Page 114 of Make Them Cry
Benny. Alan. Ryan.
Their names are burned into the article.
My pulse spikes.
They were the assholes harassing River last night. The ones I threatened.
I shoot upright in bed, the blood draining from my face.
River stirs beside me. “Gage?” Her voice is thick with sleep, and it kills me to wake her up with this.
I shift to face her. “Hey,” I say gently, brushing her blue hair back from her face. “Baby, I need you to wake up. Something happened.”
Her eyes flutter open. “What is it?”
I hold up the phone, the article open. “Benny, Alan, and Ryan. They were found dead this morning in the river. It looks like gang violence. Some kind of setup after they left the after-party.”
Her eyes widen, and she sits up. “What? No. That’s… are you serious?”
I nod. “Arrow sent it to me just now.”
She reads the headline and gasps. “They were horrible to me last night, but—Gage, this can’t be a coincidence.”
“It’s not,” I say, already half out of bed, pulling on my jeans. “This is connected. Has to be.”
My phone buzzes again. It’s Arrow calling.
“Yeah?” I answer.
His voice is tight. “We’ve got a problem. Cops are looking for both of you. They want to question you about the incident. They think there might’ve been some kind of altercation before the guys left.”
I curse under my breath. “They harassed River, I confronted them. That’s it.”
“I know that,” Arrow says. “But word got around that you nearly decked them. Someone reported you looking aggressive. It’s not great optics, man.”
River’s already scrambling to get dressed, her face pale. “What do we do?”
“We head to my place,” I tell Arrow. “We’ll meet them there, let them question us in a controlled setting.”
“Copy that,” Arrow says. “Knight and I will run cover. You’re not going in alone.”
I hang up and turn to River, who’s slipping on her jeans, fingers trembling.
“Hey.” I move to her, pull her close. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I didn’t think it would escalate like this,” she whispers. “It’s all unraveling so fast.”
I press my forehead to hers. “We’re going to get through it. I promise.”
We head out of Riverside,keeping it low-key. I drive us straight to my place—neutral territory, somewhere we can control the narrative before the cops twist it.
Arrow and Knight are already there, sitting in my kitchen with laptops open and phones buzzing.
“Cops are on their way,” Arrow says, standing. “They want to ask a few questions, but we’ve arranged to have Dean Maddox, head of Maddox Security looped in.”
“Thanks,” I say, and glance at Knight, who’s already pulling up street cam footage from last night. “Anything?”
“Working on it,” he mutters, eyes scanning the feeds.
