by W Winters
Every time she stops at the bar, when time waits quietly and she’s still, her thumb brushes her lower lip as she stares at the marble bar top. If that wasn’t enough of an indication she’s thinking of me, her gaze shifts to where I stood beside her a few nights ago. Throughout the evening, every time she’s stopped moving, I’m almost certain she’s thought of me. She wants this, maybe as much as I do.
There are a million reasons I shouldn’t have kissed her. Zero reasons I should have. Except for the fact that I wanted to.
My blood chills as I lean back in the chair and she leaves the bar, the tray filled with martini glasses. If she’s undercover, if she’s working for the feds, or even just an informant … what I’m about to do could not only destroy me, but also my brothers. Thoughts of my nieces and nephews I’ve barely seen flicker through my mind. My entire family could go down if I don’t figure out who’s been passing the feds information.
With a grim outlook my gaze turns from the screen, just in time for an email to come through. It’s from a throwaway address.
There’s nothing that says she should be the one who’s undercover.
* * *
The single subject line doesn’t hold any text in the body of the email. But there is an attachment. I filter through the background check and other documents he discovered, most of which I’ve come to learn this past week.
There’s nothing that hints at her being involved, but she is friends with Scarlet. Given that her father passed and Scarlet was there for her, they’re closer than I first anticipated.
The knock at my door precedes it opening and I don’t have to look to know it’s my brother.
“You might want to get in on this,” he says. Jase’s tone is somber and it captures my attention. He nods slightly when my questioning gaze meets his.
“Scarlet is only one of them.”
Pushing the chair back from my desk, I stand up, buttoning my suit jacket as if it has any place in what’s about to happen. My pace is swift and Jase follows behind me as I stride out of my office. The door closes and I lock it before heading down the hall. All the while my body slowly numbs.
She’s only one of them. There are more for certain.
Swallowing thickly, I ready myself. This isn’t the first time or even the hundredth I’ve done this and yet each time, there’s a heaviness that weighs down every step.
My heart seems to slow, as does time.
“What else did he say?” I question just beneath my breath as my brother leads me to the back room.
The music from upstairs is loud tonight, and that’s by design. The door opens with an eerie groan and I’m quick to close it and lock it behind me before I follow Jase around to the back where a shelf is moved aside. A hidden door leading to a soundproof chamber opens with a gentle push on a disguised lock.
My pulse races, fresh adrenaline coursing through my blood. The stench of piss is the first thing to hit me under the fluorescent lights. The man’s jaw cracks as Seth’s fist slams against it and blood sprays from his lip.
The man’s head sways, his hands bound behind his back in the bolted-down chair.
Many men have rushed secrets out of busted mouths in this room.
As Jase pulls a chair closer to him, to continue his interrogation, Seth steps back. His shirt is stained with blood, as are his worn jeans.
“How long has it been?” I ask him. Other than my brothers, he’s the closest approximation to a friend I have.
“Going on three,” he answers, his voice even and the man of the hour wouldn’t know it, but behind Seth’s gaze is a tiredness as well as concern.
“I’m telling you,” the man starts, before spitting up blood, “I don’t know who.” He heaves in a breath, his head still dangling. Jase lifts the man’s chin up to look in his eyes. Both are swollen, while one brow sports a gash, and the other is swollen shut.
“I’m sure there’s something you can tell us,” Jase suggests, tilting his head and urging the man to give up a name or any information that could help us uncover the rat in our midst.
A heat rushes through me as the man heaves in a sob. He knows damn well he’ll die here, if not tonight, then early morning. It’s pathetic and it speaks to a side of me I long thought was dead.
“I don’t know, I swear,” he says and with Jase’s hand dropping, he leans back as Seth moves in. The man’s cheekbone crushes beneath Seth’s fist, and his head whips to the side with a vicious crack. For a moment I wonder if Seth broke his neck.
The agony in the man’s strangled cry promises me he’s still alive. He wails and his pain ricochets off the walls of this concrete chamber. Other than three simple steel chairs, one bolted to the floor in the center of the room, there’s nothing else here in the hidden back room.
“I don’t know.” The man’s inhale is harsh and sudden. The clot of blood he coughs up forces Seth and Jase to exchange a glance. It won’t be long. This informant won’t last another hour. “They didn’t share the names,” he confesses, his eyes closed, his head hung heavy.
I move in, gripping his chin and staring down into his very soul.
“How many?” I question.
“Two.” His answer is immediate.
“Both here?” He nods, a useless, weak nod I barely feel against my hand.
“How long?” I ask and he answers, “For years.”
It’s my only consolation as I back away, wiping the blood from my palm on the man’s jeans.
In a white shirt with a nondescript logo, faded jeans and brown boots, I imagine this isn’t what he wanted to die in.
“How did you find him?” I ask Jase, although I don’t turn to my brother. I keep my focus on the man we’re minutes from murdering.
As my brother tells me, his answer fades into the background. Everything in this moment takes me back to years ago. Back to when I first knew our lives weren’t like everyone else’s. There was something wrong with us, but we would survive if we had each other.
Braelynn was there, in this memory. As Seth resumes his onslaught, as Jase screams for answers and barters lies for truth, I remember a moment with her as I left school. I knew whatever I was leaving for was something that would haunt me. I stayed after school to watch the football team practice. I’d been thinking of trying out. Really, though, I stayed to watch Braelynn working with the athletic trainers. But Jase texted me he was there; that they needed me.
As I walked down the front steps, I felt her eyes on me. It was like she knew. Like she wanted to stop me. She didn’t, though. No one ever did.
Carter was in the back of Jase’s car, his face much like the man’s tonight. The smell of alcohol was apparent, but I knew it didn’t come from my brother. My father was the only one Carter would allow to beat him like that.
I remember how loud it was when I swallowed. How Jase had to grip my shoulders to get my attention and keep me from staring at Carter.
“Everything’s all right, I just … I need you to drive.” He was nodding his head before I could answer. “Can you do that?”
“Where are we going?”
“To the water,” Carter answered, his tone dull, but he patted the back of the driver’s seat with a welcoming gesture. It was a rare day where I felt genuinely needed. For most of my life, I’d been the kid crying, the kid who was in the way. “Get in.”
When we were halfway there, Jase and Carter discussed how long it would take to dig. There was a hill at the dock; it led up to thick woods on the left and a dense field on the right. “We’ll bury him by the field. It’ll be spring before they even find his body.”
That was the first moment I heard them say it out loud. There were so many things we never said out loud. We didn’t talk about how we missed our mother. We didn’t talk about how hungry we were or how fucked the house was with all the repairs it needed. We didn’t talk about how Dad was killing himself with alcohol. And how he took out his anger on my oldest two brothers.
We sure as hell didn’t talk a
bout the drugs. Or the rumors that Carter had killed people. They were bad men. That’s what I told myself. But as I drove the two hours to the docks, and the night got darker, they talked about burying the man in the trunk.
I remember watching them as the sun nestled behind the woods, their shadows took over the night and the thudding sounds of the violated dirt buried their way into my memory.
I’ll never forget that evening.
* * *
“Why did you need me to drive?” I asked Jase as Carter finished up in the distance.
“Adrenaline is …” Jase trailed off and sniffled, the cold of the night turning his nose a dark pink. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Adrenaline was high.”
I knew it was a lie and took a stab at the truth, saying, “You didn’t want me to go home to him.” We’d never said a number of things out loud before that night, but after it was over, there were no more secrets to keep.
“That too.” Jase’s eyes were clouded with sorrow.
“You can tell him.” Carter spoke up from behind me before swinging the shovel into the rear of the hatchback.
“Someone started something and—” Jase began and I cut him off.
“That’s real specific.”
“He said he was going to kill the Cross brothers.”
Carter added, “All of us,” before shutting the trunk with a loud clank. The car jostled with the harsh shove.
“Life might be fucked,” Jase said and met my gaze. “But we’ll never leave you behind. All right?”
“I’m going to take care of it. I’ll fix it,” Carter said and gripped my shoulder, squeezing it as his voice got tight with emotion. He was barely twenty-five and we’d just lost Tyler. “I’m going to fix it.”
“When’s Daniel coming home?” I asked them because at that moment, I swore I’d lose them one by one. I felt it in my bones. We were all going to die. I just didn’t realize the kind of deaths men like us have.
Carter answered, “I told him to stay away for now.”
Jase added, “He’ll be home after getting something. We’re waiting to hear back from a man named Marcus.”
The last bit of the kid I was died that night when I asked, “Are we going to be okay?”
“Always. It doesn’t matter what happens, all right? I told you, I’ll take care of it and you’ll be all right. I’ll kill every last one of them before anyone hurts you.”
Braelynn
The outside patio at the pub is the perfect place to be on my day off. It’s brisk, but not cold. Especially with the sun shining down, giving a hint of warmth. It’s quiet and a piece of normalcy. There’s no place I’ve ever been that holds the same atmosphere as The Club. Being here is like coming back to reality. And heaven knows I need that after last night.
Taking a sip of the cider, I try not to think of last night. Of the kiss. Of him leaving me and not coming back up to see me. Or of him not answering the knock at his office door.
I have no idea what we are or what we’re doing. It’s another piece of that prominent enigma that is Declan Cross. His life, his club, his touch … they’re unfathomable for a woman like me. And yet here I am, caught in his trap.
“Refill?” the waitress asks just as I bottom out the cider. She’s quick to bring me another, and all the while I focus on anything other than Declan.
I’ve always loved the early fall when the breeze is still gentle but the air is crisp. I hold a heavy glass of chilled apple cider in one hand and my phone in the other. My stomach turns. Everything was perfect until the message came in. Now my heart beats faster with anxiety. The patio feels too exposed now. There’s no door to lock between me and the rest of the world. I glance at the message one more time as if looking back down would change what I saw.
Travis: You need to call me back. I deserve a damn response from you.
My throat goes tight, partly with fear but also with anger. He’s so damn entitled. Gritting my teeth, I set the phone down and take a longer sip of the cider, wishing it was spiked. Hell, I’d even take whiskey just to have the edge softened. I don’t owe my ex-husband a damn thing. He doesn’t deserve anything from me, not after all he’s taken.
Yet the level of anger doesn’t rise to where it should. I should be furious, and instead I’m irritated and, if I’m honest, a little scared.
Because all I keep thinking about is the kiss.
Travis means nothing. His empty threats mean nothing when Declan Cross just kissed me. It was a kiss that heated me up inside like a fire in the middle of winter. It felt familiar, in a way, but also entirely new. A bit dangerous. A lot forbidden. And then he walked away, almost daring me to follow him. If I had followed him, anything could have happened.
“Everything okay?” my mom asks, startling me and bringing me back to the present as she retakes the seat across from me. The iron legs of the chair scrape on the paved patio as she pushes her chair back in. I trace the pattern on the iron patio table. My phone vibrates and the sound echoes through the metal.
The smile I force my lips into is a farce. We came before the dinner rush, so there’s practically no one else here. “Yeah, everything’s good.” My mother doesn’t need to deal with this mess. It’s mine to clean up. So I do everything I can to appease the worry in her gaze.
I take a casual glance at my phone, expecting to see something worse from Travis. The number on the screen isn’t his, though. It’s a number I don’t have saved in my phone.
Unknown: This is Mr. Cross’s associate. If you come in, you’ll be working exclusively for Mr. Cross from now on. I realize this is an occupational change that is unexpected. If you’d rather resign, please let me know.
Holy fuck. What? My head spins as I sit across from my mother, attempting to hide every reaction. I don’t know what to think. Blinking rapidly, and surrounded by nothing but fresh air, it’s still nearly impossible to catch my breath. My heart hammers as I reread the message, making sure I understand exactly what the hell is happening. Working exclusively for Mr. Cross. Is it because I couldn’t cut it as a waitress, or … because of that kiss?
If you’d rather resign … That doesn’t sit well with me. Instantly, I’m on high alert.
“The blood just drained from your face, nena. What is going on?” My mother’s dark eyes meet mine from across the table. With wide eyes I stare back at her. I’ve never been able to hide a thing from my mother.
It doesn’t seem prudent to mention the Cross brothers, though. It does feel like lying, but she doesn’t need to know. She’ll worry herself to death. Especially when I don’t have the first clue what this is about. I turn my phone over so the screen doesn’t show.
“Travis has been messaging me.” I offer up the alternative truth. It’s a relief to be honest with her and it makes my heart sink to omit any part of it.
She curses under her breath in Spanish, sweeps her napkin up from the table, then throws it back down. The wrinkles around my mother’s eyes show her age but also her worry. I hate that look on her. It kills a part of me that knows I’d be in a better place in my life if only I’d listened to her years ago.
“No, Mama, it’s okay.” I’m quick to reach across the table and grab her hand. “Really. It’s okay.” With my hand over hers I stress, “I can handle it.”
Her bottom lip drops as if she’ll say something, but she decides against whatever it was. Instead, she shakes her head, her short bob swaying with the movement. “I’m telling your uncle.”
Her stern voice sets off that same response it has since I was a child.
My words are rushed when I tell her, “Don’t do that. No one needs to get involved.” Pulling her hand away, she shakes her head again, staring down at her cup of tea that’s most certainly gone cold now.
“He needs to leave you alone.” Her voice goes breathless when she says it, and my heart breaks.
“Mama.”
She doesn’t want me to be hurt. She wasn’t convinced that me moving out of her house was the b
est idea, but I had to do it. I’m twenty-five. I need to move on. I had to make something of myself. I couldn’t hide in her house forever.
“Can we eat? Please? Our food will be here any second. I’ll block his number.” Again. She doesn’t know I’ve already blocked it before. And she doesn’t need to know either.
It’s always going to be “again” with Travis, isn’t it? He’ll keep pushing, demanding, attempting to control me and hold on to whatever part of my life he can. He’ll always be an asshole and I’ll keep blocking him, because what else can I do? Over and over until he finally loses interest and lets me get on with my life.
“If anything worries me, if he says anything else or … or tries anything else, I will tell you.”
Another text comes in. We both avoid looking at the phone for as long as we can, but finally Mama sighs. “Is that him?”
She takes her hand back and watches as I pick up the phone.
“No. It’s not him. It’s my friend from work. The one who got me the job.” Mama knows of Scarlet, but she’s only met her a time or two.
“Does she know about Travis?”
Scarlet: OMG! I just heard you’re being moved to personal assistant … he must really like you!!
“She knows about Travis,” I tell my mom. She knows everything. Scarlet’s known me long enough to understand why I needed a job and to be financially independent. Scarlet knows why I have to get my feet under me and make my own life … far away from my ex.
Scarlet also knows about the kiss last night and how torn I am about everything.
I scroll back through the texts, feeling … so damn conflicted.
Braelynn: I did something I shouldn’t have.
Scarlet: Tell me now. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it. It’ll be okay.
Braelynn: I don’t think you can fix this. I kissed Declan.
I remember how my heart raced after I sent that text and how it took Scarlet forever to respond. It would say she was typing, then it would disappear. Typing. Then nothing.