Page 188 of Fearless

She closed her eyes, and discovered, to her horror, that they were tattooed in white against the insides of her eyelids:

Sleeping with F. Lécuyer again. Will try to make contact with her again, but not optimistic. Unreceptive last few times we talked.

That was the first, the most recent, and from there, moving backward as she’d scrolled down:

No go. Dogs came to repair tire. Ava not alone. Will try something else.

M took care of tires. Will buy me some time to talk to her. Will let you know.

Fine.

I can’t do this anymore!!! I’m pulling the plug. Fuck this. I can’t deal with her. She wants Lécuyer, let him have her. I hate the bitch.

At some point between that message – sent the morning she’d stopped by his apartment – and the following, either a phone or face-to-face conversation had taken place, in which Ronnie had been reassured and put back on course.

The texts were unending, dating back months, in intervals, and regular, almost every ten minutes, since she’d arrived back in Knoxville. Ronnie had been reporting her habits, schedules, moods to someone labeledChiefin his phone. Interspersed were tidbits of club history and goings-on, things he’d observed or benign things she’d told him. He’d texted news of Andre’s stabbing the night of the party, as well as a threat she hadn’t known her mother had made to Ronnie, that first night, telling him to watch himself. Ronnie’s fear had been evident in the texts, as well as his reluctance to continue reporting.

“Christ almighty,” Collier whispered, and Ratchet and Tango crowded at his shoulders, trying to read the tiny phone screen type. The VP glanced up at her ashen face, his own paling. “Do you have any idea who this Chief is he’s talking to?”

She shook her head, unable to speak, throat clogged with bile and tears and the bitterest disgust.

Collier shook his head and kept reading, thumb scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. “Is there any chance your boyfriend’s a cop?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Mercy said firmly. His hand was heavy and warm at the curve of her waist, and possibly the only thing holding her up on her feet. “And no.” His voice sharpened, threaded with insult. “Of course she didn’t think he was. She’d never have brought him around here if she did.”

His defense of her gave her something to focus on. She laid her hand over his and managed to swallow. “No,” she said in a choked voice. “He majored in marketing at UGA. He’s not a cop.”

Ratchet sent her a sympathetic smile. “Honey,” he said, tone gentle, “that’s what this looks like, though.”

She shook her head, at a total loss. Yes, that’s what it looked like. It looked like the man she’d been sleeping with for almost a year had been reporting on her, like he was an undercover agent, infiltrating her life.

Beside her, Maggie rubbed her arm, the numb left one that had held the phone. “Ava, what grad school program was he applying to?”

She thought…thinking was hard. All she wanted to do was throw up. She wanted to vomit until her insides were clean, until every meal and look and laugh and touch she’d ever shared with Ronnie Archer had left her for good. “He…he wanted to get into law school. Business law. He wants to go into business law.”

Tango hissed, his grimace telling.

“Damn,” Collier said. He switched off the phone and let out a huge breath. “I’ll have to show this to your old man,” he said, almost like an apology.

Ava nodded, swallowing at the emotion lodged in her windpipe. “I want you to. Whatever he was doing – whatever this means – I want Ronnie to pay for this. I trusted him, I…”

She really was going to be sick.

She broke away from Mercy and her mother, fleeing out the front door of the clubhouse, swatting at Ares as he tried to follow her. She slammed against the door and fumbled the knob, staggered out into the sunlight drawing in huge gulps of air. She tasted salt on her tongue, felt the cold sweat break out down her back and under her arms.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, letting her head fall back, fighting the nausea, staring up at the bright ball of the sun.Burn it away,she pleaded.Burn away all the evil he touched me with.

Slowly, the wave passed, and her breathing evened out. She shivered hard, chilled down to her bones, and rubbed at her arms as she opened her eyes.

The last thing she expected to see was Carter Michaels standing in front of her, white envelop clutched in one hand, in his Leroy’s shirt and slip-resistant work shoes.

“Hi,” she said, because it was the only word that popped into her head.

He lifted the envelope. “I need to show you guys something.” Small frown. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Par for the course,” she muttered.

“Ava?” Mercy was coming for her, his footfalls rapid as his long legs brought him up behind her. She could tell when he recognized Carter; he gave a blowing snort like a horse. “What do you want, QB?”

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