by Anne Malcom
The wait was fuckin’ worth it when she moved her eyes upward and locked her gaze with his. They shimmered with tears.
“You rented out the gallery?” she whispered.
Though she was a near expert in reading him like he was fucking Nietzsche, he was still useless as tits on a bull when it came to figuring her out. Gage was able to figure most people out. Because people were simple. Pathetically so.
Lauren was the exception to that rule.
The exception to every fucking rule.
So he had no idea what her reaction would be.
“You believe in me?” she asked, her voice low and sweet when he’d been prepared for her to yell about how this was her decision and she should be allowed to make it.
Though he was shocked, he didn’t hesitate. He yanked her into his arms, relishing how her soft and warm body melted into his. “Yeah, baby, I believe in you. Only thing I believe in.”
She blinked at him through wet lashes. “Okay.”
He blinked back, lashes not wet. “Okay? It’s that easy? You’re just gonna do it?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s that easy, since everything we’ve dealt with to get us right here has been hard,” she said dryly. “I’m ready for a bit of easy.”
And Gage, who’d been prepared for his life to be hard until he took his last breath—didn’t think there was another way for him to exist—agreed.
That’s when the pounding came at the door.
He rested his head against hers, closing his eyes a moment. “I’ll get rid of them, Will,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead and reluctantly stepping out of her arms. “And then I’m fuckin’ you on the kitchen island.”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes flared at his words. Gage left her there before he had to fuck her without answering the door.
He got to the bottom of the stairs and wished he’d done that instead.
“You better have a fuckin’ good reason for being here,” Gage snarled, looking at Troy and the two uniforms beside him. “’Cause otherwise I’m going to be making my complaints. And trust me, you don’t want me doing that.”
“Going to be hard to do that from a jail cell,” Troy said. “Christian Mathers, you’re under arrest for murder.”
Of course he and Lauren didn’t get easy.
Nineteen
Lauren
“This is a new low, Troy,” I hissed across the table.
He looked at me with an expression resembling pity, but I wasn’t buying it. Because he had arrested Gage. For murder.
And he had all but forced me into the interrogation room with the whole club standing tense sentries like a repeat of last time. Though, unlike last time, I had a sinking feeling that Gage and I wouldn’t be walking out of there.
“I have evidence, Lauren,” he said evenly. “DNA. Fingerprints.”
My stomach dropped, but I didn’t let that show. “Doesn’t matter. He’s innocent.” Gage was far from innocent of murder, but of that crime, he was.
Troy stiffened. “You don’t even know who it is.”
I laid my palms flat on the table. “It doesn’t matter, since he didn’t do it,” I said through clenched teeth.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because if he did, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave evidence.”
Troy leaned back as if I’d struck him. “Jesus, Lauren,” he muttered. “What has he done to you? This isn’t who you are.”
My back straightened. “You don’t know a thing about who I am, Troy,” I hissed. “You think you know everything because of what you see on the surface. Because that’s all you see—surface. You have no idea what’s underneath.”
I stood, the scrape of my chair ringing against the room. “Am I free to go? Or are you going to try to charge me next?”
He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “Of course not, Lauren.”
“Right.” I turned on my heel, intending to stomp out so I could break down privately in the ladies’ room.
I’d give myself two minutes to do that.
That was all.
Because then I needed to get my shit together.
Gage needed me.
And no way was I letting him down.
My mind wandered for a moment to opening that envelope and the feeling of warmth that had spread over me. I held on to that, because no way was I losing it.
“You want to know who it is, the man he killed?”
I stopped with my hand on the door, regarding Troy with carefully blank features. “Sure, tell me the name of the man who you’re wrongfully convicting my boyfriend of killing.”
“Harvey Hayes.”
The name was worthless. I had no idea who he was, and I was about to tell Troy that.
“But I’m sure Gage didn’t catch his name before stabbing him in the middle of a bar full of people,” Troy continued.
I froze.
For about a second.
Then I turned the knob. “You better get your keys ready, Troy, because you’re going to be using them to unlock Gage’s cell pretty soon.”
Then I walked out the door, wishing I believed the words that had sounded so firm.
“Are you sure you don’t want a cocktail?” Amy asked, sloshing her glass at me. “Because if there’s ever a time to take up drinking, it’s the day your boyfriend gets arrested for murder.”
“Don’t tell her to drink,” Mia scolded. “She needs a clear head for the interview.”
“What interview?” Gwen demanded.
Mia rolled her eyes. “The one I’m going to get Lexie’s publicist to set up. About wrongful prosecution.”
“He hasn’t been prosecuted yet,” Amy said, sipping the drink she’d outstretched to me.
Mia waved her away. “Well wrongful imprisonment, then, planting evidence. Whatever. I watched Making a Murderer, and that’s the main thing. We’re going to make sure everyone knows Gage is innocent.” She paused. “Well, not innocent. But of this crime, at least.” She bit her lip, looking at me. “Right?” she clarified.
“Right,” I said firmly. “No way he did this. Not because I don’t think he would murder a guy for touching me in a bar—that’s totally within the realm of possibility—but no way would he get caught.”
“Okay, that’s what we need to say in the interview,” she decided. “But maybe not verbatim.” She started tapping on her phone.
The women were providing a welcome distraction from the truth.
Which was Gage had been arrested for murder and they had fricking DNA evidence to prove it. I wasn’t an expert by any means, but I knew that actually meant there was a chance that Gage could be prosecuted.
That there could be a trial.
No. This was not going that far.
The men already knew it was bullshit and they were shut away in ‘church’ while we sat in the women’s version, the bar at the club. I had to put my faith in outlaws.
But for now, I needed some kind of quiet.
My hand itched for my paintbrush. For solace. But that was only found in Gage. And they wouldn’t even let me see him. I hadn’t fought Troy on that earlier because the frayed thread I was holding on by was in danger of snapping. But I would tomorrow.
I stood. “I’m going to go home.”
All eyes went to me, and Mia, who was discussing the “best lighting for innocence,” stopped talking.
“I’ll come,” Amy said immediately.
I shook my head. “I think I just need to go alone, you know?”
She frowned, looking like she was going to push the issue.
Lily, of all people, chimed in. “Yes, honey, we know,” she said softly.
I smiled in thanks.
And I drove home.
But I didn’t find any solace.
Only more chaos.
Gage
“You sure you don’t have more to say?”
“Yeah, you need to invest in some new mattresses, and oh, you’re a fucking piece
of shit,” Gage replied, cracking his knuckles as they uncuffed him.
They were in the interview room. The club lawyer would be walking in the door at any moment; hopefully Gage would be walking out with him a handful of minutes later. They had him on retainer and he was the best, though they hadn’t needed to use him in years.
Gage wasn’t surprised that it was him to make the man work for his money.
He at least thought he’d be guilty.
“You’re gonna regret this fuckup,” he promised.
Troy leaned forward. “This isn’t a fuckup. The DNA evidence proves otherwise.”
Gage sat back in his chair. “DNA evidence means shit. And despite you actin’ like it most of the time, you’re not an idiot. If, hypothetically, I were to murder someone, no way would I be leavin’ DNA evidence.”
“There’s no hypothetical here. You are a murderer,” Troy hissed.
“Prove it,” Gage challenged, voice calm.
He was far from calm.
He hadn’t slept a wink.
And it had nothing to do with the mattress.
It had everything to do with who wasn’t lying next to him. Who wasn’t staving off the itch that ramped up to almost unmanageable levels in an enclosed space.
The night had lasted for forty-eight thousand, one hundred and two seconds.
Some of the longest of his life.
He wasn’t worried about the charges. They were bullshit. Though it would be one of life’s great ironies for him to go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.
He was worried because something wasn’t adding up about this shit. Jade entered his mind, and he held on to the thought, tasting it. Sure, it could’ve been her, since the fucking bitch had poisoned Lauren, but she’d been silent for months. He didn’t think this would be her next move.
But you couldn’t predict the next move of a crazy person. He knew that too well.
So he kept it in his mind. It was killing him that he couldn’t fucking do shit about it. Couldn’t hold his woman. But he had faith in his club. They would know it was bullshit. Would be going through every possible scenario.
The door burst open and shocked Gage from his mind.
He expected it to be a snake in a ten-thousand-dollar suit.
Instead it was a geek in a cut.
“You can’t go in there!” someone yelled behind them as the sounds of a struggle echoed into the room.
Gage would’ve smiled if not for the look on Wire’s face.
Troy was standing, hand on his gun. “You can’t burst in here while I’m interviewing a suspect.”
Wire’s face was grim as he held up a tablet. “I do if I have evidence stopping him from being a suspect and showing him to be the fucking victim.”
Gage hadn’t thought Troy was going to look at what was on the tablet. Fucker had an axe to grind, and cops didn’t usually give a shit about evidence when that was the case. Especially when it had to do with the Sons. Since Crawford had left, there was a new chief, one who was little more than a ghost and let his deputies work for him. He had the same agreement as they’d had with Bill not to fuck with the Sons, but he also wasn’t gonna destroy evidence to save them.
Gage thought for a moment that Troy might bury it just to damn them.
But despite how much he hated the fucker, he respected him for letting Wire sit down, lay it out.
In that moment at least.
When Wire laid it all out—the falling-apart cabin by the sea that they’d finally traced Jade to, with all sorts of fucked-up shit, including his fucking DNA and meticulous notes and plans on how to use it—Troy dropped the charges. Well, pending his own deputy’s inspection of the area. Which meant he wasn’t gonna let Gage go.
Yet.
And then it was time for the snake in the suit to arrive.
Who managed to get Gage released.
Troy didn’t fight that as much as Gage had expected him to. He could’ve, if he wanted. Theoretically could’ve held Gage. But he didn’t.
He almost respected him for that.
Then he thought of the night spent in that cell, without Lauren, thought of that beautiful moment ripped apart by the knock at the door.
He eyed Troy. “If anything happens to Lauren ’cause of this shit, ’cause of you lockin’ me up when I could’ve been protecting her, I’ll burn this fucking precinct to the ground.”
It was on that that his lawyer ushered him off.
And he went straight to Lauren.
He knew it the second his foot hit the stairs.
It was wrong.
Because the entire place reeked of flowers and raspberries. Perfume that was meant to be alluring and classy, yet the second it touched his nose, it repulsed him.
Because it was Jade’s.
He sprinted up the stairs, yanking out his piece. His mind assaulted him with everything he might find up there, the death he might be faced with.
That was forced away.
Because he wasn’t faced with death.
Lauren sat in the middle of the room, tied to a chair, gagged. Her hair was mussed and matted with blood, an angry welt raised on her cheek.
Blood boiling, he didn’t even think of anything but her as he rushed over. Her eyes bulged in a silent scream.
The prick of the needle surprised him. His body froze in ecstasy at the familiar pain, long enough to let whatever the fuck it was in the drug enter his system.
“Ah, you’ve made it too easy, baby,” a voice purred. “Now I’m going to have to make it hard.”
Lauren
Gage collapsed on the floor in mere seconds. His eyes didn’t leave mine the entire time. Horror spread through my veins at the way his irises began to glaze over, at the way the drug reached in and yanked away the comprehension in his eyes.
I didn’t try to scream from behind my gag. I knew it wouldn’t work. I’d been doing it all night.
Since I got home.
Since I found Jen—no, Jade in my kitchen.
I’d been surprised when I got to the top of the stairs to see her sitting at my island, sipping from a glass of red wine.
She put it down when our eyes locked, smiling warmly at me. But there was something off about it, something that made me go back on my heel and tense up.
“Jen, how did you get in here?” I asked, trying to remember if I’d locked the door in all my haste that morning. Maybe I’d left it unlocked and she’d heard, come over to commiserate. Yeah, that was it. I totally hadn’t locked my door, and of course she’d know. Niles knew of every arrest made in Amber. But then again, Niles had mentioned how she had some sort of family emergency when I’d finally been cleared to go back to work—with a leather clad shadow following me everywhere, of course—and she’d been in and out of the office. I hadn’t even seen her, only spoken to her on the phone once when she’d called to tell me how horrified she’d been to hear about my ‘virus’.
That was the cover story.
To stop Troy from sticking his nose in, as Gage had said. Well, Gage had said “so that cop fucker doesn’t stick his snout in and I don’t have to kill him.”
My doctor had somehow been very cooperative with this story. I had a feeling she was somehow connected to the Sons of Templar.
Or maybe she just knew it was a bad idea to cross them.
Whatever it was, the official story was a ‘virus’. My parents had somehow gone along with this too.
Gage had spoken to them, I had no idea what he said, but it worked.
So it was weird that Jen was here.
Something bitter touched my tongue, but I ignored it.
“It’s sweet of you to come, but—”
She stopped in front of me. “Ugh, I’m not sweet, you stupid bitch,” she snarled, silencing me. “Thankfully, I can show you that now.”
Then she hit me over the head with something heavy and hard.
White-hot pain exploded in my eyes and then there was nothing.
Until I woke up
tied to a chair in the middle of my living room. She hadn’t said a single thing since I’d opened my eyes. Not one.
It was deeply unnerving. Well, the whole experience was obviously deeply unnerving. The woman pretending to be my friend was actually Gage’s ex who had tried to poison me, most likely framed him for murder, and now was in my living room holding a gun after she’d knocked me unconscious.
All that was unnerving.
But what was truly terrifying was her silent pacing. Back and forth.
There were no big villainous monologues of what she did and how she got away with it. No insults. No death threats. No more violence.
Just her pacing, swinging the gun in her hand as she did.
She did it for hours.
And I wondered how in the heck she’d ever passed for a sane person. How she’d tricked everyone. Because this kind of crazy should’ve been impossible to hide.
Gage had showed me all the wonderful things that weren’t impossible.
And now I was seeing all the wretched, ugly, and maybe fatal things.
I thought of him a lot. With every heartbeat.
I spent the night hoping he’d stay locked up. That he wouldn’t come looking for me and find the utterly insane woman who had a gun.
But I knew he would.
I wasn’t surprised when he reached the top of the stairs. Because he’d told me he was the villain, but that he was always going to save me. Even if it was going to get him killed.
They say in times of great stress, people can lift things their body physically shouldn’t be able to. There was no greater stress on a human psyche than insanity.
Jen—Jade should not have been able to drag Gage to the chair she’d positioned across from me. Should not have been able to lift him onto that chair and sit his terrifyingly limp body on it.
But she did.
And worse, his eyes were open the entire time.
They were glassy and uneasy until she propped him on the chair without binds.
She cupped his cheek. “Ah, you thought you’d seen the last of me, my love,” she whispered. Then she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
After she straightened, the glassy look was gone. His eyes were ice, filled with panic and death and violence. It was a glare that promised revenge. Brutality. But it was encased within his still body.