Colton
“Cocaine,” I parrot back at Harper as we sit in the back of her town car, heading back to Cirque.
They say repetition is the best way to retain information, but repeating snippets of her own story back to her is coming across like I don’t understand the gravity of what is happening, or like I’m trying to waste time until the car stops, and I can make a run for it.
I don’t need time to decide, nothing she told me has changed the way I feel, not about her or about Sadie.
She sees herself as a villain, and she might be. A Ringleader moving her subjects through each act and introduction, setting the stage for your demise while you clap and applaud your own downfall. That might make me a fool in the end, but love makes fools of us all.
As she relayed what was going on at Cirque, the pieces of Harper’s life started falling into place.
The organizations she donates to and charities she helps run.
The reason she told me about her and Sadie’s history, why she needed me to trust her.
She needed to be sure I would understand and believe why this could never be her.
She has done terrible things in her past, but she would never risk Sadie in this way, she wouldn’t bring drugs into her home, not after all the harm it's caused her family.
“Yes. A lot of it,” she leans back against the seat, letting her head drop back, taking a single moment to relax before she continues.
“After the first bricks were found in the alcohol shipment, I started having Wade help unload and break down the crates for all the shipments, but after that one we didn’t find anything. All the shipments were normal.”
“Wishful thinking to believe this was a one off and they abandoned Cirque altogether?” Though I doubt I would be getting the full story now if it simply ended there.
“Unfortunately, no. Wade doesn’t believe it started or ended there, he went around Cirque and tore the place apart, checking any place there could be a hidden compartment.
If it came into Cirque, he searched it. The day you and I…
the day you came into my office, and I was upset, he had found more in a completely different area of the club.
Smaller amounts spread out, sewn into garment bags for new costumes, another thing I apparently ordered. ”
I don’t miss the pink tint highlighting her cheeks as she mentions the day I had her spread before me like a feast. Panting, eager and needy for my mouth.
I shift to adjust myself, remembering the way she tugged on my hair, trying to drag me where she needed me.
This is such a bad time to be thinking of her pretty pussy, but technically she brought it up first.
She doesn’t miss the movement, then again, not really something I can hide.
“Sorry stud, I don’t have any cotton candy in the town car, you’ll have to practice your self-control the old-fashioned way,” she smiles.
Despite everything she’s shared tonight, she still holds some of that levity I saw at the bar when we first arrived, as though sharing that part of her life with me has let a little more of Harper through the Ringleader facade.
I lean towards her body, bringing my hand up to press my thumb against her bottom lip, dragging it across to the corner of her mouth.
“Sunshine, if you don’t stop toying with me, I’m going to show you how little control I have when it comes to you.”
“Colton,” A whisper of my name as she pulls back slightly, desire and caution coating every letter as her voice wraps around me.
The way she says my name grounds me, the unwelcome reminder that while she believes I want her, she doesn’t believe I want all of her.
It doesn’t matter how many times I say it, words are empty, and lies come too easily in her world.
I hum softly before I let her go and put a respectable distance between us, picking back up where we left off.
“And where are the drugs now? I’m guessing you didn’t leave them somewhere in Cirque?”
She gives me a skeptical look, like I’m insulting her by asking such a question.
“They’re safe.”
I wait a few seconds to see if she will elaborate, but the silence stretches, and I realize I’m not going to get more details on that front.
“So, what’s the next move? Who knows?”
“Only the people that absolutely have to know. I don’t know who to trust right now, given the knowledge of cameras and the results of the locker sweep, someone at Cirque is either running the show or helping the person who is.
Only you, Sadie, Wade and Stella know. Stella wasn’t exactly a choice, but so far, she hasn’t given any reason to doubt her. Jury is still out.”
I feel a sense of elation and anxiety pool at hearing the undertone to her words. The people who know are the ones that she’s already deemed to be innocent of speculation, the ones she trusts.
The significance is not lost on me, and based on the way Harper fidgets, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, she also feels the weight of that statement. I could spare her the need to say it, but I want the words. I want the weight and responsibility that comes with them.
“Is the jury still out on me too? Are you telling me because you think you have to?” I ask her, holding my breath as she pauses her fidgeting and tilts her head back and forth like she’s contemplating.
After what feels like an eternity, she smiles. “No, Colton, I told you because I wanted you to know. I told you because I trust you with this.”
You trust me with your secrets, but not your heart.
She moves on, words matter of fact. “I’m also pretty sure you got your ass kicked because of this, so it felt only right to tell you why.” Her grin is wicked.
“I did not—” She speaks quickly, cutting off my protest.
“It’s totally understandable! Could happen to anyone!
” She’s enjoying far too much the way my nostrils flare and my hands flex.
I can’t hide my smile as I lean towards her and she moves with me until her back is pressed against the car door, smile flirting with sin.
Brat. She’s begging to be laid across my lap.
She lifts a finger, waving it back and forth, tsking as she points to the partition separating us from the driver, like the entire conversation we’re having isn’t more sensitive than him hearing her moan.
She lifts a hand to my chest as she sits forward, moving us back to the center of the seat.
Like she can hear my thoughts, her voice drops to just above a whisper, “We did a locker sweep, found a small baggie of cocaine in Ben’s bag,” she holds her phone out to me, a photo already pulled up on the screen.
It’s a small dime sized clear bag, a simple sketch of one of those three-pointed jester hats stamped on the outside in black ink, a moniker of the production or perhaps the dealer.
I only recognize the symbol because I’ve seen it at Cirque, sometimes as a prop for a costume or even as a stenciled outline to garnish the top of a cocktail or dessert.
It may not be Cirque’s logo, but the intent is clear. It connects the drug to the design and aesthetic of Cirque and in tandem, to Harper. It’s more than that, it’s a declaration of war, a mockery of what Harper has built, to her rules and to her history.
“Should I ask about what happened to Ben, or is it better I don’t know.
Plausible deniability and all that,” I lean back, bringing my arm up to rest along the back of the seat where Harper sits, my hand reaching out to run a strand of her hair through my fingers.
It’s soft, like liquid ink spilling over my hand.
“Ben is exactly where he needs to be. Snorting his way through rehearsals with a fake supply we swapped out, benched from performances and based on the mirror app we loaded onto his phone, planning out his next score,” she says, checking her phone to see the details of a plan forming between Ben and his dealer.
My fingers halt their dance, the strands of her dark hair slipping between them.
“Wait, so you aren’t removing him from Cirque, or reporting him to the cops?” I ask her, taken aback that she would let him continue working like nothing happened.
“Ah, see this is the part of the plan everyone seems to hate, Wade in particular,” she rolls her eyes before continuing.
“Ben is not my problem. He has a problem. He needs help, but he doesn’t have the drive or ambition to be leading this show.
Once he leads me to the next rung on the ladder, he will be out of the picture and on his way to help,” she states matter of fact, not breaking eye contact.
Harper spends the rest of the drive going through what they found on Ben’s phone and the details of her plan.
Using some mirror bug Sadie installed to see everything he’s doing, from watching him swipe on a dating app to setting up a meet with his dealer for his next buy, which apparently is the key to Harper’s plan.
So far, I agree with Wade, it’s a bad plan.
It’s not that the tactic is flawed, it’s the uncertainty of the opponent that makes me wary. It feels like bringing a knife to a gun fight, unprepared for what the other side might be armed with and their backup power. The variables are too high, the target too unpredictable.
Or I just don’t like that Harper is the one putting herself in the line of fire.
It’s probably that one.
I think of the altercation between Ben and Fallon when I first started, the way he stepped closer to her with every foul word, a fuse that was quick to catch and fast to burn.
I always wondered what that conversation looked like between Ben and Harper once she learned about his behavior, but when I ask her if that was the moment she suspected him, I realize the conversation never happened.
“When was this?” she asks me, tone sharp.
“It was my first few weeks, when Marcus was still walking me through the acts and introducing me to different performers.”
She nods, taking in my words, but doesn’t respond.
“Marcus didn’t tell you.” It’s not a question but she shakes her head anyway. Suspicion seeping into her crafted world of Cirque—its puppet masters playing with strings better left alone.
I don’t press the issue about Marcus, not wanting to add to Harper’s distress that someone so integral in Cirque could be involved. The best case scenario is that Marcus didn’t recognize the signs and simply thought he was dealing with his staff as he saw fit.
All too soon the car is pulling up to Cirque, dropping me back off in the garage to drive myself home. I still have so many questions, so many things I want to say. About her. About Cirque. Everything.
“When is this meet up happening? Between Ben and his dealer?” I ask, changing the subject back to the task at hand. The impending terrible plan.
“Tomorrow,” she tells me, straightening up and rolling her shoulders out. A boxer stepping up for their next round.
I open the car door and stand, leaning back down to Harper’s waiting face. The temptation to pull her out with me is achingly strong, but I maintain my grip on the door frame. An anchor keeping me planted on this side of respectful and proper.
I want to tell her that nothing she is or has done will change the way I feel. I want to beg her to trust me with her heart and her darkness. That my soul doesn’t need protecting from her, it needs her to survive.
Words are easy, effortlessly thrown about when there is no risk, no fear nipping at your heels. Words will only get you so far.
She’s inched closer to the open door while I stood here, contemplating the next right move.
She asked me not to react, to think, to take some time with what I learned.
I already know my answer, but she won’t trust that it doesn’t matter how much time I’m given, the answer will stay the same.
Five seconds or five years, it will always be her. I want her.
So, I do what I can instead and wish her a good night, taking her hand and brushing my lips lightly over her knuckles before shutting the car door and watching it drive away.
I will let her believe I’ve taken tonight to think. To take solace that she is giving me a way out. She thinks I could walk away, before lines are crossed and hands are stained red.
I told her once before that there is no moving on from her. Crossed lines and blurred morals shadowed my path to Cirque, hands staining a deeper crimson with every decision that lead me here. If she will not trust my words, then I will show her all the ways her darkness calls to mine.
I will show her how wicked I can be.