Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
I want to go home.
Oh god.
I stare down at the floor where Bennett’s body lays, and I feel sick.
Sick to my stomach.
“I’m sorry, Waverly,” Dax murmurs, releasing me. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
“We need to calm down,” I say, my voice shaky. “We need to calm down and figure out what we’re going to do here. We need a plan.”
“The other cops will figure out he’s missing, and they’ll link it back to me,” Dax says, running his hands through his hair.
I don’t tell him that he just put more blood in there, and I try not to look at him because he looks even more terrifying now. “Do the other cops know you two were acquaintances?”
Dax shakes his head. “No, but it won’t take long to fuckin’ figure it out. They’ll go through his stuff, find it out and track me down. I can’t be sure he’s left me untraceable. A man like him is smart – he’d have a plan in case something went wrong.”
“Then you need to make sure there’s nothing to find here. You have to make sure everything of yours is clean.”
“I can’t fuckin’ do that!” Dax roars. “I can’t fuckin’ clean it up. It’s too late for that.”
“I don’t even know what you’re doing here, Dax. I’m trying to help,” I say softly, forcing a fragile voice, though it doesn’t take much because I literally feel fragile right about now.
“I sell women, Waverly. I take them off the streets, and I sell them. I make money, millions of dollars. I’m running an illegal business that you couldn’t even begin to imagine.”
I blink.
He just told me.
Straight up told me.
I try to think of what the correct reaction to this is. I try to think of how I’d react if I didn’t already know. If I run out of here and freak out, I’m putting my life at risk. He’ll never let me walk with a secret like that, so it leaves me one option.
To play along.
“You give girls off the streets new lives?” I ask, my voice soft. “Girls like Bobbie and Amy, who have nothing else going for them?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t tell me he sells them to monsters, but really, do I need to know that? No. All I need to know is what he does so he trusts me enough to let me in. When I’m in, I can take him down.
I step forward and reach for his hand, my stomach coil again. “I would never judge you for that. It might be wrong, but I can also appreciate what you’re doing here. How is Bennett involved?”
“He’s been involved from the start—a silent partner, so to speak. He finds people with money, sends them our way. He gets a cut and he keeps the cops off our backs. He makes sure we stay clean. Without him, we’re fucked.”
He’s damn right they are.
“One thing at a time,” I say. “We need to get rid of this.”
I nod down at Bennett’s body.
I feel sick at the very thought of ‘getting rid of it.’
A body, someone’s life, gone.
Just like that.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. We need to. We need to get rid of it.”
It’s time to sort this out.
So I can finish this, once and for all.
I’m officially done.
“YOUR TAIL WASN’T ABLE to follow you all the way. Where have you been?” Alarick growls the moment I step through the door.
I’m bloodied, I’m bruised, I’m covered in dirt, and I feel like my body is shutting down on me. My brain is numb and all I can think about is the blood that’s coating my hands. The sticky blood that’s all over my fingers, my palms, my wrists, my clothes—everything.
“Flick,” Briella whispers, and Alarick’s voice immediately goes softer once he’s taken a good look at me.
“What happened?” he asks, just as Mykel walks into the room.
I don’t look at him.
I don’t look at any of them.
I need to get this blood off my hands.
I need it to be gone.
“Bennett’s dead,” I murmur, walking straight past them and towards the bathroom.
I don’t answer any of the questions that are thrown at me after that. I just continue walking, keeping my head down, trying to stop my hands trembling and my body giving way on me. All I can see in my mind, over and over, is the moment when we dropped Bennett’s body into the hole we spent hours digging. A hole big enough that my stomach twists at the very thought of it.
I want to cry.
But I don’t.
I walk into the bathroom and right over to the sink. I turn the water on and I start scrubbing. I scrub and scrub until all I can see is a bloodied mess in basin, and even then, my hands are still stained. The blood won’t leave. Blood that was, only hours ago, in someone else’s body. I swallow the lump in my throat and keep washing, scrubbing until my fingers feel raw.