The Bedlam Boys: Complete Series

Chapter Three

Arsenio

“It’s smart. Honestly, we should’ve thought of it first.” Cairo, Legend, and Jacques leaned on various pieces of furniture in my room. I sat on the bay window—my bad leg propped on a mound of pillows. I flicked between them and the busy street below as I clicked my lighter. “Josephine denied us access to the database as punishment for sloppiness. I assume that ban is lifted.”

“It is,” Legend replied. “Josephine doesn’t give a shit at this point. She shoots off curses I’ve never heard of whenever I mention Steven Ellis or the Crows. She wants them taken down.”

“And yet she just enrolled three more in our fucking school,” Cairo said.

“It’s not like they put their gang affiliation on the application. She’s ready and waiting for them to give her a reason to kick them out.”

“They won’t,” I said, shifting away from the window. “They’ve learned from Jeremy’s mistakes. They’re not going to underestimate us this time, and they won’t strike first. Doesn’t change the fact that we have to get them out of our town. I’m not too fond of doing it under this Dante’s orders. I don’t wear the leashes.”

Jacques spoke up. “Once we have a clear path to Davidson, we’ll free the sheriff. Ivy is correct that a swing and miss will result in torture or death. Dante and his crew are fond of both.” The vein popped in Cairo’s jaw. “She was also right that the best and fastest way to identify that crew is to find all the Ivys and Zoeys in town. Those that were perfect candidates to his grooming.”

“I’m bringing up Roan’s laptop right after I leave this room,” Legend said. “He’ll get started tonight.”

“Good. So while the conversation is on her, we can talk about what we’re actually here to talk about.” Jacques swept over us. “Ivy de Souza.”

“What’s there to talk about?” I asked. “She doesn’t get to walk away after everything she’s seen. All that she knows.” I sat up, anger hooking into me. “Why? Is she trying to leave?”

“No,” Legend said. “The opposite. She thinks nothing’s changed and we can all keep going as we were. Doesn’t fucking help that Roan is singing the same tune. He doesn’t care that we’ve been living with a woman who has needed psychiatric help for the last two years. She thought she was her dead sister, and acted like it. We don’t know who the real Ivy is. We only know who she thought she was.”

“Doesn’t matter. She’s ours now.”

“How are you of all fucking people saying that?” Cairo barked. “Ivy got spun up in Cavendish’s web. He turned her into a killer, and she’s still got people on her hit list—including my dad and the person who got him to cover up her grandmother’s death. We’re not after the same thing. What happens when we get in the way of her revenge?”

I laughed. “What? You think she’d plunge a knife in our sleeping backs? Didn’t Mariner say she already had that opportunity with you?”

“Yeah, and she didn’t take it. The real Rainey died as a result. She won’t make the same mistake twice.”

“No,” I said with absolute certainty. “She’s got no one else to lose now, except us. We have her loyalty.”

“She’s got no one else to lose.” Legend’s face cloaked in shadows as he propped against the wall. “But she’s got plenty to avenge. If those shits murdered my family, can’t say I’d let any of you bastards get in my way.”

I chuckled. “You think she’s playing us? Biding her time until she’s got a clear path to Sheriff Sharpe and Dante? If that’s true, it’s more reason to keep her exactly where she belongs—with us. Can’t watch her if she slips back into the shadows like her old friends taught her to do.”

“Agreed,” said Jacques. “We don’t yet know why, but Ivy’s a lightning rod drawing the Men of Honor to her. Cavendish resurfaced after years of peace to send her those letters. Mariner came for her turn after his death. Dante demanded the Crows’ punishment after they attacked her and Paris. And Steven Ellis bribed her into a contract for the sale of her farm. Jeremy told her the guys in his crew got way less than she did, and they were beating on women and blowing up cars. A lot more risk than reporting on us.

“The more we learn, the more certain I am that understanding why her grandmother was killed and what makes that farm so special, is the key to connecting all these seemingly random and unnecessary events. So no, we’re not in Ivy’s way. We want the same thing.”

“Don’t we know what makes her farm special?” Legend asked. “It’s what makes every patch of dirt in Crystal Canyon special.”

Inexplicably, he shook his head. “Remember what she said? I’m not sure she realized the significance of it herself, but Ivy told us AgriProspects was one of Steven Ellis’s investment companies. Just another front like Foundry, but that one went bankrupt after Clein murdered Abigail, so they never bought the farm.” He flicked between us, clearly expecting to see understanding dawn on our faces.

“Want to finish your thought?” Cairo returned.

“AgriProspects was a front, guys. What the fuck did it matter if they couldn’t buy the farm? It wasn’t as though Ellis went bankrupt too. If he wanted that farm, he had two fucking years to buy it like he’s done every other scrap of land he could get his hands on. Why—?”

“—did he wait until he could use it as leverage over Ivy?” Legend finished. Understanding was clear in his expression now. “Did any of us ever read that contract?”

One after the other, we shook our heads.

“Now you see,” Jacques said. “There is more going on here than either of us comprehend. We don’t find out what that is without her close. In the meantime, her insights have already proved useful. She’s twice as smart and three times as ruthless as any of us. On that bridge when Mariner gave her a choice of our lives or hers, she jumped without a second’s hesitation.”

Jacques turned on Legend. “Mariner admitted to killing her sister. The real choice was to live and make her suffer for it, or die and save us. Seems to me she already chose us over revenge.”

Neither Legend nor even Cairo had a slick-ass response to that. Good. There was never any question of them sending Ivy away. I didn’t have an off-the-charts IQ like Jacques, or a half a psych degree like Cairo, but I know what I saw that night I took my prize to visit Axel Verlice.

There was a moment there when I asked her to decide his fate, and the sweet, innocent freshman faded and a coldness bit her soul. Rainey’s eyes changed. Her voice deepened, and surety squared her shoulders. She became someone harder, fiercer, and a mirror to me in every delicious way.

Now I knew who that someone was. Why in the fuck would I reject her? Ivy’s the girl who put her pool cue through my heart.

IVY

“Rainey, you okay?”

I started as I always did when I heard that name. I looked around before I could stop myself, half expecting to see my sister walking up behind me, beaming away as she came to join us for breakfast.

The vision vanished, taking hope with it.

“What? Sorry, Elise, I’m out of it.”

“I’ll say. You lost half your breakfast again.”

I looked down. Half of my breakfast bagel was gone, and from the unrepentant smile on Amy’s face, I knew where it went. She liked to say losing my food was my fault. I should stop ordering better than her.

“What’s up?” Paris asked.

I shifted back to the sight that caught my eye. “That’s what’s up. Doesn’t it feel like we’ve been here before? I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not interested in round two.”

Amy, Paris, Elise, Zara, and Presley followed my line of sight. Five pairs of eyes hardened at once.

Adriel, Nathan, and Ethan kicked back on the deck. It was the first day of the new semester, and Paris wanted us to spend it doing our morning ritual of Bagel Glory and sunshine. I wasn’t expecting to come out onto the deck and find it haunted by Crows.

“—wasn’t us,” Adriel said. “The whole thing makes me sick, man. I saw that video of them kicking that red-haired guy’s ass. Brutal. That’s not what the Crows are about.”

“Then, what are they about?” asked a shaggy guy in glasses. The three of them were gathering a listening crowd. Against my will, I was one of them. “I heard you guys are a gang. Steven Ellis wants to split the town and bring back Crystal Canyon. Jeremy and Micah decided to back up Daddy’s construction plans by rolling through with his gang to fuck with our people.”

Adriel, Ethan, and Nathan burst out laughing. “A gang? Us? Nah, man, you’ve got that all wrong. We’re a fraternity,” Adriel said. “One of the underground ones at Hunter’s Crest College. We all got in it freshman year. The day you become a brother, you get a crow tattoo. It was just fun and games at first, but you know how it is with the rich boys.” Adriel tossed him a wry grin like they had an inside joke. “Jeremy started throwing his money around. Why should the older brothers treat him like a scab when he could buy their whole lives and burn it down for fun?

“Him, Micah, Gael, Jonah, and the rest of them got a little too hard core. They got off on acting like the kings of campus. With that fucking tattoo on their necks, they gave the whole fraternity a bad name. Now they got people thinking we’re some kind of gang?” He tossed his head, feigning actual disappointment. “I’m glad you ran those jokers out of here. They got everything they had coming to them.”

My jaw clenched seeing students exchanging glances, dislike bleeding away. They were buying this.

“If you’ve got nothing to do with Jeremy or his father’s company, why are you here?” I called. “Because I’m counting the minutes until you bring up smoke shops and nightclubs, and how Bedlam would be so much better if we modernized.”

Adriel slid to me. “You know I’ve got nothing to do with that because I couldn’t give two shits about this Crystal Canyon crap. What’s it got to do with me? After I graduate from here, I’m looking at grad schools on the East Coast. What you all do with your town is your business. Change it or keep it the same. You won’t hear my opinion about it, because, once again, I don’t care,” he said, all smiles.

Couldn’t put it past him, it was a nice smile. Bronze kissed his skin. Steel hardened his jaw. Sunlight bleached blond streaks in his brown waves. If he wasn’t going full-time as the duplicitous, sweet-talking banger I knew he was, Adriel would kill as a model.

I gave him a smile to match. “East Coast? Very cool. Which schools were you thinking?”

His grin twitched for a moment, as if he wasn’t expecting such a pleasant response. “Top choices are Columbia and Yale.”

“Ooooh, definitely Columbia. That’s where my father went. He swore there was nothing like living, studying, and partying in New York.”

He laughed. “Not gonna lie, New York is pretty tempting after living the small-town life. I might go your dad’s way too.”

“Good luck.” I turned back to the remains of my breakfast.

“That’s something, at least,” Zara said. “They don’t care about the vote and they’re not here to start that Crow/Bedlam Boy rivalry all over again. No more attacks. No more Riot Royales. We can just chill this semester.”

“No, we can’t,” I replied, tone mild. “Everything that came out of his mouth is pure bullshit. Tuition for Columbia University is eye-wateringly expensive, and he just said he’s not one of the rich boys. I bet Daddy Ellis’s money would go a long way toward that student loan debt.” I chanced a peek over my shoulder. Adriel was still watching. “This guy is much smarter than Jeremy Ellis. What he does next, we won’t see coming.”

Amy shuddered. “Yikes, that’s ominous. You’ve gotten super intense lately, Rainey. Is everything cool with you? Are you fighting with your boyfriends?”

Bringing up the Bedlam Boys got my mind off Adriel and the Crows quick. Things had been weird between us in the weeks since we counted down the start of the new semester. Roan made a full recovery, but walked out of the hospital with some scars he was immensely proud of.

Jeremy and his Crows were radio silent the entire time. With Zoey officially declared missing, maybe Jeremy thought she was lying low before she struck the Bedlam Boys their final blow. Or maybe he thought she was missing because the Bedlam Boys got rid of her.

Either way, he and his brother holed up in their Hunter’s Crest mansion dealing with their legal problems, and the ankle monitors made sure of it.

The six of us moved back into our house on campus, and things had been chilly to say the least. Cairo only spoke to me to pick me clean about any and everything I remembered about Cavendish, Zoey, and the others. Otherwise, I didn’t exist and I certainly wasn’t allowed in his bed.

Jacques ended his morning sessions with me. No matter how much I provoked him, and I was getting outrageous with my attempts, he brushed me off without uttering a number. It wasn’t surprising that a genius knew when he was being baited, but he was in for a surprise if he thought I didn’t know why he held back.

I felt in my heart that Jacques didn’t blame me for losing Rainey, but he lost her all the same. He opened himself up to her on accident, then she was gone. After that, how could he open himself up to me on purpose?

No, my time with Jacques was limited to short conversations in the morning while we made breakfast side by side. The rest of the time, he closed himself in his room doing homework or helping Roan narrow down the list of Cavendish’s recruits.

That left only Roan’s and Arsenio’s beds open to me. Both of my guys were recovering and very interested in the healing power of my pussy—as Roan put it. It was like nothing changed between the three of us— No, it was like things were even better between me and Arsenio, and me and Roan.

Arsenio said a lot of things to me that still didn’t make sense. That he’d been trying to find me for weeks, and he rewarded my loyalty with more orgasms than I could stand. Whereas Roan said it all in the hospital. I was still the same person to him, but now even more delectable because I’d finally bared my pain to him. Knowing all the ways I was fucked up was an aphrodisiac going by the way that man was always on my ass.

Not that I was complaining. If I was in Roan’s bed, Legend wasn’t. There’d been no threesomes. No lessons from Roan on how to please him. No waking up sandwiched between my favorite couple.

My love and sex life had taken a serious hit, and having Arsenio and Roan by my side was the thing keeping me sane.

“No, we’re not fighting,” I said, plastering on a smile. I did that so much easier when I thought I was Rainey. No wonder my friends thought I was too intense lately. None of my smiles reached my eyes. “Everything’s good between us, which is why I can’t stand the idea that those guys are going to restart the war. His frat brothers attacked Paris, blew up Arsenio’s car, poisoned Jacques’s mother, and beat Roan half to death.

“I just want the people I love to be safe. After everything I’ve lost...” I dropped my gaze. “I just want you guys safe.”

“Oh, Rainey.” Amy threw her arms around me. “Of course you do. Ugh, I’ve been such an insensitive idiot. Who wouldn’t be stressed after all you’ve been through? I’d hate anyone with a damn crow tattoo too.”

Paris hugged me from the other side. “I am safe, Rainey. I swear. Whatever those guys are planning, they will not catch me off guard again. We know how they operate and what they’re after. They won’t get Bedlam, and if they try, my brother and your boyfriends know how to get the garbage to blow back out of town.”

“Thanks, guys.”

We traded more hugs, then I let them change the subject. We could talk about other, happier things for now because I’d be spending the rest of my day figuring out Adriel’s play. He said he wasn’t expending his energy on the fate of a town he didn’t give a crap about, but I had a feeling a big enough check from Ellis made them care.

Whatever they were up to, I had Mass Media Law, American Legal History I, and Logic and the Law that day to spend thinking about it. Becoming a lawyer wasn’t Rainey’s dream. It was the mission she adopted after we lost the farm and envisioned one day having the power to get it back.

Now that the contract with Steven Ellis was signed, I had the farm. I didn’t need to pretend like this degree was what either of us wanted. At this point, I was going through the motions until I figured out how to tell the world I was Ivy, and switch back to her major.

After breakfast, I walked into Mass Media Law and fell on a tall, handsome figure sipping water in the third row. How like my bespectacled love to not bother telling me we were in the same class. Marching up the steps, I dropped my butt in the seat right next to his. Jacques didn’t look up from his textbook.

“Mass Media Law.” I bumped his shoulder and didn’t pull away. “I wouldn’t have thought you were interested in a class like this. I’m only taking it because it’s as close to marketing as I can get.”

“What about this subject isn’t interesting? Media lawyers mostly deal with copyright infringement, defamation, and privacy. As a child, my name and face were plastered in newspapers and on television as the boy genius who won another academic contest against people twice his age.

“Despite my objections, journalists were allowed to violate my privacy again and again because my parents gave them permission. That’s one of the many issues I would address during my career. Privacy is an individual right. No one else should be able to decide whether or not you have it.”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking deeper as every conversation with Jacques made me do. “You’re right. Having half the world knowing your name should’ve been something you and you alone said yes or no too.” I rested my hand over his. “Especially because I know people treated you like an oddity. Bad enough from classmates, teachers, and neighbors. You didn’t need it from thousands of strangers too.”

Jacques eyed our hands. “Are you attempting to reestablish our relationship through feigning empathy and interest in my field?”

The corner of my mouth curled up. “Did you read a few books on relationships so you could anticipate my next moves and block them? No, baby. I’m not feigning anything. You and I just happen to think alike. It’s what makes us perfect for each other.”

“Hmm. I don’t believe in the concept of a soul mate. Neither do you,” he dropped. “Or you wouldn’t have five.”

“I do believe in soul mates, actually. I just don’t believe in the idea that you have to find one single person to be all things for you all the time. The six of us connect in different ways, but just because you’ve broken my soul into five pieces, doesn’t mean I can live without a single one of them.”

His response was another noncommittal noise and pulling his hand free. In Jacques speak, that was far from a rejection. We had an actual conversation about us. This was the first real progress we’d made since Cairo caught us on the couch.

One after the other, I was getting my guys back.

“You have two hours free after this class,” Jacques said. I didn’t know his schedule, but of course he knew mine. “You’ll help me with something.”

“I will?”

“You will.”

“Can I get a hint?”

Jacques pointedly looked around the filling classroom. “After class.”

I accepted this, leaning back. Eventually a man in dress pants and a blue blazer walked in, introduced himself as Professor Clarence, and the lesson got underway. As promised, I spent it scribbling in my notebook, jotting down every legal and illegal method Steven Ellis and Adriel could bring about the return of Crystal Canyon.

There were still five months before the vote could be called. Five months to undo the damage Jeremy and his boys caused, so what was their plan?

Bedlamites know Ellis is behind Foundry now. They know if they vote to split the town, Foundry will be free and clear to develop all the land they purchased. If only we could tell them why that’d be such a disaster. If only they knew why a snake like Ellis shouldn’t win.

What he was doing was as slimy as an appraiser who tells you the painting Nana left you is only worth five bucks, and turns around and sells that Rembrandt for millions. He’s paying pittances for gold mines—make that diamond mines, and the landowners don’t know they don’t need to fund their retirement with a cheat’s check. Their fortune is right under their shoes.

My mind drifted to Gran. Every day, sunup to sundown, she worked herself to the bone to provide for my father, and then for me and Rainey. She never complained. She never quit. But when she dared to tell that cheating snake no, and deny him what was never his to take, he had her killed.

My pen strangled in my grip. Foundry will not win. I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care if it costs me my life. Neither Steven Ellis nor the Men of Honor will have Bedlam.

“—essay on those chapters.” Professor Clarence clapped, snapping me to attention. “All right, everyone, good work today. Great discussion. We’ll pick this up again on Wednesday.”

The class filed out. I fell in step with Jacques, planning on getting the assignment from him later.

My silent companion led me across campus, back to the Bedlam Boy house. I held my breath as we climbed the stairs and stepped over the threshold into his room. Was my helping him with something code for helping him with his blue balls? Because I was way past ready to do that.

Jacques bent over his desk. Slipping my arms around him, I melted against his back, reaching for his belt.

“Unless you’re taking that off for me to use on you, let me go and sit down.”

I hummed. “We both know that’s not a threat.”

Jacques made a noise. Was that... a laugh?

Before I could be sure, he peeled off my fingers and towed me to his bed. I didn’t hide my disappointment when he reached into his desk, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and dropped them on my lap.

“What’s this?”

“These are the possible members of the Black Letter Crew—for lack of a better name.” Jacques pulled his desk chair over to me. Our knees bumped as he sat. It cheered me that he didn’t pull away. “Took a while to sort through the therapist’s notes, and then cross-reference to check if they ever crossed paths with Cavendish.

“You’re the last step.”

“Me?”

His chin dipped. “You know how he worked. What he said. How he spins his webs of manipulation. You can tell me which of these people were more likely to fall prey to him.”

“But you blocked out the faces,” I said. “And the names.”

“Naturally. I just told you I believe in privacy. Dante and his acolytes might be in there, but the rest are students who didn’t consent to us knowing what they told their therapist.”

Sighing, I leaned back against his pillows, making myself comfortable. “Fair enough. There has to be a line somewhere. This is a good one. I’ll need your help to fill in some things for me, though. Since you know the people behind these reports.”

“Neither one of us has anywhere else to be for the next two hours.”

With that, I got to reading. Dean Banks made seeing the therapist mandatory for everyone who experienced a trauma. That was how Scott Cavendish himself ended up in the chair, talking about sitting by his dying best friend’s bedside. Too bad the woman didn’t pick up that Scott killed said best friend. It would’ve saved a lot of people trouble if she had.

“This one.” I tugged a page out of the stack. “Do you know her?”

Jacques scanned the page and nodded.

“When she lost her boyfriend, did she have friends or family around? It says she broke down after his death and attempted suicide, but what happened? Did she go through treatment alone?”

He shook his head. “As I recall, her parents flew in and stayed with her. And it was a friend who found her and called an ambulance.”

“Then, she’s not one of them.” I put her page facedown on his desk, the start of my discard pile. “Think about me and Zoey. Naming her Blake was just one of the many reasons she resented them. Her dad ditched when she was eight. Her mother checked out soon after. She had to deal with the bullying alone, and after she was raped and the cops did nothing, she dealt with that alone too.

“It was the same for me,” I said, wanting to look away but trapped in his gaze. “We were so isolated out there on the farm. I dropped out of school after Gran died, and my friends could only stand my grief and rage for so long. Pretty soon, they wanted to go back to drinking, frat parties, and hooking up. I was buried under the pressure of keeping things together for my younger sister, and then I discovered the murder and cover-up.

“I was totally vulnerable to a snake like Cavendish coming in and swearing he could help me when I was on the edge of losing hope. Someone with a strong support system wouldn’t fall so easily to him.”

“Sound reasoning. Actually, I have to agree with you.” Jacques took the papers and flipped through, taking some out and dropping them on the pile. “Someone with a loving family and supportive friends doesn’t just up and join a death cult. How about the rest?”

I took them back, going through the ones he had left for me. One caught my attention. “This guy.

Raised by a single aunt. He was sent to the therapist because she was killed in a domestic violence situation. Sadly, the string of abusive partners could’ve started way before then. Maybe he was put through it too when he was sent to live with her.”

“There’s no maybe,” Jacques replied. “He came to school with bruises more than once.”

“Fuck’s sake,” I breathed, massaging my temple. “I could be holding Dante’s notes in my hands, but it’s still awful if years of bastards beating on him turned him into this. Monsters aren’t born, Jacques. They’re made.”

His eyes glazed out of focus. I could only imagine where that comment took him. But I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say.

“So, you think it’s possible he fell prey to Cavendish?”

“How is he connected to Cavendish?” I asked.

“Same way Blake Jensen was. The after-school program.”

“Shit, yes, then. Definitely. The kid likely signed up to delay the time he had to go home for as long as possible, and there’s Cavendish noticing the bruises, and seeing another victim to make his victim. After all that time feeling helpless, Scott swoops in and tells him the legacy of men who were beholden to no one. They took what they wanted, and nothing could hurt them. He convinced this kid he’d get his power back by becoming the one people feared. Does he have friends or other family?”

“No family. I have seen him around campus with a group of guys, but some of us get good at leading a double life.”

I placed his sheet beside me—the start of my possibles pile. “Here’s another that got my attention. Why did you include her?” I asked, showing the page. “This says she wasn’t sent to the therapist because she went through something traumatic. She was there because she caused trauma.”

I read the page, putting “she” where Jacques blocked out the name. “Accounts say she was the ringleader of the hazing. It was her idea to force pledges to give blowjobs to members of the brother fraternity. It was also her idea to secretly film it and threaten to upload the videos to the internet if they didn’t go on to do more degrading acts to get into the sorority.

“Ugh,” I spat. “This person isn’t a socially isolated victim of bad self-esteem. It says right there that she was laughing during the sessions, and didn’t feel a lick of remorse. The only reason she wasn’t expelled is because they couldn’t prove she made those videos, and they didn’t end up on the internet either way. This girl is a grade-A bitch.”

He chuckled. “I don’t dispute that, but don’t you think that’s exactly what would draw her to Cavendish? And her to him? She gets off on pain, control, blackmail, and manipulation. Zoey laughed about the night they murdered your sister. Were the others enjoying themselves too?”

My throat tightened. “Yes,” I forced out. “They were definitely... enjoying themselves.”

“I figured I should include the ones who became monsters long before they met Cavendish.”

Saying nothing, I put her on the possibles pile. For the next hour and a half, we worked through the stack, discarding the unlikelys and discussing the possibles. By the end, we had nine students who could be running with Dante, or Dante himself.

“What will you do now?” Stretching, I slid off the bed and began gathering my things. “How will you confirm they’re in the Black Letter Crew?”

“I admit, it’d be easier if they sent their threats through texts or emails. Give us something to trace. But I have ways of finding out what I need to know.”

“You’re trying to find the descendants of the Men of Honor too. Did you get in contact with Gold’s colleague?”

“I got an automatic email response saying Dr. Lopez was currently on sabbatical and would return my email at her earliest opportunity. That was weeks ago. Gold gave me her professional contacts. I need her personal email to get through to her.”

I paused in checking my books. “Are you sure we need her? She can’t be the only genealogist.”

“She’s the only one in Hunter’s Crest,” he said, swinging his desk chair. My attention drifted to his pants, and the thigh muscles bulging as he swayed side to side. I thought Jacques couldn’t deliver a punishment harsher than his belt. Then he discovered celibacy.

“I’ve been doing my own research, but Gold was right,” Jacques continued. “It’s slow, painstaking work. Work that a local genealogist might’ve done already.”

“Especially if she’s the one the Ellis family hired in the first place.”

“Exactly. Gold gave me the right recommendation. He just gave it at the wrong time.”

I found myself back on his bed. “Do we know where she’s doing her sabbatical?”

“Some remote town in Scotland. She works in HCC’s history department. Her fool of a teaching assistant didn’t remember the town she’s in, let alone where he put her contact information.”

“Fuck,” I cried. “It’s been dead end after dead end for weeks. These shits aren’t that good or that lucky. How are they always a step ahead of us?”

Tension rippled through his jaw. “Because we just found out the game we’re playing. They’ve known from the beginning.”

I sighed, getting back up. It wouldn’t do to be late to class on the first day. “There’s one thing that should help us. Remember one of the Black Letter Crew smokes. That wasn’t Zoey unless she developed the habit recently.”

“Never saw her with a cigarette in hand. I also didn’t smell any smoke when she was hanging us on that bridge. This fact does help us narrow down the others.”

“At least we’re finally making some progress,” I said. “Cairo has not been patient. I know he spends his nights either searching for his dad, or trying to get into that safe and figure out what started all this. He must’ve tried a million combinations by now.”

“I’ve heard you liken him to a wolf, but Cairo is a shark, de Souza. If they stop moving, they die.”

That image followed me throughout the day, stealing the focus my classes didn’t really have. Cairo had to get up every day and do something to find his dad, even if it was futile. This was the same person who, as a child, tried to take on his burden of being a vigilante cop. He looked after his drunk, depressed dad long after everyone else abandoned them. Cairo didn’t give up on the people who earned his loyalty.

That’s why he’s so angry. He’d never have given up on Rainey, but he was forced to. Because he lost her before they ever met.

In between thoughts of my wolf who incorrectly believed I was no longer his mate, I kept flashing to those nine people I picked out of a pile. Was Dante among them? The person who killed Zoey, abducted Jack Sharpe, got that shit stain Davidson promoted to acting sheriff, and held an anvil over my guys’ heads.

I left my last class of the day and cut through Homer Green. Students basked in the evening sun—stretching out on blankets, passing around textbooks, slurping lattes, and laughing it up like it wasn’t just last semester that the Crows kicked off a brawl in this very spot.

Everyone went on like it was just another blip in their perfect college lives, but somewhere...

My eyes narrowed, scanning all the laughing, carefree faces. Somewhere you’re hiding among all these normal, happy students. Waiting. Watching me. Pulling our strings.

I understood why Jacques wouldn’t let me know the names and faces that went with the deep secrets and painful truths. I even agreed with him. But right then more than ever I wished I knew which faces to pick out of the crowd. The night they came for us, I saw only their eyes.

I was me again. My memory was back. The next time I looked, I’d know, and they will pay.

Shaking myself, I forced myself to continue on. My phone buzzed within sight of our place.

Roan: I’m in bed right now and for some reason you’re not handcuffed to it. Explain this cosmic wrong to me.

The beginnings of a smile teased my lips. Roan just gave me a great idea.

I walked the path leading to our place, pausing before the mailbox. Dropping the lid, I was almost unsurprised to see what was waiting for me.

Damn them for getting smart and using the mail. Damn them for figuring out the police were watching the drop boxes.

I withdrew the black letter.

Damn them for the evil, lurking monsters they are. And damn me for not seeing who they were until it was too late.

I glanced at the house but made no move to go in. The letter was addressed to The Bedlam Boy House.

Seems I overestimated how attached you are to Jack Sharpe. You left him in my company over the holidays, and I can assure you he didn’t enjoy himself. I figured you’d have made your move against Ellis by now, but I guess I have to spell it out for you.

We’ll find out how much you care about him, because if you don’t do exactly what I say, the sheriff’s body will be next to hang in the square within a ring of fire.

The latest of Steven Ellis’s tools has arrived on campus, but he’s gotten smarter. He’s sending disposables to continue his work, and if they’re sacrificed, he’ll just send someone else. Six months gives him plenty of time to help people remember that whatever his sons did, the Bedlam Boys have done worse. The return of Crystal Canyon will free them from their rule.

That makes Ellis just as much your enemy as he is ours. Word is Foundry is planning another community event to raise support for the vote. I don’t care how you do it, but you’re to sacrifice him before he gets up before the crowd.

Of course, what the father loses, the sons inherit. After he’s gone, Micah and Jeremy must go too. It’s unlikely the Ellises told Foundry’s board exactly what makes Bedlam so special.

With the family gone, their financial backing of the project dries up, and Foundry will be left with land they can’t develop, and a town that’s finally learned what becomes of those that try to change Bedlam.

That event is your deadline. If it passes and Steven Ellis is still alive, I’ll take that as your goodbye to Sheriff Jack.

Then we’ll see if the next person I take does a better job of inspiring you to action.

Signed,

Dante

“De Souza.” A presence fell over me.

I didn’t say anything. Just held out the note for Cairo to take.

“Fuck!” Cairo lashed out, striking the mailbox square. It ripped out of the ground and showered my shoes in dirt. He slammed inside, rattling the windows. The letter stayed behind in a crumpled scrap on the welcome mat.

Honestly, he handled that much better than I expected.

JACQUES

“Community event? What the hell is he talking about?” Arsenio asked. “If there was an event planned, my mother would know about it. She’d have told us.”

I smoothed out the wrinkled page, reading it through for the fifth time. It was me, Legend, Roan, Cairo, and Arsenio in the kitchen. I didn’t know or ask where Ivy was. My need to know where she was at all times was temporarily put aside by the kill order we just received for a man and his sons.

“Pretty sure Dante didn’t waste our time and his by writing down a bunch of bullshit,” Legend said. “There is an event. They must still be planning it. Haven’t booked a venue yet.”

“Then how would Dante know about it?” Arsenio threw in. “Does he have the man bugged? Reading his emails? Tracking his fucking event planner? If he can do all that, what does he need us for?”

Roan got up and left the room.

“Hey,” Cairo barked. “Are we fucking boring you!”

“Not at this moment,” floated back.

“Sex-addicted fuck.” Cairo snatched the letter. “Kill Ellis, then Jeremy and Micah. Worst thing is, he’s probably right. Get rid of the family and funding dries up. They’ll give up on Bedlam unless they know.”

“The fact that we can’t answer that is why we didn’t take that route the first time Legend suggested it,” I reminded. “We don’t know who’s on the board, or how Ellis convinced them to buy large swathes of land in a town that doesn’t allow development. With the way things are going, it’s probably made up of all the Men of Honor descendants that didn’t break from Ellis.

“Slaughtering the Ellises and an entire board of directors would make Foundry national news, and even the slowest, most dim-witted investigator would make the connection between them and Bed—” I halted, holding stiff as the storeroom that was my mind shifted, spun, and re-cataloged itself, putting what I needed to the forefront. “Not between them and Bedlam. Between the Ellises and the Bedlam Boys.”

I met Cairo’s eyes. “They can get rid of Steven, Jeremy, and Micah themselves. Of course they fucking can. They could walk right up to them, and they wouldn’t know they were a threat—unlike us. Dante is setting this up so that after they’re gone, the cops have the motive, means, opportunity, and suspects all wrapped up in a neat bow. None of this gets back to him.”

“No, we’ll have the letters,” Arsenio argued. “We’ll have the sheriff singing of his abduction. Either way, we can prove duress.”

“We won’t get the chance,” Cairo said, fists balling on the counter. “Dante’s going to kill us. Get rid of the Ellises. Get rid of the Bedlam Boys. Fuck, get rid of our moms too. None of us are meant to survive this. After we’ve gone—”

“—Bedlam will be theirs,” Legend dropped. “Davidson the new sheriff, and the Black Letter Crew stepping into all the roles our mothers have. The Men of Honor retake Bedlam.”

“Your father isn’t meant to live through this,” I said. Cairo wasn’t one for platitudes blown up his ass, and I wasn’t one to deliver them. “Even if we do everything Dante says, they’re going to kill him. We have to find him before the event, while Dante is still using him as leverage.”

Cairo threw up his hands. “I look like I’m going to fucking argue? We should’ve found him weeks ago—”

“And now we’ve got days.” Roan climbed off the steps, carrying his laptop. “Guys, the reason we didn’t know about this community event is because it’s not being held in our community. Steven Ellis is throwing it at a country club in Hunter’s Crest”—he spun the screen around—“this weekend.”

Cairo pounced on the thing, eyes ping-ponging in his head. “You are cordially invited to the Hunter’s Crest Country Club for— How the hell did we not know about this?” He snapped to Roan. “How did you?”

“I didn’t know,” he replied. “The fact is nothing goes on in this town without our mothers knowing about it. That was a hint right there that the event isn’t in our town. If this is already planned, then it’s got RSVPs. There are a few families in Bedlam, besides ours, that have the influence to sway things to Ellis’s side. I called up one, said I misplaced my invitation, and she forwarded this.”

More than once I defended my friends’ intelligence to Mother. The fact remained they were clever in ways I’d never consider.

“Friday,” Legend read over Cairo’s shoulder. “We have until Friday night to kill Steven Ellis, or Sheriff Jack is the first of us Dante takes out.”

“We can’t do it.” Arsenio shoved away from the counter. “Getting close to this guy was short of impossible when we thought we had weeks. Now we have days.”

“No, this doesn’t change anything,” Cairo said. “We find my old man before the party. Take away his leverage. Jacques, you said you were close to finding them.”

I shook my head. “I have a list of people who could be a part of the Black Letter Crew. Five men and four women.”

“Perfect. We’ll pick them all up.” Cairo headed for the door. “Question them.”

I knew exactly what question meant. “I’m not opposed, but we saw what happened with Zoey Mariner, and then with Scott Cavendish. One dies and there’s another to take their place and continue the plan. Our next strike has to take them all out.”

“He’s right,” Legend said.

“Then what do you all fucking suggest!”

His bellow didn’t so much as blow my brows up. “Let me handle the Black Letter Crew. If my list of nine has secrets, I’ll devise a way to make each of them crack by Friday. You have my word on that, which is good because the four of you will be too busy.”

“Busy doing what?” Arsenio said.

“I can get to all nine, but doesn’t mean I’ll get to the entire crew.” I met their gaze in turn. “If I don’t, you all need a way to get to Steven Ellis before the party.

“You need a plan to kill him.”

If I expected an argument, I didn’t wait around for it. We had very few options while a masked group of psychopaths held our balls in a vise. Abductions, murders, and attempted murders. There was no bluff to call. They proved they were serious multiple times.

We would prepare for the best, but plan for the worst.

I pushed on my door, mind turning to those names. Ivy said six people attacked them that night. That meant at least four people on my list were innocent, and there was nothing to admit to.

But I have to be sure—

I stopped dead, landing on my bed. I flicked around, checking for a second if I walked into the right room.

No, I was in the right place. And the woman handcuffed to the bed frame wasn’t.

“Ivy,” I said slowly. “Seems you’ve gotten lost. Roan’s room is three doors down.”

She peered at me over a bare shoulder. Ivy wore nothing on top. Stretching belly-flat on my sheets, I followed the curve of her spine down to a pink lace thong that she needn’t have bothered with. It covered nothing.

My pants tightened.

The reemergence of Ivy put an end to the “home clothes.” She bought herself a new wardrobe, and Cairo was too busy barely speaking with her to do anything about it.

I should’ve handled it my-fucking-self.

Ivy kicked her curled toes, beckoning me forward. “I’m not lost. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

“Out.”

She laughed. “Even if I wanted to”—Ivy shook her cuffed hands—“looks like I can’t.”

“Where’s the key?”

The devil lived in her smirk. “Somewhere interesting.”

“What did you hope to accomplish with this?” I asked with my traitorous dick hardening by the second. It had been a very long time.

Ivy shrugged. “I hoped to break a few rules.”

“This will not happen.” I took a step, hands traveling to my belt buckle. “You think you can seduce me? I’m not some lovesick fool who loses his mind at a bare back—”

A sharp hiss escaped my throat as Ivy rose on her knees, shaking that bare backside at me. It was shameless how loud it begged to be spanked raw.

“If you’re so unaffected, find the key, uncuff me, and carry me out of here. I’ll get the hint loud and clear. But if not...”

My grip tightened on the buckle. “You don’t make the rules here, de Souza. You don’t test me to see if I’ll break. Much has changed, but that never will.”

She pinned me through. “Then do something about it.”

That challenge was the sounding bell to charge. To whip off my belt and give her what I denied myself while she positively begged for it. But I didn’t move. It was possible I wasn’t breathing.

She got me all those weeks ago as we played her little game of “ask me anything.” Ivy slipped in my head, and then into my pants. Cairo walking in was both welcome and unwelcome.

Raineyburrowed into my head without me realizing, then was ripped out. Catching me off guard once was a statistical probability, but the same woman winding me around her finger twice was the action of the lovesick pathetic fool I just swore I wasn’t.

I will not do this with her again.

My belt slipped its buckle.

She will never have that power over me.

It slipped its loops, leaving my waistband to slide an inch down. I unbuttoned and it went the rest of the way.

There was nothing more illogical than the concept of love. It was nothing more than a rush of chemicals in the brain—as real as the trick Ivy’s mind played to make her believe she was her sister.

The bed dipped beneath my knee. Drawing my shirt over my head, it joined the rest of our clothes on the floor.

What I felt wasn’t real. It didn’t exist to be lost again. It didn’t make sense to say it never truly went away.

I pressed her flat, palm warm on the small of her back. As warm as the legs wrapping around me.

My love was nothing more than a delusion that had taken hold of me, and experience said there was no controlling when those released you.

I tightened around the leather.

So why fight it?

Thwap!

“Uh,” Ivy half cried, half moaned. My balls squeezed in time to her pale cheeks. “Again.”

My jaw clenched, penning in a hiss. Her alter ego didn’t demand more. She’d offer herself up to me in total submission, even if she didn’t pretend she wasn’t enjoying it.

But I was dealing with Ivy now. She wasn’t shy about taking what she wanted, and that did nothing good to the dominant alpha beast that logic, reason, and genius were never able to tame.

Thwap!

Her back arched against the sheets, bending like a finely crafted bow. I ran my fingers up the curve of her spine. “Ah, yes, Jacques. Don’t—” I closed over her mouth, muffling the rest of her order beneath my palm.

Much better.

Thwap!

Ivy vibrated beneath me, pain and pleasure rippling through her body. It had been so long. Too long.

My erection honed in on her like a heat-seeking missile. Precum gathered on the tip, unashamedly giving away this woman’s power over me. Half-naked and three spankings in, and I was so hard there was a chance all of me would explode when I came. So much for the genius who was always in control. Always—

Pain sprouted from my palm. Ivy scraped her teeth along my bitten palm and closed over my finger.

“Ugh.” My cock twitched violently as she sucked me into her mouth. Head bobbing, she found something else to do with her mouth and I pictured all the other uses I could put it to. Where the fuck was that handcuff key?

“Where’s the key?”

“Can’t recall,” she sang.

My lips peeled back from my teeth. “Where is it?”

“You’ll just have to find it.”

Thwap!

“Ahh,” she moaned, tightening around me.

“You don’t want to play games with me.”

“Oh, but I do. I really, really do.” Ivy tossed a smirk over her shoulder. “Everything comes easy for you, Jacques Stone, the self-controlled genius. Even the woman of your dreams walked right into your house and got ensnared in Cairo’s web.”

My reply was immediate. “Actually, she framed me for murder and accepted she was better off serving her sentence under the Bedlam Boys.”

Her smirk widened. At that second I realized I just confirmed she was the woman of my dreams.

I glared at my cock. Fucking hell, so much for the self-controlled genius.

“I’m going to make you work for it when it comes to me.” She wiggled her red ass. “Just a little bit. So the next time you get it into your head that it’ll be easy to throw me away, you’ll remember how hard you fought for me in the first place.”

The vein under my left brow twitched. Irritation like I’d never felt before swelled in my chest. I raised my belt... and tossed it over my shoulder. Ivy’s eyes widened as I prowled over her.

“Is that so? You think you’re going to teach me a lesson.” Eyes locked, I bit her shoulder, enjoying the soft exhalation of breath. “Train me? Make me the pet at the end of your leash?”

I felt her toes caress my backside. “That wasn’t exactly what I was going for. I was thinking something more like equals.”

I laughed, lips trailing along her shoulder. “There’s no such thing as an equal relationship. Someone always holds the power.” I kissed just under her ear. “Whether it’s the partner that makes more money. Or the one that’s out of their league and knows it. Or loves just a little bit less. The balance of power can only swing one way.”

“Which way does it swing for us?”

Tipping her head back, I captured her lips, kissing her hungrily. I fisted her strands, opening her mouth as wide as it’d go as I plundered her warm, sweet mouth to my heart’s content. “Asks the woman currently cuffed to my bed and vulnerable to my mercy.”

Glazed eyes held my reflection. Swimming among it, mischief danced in her pools. “I’ve been exactly where I want to be, Jacques. So who’s vulnerable to whose mercy?”

“Hmm.” Just like that, I released her and sat up. “It appears we have an important question to answer. The only way to handle it is to collect the data, and come to the conclusion it grants us.”

“How do we do— Oh,” she cried—soft, tight body shuddering as two fingers dipped inside her pussy.

“The data is how many times I fuck, tease, and punish you to the brink of orgasm and refuse to deliver until you say I own you in every way and make me believe it. That should give us definitive evidence.” Her juices coated me, calling me to weep more precum while I slipped in and out, scissoring my fingers to the most delicious moans.

“That’s cheating. The only way the results would hold up is if the experiment is replicated. After this, maybe I’ll handcuff you.”

My laugh was deep and free. “I almost want to see you try. But what I want even more... is to hear you say it.” I crooked my finger, stealing a gasp. “Who do you belong to?”

“Like... I’m going to give it up that easily.” Shuddering, she melted into the sheets.

Much like the spankings, she enjoyed it too much to call it a punishment, but it changed nothing for me. Ivy was at peak perfection when she was on her knees, captive to my mercy and yet begging for more. That at some point she wound me around her finger wasn’t news. I was a logical man.

I didn’t feel anything in particular for Quinn, or our previous girlfriends. I agreed to sharing them because once again, the logical thing proved to let them come to me. It was different with Ivy from nearly the beginning. She talked back to me in front of an entire class, daring to tell me that I was wrong. If that wasn’t a fatal enough mistake, she dumped water on me and landed me in an interrogation room.

She had a spirit that was hard to break, but secretly thrilled me to try. She challenged me. Questioned me. Made me see things her way. It was only right that she come to see things my way too.

“Who do you belong to?” I smacked her ass—the first time I traded belt for hand. The feel of her warm and quivering beneath my palm nearly made me come on the spot.

“Ah,” she moaned, rocking back on my fingers. “Technically, I belong to five men, so—”

Smack!

Ivy squealed, tightening around my fingers. I withdrew so abruptly, she gasped.

“Jacques!”

“I already know my name.” I bore over her, my cock skimming her ass and leaving a weeping trail. Cum marks the spot. “There was something else you had to tell me.”

Swirling clouds of defiance and desire darkened her eyes. She was not going to make this easy for me, and damn, it wouldn’t be so hard to let her go if she would.

“Say it.”

Ivy nipped my bottom lip, nuzzling my cheek. “You first.”

I plunged inside her pussy, tasting her cry on my tongue. Other men would’ve given her time to prepare, adjust, catch her breath.

That’s why Ivy wasn’t with any of them. She was with us.

I rammed her against the headboard, taking savage pleasure in her screams. Bang, bang, bang. Ivy’s cuffs clanged against the headboard. Maybe I wasn’t a genius. Why of the two of us was she the one to think up handcuffs?

Her smooth ass cradled my hips on every thrust. The arch and curve of her spine mesmerized me with each rock. It was akin to physical pain when her pants grew hoarse—giving the signal. I drew out and groaned, grip strangling the headboard.

“Jacques, no,” she cried. “Please.”

“Say it.”

“You can’t keep this up any longer than I can!”

I grinned. “We’ll find out.”

My hands traveled down her back and around her waist, indulging the slippery perfection of her damp body. Gliding over her stomach, I cupped her breasts—tweaking her nipples to moans and pants that changed and increased in pitch with the barest change in pressure. Who knew ten years of piano lessons would pay off in this way?

“Ah, yes, Jacques. That feels so good.”

I slid inside her, no less gentle than I ever was. Ivy’s cries ratcheted to insane levels. If the other side of the wall was another room in a cheap motel, the occupants would assume I was paying a woman I met off the street to fluff my ego as well as my dick, but there was nothing fake about her sinful juices coating my cock. The sweat slicking her skin. Her curled toes smacking the bed. Her nipples rock hard and wanton beneath my touch.

I pulled out.

“Ahh!” she shrieked. “Jacques, please.”

“Say it.” The growl was fitting of the animal I’d become.

“I... belong to... you.” Ivy strained against her cuffs, rocking back to bump my erect and equally frustrated cock. Even when she begged, she demanded. “I’m yours, Jacques. Always.” Ivy twisted, lips curled into her dimpled cheeks. “Glad you finally accepted it.”

My control snapped. Lurching forward, I secured her wrists and yanked, snapping the post clean free of the board. Ivy let out a tiny shriek as her world spun. She found herself flat on her back and her wrists locked around my neck. Cuffed to me. Anchored to me. Where she belonged.

I settled between her legs like I was coming home, inwardly cursing myself for all the time I wasted while she was ass up and kneeling before a doghouse, ready and willing to go as far as I’d take it. Ivy was mine. She had to say it... and I had to accept it. It didn’t matter what she called herself or who she thought she was. I owned her body and soul, and she was going nowhere.

We moved as one. I assumed she wasn’t expecting slow, sweet, or tender because she got neither. Ivy bucked her hips, meeting each strike to hit that spot dead on. Her legs strangled my hips, pulling me deeper still. Arms locked around me, Ivy buried in my hair—tangling my strands under soft strokes.

Such a tender, intimate touch amidst our frantic rutting. Our gazes locked—hers swirling and enigmatic. Mine no less open or readable, and still... everything that needed to be said passed between us.

Ivy rose as I dipped. Lips clashing, I slipped inside. Tongue tangling with hers, swallowing her moans, grunting as she strangled my dick, I said, “Hmm mh mhh.”

Her eyes flew open. Breaking away, Ivy’s lips parted and I struck, nailing that spot without mercy.

“Ah!” Back bending, Ivy came hard—any words that had been about to leave her lips washed under the wake of her orgasm.

I held out for all of a millisecond. Milked by her tight pussy, I spilled every drop of cum in me. We came in a shower of writhing, moaning, sweating, and surrender to the only force that’d ever claim our weakness.

I collapsed on her, flattening into the sheets and not caring. She wasn’t going anywhere. Why give her the chance to try?

She didn’t. Sighing, Ivy wrapped her arms and legs around me, settling my head in the crook of her neck. Gentle strokes glided through my hair, both irritating and soothing me. I was curled up on her and being petted like a faithful lapdog. I should re-cuff her to the bed. Deliver an actual punishment for breaking into my room, disobeying me, breaking rules to taunt me back into our morning sessions.

I should do any fucking thing other than lie here and accept the change of relationship that she was assuming.

“Me too, Jacques.” Ivy’s red-painted toes caressed my thigh. “I love you too.”

Teeth gritting, I balled my fists and put them to better use tracing the dips and curves of the body beneath me.

I was a logical man. I knew when to admit defeat.

IVY

“There has to be a way to get in,” Cairo argued. “Roan, you scored a copy of the invitation. Now get us a real one.”

“We wouldn’t make it past the door. Ellis will have security. Even if by some miracle he let us in, he’d have his guys on us all night. Our only choice is crashing.”

I listened with one ear while I gathered the ingredients for Jacques’s smoothie. Our bedroom activities were hardly over. It was like the man was possessed. Months of celibacy unleashed, and I was only too happy to catch up on lost time. At one point, I snuck the key from its hiding spot, slapped the cuffs on Jacques, and mounted him.

He destroyed another bedpost and made me pay for that so swiftly and deliciously, my juices were still drying on my red cheeks.

I was only allowed out of his presence to get us sustenance. We were in for a long night and neither of us intended to sleep.

But it looks like I came down at the right time. I flicked from our food to Arsenio, Roan, Legend, and Cairo huddled in the living room. They’re talking about Dante’s latest letter and the community event.

“—disguise ourselves as waiters or the cleaning crew,” Legend said.

“Not waiters,” Arsenio said. “I’m sure the Ellises don’t normally pay attention to the help, but the guys who beat and branded Jeremy won’t be ignored when they’re standing over his table. There can’t be any chance of getting caught before.”

Before? Before they assassinated Steven, Jeremy, and Micah? They can’t seriously be discussing this.

“Why are we wasting our time with this?!”

I jerked, spilling apple juice over the rim of the blender.

Cairo shot up. “We don’t take orders from the likes of Dante. Forget Ellis and his fucking party. I’m finding my father. Davidson has to know where he is. I’m doing what I should’ve done weeks ago and picking him up.”

“You didn’t do it weeks ago because you couldn’t.” Roan darted in his path. “We don’t know where the hell he goes after his shifts.”

“Then I’ll drag him out of the station.”

“And get yourself shot?”

Four heads swiveled around—to me. They looked like they didn’t know I was standing there.

I pushed on. “Cairo, you know you can’t do that or you would’ve already.”

“This doesn’t concern you, de Souza.”

“The hell it doesn’t.” I abandoned the blender and stormed out of the kitchen, planting myself in front of them half-naked in nothing but Jacques’s shirt. “He’s ready for you to come for him. That’s exactly what he wants: an excuse. Why all of a sudden do you want to give him one?”

“Because as our resident genius just reasoned,” Roan sliced in, “it doesn’t matter if we kill the Ellises. Dante is never going to let the sheriff go. If I was Dante, I’d let my enemies take out my other enemies, have my pet cop throw them in prison for it, then one by one clean up the rest of the people in my way—without the Bedlam Boys around to stop me.”

“Of course,” I whispered, sinking onto the couch. “Why would Dante let him go? He has no reason to even if you do everything he asks. Davidson as acting sheriff, then actual sheriff, works out just fine for him.”

“We have to get to my dad before the party,” Cairo said. “Which is this Friday.”

My eyes bugged. “Friday? You’ve been looking for him for weeks. How are you supposed to find him in five days?”

Cairo swung around. “See? Even she sees the problem. Why are we wasting time on this party and giving Dante what he wants when we know it doesn’t end well for us either way? The only move is to find my dad and take away the leverage he has over us.”

“Jacques is on it,” Arsenio reminded.

“Jacques seems a bit busy getting his dick wet.” Cairo smiled mockingly at me. “You’ve got one tasty pussy, de Souza, but my old man isn’t dying for it. You helped Jacques come up with the list. Tell me their names.”

Was it wrong that I was secretly pleased he complimented me? I hadn’t gotten a nice word out of Cairo for weeks. “I don’t know their names. Jacques blocked them out before he let me read the reports.”

His eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re lying. Why the fuck would he do that?”

“To protect the privacy of the innocent people who didn’t consent to us sneaking into their therapy sessions. Cairo, if Jacques said he can find the Crew, and therefore your father, I believe him,” I said, talking over what would’ve been a scathing retort. “Of course you can’t kill an entire family just because Dante tells you to, but the Black Letter Crew knows us. They’re watching us.

“For now, you guys should go through the motions like you’re following orders. Don’t give him a reason to think you’re going to disobey him because Dante is not bluffing.” My voice grew thick. “They’ll kill him and then move on to someone else you care about. It’ll never end, and we’ll still be right where we started—under their thumb.”

“I’m not under anyone’s thumb,” he snapped, but had nothing else to say to me. None of them did.

I got to my feet. “I say you crash that party. Get close to Steven Ellis, lure him somewhere private, and tell him he and his sons are in danger. Show him that note,” I said, gesturing to the crumpled letter. “Dante wants it to be everyone against us, so flip the tables on him. One thing we do know is that if Ellis was a crazed, homicidal nutjob, he wouldn’t have broken with Cavendish. He doesn’t want you guys dead, but I bet he’d join forces against the people who want him dead.”

“Ridiculous,” Arsenio dismissed. “The guy has no reason to trust us, or us him. He could betray us just as easily as we know Dante will. We’re talking about a fortune that’ll keep the Ellises rich for generations to come. People tend to find the homicidal nutjob within themselves when that kind of money is on the line.”

Shrugging, I padded to the kitchen to return to making my sandwich and smoothie. “Okay, it’s your families on the line, so I won’t tell you what to do. It just occurs to me that a man who has spent years secretly surveying and snatching up every bit of land for sale in this town, would know all the best and secluded places to keep a hostage.”

I jabbed on the blender, drowning out any response to that. But the looks on their faces quirked my lips up all the same.