Chapter 1 #2
Bohnes goes still in that way of his, like he’s crossed to the other side. So still. Perfectly still. He whips around to counter a splash from the water, snatching a man by the hair and dragging him out of the lake and onto the grass. Guess not all of the goons have drowned then. Yikes.
Bohnes draws his pink semi-auto and shoots the guy in the head.
Neither Widow nor I flinch. Neither of us tries to stop him.
Bohnes squats down and digs through the man’s pockets, withdrawing a phone.
Grabs the dead dude’s hand to unlock it with a fingerprint.
Stabs the corpse a few times with his pocketknife to keep it sunk, and then stands back up.
He uses his boot to push the man’s corpse into the water at the same time he activates the speakerphone.
I hear it ringing. He’s called someone on the now dead man’s phone.
“What the fuck is going on over there?” It’s Ash’s voice on the speaker. He wouldn’t pick up for us, but he picked up for this guy? “Did you find her?” He sounds panicked, answering his goon’s phone call like it’s more important than ours.
Widow cracks his knuckles and exchanges a look with Bohnes. The pair of them have a deep bromance brewing (which I very much appreciate). They’re going to wield that shiny bromance against me, mark my words. United in their hatred of the mayor’s only remaining son: my precious Ash Kitagawa Kelly.
Bohnes smiles, but it’s grim and tight. He looks like something that crawled out of a graveyard where only hot guys are buried. A special premium fuckboy graveyard and he’s its resident ghoul.
“Good to know that I have carte blanche to kill you now,” Bohnes purrs, sounding both annoyed and satisfied.
A cat with a twitching tail who’s got a mouse between its paws.
“Aspen, this is going to be a painful ending for you.” Bohnes moves when I do, stepping back from me and refusing to relinquish the phone to my now outstretched hand.
What? He thinks Ash is the turncoat? I disagree with that.
“Let me talk to him, Kellin.” I wiggle my fingers as Widow steps up close behind me, taking hold of my hips in his hands.
It doesn’t feel like an embrace. It feels like he’s trying to hold me in place, so that I can’t access the phone.
I should stab him in the balls. If I didn’t enjoy the slap of ‘em so much, I would.
Widow’s warm breath is painful against the exposed, chilled skin of my throat. The truth is worse.
“Bohnes doesn’t like Ash-pen. Alexei doesn’t like him. I can’t stand him, Scarlett. He sent these creeps after us.” Widow locks me down, his mouth near my ear, his galaxy hair brushing the side of my face. “Three against one. You lose.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you three think about him.
I am my own boss, boys.” I scowl, cold and annoyed but pumped full of adrenaline.
My mind is running through a series of quick calculations.
Ash’s actions versus Alexis’ actions. My stomach is sour with the reality of our situation.
“Did you hear what I said? Emma Jean told me it was Alexis.”
I can hear Ash breathing heavily on the other end of the line, but he hasn’t said a word.
Not one word. Makes sense to me though that he’s trying to figure out where his father’s men are.
If Alexis sold us out, if she told the mayor that Bohnes, Widow, and I were the ones harboring Alexei, shit is going to go downhill fast.
Like it did just now.
“Wouldn’t pick up for me, but you’ll answer for a man that tried to kill the woman you claim to love?” Bohnes laughs, and it’s polar, numbing. Violent. I trust him implicitly. I trust Widow, too. And Alexei, that paragon of gentlemanly virtue.
But my gut says they’re wrong. Not because they’re lying. Not because they just want Ash gone out of jealousy. They genuinely believe that Ash is detrimental to me, that he’s a snake in the grass. I think of my sister. I think of Emma Jean. I start to put pieces together in my head.
Ash is not a villain, even if he pretends to be.
There’s a long silence there where it seems like Ash may hang up.
“Ash-pen, talk to me. You know how gung-ho these men are for your blood.” I try to make light of the moment, but everything is heavy here. Frosty grass crunches under my booted feet, a puddle of steaming blood inches from my toes. It’s an obscene, striking red against the white ground.
Hey, at least this is an Archer Realty construction site: let them fill in the lake with concrete.
A mass homicide like this would certainly slow things down for the project.
Ol’ Ernest will take care of it as the city of Springfield’s police chief.
Wouldn’t want to cost the company money.
Or mess up the mayor’s chances at a gubernatorial win.
The mayor. The CEO. The police chief.
Those are our final bosses. I bite my thumbnail again when Ash takes too long to respond.
“Hey, doki-doki boy,” I snap, getting annoyed. “You listen here, you stupid ass fuckboy. Don’t you dare hang up this phone. When I say I want you here now, you come like the dog you are.”
Ash hisses through his teeth, but that’s all I get from him.
He hangs up on me.
He hangs up on ME.
I feel so goddamn stabby. Suddenly, there’s a knife in my hand and I’m not sure where it came from. I must’ve had it in my pocket. I do have a tendency to keep extra blades around.
Widow’s phone vibrates in his pocket and he checks his notifications.
“Huh,” he murmurs, lip lifting at one corner in a self-assured little smile. “What a surprise. Your girls are messaging me because they can’t get a hold of you.”
My crew sees Widow as the king to my queen. Good. He can handle it.
“And?” My voice is as dry as bones. Not the guy standing in front of me, but like an actual skeleton.
“Texts from two of your girls.” Widow smiles tightly, half in triumph and half in rage.
No teeth, just tight lips. He’s so handsome that the expression is striking.
My heart skips a beat. “They both saw Aspen in a Shelby GT500 near Emma Jean’s apartment—with your precious journalist riding shotgun. ”
I turn back to Bohnes, the other phone still held in his hand.
Our eyes meet.
My thoughts are a circus.
Alexis, demanding she come to the Halloween party.
Alexis, obsessing over the Borisov brat.
Alexis, following me around. Our druggy neighbors surveilling our home through the garage wall.
A bit of Care Bears sleeping bag in their house.
Alexis fucking and doing drugs with Tommy aka Megan Face (he literally has his wife’s name tatted on his cheek, remember?).
Alexis, always in my bedroom, wearing my things and going through my stuff.
Ash, eyes burning with sweet obsession. Ash, who was never allowed to exist without being tormented.
Ash, who pushed Chet Jr. down the stairs and fucked me in the parking lot like it was the last time.
Ash, leaving a ring at my front door this morning.
Ash, wearing his brother’s horrid skin to keep me safe.
Ash, who loves frogs. Doki-doki, doki-doki, doki-doki, the sound of my beating heart.
It’s not that I trust Ash over the other boys. I trust myself. I trust my own judgment.
I try to push Widow’s hands off my hips, but he keeps hold of me, actively resisting my attempts to get him off. This isn’t sexual. He thinks this is for my own good or some other stupid machismo thing that I’ll have to correct.
“Don’t make me use this knife,” I warn him, because he knows that I will. That’s the thing. If I’m playing chicken with someone, I’m going to crash our cars. My opponents must swerve because I’d rather die than give up. “Call”—I almost say the name Ash out loud—“Aspen back.”
Bohnes dials him from the dead goon’s phone, but there’s no answer. He tosses the phone haphazardly into the lake, his expression cold. Widow is just as bad. The pair of them look at each other with the understanding that they’re going to have to fight me on this one.
“He isn’t our big bad, boys. He isn’t our rat.” I cross my arms, summoning Emma Jean’s words from our brief phone call. She could be lying. Could be. But then all I have to do is think about Alexis’ actions lately.
I snap my fingers to get the boys’ attention, but both of my stalkers—I mean lovers—are already staring directly at me. Gold eyes. Blue eyes. Prescott guys. Yum.
“Ash-pen is going to play the villain,” I explain as understanding dawns on me, “so that I’ll let him sacrifice himself for the cause. Emma was telling the truth about being afraid, but it’s Ash-pen who’s kidnapped her to keep her safe.”
Yeah, I’m onto something here. If Ash were really a bad guy, he’d keep me close, not try to push me away.
Idiot. Also, Chet Senior gave him orders to kill both me and Emma Jean, so this makes sense.
Ash is buying time. Doing damage control.
Maybe he didn’t even send those goons in the first place and is just playing catch-up, trying to salvage the mess that Alexis made?
“Sounds criminally farfetched,” Kellin mutters, frustrated with me.
“Sounds like a pussy-before-brain sort of logic.” Widow is pissed, releasing me from his iron grip and leaving finger-shaped bruises behind. My pelvis aches to be held like that again. All the teasing with none of the payoff.
“You’d understand that one well, wouldn’t ya, balls-for-brains?” I quip back at him, lifting a brow.
Widow is still jacked up over Alexis’ accusations back at the house. Bohnes is annoyed because he’s not omnipotent and can’t be everywhere at once. I feel for them both, but I don’t have time to deal with fuckboy feelings today. Widow returns my quip with a derisive snort.