“Why did you leave me? Huh? Why the hell am I doing this?” I ask no one. He’s out there. My brother is out there somewhere. and I can only pray that this doesn’t end in my death too. Curling up on the cot, I lie down and close my eyes. Conjuring images of my brother’s face from the darkness that I’ve kept them locked in, I sigh. I can’t believe this. None of this was what I thought it would be. I didn’t plan on falling for Sly. I didn’t plan on any of this but here we are. The lock clicks once more but I don’t look to see who it is that’s coming down the steps.
“I warned your ass not to fuck with my dad.” I hear Dezzy’s voice. I keep my eyes closed tightly.
“It’s not what you think,” I tell her.
“It’s not? Is that why you’re locked down here and my dad is up there losing his mind?” Her words hurt more than I expect them to. I don’t want him a mess because of me.
“It’s not what you think, Dez.”
“Then tell me, Fab. What is it?” Now I do open my eyes and turn my head to look at her. She sits there outside the cell in a chair with anger bordering on murder dancing in her eyes.
“It was a mistake. It was all a mistake. I didn’t think I would fall in love with your dad, Dezzy.”
“Are you kidding me?” she roars. “In love with him? So much in love that you went behind his back with a cop?” Her eyes narrow as I blow out a breath.
“You don’t get it. Mack was a long time ago. He means nothing to me.”
“Whatever. You just fucked yourself, Fabiola. I can’t believe that I almost trusted you. My mistake,” she huffs before standing from the chair and heading back up the steps.
I could tell them the truth. I could admit to them what I was doing but then I’m as good as dead. They don’t like traitors and I just became one. Tears roll down my cheeks when one of the other girls comes down with a plate of food and a bottle of water. She slips it through the bars and looks up at me.
“Sly said you need to eat. That you haven’t eaten lunch yet,” she says softly.
“Tell Sly I don’t want to eat.”
“You know I can’t do that. He wants you to eat, you eat.”
“I won’t.”
“Why would you do that to him? The whole club knows you betrayed him.”
I take a deep breath and sit up on the edge of the cot to look at her. “I don’t care what the club thinks. I was only doing this for my brother!”
She blinks but doesn’t say anything else. Just turns and leaves like everyone else did. I grab the water off the floor and check to make sure it wasn’t tampered with. When I’m satisfied that it isn’t, I take the cap off and take a drink. My stomach grumbles but I won’t be eating just because he wants me to. He will not dictate what I do while I’m being held prisoner. Closing my eyes, I lay back on the cot and contemplate my next move. Deb will come looking for me eventually. She knows that I went with Sly. What if she calls the police?
With a heavy sigh I try to get some sleep. I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.
Chapter Fourteen
“How the fuck do we not have anything on her?” I ask looking around the room. The guys all shrug but it’s true. I’ve looked over everything myself and I’ve come up blank. Not one damn thing on Fabiola Watson. It pisses me off because I can’t even find a fucking death certificate for her mom. I scrub my hand over my face as I look back around the room.
“She’s a ghost, brother. Not one thing on her. No arrests, nothin’. Hell, she don’t even have a fuckin’ parkin’ ticket,” Shaft informs me once more. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly.
“What about birth certificate?”
“Some states are sealed. Maybe she wasn’t born here,” Gauge adds.
I shake my head not knowing what the hell to do now. I have no idea what she was looking for. I don’t know what she told Mack either. That thought alone pisses me off. What if she found out something about the club? I can’t let them take the fall for this shit.
“I want information!”
“From where, Sly?” Gauge roars. “There’s nothin’, brother!”
“Fuck!” I growl before grabbing the bottle of Jack off the table and bringing it to my lips. I swallow it down, pissed at the world right now. The guys slowly file out of the room leaving me and Gauge. I glance over at him and see the look. “Say what the fuck you wanna say.” He chuckles.
“You love her?”
“Fuck you.”
“Just admit it. You’ll feel better.” He smirks at me. Bastard.
“Doesn’t matter what I feel. She was turnin’ us in,” I remind him, taking another drink.
“We don’t know what she was doin’. She ain’t talkin’, Sly.”
“She was in with a fuckin’ cop! What more do you need to know?” Glaring at him, I huff out a breath. I have to consider that he might be right. We don’t know what she said but she sure as hell isn’t going to tell me. I don’t know if it’s that that pisses me off more or the fact that I’ve grown to have feelings for this girl. I’m mad at the fact that she played me. I’m mad that I invited her into my life, my clubhouse. Gauge stands from his chair and walks around to where I’m standing. Slapping a hand on my shoulder, he looks me in the eye.
“You can’t figure this shit out if she won’t talk, brother. She ain’t tellin’ us shit. You should go down there and see what you can find out.”
“Fuck that! I need to talk to Baptista. You wanna have talk time, feel free,” I tell him before downing another long pull from the bottle. Shrugging his hand off my shoulder, I brush past him and out of the room. Heading down the hall to my office, I drop in my chair. Grabbing my phone, I dial Baptista and wait on him to answer.
“Yeah?”
“Tell me you got news,” I say into the line.
“They were there checking into crooked cops, Sly. You weren’t the only one that knew about them. Those three were sent over there to see what they could find.” Reality hits me hard. They were looking into the same thing as we were?
“Shit.”
“Yeah. I’m really sorry, Sly.”
“Me too, man. Thanks,” I tell him before hanging the phone up. I rest my head in my hands on the desk in front of me when Dez walks in.
“You okay?”
“No. Chris was in town lookin’ into the fuckin’ cops, too. They were handlin’ it, Dez, and I fucked that up!” She moves through the room and sits in the chair in front of my desk watching me.
“You didn’t know.”
“Does it matter? I should have! I have done nothin’ in my life but fuck things up, Dez. You, your mom, now this shit? I’m fuckin’ it all up.” Dez just smirks at me and it pisses me off too.
“You’re joking right?”
“Yeah, Dez. Which part seems funny?” I ask sarcastically.
“All of it! You haven’t fucked up anything. Me and mom fucked ourselves up. You had nothing to do with that. And this? How would you have known? You couldn’t have. Stop blaming yourself.”