Page 11 of Devious Gambit

Gallagher: No!

Me: We can get drunk together.

All I needed was a way into Gallagher’s confidence. Cody was missing a valuable piece of information that only the literary nerd had access to. There was a time limit and he was getting on my back about it. The other option was to threaten her until she squealed, but I talked him out of that idea. She had enough to deal with already and if I’m being honest, I felt sorry for her. Once I’m done with her, she won’t see me for dust. I just needed to get close to her so she’ll trust me enough to divulge her darkest secrets. There’s nothing like sleeping with a woman to make them open up. Hell, half the time it’s hard enough shutting them up in bed.

Unfortunately, no one ever says ‘no’ to Cody, including his BF, and I couldn’t let him down, not when it came to this.

After waiting several minutes for Gallagher to answer my last message, I rang her.

“No!” she answered.

“Yet you still answered the phone,” I argued. “Which friend are you talking about?”

“Sweeney.”

“What did he do?”

“Sent me a threatening text.”

“What did it say?”

“Keep your mouth shut. But he spelt ‘your’ wrong, like ‘Keep you are mouth shut.’”

“Ah. Police are investigating the alleged rape that occurred on Friday night.”

“Alleged!” she shouted in my ear. “I saw it. I saw you four-”

“- I swear, Rhys, I was not there.”

“Whatever.”

“Let’s make a deal.”

“No.”

“You haven’t heard me out. Let me come over and protect you, so you can sleep,” I offered, knowing chicks like that sort of talk.

“In exchange for what?”

“Your company.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Scouts honor.”

“No deal!”

Click.

I growled in frustration and searched for Cody in the crowd of S&C members walking under the University Square lights. It was easy to pick the big guy out, walking with Ridge and Josh past the library towards the Vault. The guy was relying on me to sort this shit out and I couldn’t fail him.

“Hard nut to fucking crack,” I hissed.

FIVE

Rhys

The unopened shoebox was the first thing I saw when I got up that morning. I hadn’t slept well and when I did manage to fall into a slumber, I dreamt of being chased over the side of the East Bridge. I woke before I landed and felt like someone was in the room watching me sleep. Of course, it was only my imagination, but that was enough to scare me.

---