they might have their own agendas?
I let my eyes fall to her, working vigorously as she rolled on the red paint.
And something coiled inside of me, twisting and tightening until my chest ached.
What would I do if they jumped ship? Took their own course of action? I didn’t like that idea.
But for three years, I’d been forced to look at her in my house, hear about her, and bide my time when all I wanted was to be her nightmare. She was here, and we were ready.
“We can’t stop,” I nearly whispered. We could control Will and Damon. We always had.
“I don’t want to stop,” he retorted, his dark eyes pinned on her. “She deserves everything that’s coming to her. But I am saying that things never go according to plan. Remember that.”
I picked up the glass of bourbon I’d set down and tossed it back, swallowing the remainder of the liquid in one gulp. The burn sat at the back of my tongue, my throat tightening as I set the glass down.
I’d remember it, but I wasn’t going to worry about it. It was finally time to have some fun.
“Why is she painting at two a.m.?” he asked as if just finally realizing what she was doing.
I just shook my head, looking down at her and having no idea. Maybe she couldn’t sleep after Damon and Will’s escapade next door.
Kai exhaled, gazing down at her with a slight smile curling his lips. “She grew up nice, didn’t she?” His voice turned soft but kept its threatening edge. “Beautiful skin, hypnotic eyes and lips, tight body…”
Yeah.
Rika’s Dutch South African mother married her way into money and power, using a face and body that was still only half as beautiful as her daughter’s. Rika may have inherited her mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes, her full lips and mesmerizing smile, but the rest was all Rika.
The sun-kissed, glowing skin; the strong, toned legs from years of fencing; and the way she looked so alluring and sweet but with a hint of mischief in her eyes.
Like a baby vampire.
“Yo!” Will bellowed from below. “What the fuck are you guys doing? Let’s play!”
Kai smiled, dropping his arms and turning for the court.
But I hesitated, still thinking about his warning.
He was right. Damon and Will leered, waiting to dive in for the kill. But what about Kai? How far would he go with her?
We had rules, a way that this was supposed to work. We weren’t going to hurt her. We were going to ruin her. I knew Damon and Will would try to break those rules, but what about Kai? Would he step in and reel them back in as he’d always done?
Or would he follow this time?
“What about you?” I finally asked, making him stop. “Did prison change you?”
He turned, looking at me with eerie calmness. “I guess we’ll see.”
Three Years Ago
THE CAR TURNED, AND I ROCKED BACK and forth on the floor of the G-Class, the drive turning from smooth to bumpy. The ground underneath the tires suddenly sounded like a grinder, and I knew that we’d hit gravel.
Car stereos blasted outside, and I heard honking, telling me that the whole parade was in tow. We stopped, and before I knew what was happening, doors opened, the engine died, and howls filled the air as all the passengers joined each other outside.
I stayed put, resisting the urge to peek out the windows and hoping Michael didn’t need to open the back door to get anything. Within a few minutes, though, the chatter and laughter began to fade, and then it disappeared altogether.
I slowly pushed myself up, keeping my head low as I peered out the window.
Scanning the area, tall trees dotted the clearing where everyone had parked. Cars, trucks, and SUVs cluttered the space, and I narrowed my eyes, noticing we were in the forest.
Why the hell were we out here?
But then I turned around and immediately spotted a massive stone structure ahead of me.
I tilted my head back, following the spears of the old, abandoned church peeking out through the bare autumn tree branches as it sat broken, dead, and silent in the woods.
St. Killian’s. I’d never been here, but I knew it from the pictures I’d seen in the newspaper over the years. It was an old landmark, dating back to the 1700s when Thunder Bay was first settled.
In 1938, however, it suffered structural damage due to a hurricane, and it closed, never reopening.
Everyone must’ve gone inside.
I ventured one more glance around the area, making sure no one was around, and quickly climbed over the back seat, opening one of the back doors and hopping out.
The brisk October air hit my legs, and I felt the brittle fallen leaves brush against my bare ankles. I was in my school skirt and flats, my legs completely bare, and chills broke out all over my body.
I jogged across the clearing, seeing the massive, wooden doors of the cathedral boarded shut, and rounded the corner, heading to the side. The grass was overgrown with weeds, and stones from the foundation were dislodged and broken, lying along the cathedral walls.
Music poured out of the broken stained glass windows, and I reached up, grabbing the bottom of the windowsill and stepping up on one of the three-foot high arches carved into the bottom of the church wall. Pulling myself up, I peered into the church and let out a small smile.
Damn.
Speakers were set up around the room, blasting music, while two guys—one of them Kai, shirtless and without his mask—battled bare-fisted in the center of the wide-open floor, surrounded by male and female students cheering him and the other guy on.
Judging by the relaxed crowd and the grin on Kai’s face as he jabbed at his opponent, I guessed it wasn’t a fight fight.
More like sport.
While the music blared and small groups of students wandered about, talking, laughing, and drinking from their beer bottles, I saw a few people disappearing behind the sanctuary and down some stairs.
Did old buildings like this have basements? Or—no—I thought to myself, St. Killian’s had catacombs. I’d heard about that.
Shifting my eyes up, I noticed the vast space above, the balcony section of the old church forming a semi-circle that looked down over where the altar would’ve once sat. Most of the hardwood pews had been torn out and sat in piles around the room, while the old cast-iron chandelier, reminiscent of medieval times with its candle holders and ornate design, still hung above the unholy debauchery of fighting and drinking going on below.
I spotted Miles Anderson making out with his girlfriend on a pew, and I immediately dipped my head down. I didn’t like him or her, and I didn’t want them to see me.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
I widened my eyes, my stomach instantly knotting as I turned my head to the right.
Michael stood a few feet away, his chin tipped up, staring at me through his mask.
Gripping the sill, I felt my heart pick up pace. “I…” I started to speak but felt too stupid
to say anything. I knew I shouldn’t have come. “I wanted to see.”
He cocked his head, but I had no idea what he was thinking. I wished he’d take off that
damn mask.
I held my breath, watching as he climbed up behind me, gripping the windowsill at my sides and planting his black boots on the two arches to my left and right.
What was he doing?
The heat of his body covered my back, and I braved a g
lance up, watching him gaze through the broken cathedral window, seeing what I saw.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I finally spoke up. “If you want me to leave—”
“Did I say that?”
I snapped my mouth shut, watching his fingers tighten around the bottle of Kirin in his hand. Michael had big hands, like most basketball players, but they were nothing compared to his height. He was nearly a foot taller than me, and I hoped he was done growing. I already had to look up at him.
I closed my eyes for a moment, desperate to just lean back and relax into him, but I held back. Instead, I dug my nails into the stone, forcing my eyes forward and watching Kai take the other guy to the ground, both of them wrestling like an MMA fight on the concrete floor.
Michael brought the beer up to his lips, and he must’ve lifted his mask, because I heard him take a drink. But then my eyebrows shot up, seeing the bottle appear in front of my chest.
Befuddled, I hesitated only a moment before I took it, keeping my smile to myself as I tipped it up and drank. I held it between my lips, letting the bitter taste sit on my tongue and then swallowing.
When I tried handing back the bottle, he waved me off. I relaxed, taking a few more sips, content that he wasn’t kicking me out. Yet.
“That door leads to the catacombs, right?” I asked, gesturing to the students inside that were heading through the darkened doorway behind the sanctuary.
I held the bottle to my chest, turning my head up to Michael.
He nodded.
I turned back, watching the two guys and girls disappear. “What are they doing down there?”
“Having other kinds of fun.”
I tightened my jaw, frustrated with his brief, cryptic response. I wanted to go inside.
But then I heard him breathe out a small, quiet laugh and felt his mask brush against my ear, his low voice whispering in my ear, “No one knows about you, do they?”
I pinched my eyebrows together, wondering what he meant. He took the bottle out of my hands and set it down on the sill.
“You’re such a good little girl, aren’t you, Rika? Good girl for mommy, good girl for teachers…” He trailed off before continuing, “You’re a good girl on the outside, but no one knows who the hell you are on the inside, do they?”
Corrupt Page 6