Reckless Hate: A Bully High School Romance (enemies-friends-enemies-lovers-enemies) (Westbrook Blues Book 1)

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  He isn’t any different just because he wears blue and swore an oath to protect the people. Ealy is as vile and as greedy as they come and I know all about his gambling problem too.

  “No, but our good department never gives up on these things.” He says with an uneasy chuckle and I nod along with him, watching as he soaks up the false camaraderie.

  “Tell me something, Chief Ealy. You are aware of the security measures that the estates have, are you not?”

  “Uh, yes I’m aware.” He clears his throat and repeats the words.

  “Then, you must know that no inch of the estates is not covered by security personnel.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of this as well. Excellent measure there.” He says with a smile that make me sigh internally. Another ass kisser.

  “You are a smart man, you also know that the estates have every inch covered by security cameras that rotate three-sixty around each perimeter, right?”

  He pauses and looks at me. Got him.

  “Yes, but on the said day Mr. King, it is reported that the security footage was unavailable.” He answers after a while.

  “Hmm.” Is all I say as I watch him.

  “Your nephew, Chief Ealy. Do you remember him?” I question as I get up now, feeling restless. “He used to work security for the estates, particularly in the control room.” I say, turning away to look at all the newspaper clippings framed and put up on the wall. Everything to do with how Westbrook thrives, with the help of the good law enforcement of course, is up there.

  “Yes.” He is uncertain. “I remember him.”

  “Good. Tell me, what happened to him?” My voice is calm and I know I look calm. I make sure that my voice isn’t tense or that I don’t ball my fists. To him, I’m just asking but this isn’t just an inquiry. This is a matter of life and death.

  “Uh, we don’t keep in touch. Last time I talked to him was more than six months ago.” He swallows.

  “Of course. Did he tell you where he was, by any chance?” I turn to look at him then and watch as his eyes widen. I know I can find the asshole, I just needed to see if the chief of police would help a concerned citizen. Or if he has something to hide.

  “No, but I’ll make sure to ask him when he calls next.”

  I stare him down, hard. I don’t trust any of this but I’m going to get my answers.

  “Good!” I force myself to lighten the tone of my voice then and watch as he sighs in his chair, almost flopping back into it like he wasn’t breathing at all. “Thank you for your time, Chief.”

  And with that, I leave his office and go straight to my car. Four years ago, on the day that the Field’s home was invaded, Ealy’s nephew, Fred Ealy, who worked as part of the security team for the estates, resigned. He resigned with immediate effect on the very day, or rather, night, that there was an invasion.

  Fred Ealy also worked in the surveillance room more than anywhere else. If anyone would know about all the blind spots and the time delays on the security footage, it would be him. That means he had the means, but there isn’t a motive here since all the estates security team is paid handsomely. Unless of course, he sold this information to a willing buyer. Because, why would the intruder target the Fields’s estate? Why there exactly?

  I grab my phone and dial Emmett’s number.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Trying not to kill her.” He answers and I know exactly who he is talking about.

  “She’s making you wait.”

  “Fucking hell. It’s way past the time I gave her and she is a no show.” He blows out a breath but I know her, she’s trying to get a reaction out of Emmett and I also know it’s hurting her that he isn’t talking to her.

  “Just talk to her, man.” I say as I drive up the hospital. The same hospital that Star was in that night all those years ago.

  “I don’t have shit to say to her.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “Fuck you man! Have you talked to her? Does she know about. . .”

  “It’s none of her damn business how I decided to cope without her.” And it will stay like that. I have no intentions of cutting myself open for her to see. She means nothing to me now. Just a means to an end.

  “Listen, I need you to track someone.”

  “Yeah, who?”

  “I just sent you their info. This is priority.”

  “Okay, I got you asshole.”

  “Cool. See you at the house.”

  “Yeah.”

  We cut connection and I park the car and get out, heading straight for the emergency room where a certain elderly nurse that I remember from all the years I visited with a broken leg from playing football, or when George and I would rough house so hard we needed to come in the ER to get our arms re-set. Fuck those were the days.

  I walk in and as I look around with my eyes shielded by my shades, I spot a lovely woman with grey hair and her chocolate, caramel skin glowing in the fluorescent lights of the hospital. I smile when I see her chewing out an elderly man, telling him not to speak above her. Yup, she still doesn’t take any nonsense all right.

  “Now get out of here and take your damn pills. This isn’t bingo night, this is a hospital, sir.” She shoos him away.

  “Marie.” I stand before her and remove my shades as she looks up from her station.

  “Ace!” She gasps when she recognizes me. “Please tell me you haven’t gone back to breaking limbs again!” She stops and frowns at me, her eyes twinkling.

  “No, Marie. I’m grown now but I can’t promise nothing won’t happen with the football season upon us.” I say to her and she throws her head back and laughs.

  “Oh, my dear boy, it’s so good to see ya! How’ve you been my boy?”

  “All things considered, I’m confused.”

  “It’s a girl isn’t it?” She asks as she gets up, watching me with a clever eye, making me look down.

  “And I know her too, don’t I?” She asks again, not bothering to wait for a reply.

  “Will you help me with something?” I say after a while and she sighs.

  “Wait boy, let me get someone to cover for me. I’m giving you three minutes of my golden time!” Marie says with a wink and then disappears behind a staff door where I know all the nurses are. I hate this place and I have never particularly loved the ER, but it was the last place that I saw her. So, it comes as no surprise that when she left, I did everything to make sure that I come back here and lay in the same room that they had her in, trying to fucking get her out of my system by getting my ass beat up in underground fights and illegal street racing. Anything that would give me a thrill until I ended up here.

  “Okay, let’s walk to your car.” Marie says, jarring me out of my thoughts as she walks around the station.

  “Shall we?” I ask as I offer my arm to her.

  “Oh, you are now a gentleman?” She asks with a laugh but accepts my arm, looping her arm through mine, we start walking towards the busy entrance.

  “You wound me Marie. You know you are my first love. I’ll always be a gentleman for you.”

  “Lies! Is that what you tell all the girls?” She laughs.

  “Is it working?” I shoot her a smile. Marie is a genuine, rare beautiful soul. Everything about her just lights you up from within. From the time she used to take care of me when I was just a six-year old boy, back when the traumas were just to horrific to deal with by myself, she noticed and healed—as much as she could anyway, until the Fields moved in and she went away. Marie knew everything, and it so happens that she is the only one I allowed to call me by the nickname a certain brown-eyed wet dream gave me all those years ago.

  “Oh boy, you couldn’t handle me even if you tried.”

  I laugh at that as we walk towards the seating area outside. We sit and she takes out two apples and passes one to me.

  “Now I know your secret to stay looking like you are twenty-five. Apples.”

  “Boy, I’m seventy-five
and I rock this shit. Black don’t crack.” She says with a knowing grin and that’s just right. She looks amazing.

  “What’s the issue my boy? Why are you here?” She gets right to the point, biting into her apple as I toss mine into the air and back, lack of appetite and all. I know I should be eating an ox right about now, gearing up for football and all but fuck.

  “She’s back.” I tell her but she doesn’t react in anyway at all. “You knew about that?”

  “Saw her at the funeral, which you were not in attendance by the way.” She shoots me a glare, tears now in her eyes. Marie took care of all of us and she loved George, I can see that she is hurting, but fuck, so am I. So are the boys and I can’t even talk about the pain that she carries each time she walks through those damn school halls, knowing that her twin was just there and now isn’t.

  “I’m sorry about George. It’s just. . .”

  “Have you found who did it?”

  I turn to look at her so fast, my head spins. How does she know about. . .

  “Boy, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know that wasn’t a natural death. And I know everyone up there in those damn estates is trying to keep in under wraps.”

  “Then how. . .”

  “How do I know that you are looking for the killer?” She shoots me a look then and I nod. “You are many things Ace. A cold, dark, brooding, adrenaline seeking junkie and you are most definitely an asshole—I've heard all the rumors through the years—and you give no fucks about anyone. But when it comes to your brothers, you are an overprotective asshole. Which is how I know that you have been searching for answers.”

  “They have been hard to come by though.” I say after a while, soaking in her words.

  “You are the smartest boy I know, Ace. You know exactly what to do. Which is also why I know that your coming here has nothing to do with one of the twin turbos but the other.”

  I sigh when I hear her using that reference. Shit, I was always so jealous when Star and George would refer to each other like that. I fucking wanted to be her twin turbo. I wanted to be connected to her, but not in a brotherly way. That was for George, but everything else, she was mine.

  “Marie, everything doesn’t make sense. Why did she leave?” I go for the jugular and just ask. It all doesn’t add up. That night she cried and cried for hours, breaking my damn soul in the process. I was fucking ready to set fire to the whole damn world right then but then she up and left.

  “There are secrets that even I can’t divulge. Hers is one of them.”

  “But Marie, what happened? What happened to her?” I ask in frustration, my heart fucking pounding but she only shakes her head.

  “That’s for her to share and for you to wait patiently for her to do so.”

  “She tried to take her own life, did I tell you that?” I stand up now, kicking the damn rocks in front of me. I’m too restless and I fucking want to pound the shit out of something, anything, anyone.

  “George told me when he came in years back.”

  “Yeah well. . .”

  “Alex.” She calls and I turn to look at her, feeling so damn useless, my chest painfully tight. “She’s alive ain’t she?”

  “Yes, but she feels different, Marie. She isn’t the same and something about it all doesn’t sit right with me anymore.” Hell, it never sat right with me right from the start.

  “Did you expect her to be the same, after everything that has happened here? Everything that has happened to her?”

  “That’s the thing Marie. I’m not so sure what happened to her.”

  “My boy, the fact that you are even asking shows that you know the answer already.”

  Fuck.

  There is no way. It’s not possible. Nothing but trauma. There is no way that we can share a darkness like that. I’ve worked fucking hard to protect her from a lot of shit in life but. . .

  “I can’t wait for her to tell me and somehow I don’t think she will ever tell me. Marie, please.”

  She looks at me then stands up and it’s only then that I notice that she has been holding what seems to be a file, covered by a clipboard.

  “Listen, I can’t give you this but I agree with you. She needs that push. And if I know anything at all in this long life of mine, it’s that you both need each other, Alex.”

  My eyes are only on the file. Whatever is in there contains the answers that I need and I just need to read it.

  “Alexander King, are you listening to me?” Marie’s frustrated and irritated voice reaches me and I finally focus, looking down into her angry eyes. “This is serious and it might just change everything. And I mean everything.”

  “Marie, everything has been shitty. I’ve been to hell and back.”

  “So has Astraea. You can’t even comprehend what she is going through so don’t you dare act like you are the only one suffering.”

  “She left, Marie!”

  “Did she? Why would a thirteen-year old just decide to leave the only home that she grew up in. Leave her brother and the boys that she loves, and then goes away just like that?” Marie questions, now poking me in the chest. “You are not an idiot, please don’t make me think otherwise of you, boy.”

  She slaps the file into my chest with the clipboard attached. “You fucking do right by her this time. God only knows your fucked up family messed her life up. And now she has lost her brother. Coincidence?”

  And with that, she tuns to leave and I watch her go.

  My family is responsible for all of this.

  Nothing is ever a coincidence in Westbrook. Nothing just happens here. Everything is carefully planned, orchestrated and executed.

  Does that include what happened four years ago?

  Is Marie right? Is Star right for accusing me of letting her go and taking away those precious years of our lives?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ASTRAEA

  AS SOON AS THE BELL goes, ending the AP Calculus class that I find strangely relaxing, I make it a point to take my sweet ass time to pack away my books.

  I know for a fact that Emmett gave me an ultimatum but I’d rather die right in these halls before I become scared and afraid of that brute. Yes, he is huge, yes he is intimidating and right now I’m his least favorite person. Actually, I don’t think I’m even in the considerable list of his that he used to keep when we were younger.

  Back then, he used to keep a list of people that he considered as decent human beings and he wouldn’t mind being around them or talking to them but they wouldn’t particularly make the cut of his favorite people. Strange yes, but it was one of his copying mechanisms and he used the list to distinguish who genuinely wanted to be his friend or who wanted to use him.

  All the boys ended up adopting that list as their own seeing as all people ever wanted to do with the boys from the estates—particularly those three—was to use them.

  I wonder if George had such a list. I need to find a way to get in his freaking room and I need to do that soon without the prying eyes of Trumbull roaming the halls like a damn patrol officer.

  That being said, to be around Emmett or any of the boys, one would have had proven himself. Gaining their trust is much harder than being ‘considered’ a friend, and for Emmett that honor was reserved for the boys he grew up with and a certain pair of twins that came along the way. But that was a long time ago. Now he is angry at me, you can just about feel the hate when those pale green eyes cut at you.

  But I won’t run just because he commanded it. I won’t jump the hoops he expects me to jump. If he has a problem—and I know he does—he will tell me about it. I’m so fucking done with holding my breath. Expecting that he will talk to me like a civilized person.

  “What are you doing after school?” I ask Kim as we both leave the large Calculus classroom and down the hall towards the exit.

  “I’m actually on a hunt for an after school job.” She explains and I’m actually surprised.

  “You are looking for a job? Why?” I ask her. She
really doesn’t look like someone who would do well with working under some else’s authority. If you ask me, Kim looks like the type of girl to be in charge, run her own thing. Not be ‘run’ by someone else.

  “Yeah, I need the money and besides, my sisters annoy me.” She says with an eye roll and a laugh. “This weekend they thought it would be a good idea to get in my closet with a pair of scissors.”

  “Ouch.” I cringe as the visual sets play in my mind. That can’t be good.

  “Let’s just say they can feel my wrath and I really don’t want to see their faces right now.” She says as we follow the throng of excited students out the huge doors that lead to the parking lot. Well, the common parking lot that is somehow not good enough for the Blue Boys.

  “How old are they? Surely they were just experimenting.” I laugh, thinking maybe her sisters are little toddlers that just got into it unknowingly.

  “Experimenting? The fuck does that mean for some grown kids aged seven and five?” Kim is appalled and dismayed at the thought but I only laugh.

  “Yeah seven and five is actually really young.”

  “Bitch, whose side are you on?” She folds her arms and I lift mine in a sign of surrender. No way do I want to be caught in a crossfire here, not when it involves her clothes—and the girl loves fashion.

  “Sorry, you are right!” I quickly appease. “So where are you looking right now?” I ask her as we walk over to her car.

  “I was thinking to go ask at that ice-cream parlor that we went to last week. That and maybe a few of those retail stores that are in town and maybe a restaurant. I don’t know really.” She explains with a thoughtful look in her eyes.

  Must be nice, having that much freedom of choice before you and not feeling any pressure to go a certain route or have someone else dictate what you will do or where you will go or not go.

  If it was up to me, by now I would be back in London, finishing my senior year there without all of this drama. But the mystery of what happened to my brother is always at the forefront.