Page 21 of Sins of Seduction
Come one, come all.
It’s a black tie ball.
Wear your masks
To see a Raven fall.
Cruz picked up the invitation. It was all black with red lettering that had been glued on. No handwriting, nothing for him to take and get analyzed—his fingerprints were probably the only ones on the invitation. He would need to look up the address before he decided if this was legit or just some prank.
Someone called his name, but he didn’t look up from the invitation, even when he felt his coworker at his back. “Cruz?” He glanced over his shoulder to see Detective Grayson.
They’d been partners for a little over six months now. Grayson replaced Pierce, and Cruz hated it. He’d rather work by himself. Cruz and Pierce had grown up together, come up in the academy and the force together. They worked efficiently and effectively—they had been a whole unit instead of two individuals, which made closing cases and working together a dream.
When Pierce retired to go find himself, it felt like Cruz lost a limb, and his boss thought having a new partner would help him out, but it didn’t. It was like giving him the wrong prosthetic for his body and it irritated the shit out of his skin. Cruz left Grayson out of his dealings whenever possible, but they’d both been at the station when the call for Lush had come through, and Cruz hadn’t expected Pierce to be there last night. Cruz never missed an opportunity to go toe to toe with Raven, which was why he let them go last night. He hoped he would have had Raven all to himself in the interrogation room, but he’d have Grayson sitting in with him.
“Ms. Raven Wright, her lawyer, Diane Mena,” Grayson mumbled behind him, and Cruz cursed under his breath when he heard that Raven’s lawyer was in attendance.
“Ms. Danielle Cunningham and Pierce are here too. Who do you want in the interrogation room first?”
Cruz stood to his full height, doing his best to tower over Grayson’s average height and build to convey without words whose show this really was. He didn’t want any interference when it came to Grayson. Cruz would have a hard enough time fending off Diane not allowing Raven to answer any questions he had for her. It wasn’t so much that Cruz thought Raven was guilty, her hand wasn’t physically on that knife, but she was responsible. If she didn’t own Lush—selling sex like a whore—that man would still be alive, and Cruz would still have his best friend by his side.
“Send in Raven and her lawyer first.” Cruz crossed his arms over his chest, expecting Grayson to jump at the command, but Grayson held his ground, holding Cruz’s stare with equal measure. Cruz could feel the tension rippling between them, and the fact that they should have been on the same side didn’t get Cruz to back down. He didn’t need Grayson for this—for anything really.
“And what about Pierce? You and I both know he’s going to want to sit in on the questioning.” Grayson’s smirk said everything he hadn’t verbalized. It was no secret that Pierce and Raven had been an item. She’d come to the station enough times to make it clear they had been more than just fuck buddies. When the station found out that Raven owned Lush, the rumors had circled faster here than they did amongst high school teens. Cruz hoped those rumors would be the end of Jax and Raven, but Jax was a stubborn bastard and only dug his heels in further with her.
Cruz shrugged. “Tell him to park his ass in a seat and wait till we’re done. He’s not a detective any more. He lost his right to come and go as he pleases in here.”
Pretty little Raven
Into the lion’s cave you go.
Their claws are sharper than yours
And those pretty little wings
Won’t aid in your escape.
I wonder if you’ll beg for mercy
Or scream in pain instead.
Raven and Diane were escorted into one of the interrogation rooms by Detective Grayson. Raven was grateful that it was him who had come and collected them and not Cruz. She hadn’t been fully prepared to face him after the conversation her and Jax had before they headed over to the station. She hadn’t expected him to be so open with her. He’d been honest about his change and his growth; even so, Raven still felt skeptical about it all. It felt like the change in Jax was still fragile, and the last thing Raven wanted to do was get her hopes up only for her heart to break in the end again.
“Let me field the questions. This should be routine, but Mr. Pierce and Ms. Cunningham seem to think it won’t be.” Diane met them at the station after their brief phone conversation this morning. Raven didn’t need to brief her on anything, Danielle had given her the heads up, and Raven had never been more grateful for having Danielle as an assistant and in her life in general. The woman was a godsend to Raven’s business and kept her head on straight.
“I can handle Cruz.” Now that Raven was sitting in the sterile and stuffy room, she felt her armor start to slide into place. She pushed down what happened at Lush and what was going on between her and Jax so she could focus on Cruz. Ever since she met him, they bickered and fought, always with a snide remark that made him feel superior in some way. Raven knew she wasn’t meant for everybody, and while she understood Cruz’s importance to Jax, it was no skin off her nose that Cruz had been very opinionated about her.
Most of the men Raven encountered outside of Lush and the open lifestyle she lived couldn’t handle women who were secure in their sexuality and didn’t make apologies for what brought them pleasure. Men like Cruz liked their women saintly while they coveted the wild ones.
Raven shifted in the uncomfortable metal chair. “Besides, I’m not guilty of anything.” As soon as she said the words, she flinched. She wasn’t the one who killed the person in Lush, but somewhere deep inside of her she couldn’t shake feeling responsible for his life. People came in to Lush to feel safe in exploring their pleasures, not get a knife to the throat and lose their life in the process.
“Did you get everything set up once the cops notified the family? Did they tell you who it was?” Raven had been too in shock last night to fully take in the dead body and see who it was. It had been on the back of her mind, wondering if she knew the person enough to consider him a friend or if he was a stranger just passing through.
Diane shook her head. “I’m sure they’ll tell us now, but either way this falls, I have all the bases covered. We should be okay.”
Raven rubbed the spot in the middle of her forehead, feeling the start of a migraine coming on. Knowing Cruz, it was going to take forever for this day to end and they would have an uphill battle depending on which way the victim’s family decided to take things.
Raven prayed the media didn’t get ahold of what happened in Lush. She was already having a hard enough time fighting off the religious zealots who no doubt saw the police presence. She was going to have an even harder time reminding the people at Lush that it was still safe. This was a one off and a random act of violence that wouldn’t continue.
