Chapter 14 Fear
FOURTEEN
FEAR
DALLAS
Princetown is the kind of quiet suburb where no one looks too closely at their neighbors. It has wide lawns, perfectly manicured. Privacy fences. Houses spaced far enough apart that screams don’t carry unless someone’s listening for them.
Tonight, I hope no one is listening.
When I pull up at the address, Adrian is leaning against the hood of his car, suit jacket missing, sleeves rolled up, expression unreadable. The moon winks off the gold hoops in his ears. His cigarette is in place, the filter lost in his mussed hair.
On the passenger side, Bas is wearing his road jacket and a feral grin on his pretty boy face.
He cracks his knuckles, eyes gleaming, no sign of the rascal who has charmed the panties off of half of Harmony Heights.
These days, he’s loyal to one woman and one woman only, but the former Order outcast is one of my most loyal allies.
Adrian is my cousin. Bas is a lifelong friend, just like Connor. Nah. I can trust Connor to take care of Lucy same way as I can trust Adrian and Bas to have my back in Princetown because the four of us… we’re more than that.
We’re brothers, and I wouldn’t want anyone here with me while we take care of business.
Joining them by Adrian’s car, I pat my jeans, making sure I have my pocketknife.
All of us have one, a gift from Connor back when we were still boys.
He had a fascination with blades all the way back then, while Adrian and I moved on to guns.
And, yeah, I’ve got a Ruger tucked in my waistband.
I still brought my knife because, knowing what tonight’s gonna bring, I’ll probably need it.
Because I had to take the detour, packing Lucy’s bag and bringing her to Connor’s place, I got a late start.
Bas and Adrian went on ahead to check on our target, make sure he didn’t do a runner or some shit like that.
In the Order, you never know. I may be King, but there are too many at the top who want to see me fall.
All it takes is one Owed to figure out I’m hiding Lucy in the penthouse with me to decide to tip Julian off.
He won’t come back for her. I’m not worried about that. But I want him to pay. I want to know what kind of hell he put Lucy through over the last five years that has her whimpering while she dreams, then crawling into my bed after because something fucked her up way before her fall.
And, of course, it’s the fall I want to talk to him about, too. The fall, and what part exactly did he play in it.
Thank fucking God for Adrian Heller. He might’ve delegated himself as the head of the ‘clean-up Dallas’s messes’ crew, but that worked in our favor.
Not only did he find Julian’s address, but he somehow convinced Detective Hargrove to send him the grainy camera footage from the Stanton.
He offered to take a watch, see if perhaps either him or I recognized the man on the screen.
Adrian had asked back at St. Luke’s, but the detective refused.
Now, weeks into a dead-end case, he figured it was worth a shot.
No doubt about it, that was Julian Fairchild in the footage.
Not like I was going to tell the detective.
As far as he knows, I’m Julian Fairchild.
Then again, it would just take him running Julian’s name to see that I’m not, but why would he?
For all his blustering that he wanted to solve what happened to Lucy for her sake, he’s doing a piss-poor job of it.
That’s fine. We’ve got this tonight.
When Adrian and Bas arrived in Princetown ahead of me, they showed up just as Julian was pulling out of his drive.
Keeping a short distance behind him, they followed him to a nearby shopping center.
It was late. After dark. All the stores were closed, so I don’t know why he stopped there unless he could tell he was being followed, but if he thought he could confront his stalkers, he was wrong.
Between Bas and Adrian, they muscled him into the trunk of Adrian’s car before bringing him back to his rented home.
Since they’re waiting for me out here, I figure that’s where Julian is now. After giving Bas a fist bump, I reach down and open the trunk.
Julian Fairchild blinks against the duct tape on his mouth and the darkness surrounding us as I haul him upright. His hair is mussed, his suit wrinkled, and his dark eyes are wild. He stinks like piss.
He stinks like fear.
Good.
He should be afraid.
Before any of his neighbors could peek out their windows and see what we’re doing, I force Julian to march toward the house.
Having already rolled him, Bas follows me with the key.
He lets the three of us inside the near-empty rental house.
Adrian stays out front near his car, as watchful as ever.
If someone thinks they saw something, he’ll take care of it while I take care of Julian.
As soon as Bas locked the door behind us, I kick Julian’s legs out from under him while still holding tight to the back of his suit jacket. My grip goes straight through to the shirt underneath it so that when he falls, I force him to his knees.
Only then do I rip the tape from Julian’s mouth.
He gasps, hands fly up to check his lips. They’re puffy, the residue of the tape leaving welts all over the bottom half of his face. His expression is furious, though the stink of fear lingers.
The older Owed is scared shitless, but that doesn’t stop him for going with bravado.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he spits.
Yeah?
I crouch in front of him. “Oh, I think I do.”
Though he already locked the door, Bas moves back to it, blocking any easy path Julian can take to escape.
He notices, panicked eyes darting between Bas and me.
“You can’t kill me,” he says, voice shaking despite the bravado. “I’m an Owed.”
“Was,” I correct. As far as I’m concerned, his membership was revoked the second I suspected he laid a finger against an Offering.
So Lucy never had the chance to really be one.
Her deadbeat father is regrettably a member of the Order, and I would’ve Claimed her if I could. That counts. “Not anymore, Fairchild.”
After that, I don’t waste any time.
The first punch cracks his lip open. The second knocks him sideways; if I hadn’t still been clutching his jacket, he might’ve fallen to the floor. For the third hit, I do release him so that he lands flat on his face before pushing himself back to his knees.
Something about being beaten flips a switch inside of the man.
Instead of shaking and begging for mercy, he suddenly laughs through blood, and I realized he played me.
He fucking played me. Maybe he was scared when he got tossed in his own trunk, but he took each hit without even crying out, and now that I’ve paused, stunned by his reaction, his eyes glitter maliciously.
“My, my, your father was right to be concerned when it came to you. You always did have a temper, Dallas.”
He shouldn’t have mentioned my father.
Snapping, I lunge down, grabbing him by his collar and slamming him against the first hard surface I can find. It’s a wall, and the impact leaves blood spatters as the gore from his bleeding nose and smashed teeth goes flying.
“Fuck Jack,” I snarl, knowing that I need to be better at controlling myself while also admitting that I. Just. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. “What did you do to her? What did you do to Lucy?”
The sick bastard smiles. I probably knocked a tooth or two loose, and he smiles. “Lucy? Lucy who?”
I drop him to the floor, kicking him in the side with my heavy boot. “Don’t you fucking play with me. You know exactly who I mean. Your—” God, I don’t want to say, I really fucking don’t— “wife.”
Julian coughs as he gets on all fours. “Oh. That Lucy.”
Bastard. I kick him again, sending him sprawling back to the floor on his gut. “You pushed her. Don’t fucking deny it. I’ve got you on tape at the Stanton. You were there, and you pushed her out of the fourth-floor window.”
“She fell. Just like Reese did.”
Hearing him repeat the same fake story that Lucy fell is bad enough. Having him bring my mother into it? I black out, and when I can see anything other than red rage, I haul the asshole off the floor and break his motherfucking nose.
He squeals as he falls back to the floor, clutching his nose before spitting out all kind of obscenities at me.
Bas whistles low under his breath. “You talked about his maman. You don’t talk about another man’s maman like that, mon ami.”
Hearing Bas’s atrocious French accent calms me enough to remember what I’m doing here, just like I’m sure he planned. Yes, I want to torture this prick. Yes, I want to make him pay. But, before I do, I need answers, and a dead man can’t give me those.
I shudder out a breath. “You pushed her,” I repeat.
Julian coughs again, blood gushing from his nose, running down his lips, his chin.
And, yet, there’s still ruthless defiance as he glares up at me.
“So? She might’ve been my wife, but the dumb cunt shouldn’t have left me.
She shouldn’t have threatened me. I saved her from the King.
I saved her from you. And how does she repay me?
By running back to you the first chance she got!
Yeah. I brought her back to Harmony Heights.
I told her I could explain—and then I booked a night at the Stanton and got rid of her. ”
That’s what he thinks. Maybe he believes Lucy did die. Maybe rumors reached him and he knows that her memory is gone. It doesn’t matter. I got exactly what I wanted from him, and now I want more.
Lucy… she was coming back to me? Why? I don’t know, but before I end this sorry piece of shit, I need to find out.
“How did she threaten you?”
When he doesn’t answer me right away, I move my foot like I’m about to kick him again. I would’ve, too, except he curls into the fetal position to protect his vital organs.
I stamp my boot down, near enough to his head that he jumps. “Tell me.”