Page 79 of Havoc

“No, I wasn’t. Look, I don’t mean to threaten you. I’m just really worried about my woman being alone with him.”

“You should be. Slater has a real love-hate relationship with her in his own head. Let me see if I can remember how this all went down.” Thinking for a few seconds, he explained, “He had a girlfriend once. A real live girl that agreed to go out with him, without, you know, him kidnapping her or anything. They were both young, but she was particularly naive. He was real nice to her, or as nice as someone like Slater could be.”

I cut into his explanation to ask, “Are you saying Slater and Riley were dating?”

He rolled his eyes. “God no. Granted, I only know Riley by association from afar, but she would never date someone like him.”

“Thank God. I thought there for a minute that I was gonna have to give him a fuckin’ dirt nap.”

“No, Slater was in love with Jubilee. I know, it’s a strange name. Everyone called her Jewel. Anyway, he eventually started to control Jewel and smacked her around. If I remember correctly, Riley was just starting her life coaching business and was offering free sessions. Jewel went to one of her free sessions, and of course big-hearted Riley had to get involved with Jewel, started teaching her about self-respect, self-esteem, and how to understand the cycle of abuse. Slater did not like that. We all had to hear him bitching about how unfair the situation was and how if only Riley hadn’t gotten involved and screwed her head up, they would have worked out their problems.”

“I wonder why Riley never mentioned that to us before,” Storm mused out loud.

Before I could hazard a guess, Devin jumped in to give his opinion. “She might not have even remembered him. She knew Jewel, not Aaron Slater. She might have only been vaguely aware of him as the guy giving Jewel a hard time.”

An image of Riley walking into that empty restaurant to meet with a man who clearly blamed her for losing the love of his life made me sick to my stomach. “I was always under the impression that Slater wanted to date her, not get even with her,” I told him.

“I think it’s both, which makes him a double threat,” Devin stated quietly.

Before we could talk further, Breaker said, “Heads up. We’re close to the restaurant.”

“Aaron Slater is a dead man if he’s so much as touched a hair on her head,” I ground out roughly. That asshole had been hovering in her orbit for years, watching and waiting for his chance to wreak havoc in her life. Being smart meant he was a master manipulator. This time, he’d taken someone Riley cared about—one of her best friends—in an effort to lure her in. To my mind, that meant he deserved whatever happened to him. And if he thought for one second he was walking away from this unscathed, he had another think coming.

We pulled into the back parking lot. As I got out of the van, I sent a quiet prayer that Riley was okay.

Chapter 24

Riley

Igripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white, and the buttons down the side dug into my hand. My gut told me this was a trap. I wanted to go back and get the prospects, but I didn’t dare. Slater’s last sentence haunted me.

Come alone or you’ll never see your friend againran on a continuous loop in my mind as I rushed to the fish restaurant to meet the one man I most hated in the entire world.

The restaurant’s small front parking lot looked nearly empty. I craned my neck to look at the back parking lot and from the limited view I got, it was empty as well. That worried me because I remembered this place as always being packed. The last families were retreating from the playground across the street. Two joggers turned and jogged away.

I rushed up to the front door of the restaurant and pushed it open. That’s when I realized there was no smell of fish or any kind of food to be found.

A sick feeling twisted in the pit of my stomach when I realized this was no longer a public place because the restaurant had gone out of business recently.

Slater was a clever bastard. He was standing there in the middle of the empty restaurant, wearing his police uniform. His sidearm was in place at his hip, along with that baton he liked so much. I wanted to claw his eyes out when I saw how smug and self-confident he was.

I turned to face him, refusing to let him see that he was getting to me. I approached cautiously with my hands in my coat pockets. My burner phone buzzed again. When I stopped about ten feet away, we glared at each other.

He told me, “You look good.” Although he looked at me with admiring eyes, it felt creepy rather than complimentary.

“Now’s your big chance to get everything off your chest. Don’t waste it making small talk.”

He smiled at me, but it was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Still have that smart mouth, I see. If you’re not careful, one day someone will shut you up permanently.”

Not allowing myself to get sidetracked, I asked, “Where’s Maritza?”

“She’s safe for the moment. That’s more than I can say for you, young lady.”

Doubling down with a level of stubbornness that would make Havoc proud, I said, “I want to talk to her again.”

Slater’s calm and cool mask slipped for a moment. “I said I’d fucking take you to her after. Now, get off my back.”

“I’m starting to think you’re just full of shit. You said we’d meet at a public place. You said one conversation. You said I could see my friend. Do you ever do anything but lie?”

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