Page 82 of Falling For Temptation

Footsteps approach, and I nearly drop the gun as a shorter man with gray hair in a red-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt appears. I don’t recognize him, so I keep the gun up. He doesn’t look like one of the guys Sev always had hanging around, but I still don’t know him.

His eyes are wide, flitting from my face to the gun. He lifts his hands up defensively.

“Are you Harley?” he asks, his voice surprisingly kind.

I lower the weapon slightly.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice raspy and high-pitched. I clear my throat. “Where’s Seven?” I ask in a stronger voice, lifting the gun again, waiting for him to appear behind the man.

“I’m Detective Riggs, Harley. I’m a friend of Russ’s from Greencity. Seven is in the back of a squad car in handcuffs. You’re safe now, okay?”

He looks back at the gun, and I lower it down to point at the ground. He’s arresting Seven?

“I don’t know anyone named Russ.” The adrenaline flow is beginning to slow.

Seven can’t touch me. He’s locked up.

“Russ is an older guy, white hair? He works as a campus police officer at Ole Tex. Don’t you go there with Adam?”

I nod, the pieces slowly beginning to mold together. They got something on Seven from the video feed. What could he have done in the parking lot of the dorms?

“Yes…but why are you here?” My arms begin to shake again, and I slowly lower the gun to lay it on the floor, backing away.

Detective Riggs approaches the opened chair with the firearms laid out inside of it. He looks from it to me, a smile forming on his face.

“I came to perform a random check on a probationer. That check has revealed some interesting things.”

He doesn’t touch any of the guns but leans down to look at one in the case. Standing back up, he walks around the chair toward me.

My body is visibly quaking with the rush of panic, adrenaline, and shock crashing through my bloodstream. I see him jump toward me as I crumble, the world fading to black.

34

Adam

Harley is in danger.

Harley went back to Carbona to see her family, supposedly.

Kenna told me in tears as soon as I went to their room after I met with Russ. She said she was worried, but Harley asked her to tell me I was sick. That part made me question everything, but even if she’s changed her mind about us, I still have to make sure she’s safe.

Russ had gotten the license plate from Seven’s motorcycle, and did a search in the database. He’s a forty-two-year-old ex-convict, on probation for another six years. He was in prison for attempted murder, drug dealing, and selling illegal firearms. He was also suspected of gang activity.

The flight to Carbona lasted an eternity, my knee bouncing, head spinning. The woman next to me kept trying to talk to me, and I couldn’t even register her face or words enough for more than a few grunts of agreement.

When my plane landed, I got a heart-stopping voice mail from Detective Riggs, telling me that Harley was rushed in an ambulance to the Carbona Lakeshore Hospital. He said she was “okay,” but that’s a relative term.

The first taxi ride of my life is agonizingly long.

My hand grips the door handle harder. “How much farther to the hospital?” I ask the driver.

“Ten minutes,” he replies, his tone tinged with annoyance at my continual request.

Russ has a multitude of contacts after having been on the police force in different cities for over forty years. He called an old friend in Carbona to inquire about the bald tattoo artist, whose real name is Tyler Donniver. Turns out, Mr. Donniver is suspected of continuing his arms dealing. His place of work is also under surveillance. Lots of felons like to get “tatted up” at Hades’s Playground, according to Detective Riggs. He agreed to pay the probationer a random visit as a favor to Russ.

The car finally inches under the awning in front of the enormous off-white structure. I shove cash at the driver, not waiting to hear the amount. I slam the door of the yellow car, racing inside the open automatic doors.

“Hello, miss. I’m looking for my friend Harley Kain. She was brought in an ambulance and—”

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