Page 99 of Fatal Attraction

“Crow?” A soft gasp escaped my lips. “You mean the guy who showed up at Blaire’s funeral on a Harley? I… I thought you weren’t friends anymore after what happened with Kendall?”

Phoenix scrubbed two depressingly stressful hands down his face and then blew out a long, miserable sigh.

Finally, he met me eye-to-teary eye and said, “I wasn’t fully honest with you about my past and my history with Crow, nor have I been honest about what I’ve been up to lately. I…I didn’t want to scare you away or make you think differently of me and the person I am now.”

“Phoenix…” So much pain and heartbreak reflected back at me, it sent a frightening chill snaking down my spine. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“In Amber Strickland’s case,” he nervously uttered, “when we discovered she and her husband, Daniel, were drugged with Rohypnol, Spike and I made an unreported trip downtown to speak with Crow.”

“Don’t you fucking dare sugarcoat it,” Spike viciously snapped, and my heart skipped several beats at the lethal glare searing a hole into the right side of Phoenix’s torn face. “Tell hereverything.”

“It was my idea,” Phoenix corrected himself. “Damn near all of the MCs in Seaview Pines are known to be involved in sexual assault and drug crimes. Rohypnol has been popping up in a lot of unrelated cases pertaining to them, so, instead of reaching out and speaking with Crow directly, I tried arranging a meeting with his daughter, Kendra. I paid Kendall $100 to reach out to her.”

“What happened?” My voice shook.

“Long story short, Kendra said she’d meet with us at Crow’s bar, Daggers. When we got there, Crow was there, too. He refused to let us speak with Kendra, so we had no choice but to talk to him.”

“And then what happened?”

“He told us none of his crew was involved with our cases, but that there have been a lot of drug shipments coming and going from the Pines for at least four, maybe five months now. He didn’t know who was responsible, but he caught word it was another rival MC. He told us to reach out to Gibbs and Hammett in Narcotics, that it was possible they could help us.”

My jaw ticked at the information. “And did you?”

“We did,” said Spike. “They lied to us, purposely withheld important information that would’ve helped us catch Perry a lot sooner.”

“What?” My brows furrowed. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“They were undercover,” said Phoenix. “Both Gibbs and Hammett have been working undercover for a while, trying to narrow down where all these nasty street drugs are coming from. They gave us information that led us to a dead end. Then when Blaire died and her murder was spread all over the news, Crow showed up at Blaire’s funeral claiming he had information on her death. He wouldn’t tell us anything until we agreed to help him.”

“Help with what, exactly?” I asked.

“I wasn’t entirely sure at first, not until I received a text to meet.” Droplet after droplet spilled down Phoenix’s face as he squeezed my hand harder. “Spike and I met him at Daggers, and Crow discovered that a member of his crew had betrayed him and was working with the same rival crew whowere bringing the drugs in. I…” He paused, swallowing through a massive gulp as he glanced briefly at Spike, who nodded. “When I was a teenager, I was a member of the Rolling Rebels. I was known as theirBonecrusher. I… I had to do things, Charlotte. Things I hadn’t done since I was a teenager. But I had to do it because Crow was withholding information on Blaire’s murder…”

“Phoenix.”It was bad enough they’d both willingly withheld this information from me, and now all this beating around the bush was really starting to piss me off. “What did you do?”

“I… I tortured the guy, Charlotte.” His words shook with his body.

“We both did,” Spike said next, a deep sigh slipping past his lips. “We didn’t have a choice, baby. We needed the intel Crow had. It was the only way for us to get it.”

My head spun. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had questions, so many of them that I frankly had no fucking clue where to start.

“Crow didn’t have much to tell us,” Spike continued. “Just that our perp had strong connections with somebody in law enforcement.”

I scoffed at that. “And he didn’t provide a name?”

“No.” Phoenix sadly shook his head. “He didn’t. Worst part is, Crow wouldn’t have been able to tell us even if he did know it was Perry.”

“And why the hell not?”

“Because Crow was working as a CI for Gibbs and Hammett.”

My tight eyes widened. “He waswhat?”

“It’s a long story,” Phoenix hoarsely whispered. “But all you really need to know is that an undercover drug bust went down tonight. Crow and his crew were tasked by Gibbs and Hammett to find out who was smuggling the drugs in and to help them intercept the next shipment. It wasn’t supposed to go down until next week but I’m assuming Leo, the guy we’d tortured, ratted Crow out to the President of the Ravens because the date got moved up to tonight.” Phoenix paused, and his voice cracked as hesaid, “It was an ambush. There were five men in the back of the drug truck waiting for us.”

“Wait…” My lips incredulously parted. “You were there? That’s what you were doing while I was in surgery and why you’re all beaten to hell and—”

“He had to, Charlotte,” Spike spoke on Phoenix’s behalf. “We were both supposed to be there tonight, but then you got here and had to be rushed into surgery. Perry hadn’t been caught yet, so I told Phoenix to go and that I’d stay here to protect you.”

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