Page 40 of Even if You Fall

I knew they were still working on Owen’s case—Iknew. But I’d been guaranteed I wouldn’t have to see or hear anything about it again. Asher had even taken it upon himself to file everything to do with this Donut so I wouldn’t have to see something about a man I’d been so close to.

But now? After giving them everything I knew and being assured they were done with everything Chloe-plus-Owen, there was something new. Something they were sure would have me falling into his trap all over again.

Somethingdangerous.

After how terribly last week had gone with Monroe, Briggs had given her another chance to redeem herself and to actually get information. But after spending four days in different schools throughout the district, talking to other women who had fallen into the Vance trap, I was more sure than before that this guy had to go.

From all the different women she’d spoken to, each one fully obsessed with—and on their way to falling in love with—Vance, the only unprofessional parts of their relationships were stolen kisses in offices and classrooms.

Very few had exchanged numbers with him. Only one had a relationship with him similar to Chloe’s, but that had only begun in the past few weeks. Every single one of them had been sworn to secrecy but had been all too eager to brag because they felt unbelievably lucky. None were aware of any of the others, or that he was married.

“It’s possible I’m wrong, but like I said, I think Chloe was different for him,” Monroe said, finishing out the notes on all she’d gathered. “I think if Chloe hadn’t left him, this new woman wouldn’t have turned into more.”

“Or maybe he only has two or three at a time that he seriously sees,” Briggs countered. “We can’t know. You only talked with so many women at a few of the schools.”

She shrugged and repeated, “It’s possible. But I can’t imagine he’d have the time if what Chloe and this woman are saying is to be believed. She and this new woman both claim they had dates with him most nights—that they spent the night with him more nights than not.”

“The messages we pulled from Chloe’s phone are evidence enough that she’s to be believed,” I spoke up, irritation leaking into my words because I hated even thinking about someone like Vance, but even more, I hated thinking of him with Chloe.

This girl had gotten too far under my skin, not that I wasn’t still fighting it.

Finding out what we had about Vance had somehow changed everything and nothing for me when it came to Chloe Whitlock. I’d wanted to apologize a thousand times for pushing her the way I had, and for the things I’d said. I’d wanted to protect her from everything he’d already done to her, and from anything he might try in the future. But like Vance, Chloe did her own form of manipulation with that bubbly personality and those perfectly delivered smiles.

Chloe altered everyone’s perception of her to what she wanted it to be, not what it truly was. She liked to give off the impression her world was made up of sunshine and rainbows—that nothing bad had, or ever would, touch her. She blatantly lied in a way that was so smooth, I watched others fall for it and found myself wanting to do the same, but I refused to fall for the lie.

It was one thing to want to keep your personal life to yourself. It was one thing to say you were fine when you weren’t. What Chloe was doing was different.

And it was infuriating to be so engrossed in someone for the first time in my life...and to not be able to trust a single thing about them.

At the reminder of the messages between Vance and Chloe, Monroe pointed at me with her stylus. “Then I think it’s safe to say Vance gets a little cozier with one woman at a time.”

“Then why’s he trying to get Chloe back if he’s moved onto the next?” Rush asked in a way that said he already knew the answer.

“Because Chloe was different for him,” Monroe said, words taking on a slightly exasperated tone as if she’d said it dozens of times, rather than only a couple. “And if she finds out he wasn’t actually sleeping with all those other women or that his ‘marriage’ is just an alliance?”

Right. That.

Even if Vance wasn’t unnervingly good at lying to women, he would’ve been able to get away with pretending he wasn’t married because he and his wife didn’t live together. As Gray had stumbled upon this weekend, Vance’s wife was a Wrecker. Not an extremely significant one, but that didn’t matter.

A Wrecker was a Wrecker.

And as for Vance? Well, any background searches on him would show he was just your average, all-American, law-abiding citizen from right here in Texas. But thanks to a group we used every so often who had ways of recovering deeply hidden information, we now knew Vance was from another mafia family on the west coast.Hewasn’t insignificant.

Thanks to Vance’s marriage, they now had a shaky alliance with the Wreckers.

But what he was doing as a superintendent, and what his wife was doing as a principal, we couldn’t be sure. We just knew it wasn’t good. Like Gray kept saying: the guy was dangerous.

Briggs drew in a deep breath and dragged his fingers through his short beard, contemplating what Monroe had just implied and left unsaid about what Chloe would do if she found out about Vance’s extra attention with her. “Chloe can’t know,” he finally said.

“Agreed,” Monroe said with a nod.

Gray’s chest pitched with a scoff. His eyes rolled as he mumbled, “You would say that.”

Monroe’s icy stare snapped his way and narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Knowing this was about to morph into another pointless fight between them because Gray was unfairly jealous that Monroe seemed just as taken with Vance as every other woman, I let my feet fall from where they’d been on the table and leaned forward.

“We all agree she can’t know,” I yelled over Gray. Once I was sure he wasn’t going to continue, I added, “We’ve already seen enough evidence of what Vance has done and can do to Chloe. She finds outthis? She’s gonna fall right back into his lies and into something so much more dangerous.”

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