Page 14 of Capture
“Let me see what I come up with,” he said evenly, and I assumed he was going to end the call, but he added, “It’s obvious that the latest ruses are coming from the inside-out, so it makes sense that it might be her. Remember the witness saw the laundry delivery van drop off something in the early hours of the morning, and there was someone in your building that had a key to unlock the delivery door so they could collect, what one can assume was a box of rats.”
“Yeah, we were aware and had been putting our ear to the ground, but as you know…keep your friends close but your enemies closer,” I stated bluntly, and he agreed.
I swiped off, noticing the bartender had already restocked the packet of chips that I’d taken. With Betty out of the way, I was tempted to pressure the bartender with more questions about the rats and the traitor in our midst, but my abdomen was pointing me in another direction, toward the door that led toherroom.
A strange tingle traveled down the back of my neck as I strode to the Red Velvet lounge rooms as if my body was instinctively warning me against it. An inner dialogue played out as the scent of plush leather hit my senses, between the good, sensible me and the reckless, instinctive side.
What? I had no intention of touching her. She’s my enemy. I’d be mad to lay a hand on the girl who got me sent to prison. Yet, it’s been a while since I slid my cock into the warm, wet core of a woman and since she spread for the boys, then maybe…no.She’s my enemy. I hate her. She means as much to me as the bug on the wall or the sludge in a swamp or the fungi in the damp garden. Damp. Fuck, my mind is back between her legs again.
As I ran up the stairs, I was getting hotter, and even when I saw Ronan’s surly, bored face at the end of the hall, it didn’t cool my heat.
“Is she alright?” I asked him as I approached her door.
“Yeah, well, no, she had a panic attack, so I think all those stories she told and lies she spun had come back to haunt her in one giant heap,” he explained, sounding grim.
“A panic attack? Huh,” I swallowed back the guilt rising in my stomach. She’s young and easily influenced, and I should be more forgiving, but she chose to side with the police instead of the family that loved her. “Was it real? It wasn’t a little Hollywood, so you’d feel sorry for her?”
He hesitated as an annoyed expression washed behind his eyes. This was always my concern with these two lads, that the sweet perfume of a pretty girl would dull their senses while she crawled under their skin to plant a lie. Dipshits.
“Yes, it was real,” he stated, grinding his jaw, holding back his irritation at me.
Perhaps it was time to set him straight. “Ronan, if you and Gunner are turning soft over this girl, maybe I can’t trust you anymore.”
He flinched as he rose to his feet to look me in the eye, then mumbled something. He wasn’t usually a mumbler, unlike Gunner, so whatever he said was difficult for him to express, in case he bore the wrath of my anger.
I placed my hand by my ear, “What?”
He shrugged as the color seemed to run from his face. “I don’t think she deserves this,” pointing toward her door.
A strange sensation of loneliness came over me. Am I alone in this? Have the men I rely on the most abandoned me? Ican’t rely on Betty anymore, and these two chumps were siding with the traitor, which left only Freddie. That didn’t fill me with confidence, as my world seemed to be crumbling before my eyes because ofher.
All of this heartache and division was because ofher.
“No, you’re right,” I replied, and I could see his shoulders relaxing as a flicker of hope expressed in his eyes. Only for me to demolish his hope by adding, “This room is too good for her. We should’ve kept her in a cold, stone dungeon, chained to the wall, fed only bread and water. Luckily for you, there are no dungeons around these parts.”
“C’mon, Mikky, she’s told us everything. What more do you want from her?” he pressed as his stare noticed the chips and spring water in my hands, which kinda contradicted what I just said.
I cut him a black scowl. “I’m disappointed in you, Ronan. I thought I could rely on you, but maybe I’m wrong,” I warned him.
“You can rely on me,” he asserted. “But…she was a kid, man. She was naïve and scared and fell into a fucking rabbit hole of cops emotionally blackmailing her.” He exhaled. “She was a kid. Sixteen, Mikky, a fucking kid.”
I agreed with him. She was a kid. I get it. But I wasn’t about to give the little liar her freedom because the first people she’d run to were the fucking cops. Ronan should know this. “If she betrayed us once, she’d betray us again, Ronan.”
“Mik-”
“Leave,” I demanded, interrupting another guilt trip. “Go and get some sleep, Ronan. That’s an order.”
“I honestly don’t think she’d be that dumb, Mikky,” he groaned, peeling his back away from the wall.
I scoffed, shaking my head in disappointment as I unlocked her door. “She’s not going to get a chance to find that out, is she?”
He stalled and I shot him another black scowl, before he continued on his way down the stairs, head low, looking like a wet guppy fished out from a pond.
At this rate, there’d be no one left on my side. Maybe I should destroy everyone, burn this fucking down, and start again from scratch with new people by my side. Maybe.
Then I swung the door open and my gaze latched onto her small body bundled up in the corner of the bed, hugging her bent knees, messy dark hair, fear flashed behind her eyes, and my heart lurched in my chest.
Damn.
