24. Nolan
NOLAN
C ontrol is more than something a man can possess. Control is about what you let others see, what they perceive of you. Whether or not you’re powerful to them or weak. It all comes down to control.
Right now, Lex has very little of that control, which means I must have an abundance to make up for his lack.
He strides back and forth across the floor, his long legs eating up the distance as he waits for Viks to appear.
We skipped meeting Viks at the place he’s been staying at on the north side and instead called in a few favors to a bar outside of town—one that isn’t normally open during the day.
The grime on the front windows dims the sunlight pouring in over the empty interior of Bar and Bass.
Most of the chairs are flipped up on the tables from whoever closed the night before and the front door has a sliding metal cover pulled down to show that the building is not open to customers.
The back door echoes with the sound of knocking as the man we’ve been waiting for finally arrives.
Lex stops his constant moving shifts, turning towards the back door with narrowed eyes.
I roll mine and get up from the stool that I’d pulled down earlier.
Lex watches me move past him to the door.
I press down on the bar across the middle, popping the door open and allowing Viks to pass inside.
A moment later, a smaller, though no less well-built man, steps inside, following him.
“You brought someone?” Lex’s voice is all annoyance and aggression.
I shoot him a warning look as I let the door swing shut and I double-check to make sure it’s locked again before returning to the main part of the bar. “Can I get you gentlemen a drink?” I offer, moving behind the bar.
“Water,” Viks says. I nod and bend down, removing a glass from the racks below the counter, and fill it with ice. All the while, I watch the newcomer with a sharp gaze.
He’s younger than Viks, more slender, but he carries himself with the ease of a man who’s used to working with his body.
His hair is a shock of blond on top, longer and drooping over one side of his forehead, but when he turns to take a chair from one of the tables and sets it on the ground, I note that the underside where his hair is shaved closer to his scalp is dark.
Once I’ve finished filling the glass of water, I round the counter and move to the table that Viks and his friend are setting up at. Lex is still watching the two with barely restrained glares. I set the glass before Viks and turn to the man next to him.
“For you?” I tilt my head.
He waves me away. “Didn’t answer you the first time, kid. I’m good.”
“Abel.” Viks’ tone is chiding and the man, Abel, I presume, rolls his eyes.
“Fine,” Abel says, looking at me. There are tattoos peeking out of the sleeve of his loose t-shirt, but aside from those, he looks like any other preppy dude in his late twenties. “I’ll take a beer. Bottled—I don’t care what brand.”
I glance at Lex and nod towards the bar.
Lex scowls at me, but he follows my silent request. Minutes later, the four of us are all sitting around the table, each with a drink in front of us.
When Lex grabbed Abel’s beer, he’d snagged a couple of sodas for each of us as well and I’m thankful that it’s given him something to focus on as he twists the metal tab on the top back and forth until it snaps off.
Viks speaks first. “So, I contacted a friend who was able to do some more digging into the dark web.”
“A friend?” I sit up straighter. “Who is this friend?” I frown. “How do you know he can be trusted?”
“ She is loyal,” Abel says. “Don’t worry about that.”
“And him?” Lex snaps back, gesturing to the new man. “You didn’t tell us you were bringing someone with you.”
“He’s our contact with the hacker,” Viks states.
Abel grins and leans back in his seat, letting the front two legs pop off the floor as he balances with the ease of a man used to controlling his body. “ Yup ,” he says, popping the word from his lips with a smirk. “You don’t get to her unless it’s through me.”
“We don’t need another hacker,” I say. “We have the Scorpion.”
“The Scorpion hasn’t been able to find anything, though, has he?” Abel’s eyes slide to Lex as if he already knows who the Scorpion is.
I watch as Lex clenches his fingers into a tight fist. “So?” he grinds out through clenched teeth. “Did your perfect hacker find out where Denise Donovan is?”
“That’s what this meeting is about,” Viks says, recapturing my attention.
I flip my gaze up to his once more. “You have,” I guess.
His lips twist. “In a manner of speaking.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Lex barks. “Do you have her in custody or is she on the loose?”
“Calm down, man.” Abel yawns and lets the front of his chair slap the floor again. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“ Fuck .” I blow out a long breath and bend forward, planting my elbows on the edge of the table as I let my head sink into my palms.
“What?” I can hear Lex’s confusion, but when neither Viks nor Abel says a word, I know I’m right.
“She’s dead.” It’s not so much of a guess as it is an affirmation. I meet Viks’ eyes again and he nods.
“Unfortunately, we believe Denise Donovan never truly left Silverwood.”
“So she’s been dead for months then?” Lex sits back in his seat and scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck, Juliet’s going to be…”
He doesn’t need to finish the statement.
She’s going to be wrecked. Even if Juliet had issues with her mother, the fact remains—parents are people you rely on from birth to the grave.
Losing a shitty one doesn’t make it any easier.
You still mourn; you just mourn who they could have been versus who they actually were.
“How do you know?” I ask. “Did your hacker find proof?”
“It’s more of what she didn’t find,” Viks states, reaching into the bag he’d carried in with him. He removes a slim laptop and flips the screen up. Abel picks up his beer and takes a long swing as Viks types out something on the keyboard before swiveling it to face me.
“There’s no sign of the woman starting midway through the summer—June 28th, to be exact.
There’s been no action on her credit cards, no tags on her license or passport.
She hasn’t purchased a single thing and considering that her life before that date was filled with purchases that ranged from something as small as a coffee to a ten-thousand-dollar Birkin bag, I’d say she wasn’t the type of woman who didn’t know how to spend her money. ”
“That’s not enough to prove she’s dead,” Lex says, narrowing his eyes on the screen. “She could’ve taken out credit cards in another person’s name. Changed her identity. Used cash.”
“Most of the world Mrs. Donovan was from was cashless,” Abel states casually. “She was a socialite. She didn’t need to carry around cash. All she had to do was write checks for charities and swipe her Amex. Plus, there are signs of someone preparing to take over another person’s identity.”
“If you don’t think she ever left Silverwood,” I begin, “then where would she have been when she died—she was staying with Morpheus Calloway before she disappeared. He would be stupid to kill her under his own roof.”
“ Viks thinks she never left,” Abel clarifies, “but the hacker thinks she might have gotten out of town before she was killed, and I have to agree.”
“Where she was killed is irrelevant,” Viks says with a sigh. “It’s who killed her and hid the fact that I’m concerned with.” He leans forward and taps the screen of the laptop. “Because at the moment, they’re getting away with it—they might have already left the country.”
Lex remains quiet for a moment, his anger at Viks’ presence fading as he contemplates the puzzle before him. A framed millionaire. A dead socialite. An attempted assault and murder. All of it connected to one person.
Juliet.
“It’s not just bad luck that your girl has had so much shit go down,” Abel murmurs absently.
My eyes flick to him and then to Viks. He told him about Juliet? As if sensing my thoughts, Viks holds up his hands.
“Abel wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust him,” Viks states. “Instead of focusing on my associates, it might be better for you to focus on who is after Juliet Donovan.”
Abel snorts. “Yeah, don’t worry about me, boys—besides, you should get used to seeing my face. I hear you’ll be seeing it a lot more soon.”
Even though I know I control my expression at his statement, Lex’s gives both of us away and Abel barks out a laugh, looking at Viks. “You didn’t tell them who I am?”
Viks huffs and retrieves the laptop, dragging it back towards him. “It wasn’t important at the time.”
Abel shakes his head before grinning towards both Lex and me.
“I’m Abel Frazier,” he says, offering his full name as he holds out his hand to me.
I take it and his grin widens. “Otherwise known as one of the Eastpoint Heirs, and I sit on the board for Eastpoint University. I’ll be the one getting the four of you into our infamous school. ”
Mind. Blown.
Hours later, Viks slips out the back door of Bar and Bass along with Abel motherfucking Frazier.
Juliet’s family might have rubbed elbows with the likes of him in their past life, but the Fraziers are known to have more money than God and Abel Frazier is the last of them left.
If there was any question of Viks’ connections in Eastpoint before, those are long gone now.
“What are we going to tell Juliet?” Lex asks as we leave the bar, locking up behind us and slipping the spare key back into place in a lockbox for the owner to grab when he opens later.
“There’s no body,” I say as we stride across the gravel parking lot in the direction of his SUV. “We shouldn’t say anything until we have proof.”
“Viks and Abel seemed pretty confident that she’s dead,” he replies, scratching his jaw as he fishes out his keys with his free hand.
“And to be honest, her lack of a trail would be explained by her death. It’s possible she’s still alive, but Viks’ hacker had a few good notes through the files he let us into.
People don’t just disappear with no preparation. ”
“We don’t tell her anything until we know for sure,” I say as the SUV lights flash and the doors unlock. “She’s got enough to deal with.”
Lex hops into the driver’s seat and I get into the passenger side. We’re buckled and the engine rumbles to life before he speaks again. “How long do you think she’ll get for suspension because of the fight?”
“A week, maybe?” I shrug. “Long knows they attacked her. She’s got to do something because their parents are pissed, but we both know she’s gonna go easy on her.”
Turning my head, I take in my friend’s profile. “So…”
“Don’t.” Lex’s jaw hardens, but he doesn’t look my way.
“Don’t what?” I ask.
“Don’t ask me about him.”
“Viks?”
The growl he releases makes my lips twitch. “You’re the reason he’s helping us, you know,” I point out. “He seems to want to get to know you.”
“I don’t give a fuck what he wants. The only reason I’m still entertaining that asshole is because he’s helping us.”
“An uncle you’ve never known shows up, offers to help you, and has high-profile connections…” The words sound crazy even to my own ears, but they need to be said.
“I don’t like that he’s bringing others in on this,” Lex says. “If Abel Frazier decides to turn on us, we’ll be in a heap of trouble. He’s practically Midas.”
“He’s rich, but he’s not infallible,” I say.
“If we take the help they’re offering us, then we’re selling ourselves to them,” Lex replies. His head turns, eyes glancing in my direction as he makes the statement.
My lips press together. “Yeah, I know.” And as much as I hate it, I don’t see much of a choice. If we want out of this life—away from Darrio and the gang—then we need to be willing to get our hands dirty. We need to find someone bigger, badder, and stronger to set ourselves up with.
“We’ve never been the type to be comfortable taking orders,” Lex says. “You told us it was temporary when we agreed to work for Darrio.”
“It’s not forever,” I say. “We will be free.” Even if it means I have to sell my soul to the devil himself, I will make sure Lex, G, and Juliet all get out of this hellhole. “Trust me.”
The interior of the vehicle falls into silence at those final words. Fifteen minutes later, as Lex turns into the parking lot of Silverwood Public, he slows and lets out a long sigh.
“I trust you, Nolan,” he tells me. “I’ve never in my life trusted anyone the way I trust you. If you say we’ll get out, then… we’ll get out.”
“Good,” I say with a nod as he pulls into a parking spot and turns off the car. I reach for the door handle.
“Just don’t forget we’re supposed to get out together.”
My hand goes still and this time, when I open my mouth, I do something I’ve never done before. I lie to him.
“Of course we will,” I say. “The three of us and our girl. We’re going to get out of Silverwood and when we make it to Eastpoint, we’re going to be just fine.”
Maybe if I say it enough, it’ll come true.