Chapter 15
A fter how terribly last week had gone with Monroe, Briggs had given her another chance to redeem herself and to actually get information. But after spending four days in different schools throughout the district, talking to other women who had fallen into the Vance trap, I was more sure than before that this guy had to go.
From all the different women she’d spoken to, each one fully obsessed with—and on their way to falling in love with—Vance, the only unprofessional parts of their relationships were stolen kisses in offices and classrooms.
Very few had exchanged numbers with him. Only one had a relationship with him similar to Chloe’s, but that had only begun in the past few weeks. Every single one of them had been sworn to secrecy but had been all too eager to brag because they felt unbelievably lucky. None were aware of any of the others, or that he was married.
“It’s possible I’m wrong, but like I said, I think Chloe was different for him,” Monroe said, finishing out the notes on all she’d gathered. “I think if Chloe hadn’t left him, this new woman wouldn’t have turned into more.”
“Or maybe he only has two or three at a time that he seriously sees,” Briggs countered. “We can’t know. You only talked with so many women at a few of the schools.”
She shrugged and repeated, “It’s possible. But I can’t imagine he’d have the time if what Chloe and this woman are saying is to be believed. She and this new woman both claim they had dates with him most nights—that they spent the night with him more nights than not.”
“The messages we pulled from Chloe’s phone are evidence enough that she’s to be believed,” I spoke up, irritation leaking into my words because I hated even thinking about someone like Vance, but even more, I hated thinking of him with Chloe.
This girl had gotten too far under my skin, not that I wasn’t still fighting it.
Finding out what we had about Vance had somehow changed everything and nothing for me when it came to Chloe Whitlock. I’d wanted to apologize a thousand times for pushing her the way I had, and for the things I’d said. I’d wanted to protect her from everything he’d already done to her, and from anything he might try in the future. But like Vance, Chloe did her own form of manipulation with that bubbly personality and those perfectly delivered smiles.
Chloe altered everyone’s perception of her to what she wanted it to be, not what it truly was. She liked to give off the impression her world was made up of sunshine and rainbows—that nothing bad had, or ever would, touch her. She blatantly lied in a way that was so smooth, I watched others fall for it and found myself wanting to do the same, but I refused to fall for the lie.
It was one thing to want to keep your personal life to yourself. It was one thing to say you were fine when you weren’t. What Chloe was doing was different.
And it was infuriating to be so engrossed in someone for the first time in my life...and to not be able to trust a single thing about them.
At the reminder of the messages between Vance and Chloe, Monroe pointed at me with her stylus. “Then I think it’s safe to say Vance gets a little cozier with one woman at a time.”
“Then why’s he trying to get Chloe back if he’s moved onto the next?” Rush asked in a way that said he already knew the answer.
“Because Chloe was different for him,” Monroe said, words taking on a slightly exasperated tone as if she’d said it dozens of times, rather than only a couple. “And if she finds out he wasn’t actually sleeping with all those other women or that his ‘marriage’ is just an alliance?”
Right. That.
Even if Vance wasn’t unnervingly good at lying to women, he would’ve been able to get away with pretending he wasn’t married because he and his wife didn’t live together. As Gray had stumbled upon this weekend, Vance’s wife was a Wrecker. Not an extremely significant one, but that didn’t matter.
A Wrecker was a Wrecker.
And as for Vance? Well, any background searches on him would show he was just your average, all-American, law-abiding citizen from right here in Texas. But thanks to a group we used every so often who had ways of recovering deeply hidden information, we now knew Vance was from another mafia family on the west coast. He wasn’t insignificant.
Thanks to Vance’s marriage, they now had a shaky alliance with the Wreckers.
But what he was doing as a superintendent, and what his wife was doing as a principal, we couldn’t be sure. We just knew it wasn’t good. Like Gray kept saying: the guy was dangerous.
Briggs drew in a deep breath and dragged his fingers through his short beard, contemplating what Monroe had just implied and left unsaid about what Chloe would do if she found out about Vance’s extra attention with her. “Chloe can’t know,” he finally said.
“Agreed,” Monroe said with a nod.
Gray’s chest pitched with a scoff. His eyes rolled as he mumbled, “You would say that.”
Monroe’s icy stare snapped his way and narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Knowing this was about to morph into another pointless fight between them because Gray was unfairly jealous that Monroe seemed just as taken with Vance as every other woman, I let my feet fall from where they’d been on the table and leaned forward.
“We all agree she can’t know,” I yelled over Gray. Once I was sure he wasn’t going to continue, I added, “We’ve already seen enough evidence of what Vance has done and can do to Chloe. She finds out this ? She’s gonna fall right back into his lies and into something so much more dangerous.”
Briggs pointed at me as if in agreement. “We only have assumptions of why Vance and his wife are working in the schools. But from what we know about the Wreckers and from how high up Vance is in his family, this isn’t sitting right with me. We need to keep women from him if we can—which means Chloe.”
“Especially Chloe,” I corrected, surprising him. When Briggs just continued staring at me, I shrugged. “We already agreed we don’t think it has anything to do with the kids because Vance is so focused on all the female staff. Maybe he feels out the staff to see which ones he can push the furthest—like Chloe, this new woman, and whoever came before them.”
“And he has to be planning something with them,” Gray finished for me. We’d already spent so much time going over this Donut and hashing out theories, he probably could’ve said my entire speech for me.
“Especially Chloe,” Briggs agreed with a nod, then turned for the door, calling out, “Meeting over,” as he did.
Yanking it open, he took two steps before going still. Bending low, he scooped something off the floor, then slowly turned to look at the rest of us.
“Tell me someone left this on the floor,” he demanded as he took a step back into the conference room, holding up a little mailer. From here, all I could make of it was the red stamped Urgent on the front.
When silence settled over the room, giving our answers, Briggs glanced over his shoulder as tension seemed to radiate from him.
“Chloe isn’t the kind of person to leave things on the floor,” Rush said knowingly. “She heard something.”
“Need someone to talk to her,” Briggs said once he’d stepped fully into the conference room and let the door shut behind him, “figure out what she heard.”
“I’ll do it,” I said before anyone else could volunteer.
Briggs paused in opening the envelope to study me for a second, seeming to gauge whether I was the right person to do that, given how last week had gone. But even if questioning people wasn’t always what I did, getting a feel for people was.
And I selfishly didn’t want anyone else taking this.
“I can—” Rush began, only to stop when Briggs stilled for the second time in as many minutes, the contents of the mailer only partially removed. “What is it?”
Briggs stared at what little he could most likely see, a dark wrath seeping from him as he worked his jaw.
If I hadn’t been watching him so closely, waiting for any kind of hint as to what had been delivered to him, I wouldn’t have noticed the way his dark eyes momentarily darted in Evans’ direction.
But I did.
So I knew.
I was up and hurrying around the table before Briggs ever uttered a word. But his low, “Make sure she’s here,” as I passed him was all I needed to know I was right in my assumption.
Whatever was in that mailer was from the same mafia family we’d just been talking about.
Once I was out of the conference room, I stormed through the office, not bothering if anyone heard me. I wasn’t worried about anyone being up front, other than Chloe. I was just worried she wouldn’t be.
But when I rounded the corner, she was there, staring at the pages of whatever book she was reading that day. Except it was obvious in the stiff way she was holding herself and from the sharp, short breaths she was taking that she wasn’t really seeing the words in front of her—that she was doing everything not to look at me.
“I know you heard me that time, Bubbles,” I said pointedly as I took a wide arc on the way around her desk, stopping to quietly lock the front door.
She shot me a bright yet mischievous look. “First time I’ve ever heard you coming up here. I figured if you were making that much noise, something must be wrong, but that isn’t my business.”
A hum of acknowledgment rumbled in my chest because I had a feeling that statement held so much truth...for her. Once I was behind the desk, I drew in a deep breath, taking in all that coconut and vanilla, then asked, “Who dropped off the mailer?”
Genuine surprise flashed in her eyes as she shifted back a bit as if she’d forgotten about the mailer completely. From the way she all but dropped her book on the desk and searched the surface as her already creamy skin paled, I had a feeling the placement of the mailer hadn’t been intentional.
That whatever she’d overheard had been enough to make her drop it and forget about it completely.
Like with Kaia’s bunny last weekend.
“U-um,” she began, then cleared her throat and let out a hesitant laugh before pinning me with a soft smile as her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “A courier. I’m not sure who.”
“Did he say anything? Make you sign anything?”
“Nope,” she said as that smile widened into something truly stunning. “Was I supposed to ask something? Sorry, it was my first package.”
My head slanted, but instead of responding, I lowered my voice and informed her, “We know you overhead something from our meeting.” Just as her eyebrows started drawing together in confusion that looked so genuine, I said, “Need you to stop lying to me, Bubbles. Need you to stop trying to play me.”
A heaving breath tumbled from her. “I’m not. Why do you keep insisting?—”
Her question abruptly cut off when I leaned closer and softly demanded, “Tell me how you’re any different than Vance with that mask you wear and the lies falling from your lips.”
Hurt tore across her features, quickly followed by a startling determination that was gone just as fast. “The mailer was urgent. I was bringing it to Asher when I heard someone say something about how I couldn’t know .” Her hazel eyes searched mine before falling away, her eyelashes brushing near her lightly freckled cheeks. “I heard you say I would fall for his lies and for something dangerous.”
“Into,” I corrected and watched as those eyes snapped back to mine. “Fall into something more dangerous.”
Worry, fear, and uncertainty danced across her features before abruptly giving way to unadulterated excitement. As if we’d been having a conversation about her favorite things the entire time. As if she truly couldn’t help but fall back to her default of this happy mask.
Once again, I found myself wondering what had happened in this girl’s life for her to force this persona until it’d become her.
“Why do you do that?” I found myself asking, the curiosity growing too great. When her head tilted in question, I tipped my chin at her. “Why do you mask everything with joy?”
Chloe studied me for long moments before twisting in the chair and picking up her book. “That’s all I heard, and I don’t know anything about the courier. Sorry.”
“Thatch,” Briggs yelled from the back, but instead of immediately heading that way, I lingered, studying the girl in front of me; from the dusting of freckles to the messy knot of red hair on top of her head to her stunning features that drew me in a little more each day. This girl with her secrets and books and a style I looked forward to seeing each day. It wasn’t the jeans or the heels that still left her nearly a foot shorter than me, but the ridiculous graphic tees that showed just how much of a nerd she truly was, always knotted against her hip and accentuating those curves I normally didn’t care for.
Maybe because those nerdy shirts and the books she seemed to pull out of nowhere were the only things I knew were real about Chloe Whitlock.
“Bubbles,” I said in parting as I finally tore myself away from that veiled threat of a girl and headed back to where Briggs was standing against the conference room door.
With a glance toward the front, he asked everything without needing to say a thing.
“She heard us talking about how she couldn’t know about Vance,” I whispered as I got close. “About how she would fall into his lies again.”
Briggs shifted his jaw, but he just nodded in acknowledgment as I passed him. “This changes things,” he said once he followed me into the conference room, letting the door shut behind us. But I knew in an instant he wasn’t talking about what Chloe had overheard.
He was talking about the photos and notes carefully laid out on the table.
On the left were the two I’d already seen a week ago. But the rest? There were photos of all of us.
Briggs, Kaia, and Lainey out in Huntley Square—where the main street of the little town they lived in ended in a literal square filled with shops, restaurants, and outdoor tables for people to sit and enjoy food and live music under café lights. Chloe, Rush, Briggs, and Lainey eating food in the same place, but on a different day, given the clothes. Chloe and Lainey out shopping with Kaia and Wren. Gray walking out of Briggs’ house with Chloe. Lainey walking down a driveway with Kaia on her hip. Chloe leaning toward Gray’s open truck window, giving him that breathtaking smile.
Last night , I realized as dread gripped at my lungs until it felt hard to breathe as I finally looked at the remaining item on the table: a note.
Have I mentioned you have a beautiful family?
Shame.
I swallowed around the knot of fear and uncertainty in my throat as I quickly took everything in again, sure I was missing something.
“Doesn’t make sense,” I muttered. “They’re singling you out, Briggs. They’re letting you know this is about you. So, why Chloe? This can’t have to do with Vance.”
“I don’t think it does,” Briggs said, but Rush was the one who took over.
“They’ve been keeping tabs on us—Wells already let Briggs know that when they trashed the office this spring.”
Instinctively, I glanced Evans’ way at the mention of the Wreckers’ underboss, but as always when the mafia family was mentioned, his anger looked fueled by embarrassment and betrayal.
“Wells even said something about Kaia when he was here, so we knew there was a possibility of the Wreckers eventually trying to use at least her against Briggs,” Rush went on.
“With Lainey being in my life, that isn’t something they’d let go either,” Briggs added, sounding like he was contemplating how to take out an entire mafia family. “I think it’s all highly coincidental that Chloe knows Vance. Whatever they’re using him for, and whatever their intentions are with these vague threats, they have to be separate. Lainey just happened to move in with Chloe, so they?—”
“Did she?” I asked over him as those suspicions of the girl plaguing my thoughts became too much to ignore. Ignoring Briggs’ warning look, I continued. “Can we afford coincidences right now?”
“She isn’t a threat, Thatch,” Briggs said firmly, turning his anger on me. “Lainey’s known Chloe most her life. The only reason Chloe had a room for rent is because her best friend got married and moved out—also something Lainey can confirm because she’s known these people forever.”
I lifted a hand as if I was surrendering, only to argue, “Not that we didn’t already know, but it became painfully obvious this week how easy it is to fake files on someone. There’s been a lot about Chloe that’s needed to be challenged, and you know that. You needed me to do that.”
“What I need is for you to keep her safe.”
My head slanted, sure I’d heard him and the unmistakable implication in his tone wrong.
Before I could ask Briggs to repeat himself, he said, “We need to switch things up to see exactly what they’re threatening this time. The last time, they trashed the office while we were gone. This time, we’re clearly being followed. I need to know if they’ll continue following us if we leave, or if they’ll stay here and do something to the houses.”
When I glanced around at everyone else and noticed the lack of surprise, I realized this was something they’d already discussed when I’d been up front with Chloe. “What do you mean when we leave ?”
“Texas,” he said meaningfully. “If the Wreckers go to where they think we’ll be, we’ll know they’re after the girls. If they stay here and send a message while we’re gone, then we’ll know that’s all they wanted.”
I let my stare sweep around the conference room again, dread unfurling in my chest as I muttered, “And when you say leave Texas ...” Before he could respond, I held my hand up again. “Wait, what do you mean I need to keep Chloe safe?”