“How?”
James looks at me before returning to his cell. “Rape,” he says, all too casually, almost detached. “She was being raped.”
I turn my stunned eyes Goldie’s way, and for the first time since I’ve known her, I see emotion on her face. Raped. I can’t imagine any man would be crazy enough to take Goldie on. Frankly, she’s frightening. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, at a loss. What does a woman say to another woman who’s faced that kind of horror?
“Don’t be. He’ll be dead before I leave this world.”
“Amen,” Otto pipes in, and my eyes turn onto him, finding his grip of the wheel turning his knuckles white. Goldie isn’t a woman who needs protection. Not now, at least. But she’s got it. I settle back in my seat and turn a small smile onto Goldie, but it falls when I find her still staring at my stomach.
And it hits me. Oh God. A baby? She must sense my change in persona, the increase of my sorrow, because she snaps out of her daydream and looks at me with sad eyes. My hand is on hers in a second without thought, squeezing, telling her I’m sorry again without words. She looks away, but her hand turns and accepts mine, squeezing in return. Abortion? Miscarriage?
“You ready for that ten-bedroom villa full of women?” she asks, but only after clearing her throat.
“Damn straight I am,” Otto replies, pulling off the main road into a street. My street. “Beats ice cream in the park, you pussy.”
I frown through my increasing anxiety, as Goldie laughs and drops my hand, reaching forward and smacking him over the head. “Fuck you, Dino Dick.”
The car has stopped outside Lawrence and Dexter’s house. I have to get out and face my uncles. I have to see if that bottle of Krug is hiding something. “I think I should go alone,” I say, trying to sound assertive but only achieving a whisper.
Otto’s laugh and Goldie’s sympathetic smile don’t bode well.
“Over my dead body,” James grunts, swinging the door open and getting out. I watch as he looks up at the house, pulling his T-shirt out the back of his jeans.
Concealing his gun.
I hop out and join him on the sidewalk. “You don’t need that.”
“Don’t tell me what I need, Beau.” His dismissal riles me, and then he further insults me by walking away. “Wait in the car.”
He’s not fucking real. I go after him, and when he reaches the door, I muscle past him and plaster my back against it, craning my neck to look him in the eye. “I will handle this.” I haven’t come here to argue, and the hostility pouring off James is a recipe for exactly that. An argument. “I’ll get the champagne and we’ll leave.”
“And your passport and some clothes.”
“Fine.” I turn to the door, pushing it open slowly, listening. If I’m lucky, Lawrence is out shopping and Dexter is on shift.
I’m not lucky.
Both appear in the kitchen doorway, Lawrence with puffy red eyes and Dexter looking utterly worn out. “I’m just collecting a few things,” I say, motioning toward the stairs.
“You’re moving out?” Lawrence blurts, his lip wobbling again as he backs up into the kitchen and lowers to a chair.
Moving out? I wish I was only moving out. I turn to James. “Give me a minute,” I plead, wishing he’d lose the angry lines on his face. He doesn’t respond, and I can see he won’t. He’s not moving.
I turn and go to the kitchen, passing Dexter on a small smile and settling down next to Lawrence, taking his hand. I can’t leave him on bad terms. “I’m okay.”
“Okay? My God, Beau, you are far from okay.” He squeezes my hand, his hold begging.
“I’ll make coffee.” Dexter takes the coffee jug and empties the old filter, as James comes to the threshold, standing in the doorway. I motion for him to take a seat. He shakes his head.
“We can help you,” Lawrence says, talking as if James isn’t here.
“I don’t need help.”
His bottom lip slips between his teeth, and he gnaws on it, assessing me. Disagreeing with me. “You’re throwing everything away, and for what?”
Freedom. Peace. A life I’d long accepted I’d lost. But Lawrence would never understand, and there is only so much I can share, which makes convincing him harder. Or, actually, easier. I don’t think anyone could understand James and me. Only us. It kills me over and over, but I accept defeat and move my hand out of Lawrence’s. I’m fighting a losing battle. And James is fighting a winning one.
I hope.
I have to be sensible with my time—it’s not on our side, and sitting here attempting to break Lawrence down is wasting it. I give him a small, sad smile, a smile that tells him I’m hurting, and start to stand. I only manage to lift my ass off the chair a few inches when the door from the yard flies open, ricocheting off the wall with a bang.
Ollie appears.
Armed.
His weapon pointed at James behind me.
I fall back to the chair, Lawrence cries out, and Dexter drops the coffee pot. It smashes on the counter, the sound of breaking glass echoing around the kitchen. “Ollie?” I whisper, taking him in, noting his distressed state. He’s . . . edgy. Sweaty. Shaky.
“Stay where you are,” he says, his voice shaky too, as he moves farther into the kitchen, his eyes laser beams on James behind me. I look over my shoulder slowly, wary to make any sudden movements, keeping as calm as possible. It’s a difficult task when my insides are in chaos—my heart pounding, my lungs shrinking, my stomach turning.
James is still and steady in the doorway, his focus unmoving. “Put the gun down,” he warns Ollie, only his mouth moving.
“Shut up.” He approaches James, edging closer warily, jerking the gun in gesture for James to raise his hands.
Wisely, James slowly lifts his arms, calm and collected, but I can see the monsters swirling in his eyes.
“Ollie, what on earth?” Lawrence breathes, and I slowly and blindly reach for his arm, settling him, telling him to be calm.
Ollie proceeds to pat at James’s torso, feeling around his back while holding the gun to his chest. He pulls James’s gun free from his jeans and tucks it in his own trousers, and the whole time, I’m waiting, tense, for James to make his move. Because he could. One swift, meticulous move could have Ollie disarmed and on the floor before I could draw another breath. Except he remains a statue. He lets Ollie take his gun.
And it hits me.
If not Nath, then who?
Ollie.
Oh my God.
I stand, shocked, and James’s eyes turn onto me, silently warning me away, but if anyone can talk some sense into Ollie, it’s me. I have to try. He looks so volatile. He looks ready to fire that gun. “Ollie, look at me,” I order gently.
“Beau,” James grates, his hands still in the air. “Sit the fuck down.”
“Ollie, think about this,” I plead.
“Beau, don’t make me tell you again.”
“Ollie,” I go on, ignoring him. “Be wise.”
“Beau!” James barks, and I flinch, the aggression and anger in him shocking me. “Sit. Down.”
I feel Lawrence’s hand take mine and pull, but I resist, unable and unwilling to let what’s inevitably going to happen play out. “Ollie—”
“Do you hear how he talks to her?” Ollie asks over a salacious laugh.
“I want her out of the firing line.” James flicks his eyes to mine, and I see something in them. Something I haven’t seen before. Fear. And it makes me slowly lower to the chair.
“The gun’s aimed at you.” Ollie’s grip flexes around the handle. I’ve seen him do that before when we took target practice together. Just a few seconds before he’d fire, he’d adjust his hold a fraction. My heartbeats accelerate. “Did you think I’d stand back and let you ruin her?” he asks James. “I don’t know who you are or—”
James moves so fast, his big body is a blur, and Ollie is quickly disarmed, flying back into the counter. James reaches for his shoulder, pulling another gun, and I hear the safe
ty disengage before he swiftly has his arms braced, the gun aimed.
But not at Ollie, who’s unconscious on the floor, knocked out.
I slowly turn on the chair and find Dexter with his hands up in surrender.
My mind explodes. “James?” I question quietly, as Lawrence jumps up and shrieks. “James, what are you doing?”
He says nothing, leaving my head swinging back and forth between him and Dexter, who remains still and quiet.
“James! For fuck’s sake, talk!” I grab Lawrence’s hand and yank him back down to the chair as James lowers to his haunches and collects Ollie’s gun from the floor. He rises, engaging the safety, and comes to me, but his eyes never leave Dexter.
“Take it,” he orders me, and I do because I don’t know what else to do except listen to him. Trust him. I release the safety again.
“What’s going on?” Dexter asks, still backed up in the corner, his eyes darting around the room, looking for anyone to enlighten him. “What is this madness?”
“How did you know where I lived?” James asks calmly, his voice so composed, his body equally so, whereas everyone else in the room seems to be shaking with nerves, including me. “When you and Lawrence visited yesterday, how did you know where I lived?”
“Beau mentioned it,” he blurts urgently.
My eyes drop to the table, my thoughts chasing in circles. I try desperately to slow them. To get things straight. It doesn’t take me long. “No, I didn’t.” I look up at him in question. “I’ve never shared where James lives.” Of that I’m certain. I made a point of it, in fact, because I knew any one of the men in my life, most in law enforcement, would dig. I made a conscious effort to keep everything about James a secret.
“You did,” he argues. “Right here in the kitchen.”
“What are you suggesting?” Lawrence barks, outraged. “Where the hell is all this leading?’
I shake my head. “I never shared anything about James, Dexter,” I say quietly, wondering what the hell this means. I look at James. He has a million apologies in his eyes.
He swallows. “You paid Nathan Butler a visit.”
“Yes, to discuss Beau. To talk about how toxic this relationship is.”
Lawrence recoils, clearly shocked by this news. “When?”
Dexter’s eyebrows become heavy, like he’s wracking his brain, thinking. “I don’t know, sometime last week.”
Toxic. He’s probably right. Poison. But James’s poison has cured me. And now there’s this poison threatening to send me plummeting into a dark pit of helplessness again.
“And while you were there,” James goes on, “you turned on the burner phone I’ve been tracking since the night Jaz Hayley was killed.”
“What?” I gasp.
“Rubbish!” Dexter screeches. “You’re fabricating shit to clear your own ass.”
“Why?” James asks, calmly. “Why would I do that?”
“Because you killed Jaz! You’re there in the footage, it was you.”
My eyes widen. “How do you know about that footage, Dexter?” I ask, unable to comprehend what’s unfolding.
“Footage?” Lawrence asks. “What footage?”
“The footage Dexter had hidden for years. The footage that would have proven Mom’s death wasn’t an accident.” I slump in my chair, stunned.
“The footage,” James says, moving forward slowly, “that you obtained from the tattoo store by the car park before forensics moved in.”
I stand, trying to get some feeling back in my limbs. “Beau, sit down,” James warns.
“Dexter, what have you done?” I move toward him, trusting—hoping—that the years I’ve known this man will prove our suspicions wrong. We had it wrong with Nath, so maybe—
“Beau,” James yells.
Dexter’s face turns from the usual softness I’ve come to know and love, to a hardness that doesn’t suit him.
“Beau!”
I’m grabbed and whirled around, being pulled back into Dexter’s chest, and the gun in my hand is quickly gone. “Okay, let’s all calm the fuck down,” he says, backing up, taking me with him. James’s nostril flare so hard. His body visibly tenses. I want to tell him not to worry, that Dexter won’t hurt me. But I can’t. Especially now. “I’ve spent years wondering who the man in that footage was. The man who dragged Beau away from the vehicle. The man who tried to save Jaz. Years!” He laughs, tightening his hold of me. “And then he shows up on my fucking doorstep trying to seduce my niece? Who the fuck are you?”
“Dexter?” Lawrence murmurs, crumbling before me. “Dexter, why?”
“Because I was told to!” he yells, starting to shake against me. “It was Jaz or me.”
Him or my mom? “Jesus Christ, Dexter,” I whisper, my throat tight.
“The Bear,” James says, his voice ice. “Who the fuck is The Bear?”
“Back off,” Dexter warns, jolting me. “No one knows who he is. I get information, I’m paid. I get an order, I do it, or I die.”
“You’re going to die anyway.”
“Oh my God, Dexter!” Lawrence cries. “What have you done?”
I’m moving, being walked backward. He’s heading for the door into the yard, the door that’s still open from Ollie’s grand entrance. “Why, Dexter?” I murmur.
“Because she figured it out. She knew I was—”
“Corrupt,” James grates, his jaw pulsing.
“I was told to deal with it. So I did.”
“No,” Lawrence screeches, his hands in his hair, utter disbelief plastered all over his face. “No, no, no.”
“By manipulating the service record of her car,” James says. “Suggesting she was smoking. Manipulating all of the fucking evidence.”
“I was in the car, Dexter,” I whisper, a lump in my throat forming. It’s suffocating me.
“I didn’t know you would be!”
“But I was!” I yell, my heart cracking. This man has been a rock to me. Hugged me, talked me through endless panic attacks, calmed me. And he’s the cause of my misery? I look at James, my eyes welling, knowing what this means.
And I see it. The look in his cold stare. Never have I been more thankful that our relationship has been so heavily based on talking without saying a word. One flick of his eyes to mine. The rage. The purpose.
I throw my head back and drop to the floor as soon as Dexter loosens his hold of me, and all hell breaks loose, guns firing, Lawrence screaming, James charging forward.
“Fuck!” The door slams, and I shoot up from the floor, seeing blood smeared all over the jamb, but there’s no Dexter in sight.
“Beau,” James barks, checking me over, his attention split between me and the door.
“I’m okay,” I assure him, still patting myself everywhere, waiting for the pain to kick in. Two shots were fired. Only one of them hit Dexter. James. I look up, expecting to see red, but there’s no blood.
He swings the door open, bracing himself to fire again, just as Goldie and Otto come charging into the kitchen, armed and ready.
“Over the back wall,” James says, and they disappear as fast as they appeared, going after Dexter, while James hurries over to me, checking me over with panicked eyes, feeling everywhere, checking my legs, my chest, my face.
“I’m fine,” I assure him, as he yanks my shirt up my body. And it hits me. The pain. The pain and dizziness.
“No,” James whispers. “No, no, no, fuck, no!”
I slump against him, suddenly overwhelmed by the agony, feeling my body becoming light. Lawrence screams, and it is a scream of pure, raw agony.
The last thing I see is James’s distraught face.
And the last thing I hear is his roar.
64
JAMES
I thought I’d known pain at its greatest. I thought I would live out my life immune to further hurt. Because surely there was nothing that could compete with losing my entire family. Or being burned alive. How wrong I was. But scarier than the pain is the
anger. Anger that has taken on a frightening level. Anger that might not ever be sated.
My arse on the chair is numb, my eyes unmoving from the speck of dirt on the floor a few feet away. I don’t know how much time has passed. It’s an effort to turn my eyes to check. To lift my wrist to see my watch.
Save her. The two words circle my head persistently. I focus on only them, because letting my mind go elsewhere would be dangerous.
Save her. Save her. Save her.
I hear the door open, but my eyes remain locked on the speck of dirt. “I’m sorry, Kel,” Goldie says, softer than I’ve ever heard her speak before. “We lost him. I got his license plate number.”
“BMW?”
“Yeah.”
“Leave me,” I order, not needing to hear anymore. They didn’t chase him down. They didn’t catch the fucker so I could torture him until he passes out. But I’ll find him. I refuse to die until I do. “And make sure Nathan Butler is still being watched.”
The door closes, and I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees, taking my head in my hands. God help the world if I lose her.
God. Fucking. Help. It.
I stand abruptly, starting to circle the room, forcing my breathing into steadiness, shaking the burn out of my twitching hands. Calm. Give me calm.
No calm.
I roar and upend a table, picking it up and launching it out of the window. It shatters, and glass sprays the room, pelting me with shards.
Still no calm.
The chairs follow the table.
My fist sinks into the wall.
I kick and punch anything is sight, completely unhinged, finding no peace in this fucked-up world.
“Mr. Kelly!”
I spin, heaving like a raging bull, the red mist thick.
“For fuck’s sake, Kel.” Otto appears next to the doctor by the door. I can just make them out through the fogginess of my vision, both of them taking in the carnage. “I’ll ensure this is all taken care of,” Otto assures the doctor. “My apologies.”
“Miss Hayley is out of surgery,” the doctor says, tentative and wary.
The fog clears. Hope has arrived.
I’m almost too scared to ask. “And . . .”
The Enigma: Unlawful Men Book 2 Page 38