Of course she doesn’t, but I feel like I need to tell her this. “It’s been bugging me for some time now. I didn’t want to tell you this, because I was afraid you’d hate me for it. I just can’t live with it anymore.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“I was there for a reason.” I swallow away the lump in my throat, my stomach feeling twisted into knots. “I was supposed to do an exchange with them.”
Her jaw drops. “You what?”
“They’re customers of Alpha Psi. I was waiting for them to finish their meal, and I didn’t notice them leaving until I heard your scream.”
Now that it’s out, I have nothing left to feel more ashamed of than that. I deserve her fury, and I will take any scolding she wants to give me, but she needs to stay with me. I need her. She can’t turn her back on me now, even if it’s my fault. I need her so damn much …
“Please don’t be mad,” I say, grasping her shaking body. “I didn’t know they were going to do that. I would never have let them leave the restaurant if I had. And I refused to have anything to do with them after it happened.”
“I can’t believe it …”
“Yeah, me neither. They’re probably pissed as hell after what happened. It wouldn’t surprise me if they got their revenge sometime soon. Especially when the boss finds out what I did to them.”
I hope she can forgive me for not coming to her aid sooner. If I could do it over, I would. I’d get my ass kicked again and again if it meant saving her from having to go through that again.
My finger reaches for her face, and I brush away a strand of hair. I hope she can see past all this, knowing that I didn’t mean to be in this situation. That I’d protect her with my life if push comes to shove. She is my everything. “I will never let anyone hurt you,” I whisper. “Even if it means getting my ass whooped.”
She giggles, and for a second I feel like I can breathe again. “So, you’re not mad?”
“Maybe a little …” she says, a smile curving her lips. “I mean, you should have told me sooner. But I’m glad you did the right thing.”
I let out a sigh of relief. God, that’s good to hear. I was afraid she didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore, but I’m glad she can forgive me. “Good.”
A gut-wrenching scream fills my ears.
I instinctively search the bathroom, but knowing there’s no one here except us puts me on edge. Someone’s hurt, and I recognize the voice. It’s Leafy’s friend.
She’s desperate to help her friend, and stumbles out of the stall to go and help her, but I hold her back. “Put something on first.”
“It’s Evie!”
“I know. I heard it too.” I turn off the shower.
“I have to go to her!” She hands me a towel and dries herself quickly before putting on a robe and rushing out the door.
I quickly dry myself and run to my room to put on some underwear and pants. Jaret’s nowhere to be seen, but I don’t care about that right now. I wonder what happened that made Evie scream. I bolt toward the ladies’ room. When I get close enough, I hear something that makes me freeze at the door.
“S-Scarlet. H-her room. D-dead.”
I think my heart just stopped.
“W-what? What are you saying? Dead?” Leafy stammers.
“G-go look,” Evie says.
I stare at the two girls sitting near the toilet, and Leafy gazes up at me, dread filling her eyes. She springs up and runs past me. I go after her, afraid of what we might find. When we enter Scarlet’s door, horror fills my heart.
Scarlet’s lying face down in a pool of her own blood and vomit, her body partially on the bed and on the floor.
“No …” I mutter, walking closer. This can’t be real. Is she really dead?
I turn her around, careful not to make it worse than it is. I check to see if she’s really dead, and when I discover no pulse, I assume she is.
Fuck. She’s really dead.
When I see Leafy backing out of the door, I say, “Where are you going?”
“I need to be there for Evie,” she stammers, and she rushes out the door.
Well, fuck me. I’ve never dealt with a corpse before. What the hell am I supposed to do?
How the hell did she die anyway? I can’t believe this.
I hear them talking in the hallway, but I’m much to focused on the body. There’s something about this that seems wrong on so many levels. I just can’t figure out what. And then I spot exactly what I was looking for: a syringe under her bed.
I crouch down and pick it up, inspecting it.
“Fuck …” I say. This looks like heroin, but it’s not from us. This is not a label I recognize from Alpha Psi. And what’s even more disturbing is the fact that our gang doesn’t even sell heroin.
“What?” Leafy asks.
“Drugs.” I hold up the syringe.
“She OD’ed?”
“Yes and no,” I say, sighing.
“Which is it? It can’t be both,” she says, frowning.
I want to tell her, but not with her friend still here. She’s way too upset to hear what I’m about to say, and I don’t want to do that to her. So I signal for Leafy to get her out of here.
“Evie …” she says. “You should go back to our room.”
“B-but …”
Leafy puts her hand on Evie’s shoulder. “It’s better if you’re somewhere you feel safe. Make yourself a cup of tea and crawl under the blanket.”
The girl doesn’t answer.
“It’s okay. Hunter and I will take care of it,” Leafy says, smiling.
She’s always so caring.
“W-we can’t leave her like t-this,” Evie stammers, and her eyes dart to me.
“We’ve got it covered,” Leafy says.
“You should rest,” I add. The girl really needs to leave. She can’t know what’s really happening.
Leafy’s friend leaves, and I cover Scarlet’s body with a blanket. No need for anyone to see this. I know enough. “That wasn’t just an OD. She couldn’t have gotten this drug from us. We never, never sell this.”
She crosses her arms, confusion showing on her face. “What is it?”
“Heroin.”
She gulps when I say that word. Maybe one of your guys made a mistake.”
“They’re not my guys and they didn’t make a mistake,” I snap. I know what this is.
“But she wouldn’t do that, would she?”
“No. She only used the drugs as a means to escape. It was a one- or two-time thing. Nothing big. She wasn’t an addict, and trust me, I know it when I see one; she wasn’t one of them.”
She shudders. “Was she experimenting or something?”
“I don’t know …” I say. I didn’t know her that well.
“Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she took too much,” she says.
“No, absolutely not. She’d never take too much. She told me she had too much to live for, I remember her telling me at the party when I asked her if everything was okay. I needed to check if she wasn’t taking them to … you know …” I don’t want to say it, but I’m thinking of suicide.
I sigh. “She knew the risks perfectly well. She wouldn’t do that.” I hold up the syringe and check it again. “Something’s wrong. This isn’t even our product. We only deal in powders and pills.”
I put down the syringe and check her body to see if I can find anything else I haven’t spotted yet. I gently tug up her shirt, wincing at the smell, but I’m pressing on because I need to know if anything happened. And then I notice the bruises covering her body and neck.
“She has bruises all over her body,” I say.
“I thought you said she OD’ed? Bruises don’t come with that, do they?”
“They can, but this isn’t drug related. Look at the marks,” I say, pointing at her neck.
“No thanks, I’d rather stay here if you don’t mind.”
“Nobody would shoot heroin straight into their neck. Plu
s, these are really weird marks. They go all the way around her neck, centering on her esophagus. And they’re on her wrists, too.”
“Stop messing with her, please,” Leafy says, placing her hand over her mouth. “You’re making me want to throw up.”
“Sorry. But that’s the least of my worries right now. This should be a concern to everyone.”
It’s fucking scary, that’s what it is. Marks like these don’t just happen. Heroin doesn’t just happen, not this much.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because this wasn’t accidental. She was drugged with a dose far beyond normal.”
“Are you saying …” she stops talking. Her face turns white as snow.
I know what she’s thinking, because it’s exactly what I’m thinking. “Someone forced his hand on her. It killed her.”
This has to have something to do with Alpha Psi. I saw Scarlet and her boyfriend fighting several times. This can’t be a coincidence. She was murdered.
Chapter 28
Bleeding for Honor
I immediately bolt to my room, leaving Leafy alone with Scarlet. I hope Jaret’s here now, because I really need to talk to him. But there’s no one around, and I’m getting this feeling like everything is going wrong. Chills run down my spine as I realize things are moving quickly now, and I need to be ahead of what’s happening before I’m caught in the middle.
I grab my cell phone and notice the text left by Jaret.
‘The distributor spilled. The courier is Scarlet.’
My blood turns cold. Oh my fucking God.
If she’s the courier … then her boyfriend is …
Burying my phone in my pocket, I make my way to his room and burst inside. There’s no one here, so that gives me enough time to search through his room and find some evidence. I need to know if he’s the leader. He has to be. It all starts to fall together now.
I tug on all his drawers, ripping the place to shreds until I find a loose bottom in the drawer of his desk. What I find inside is a goldmine. Drugs, bottles, syringes. Prices and client lists, and worse, direct orders to be given to the distributors by the courier herself. There’s even mail from the drug lords he got it all from.
I pick up one of the syringes, which is from the same stash as the one I found in Scarlet’s room. The heroin is right beside them on the bottom of the drawer.
I have to let Agent Williams know. I found him.
“Playing detective now?”
The syringe drops to the floor as I turn around. Wes is in the doorway.
Fuck.
Panic courses through me. I weigh up my options. I could run, or maybe I could jump from the window. No, it’s too high. I could fight him.
When I see more and more distributors and dealers appear behind him, the fear really settles in .I have no way out of this. This is it. My thoughts immediately go out to my girl. Is she okay? Will they leave her out of this?
“I knew I couldn’t trust you,” he muses, his arms crossed.
I keep my mouth jammed shut. If I talk, it’ll only make it worse. They’ve seen what I was doing. Of course Wes knows I’ve been after the leader all this time. It was only a matter of time before they came after me.
“Did you think we wouldn’t keep an eye out on his room?” he asks.
Again, I don’t answer.
He laughs. “You don’t have to answer. It doesn’t matter anyway.” He signals for the other guys to get inside. “Take him in, boys.”
I brace myself. They’re coming for me, fists in the air, and I know I won’t have a choice. I’m not giving up without a fight, though. I can’t let them win. Not when there’s so much on the line.
I ready myself for impact and swing my arms at them once they get close. One tries to tackle me, but I jump up and kick him in the balls. Another one runs up to me and grabs a hold of my arm, but I swing him aside. I punch another in the face, but he quickly comes back up to grab my foot. They’re on me like a pack of wolves, clinging to me until I surrender. I will never give up. If they want me, they’ll have to drag me out of here.
Wes steps forward, holding a syringe in his hand. I wince at the sight.
“Hold him down,” he commands, and the guys fling themselves on top of me. It takes ten of them to hold one of me down.
Wes leans in, and I spit in his face. “Bastard.”
He smirks, wiping the spit from his eyes. “You should’ve known better, Hunter.”
He holds up the syringe, and I try to move away from it, but the guys are holding me down tight. I can’t move. Fuck!
Wes moves the needle to my neck, his head right next to my ear. The stinging sensation of the needle puncturing my skin is fucking infuriating, but my muscles are collapsing underneath me. I don’t know what he’s put in there, but it’s no ordinary drug. The world is slowly blackening in front of my eyes.
The last thing I hear is his whisper, “I’ll see you in the arena.”
♥♥♥
When I wake up, it feels like I’ve been out for hours. My head hurts and my muscles are weak, but functional, because I can move my fingers. Groaning, I try to move, but it’s no use. My arms are bound to my back, and I’m tightly secured in a chair.
“Morning, sunshine,” Wes says, and he forces open my eyes. “Wake up.” He slaps me in the face, and my eyes jerk open immediately. My vision is still blurry, but I can make out a human shape in front of me and the metallic, silvery bars all around us. We’re in a cage. Oh, God …
“Strong stuff, huh? It’s called Brotizolam. Gets you snoozing in no time. Very nice if you ask me,” he says.
He flicks his fingers and a hooker walks into the cage with a bottle of water. He snatches it from her and throws the contents over my head. It’s fucking icy cold and instantly wakes me up, goose bumps crawling up my skin.
“Wake up, you motherfucker,” he says, slapping me in the face again. He throws the bottle back to the girl, who rushes off again. Then he grabs a chair standing in the corner and puts it down in front of me while he sits down. I’m staring at him from under my eyelashes, my blood boiling with anger. Seeing his face makes me want to rip him to shreds, and I will, as soon as I get out of this chair. Fucking tight ropes.
“You won’t get out of those, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he muses, lighting a cigarette. “Not until after I’m done with you.” He blows out a puff of smoke right in my face, and I cough.
Shit … I’m stuck here with no way out. The gang knows what I’ve been doing. Is Leafy in danger now? Did they get to her too? I have to know if she’s okay. If they touch her, I’ll fucking kill all of them.
“Hunter, Hunter, Hunter … I could have sworn I told you not to mess with me. But you had to go and snoop around in someone else’s business.”
“You piece of shit,” I say. Whack! Another hit against the face. The stinging hurts, but I no longer pay any attention to the pain. All I’m thinking about is killing him. “You murdered Scarlet.”
He laughs. “No, that was all Brody, unfortunately. She couldn’t handle the position anymore. The frat house requires certain sacrifices she wasn’t willing to make. Somewhat like you.”
He blows out another puff of smoke. “I’m glad I got to talk to Jaret, who told me all about your little plan.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
The smirk on his face is disgusting. “Didn’t you know? He values his position in this frat house more than your friendship. I thought you’d learned that by now. This is a brotherhood, Hunter. Alpha Psi always comes first, which is something you should’ve known.”
He leans forward, takes the cigarette from his mouth, and does the unthinkable. He pushes out the bud on my arm.
I scream in agony as he presses it out against my arm, burning my flesh. The flames still sizzle as he throws it out of the cage, laughing out loud at my misery.
“You fucking piece of shit! I’ll fucking tear you to pieces!” I yell.
Wes slowly gets up from his chair a
nd towers above me, chuckling. “We’ll see about that. First, you can fight your way through as many opponents as it takes to make you realize you’re not going anywhere. And with that I mean that you will never see the light of day again.” He grabs my hair, pulling up my head. “You’ll drown in your own miserable blood right in this spot. I’ll make you fight until you shit blood, you little punk.” He bangs my head against the cage. Fuck. “You’re going to make us some money until we trust you enough to let you out of this cage again.’
Wes turns around, walking to the cage door. “You’ll be nice entertainment for the club tonight. Revel in that.”
He signals the hooker again. “Take off the ropes and bring the chair. Keep him there.”
She nods, shaking vigorously as she approaches me.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she says, cutting through the ropes that hold me in place. I wince, but stay put as she releases them, my skin covered in red skid marks. I won’t hurt her. She’s not to blame, and I don’t put my hands on women. Not that I have any energy to fight right now. That fucking shit they drugged me with made me weak, and my body is still recuperating. Wes knows. I can see him watching me from a distance, enjoying the view. Well, I can promise him this: I will rip that fucking smirk off his face if it’s the last thing I do in this world.
♥♥♥
I’ve been up for a few hours now, rigorously preparing my body for what’s to come. My feet are restlessly shuffling about as I throw some jabs into empty space. The crowd has already settled in the bleachers, and they’re waiting for a show. Oh … I’ll give them a show. I’ll give them one they’ll never forget.
Whoever steps foot into this cage will not leave before they’re out cold.
The people are growing rowdy in their seats. Wes is twirling the set of keys that mark my freedom like it’s his to give. I’m waiting for this fight to begin so I can get it over with as fast as possible.
A robed guy walks up to the cage, and the crowd goes mental. There’s a name etched on his robe, and it says ‘Killer.’ He throws off the garment and all his tattoos become visible. He gives me a wretched, cocky smile, showing me the golden teeth filling up his mouth. I guess he’s fought a lot of guys in here.
Fury (New Adult Romance) - #1.5 Fierce Series Page 26