Vicious Love (Barrington Heights #1) (12 page)

As the night was coming to a close, and I thought my story ended, Barry never came to bed. I had no clue where he was or what he was feeling. To make matters worse, as I stared aimlessly at my computer, I realized that my story wasn’t really complete. I’d just made my characters avoid the major confrontation necessary to create a resolution. There wasn’t a clash, a climax, or anything of that sort. I’d left my story without an ending, and I began to realize that I truly did not have control of this situation. The character I’d created to be myself fell in love with both men and couldn’t decide whom she should love solely.

chapter 17

chris

“It’s quite simple,” I said as I paced around the room while looking at him. “Just tell me who Barry is and what he does and all of this will be over.” Now, I was leaning over him, staring right into his eyes. He didn’t reply. “Very well. I guess we’ll continue.”

I motioned to Boone, and he hit him again. Then again. And again. His blood was seeping from his mouth, yet he didn’t talk. He hadn’t said a single word throughout this three-hour interrogation. I checked my watch, which read one a.m., and told Boone to stop.

“I’ll give you one more chance,” I hissed. “Tell me what I want to know and this will all be over.”

“Go fuck yourself,” he responded with a bloody smile.

My phone began to ring just when he finished, and his stupid face got all smug. He clearly didn’t know who I was. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have responded that way about a phone call. He must have believed that I was just some low-level guy getting a call from his boss, but he couldn’t have been further off.

“Did you do it?” I asked, and his face went blank as if he finally understood the situation he was in. “Do you have Mr. Tyler’s family?”

All the blood in Mr. Tyler’s face went missing and he became quite pale. “No,” he whispered. “Please leave them alone.”

I put my index finger to my lips and told him to be quite. “Oh, that’s unfortunate,” I responded to Drake, who was on the other end of the phone call.

“What’s unfortunate?” Mr. Tyler asked. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt them!” he yelled, and I had Boone hit him again to make him shut up.

“Okay. Send me a picture of the daughter so Mr. Tyler here knows we’re not fucking around.” I hung up the phone and deviously smiled at Mr. Tyler, who was not taking this whole family thing well.

He was fighting his restraints but couldn’t break free—obviously. Soon, a picture was sent to my phone of Mr. Tyler’s little girl with a finger missing. I showed it to him, and he began to cry.

“Now, I’ll ask you again. But this time, every time you don’t answer, she loses a finger. And then her toes, and if there’s nothing left, I’ll have my guy slit her throat. So, if you please.”

“Barry…” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you.”

“Barry runs the books for the Nugent operation,” he responded with tears running down his face.

“Was that so hard?” I teased. “Oh, yeah, and Mr. Tyler.” He looked up. “That was Photoshopped. Your daughter has all of her fingers and is safe in bed. I would never hurt an innocent person.”

He looked relieved, and some color came back to his face.

“But,” I continued, “you are not an innocent person.” With that, Boone stepped to his side and put a Glock to the side of his head. “Save a seat in hell for me.”

“Wait!” he screamed, and I motioned for Boone to back off.

“What could you possibly say to stop me from killing you?” I asked.

“There’s another player,” he said. “Someone backing Mrs. Nugent and funding her operations.” His breathing quickened. “He’s the one who put the hit out on you, not Nugent.”

Another player? This couldn’t be good, and for some reason, I believed him. There was no way Mrs. Nugent could launch her operations without a backer. She didn’t have enough money, and I knew there had to be someone els
e.

“Who?” I asked—rather politely if I do say so myself.

“What’s in it for me?” Mr. Tyler asked.

“Well, I won’t kill you for starters.” I laughed, but I don’t think he found that funny. “Or I could just kill you and use the information you’ve given me to find out who this person is by myself. It’s your choice.” This time, I believed I finally got through to him. What was with threats being the only thing that worked? What happened to straightforward honesty?

“Okay, okay.” He sighed. “I don’t know exactly who he is—”

“Then I have no use for you. Boone!”

Boone stepped up again and put the gun against Mr. Tyler’s temple.

“But! But I can find out! I already know that he goes by the alias ‘C,’ and since I’m already on the inside, I could try harder to find out exactly who he is.”

I knew that I’d heard that alias before, so I was intrigued. Skeptical, but intrigued.

“Have they actually seen your face?” I asked, and he looked surprised.

“No,” he answered. “How did you know?”

“You’re one of their hackers, Mr. Tyler. They don’t need to see you in person, but let’s just go with calling it a lucky guess mixed with sound logic.” He still looked surprised. “Okay, so this is what’ll happen. My friend here will take you to a safe house, where you will continue your work as if nothing ever happened. Of course, I will have someone—or two someones—watching you at all times, so don’t try anything stupid. Once everything is back on track for you, you will ask for a meeting face to face. I will send in one of my guys to impersonate you and that will be that.” I smiled.

“Okay,” he said. “Where is this safe house?”

“Right this way.” I pointed to the door and laughed as Boone hit him upside the head, knocking him out. “Fucking idiot. I’m not going to actually tell you where it’s at. That defeats the point of it being a ‘safe house.’” I turned to Boone, who was struggling to get Mr. Tyler untied from the chair we had been interrogating him in. “Boone, could you please tell Drake to take care of Mr. Tyler’s family?”

“Absolutely,” he said as he picked out his phone from his pocket.

“Oh, not the killing type of ‘take care of them,’ but, like, actually take care of them. Send them some money for Mr. Tyler’s work and some flowers or something.” I was at the door but turned back to Boone. “Maybe a card? Is that socially acceptable? Sending a ‘sorry for kidnapping your husband/father and vigorously torturing him. Here’s some money’ card.”

Boone just shrugged and dialed Drake’s number. I didn’t hear their conversation, but I was sure Boone would get the message across. I was already outside and texting Audrey, telling her that I’d be a little late to the party I was supposed to be at a couple of hours ago. She responded with, “No shit. It started two hours ago.”

Audrey and I had been invited to Heather Marks’s party, and we’d both decided that it might be a good idea for me to have fun for a little while. I’ll admit it—I’d been working too much. I also might have been hurting people a little too much as well, but that’s irrelevant. I was pretty sure that Audrey didn’t know about that. The point was that I was stressed, and a party should undo at least some of that. And if not, at least I was going to get laid, and I’d been able to torture someone today.

“Finally,” came a voice from behind me as I stepped out of my car. I turned around to see a female figure standing by the doorway to Heather’s house, but I couldn’t make out her face. “It’s about time you showed up. Now the cops won’t bust the party, and this ‘party’ can actually start.”

“Hello, Heather. Miss me?” I still couldn’t see her face as I slowly approached the house. But I was very sure it was Heather.

“I wouldn’t say miss, but you have definitely been on my mind, Charmer Boy,” she said with a flirtatious tone resembling that of Marilyn Monroe. Now I was one hundred percent sure it was Heather. She was the only one who called me ‘Charmer Boy.’

“Hmmm. Too bad. I’ve definitely missed you.” At this point, I was right in front of her gorgeous face, and her blond hair was slowly waving in the late-night breeze. “But not enough to make me do anything stupid again,” I said as I walked past her into the house.

For a second, I thought she might turn around and say something witty—she always did—but there was nothing. I turned around and she was gone, probably tending to her party, which was well enough. I didn’t want her to have feelings for me because all I did was ruin things.

My thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt and surprising blow to my side, which resembled being tackled but lacked any proper form.

“Chris!” came a sound from the body trying to knock me over. “You finally made it, you bastard!” And it was Audrey.

I let out a quick laugh and said, “Yeah, hi, Audrey. Sorry I’m late, but we’ve been over this at least a hundred times. You’re not going to be able to knock me down.” My hands had finally grabbed hold of her skinny and delicate sides, and I pulled up, picking her petite frame off the ground until she finally let go of me.

“Fine,” she said with a pout on her face. “Maybe I’ll have Devin do it.” Now, Devin could definitely knock me over, the brute. “Devin!” Audrey yelled into the crowd of people. “Chris is here!” I could see bodies being forced out of the way as my best friend—other than Audrey, but that’s complicated—hurried through the crowd.

“Move over, bacon. Something meatier is coming through,” he said as he pushed past Audrey and came up to give me a bear hug. “Hey, buddy!” he said as he squeezed me tighter and tighter. “It feels like I haven’t seen you in forever!” He let go of me and set me back on the ground as I let out a sigh of relief. He was crushing me.

“Hey, man,” I managed to choke out through the crushing of my lungs.

“Where have you been?” he asked in his normal, playful manner.

“Just busy. I’ve been really stressed, so let’s get to the party.”

Audrey shot me a concerned look. I rolled my eyes and tried to tackle Devin, but I failed. Devin was a huge kid, standing at least two inches taller than I do and easily twenty pounds heavier. He was all muscle, too, since he was the starting middle linebacker for our school’s football team. We’d bas
ically been friends since birth, and we’re practically brothers. 

“Fuck yeah!” He let out a roaring shout. “Let’s do this shit!”

I laughed as the three of us walked fully into the house, now past the foyer. I stood back as Devin went to grab shots, and Audrey went to find some weed. I inspected the area and noticed how everyone was so fixated on the event. Heather’s parties were so different from the normal high school party since everyone was interacting and having fun. There was no one in the corner alone, there were actually people dancing on the dance floor, and everyone was drinking and having a good time. There were no worries in the world here, and everyone knew it. I had to give it to Heather. She definitely knew how to organize a party.

“Hey, fuckstick!” Devin called out while holding a tray of shots. “I found tequila!” His face was priceless. Like a small child in a candy shop or a teenage boy seeing boob for the first time. Absolutely priceless. “Where’s Audrey?” he asked while looking around.

“Right here.” She was walking a couple paces behind him, and Devin hadn’t even noticed.

He wasn’t stupid. He was actually a 3.8 GPA student. He just wasn’t very aware of his surroundings, which was ironic since he was getting a scholarship to play middle linebacker for the Georgia Bulldogs. Devin turned around and gave her a shot before he turned to me and I grabbed two.

“To a great night,” I said while holding up one of my shots for a toast. Everyone clinked glasses and took one back other than me—I took both of mine back to back. “Now, where’s the pot?” I asked Audrey while choking back my excessive intake of tequila. All while grabbing another one and drinking it, mind you.

“Right here,” she proclaimed whilst holding up a bag full of joints. There had to be at least twenty in there, and I was determined to smoke all of them. She pulled one out, lit it, took a hit, and passed it to me. Devin didn’t smoke since he could get drug tested. Well, at least during the school year, he didn’t.

An hour passed and everything was starting to become blurry. I had an incredibly high tolerance, but I was worried that I might have overdone it with the two joints and five shots. Either way, I was having an amazing time. I was now on the dance floor with two girls I shared a class with. Not really sure which one or who they were, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was the pulsing beat of the music, the contact of dancing with these two, and the feeling of pure euphoria from the mixture of drugs I had taken. I might have popped a couple Adderalls to stay focused, and I was loving it.

The two girls in front of me were practically fighting for my attention, groping each other, fondling me. Everything in this moment was perfect. But as I was savoring it, something unexpected popped into my mind: Jennet. Her fiery-red hair, her piercing, green eyes, the perfect curves of her lips—it all flooded into me, crashing into my mind like Poseidon’s fury. I began feeling something strange and unfamiliar. Something distant. Something I hadn’t felt since I’d been with Audrey my freshman year. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was there.

It was there, lingering in the back of my mind, boring into my dormant conscience. Penetrating my heart and waking up my soul. It was awful. God-awful. But I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t get rid of this feeling that was battling everything in my head. All of the things I forced shut. All of the feelings I let die out of fear. All of the emotions I let go of. There they were again. Being reinvigorated by some strange and foreign feeling that had somehow managed to slip by all of my defenses.

I stepped back from the two girls, and they let out cries of protest, but I didn’t listen. I was already walking away, crossing through the crowd at the speed of a highly intoxicated turtle. I took a seat and tried to look around, but my vision was blurry and my body was numb. There, while sitting down and trying to regain my composure, the thought of Jennet crept back up on me. It scared me and calmed me all at the same time.