49. Fletcher
Chapter 49
Fletcher
I slammed Daren against the wall as soon as he closed the door to my bedroom, and he swung on me again with surprising accuracy. His fist connected with my left cheekbone sending a shower of sparks into my field of vision. I stumbled backward enough for him to shove off the wall, but instead of hitting me again, Daren lunged. He jumped onto me like a fucking possessed spider monkey, the weight of his body sending us both backward onto my bed. He raised his arm to hit me again, and I bucked off the bed, flipping him onto his back and grabbing both of his wrists. I pinned Daren against the bed, my lip curling up in a victorious sneer.
“You forget your fucking place, deputy ,” I warned, shoving him harder down into the sheets. My bed smelled like him, smelled like Luca, smelled like Bellamy. Like sex and sweat and a reminder that Gideon was the one I wanted most and I’d barely gotten a taste of him.
“If I wasn’t your second, I’d have put you in the fucking ground by now.” He made a vile noise in the back of his throat and then he spit into my face. A glob of his hot saliva landed against my cheek, and I shifted my weight to keep him pressed down into the bed with one hand so I could swipe my face clean with the other.
He glared up at me like he wanted to kill me, and I imagined if we were anyone besides who we were, he would have tried. Sighing heavily, I gave him one last shove down into the mattress, then climbed off of him. He stayed put, giving me a moment to pace the room, hands braced against my hips while I counted my steps from one wall to the other.
It had been two weeks since my father visited, two weeks since he planted the seeds I was determined to not let grow. I tried so hard to think about Gideon, to think about Luca and Daren, even Bellamy, but old habits died hard, and it was a rough battle to fight on my own. Behind me, the bed creaked as Daren sat up, and I turned in time to find him gently pressing his fingertips against his cheekbones and the side of his nose.
“I’m tired of waiting around,” he said softly.
“So am I,” I agreed.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“I think while we’ve talked about staging a coup, my father already has one in the works,” I admitted.
“Why?”
“Just some of the things he said.” I worried my tongue against the corner of my lower lip. Instinct and years of knowing better told me not to reveal the truth of my father’s message to anyone else, but a desire to break those old habits wanted me to scream it out for all of them to hear.
“Are you going to share with the class?” Daren asked, standing up from my bed and shaking out his right hand before balling his fingers back into a fist. “Or are we going to backtrack to how things were before?”
“I’ll break your fucking fingers before I let you hit me again,” I warned, “and I’d like to see you try and get a cast-covered wrist into your boyfriend’s tight little asshole.”
“I’m not scared of you,” Daren said, cocking his head to the side.
The jarring ring of my phone snapped us both out of the fight we were about to lapse back into, and I knew by the tone it was my father and not anyone I wanted to talk to.
“Keep your mouth fucking closed,” I told him, throwing myself down into the chair by the window and accepting the video call. “Hello?”
“Fletcher,” my father drawled, the sound of my name in his voice making my skin crawl. “You look like you’ve had quite a tussle.”
“Just some rough sex,” I lied, switching off the camera.
He made a disgusted noise on the other end of the line. “Stay out of the well, Fletcher.”
“To what do I owe your unplanned call?” I asked before he could decide to harp on me about my sex life.
“I need your help with that thing we spoke about after initiation.”
“What thing?” I asked. “You said a lot.”
“I have suspicions that Francis North is in serious debt.”
My gaze flickered up to Daren, who stared at me with wide and unreadable eyes.
“You mentioned you thought there was something going on when you were here.”
“Yes, and I’m working on a paper trail, but I need some first-hand information.”
“And what do you want me to do about that, Father?” I rubbed the bridge of my nose gently, wincing when I pushed too hard against a bruise Daren had left behind. “You made sure I understood what happens if I get too close to the North family.”
“I’m glad it’s a lesson you remember,” he said. “But what do you think Bellamy is for?”
Daren made a choking sound, which I covered with a cough. He slapped his hand over his mouth, eyes much more readable than they’d been before.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He’s not there of his own accord, Fletcher,” my father said, like it should have been common knowledge. “I bought him for just this purpose.”
“You bought him?”
“Fletcher.” My father sighed. “What are the two biggest motivators in this life?”
“Money and power,” I answered without even having to think about it.
“And people do silly things sometimes for both of those. Bellamy’s father was desperate for both and I brokered a deal to give him one of them.”
“You aren’t seriously telling me you bought him. Human trafficking is below you.”
“Not in the sense that you’re thinking, Fletcher, no. But Bellamy has a purpose and if he doesn’t deliver on it, then I don’t see a point in keeping him around.”
It was high school all over again. I was sixteen and my father was detailing all of the ways he would ruin Gideon’s life if I didn’t break things off in a way that ensured they’d never piece back together.
“Bold of you to assume I care what happens to Bellamy.” I forced the lie out, words barbed in my throat.
“But do you care about Daren?”
I glanced up again, finding Daren’s stare focused on the phone in my hand and thankfully not my face.
“Why would I care about him?”
“Because you’ve always had a bleeding heart, Fletcher. It’s your biggest weakness. If you don’t send Bellamy over to Rose Hall to get information about the North family financials, I’ll remove him from the equation entirely, and then I’ll call Daren’s parents and let them know that he suffers from the same sexual deviances as you.”
“I don’t…”
“Please tell me you know he used to fuck that Mandeville boy,” he interrupted.
Daren sighed heavily, covering his face with both of his hands. I recognized the panic he must have been feeling, but I took it as a good sign my father thought Daren and Luca’s relationship was past tense and not present. Even better that he didn’t know of my involvement with either of them, or Bellamy…or Gideon.
“I heard rumors,” I said.
“Luca is a bastard trying to earn favor with a father who never wanted him. Being second to Gideon North is the only way for him to do that. Are you really trying to tell me that you would ruin all of their lives instead of sending in a spy whom I fucking paid for to get information that will only serve you and your family when all is said and done?”
My father sounded so arrogant, so fucking proud of all the chess pieces he’d moved into place without any of us even realizing we’d been played. I tossed my cell phone onto the bed, a better option than throwing it out of the window and I gestured for Daren to go downstairs and round up Bellamy and Luca. He hesitated, like he wasn’t ready to leave me alone with the kind of phone call that would give me nightmares for weeks.
“You’re right, Father,” I agreed. I lied. I swallowed down bile. “I just wanted to understand the mechanics of the next move so I can be prepared for whatever happens after.”
My father huffed a laugh against the receiver. “I’m relieved to hear that, Fletcher,” he said slowly. “It would have been horrible for everyone you know if you wanted to fight me on this.”
“I know better, Father.”
“See that you don’t forget that you do,” he said. “Send Bellamy into Rose Hall. He has one week to get you the information you need and you have far less time than that to get it back to me.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And Fletcher?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Stay away from Gideon North,” he warned. “Or every promise I made you at sixteen will finally come true.”