Tears run down the side of her face, and I remove my knee. She rolls onto her side, falling off the pew and onto her face, and starts crying.
“Dude, you need to move this body.” Steve gets my attention. “Before someone comes in here. And don’t you have a fight soon?”
Fuck! I dig my cell out of my pocket to check my messages. I’ve got the message from Law I’ve been waiting for.
Law: Matthew said he’s got an opening in an hour. You want it?
Me: Yeah.
I look back down at Henley. She still lies on the floor, quietly crying. I kneel and run my hand over her back, and she whimpers. Fuck, what was in that pill? I’ve never seen her this fucked up before. And so quickly. Standing, I call the fucker Derek.
He answers on the third ring. “Hello?”
“What the fuck was in that pill, Derek?” I snap. “Henley is fucked. I thought it was Molly.”
“Well, about that …” He sighs. “She used my drink to wash it down, and it had liquid LSD mixed with alcohol in it.”
I look back down at her. She rolls over onto her back. Her dazed eyes meet mine, and I smile to myself. Must be my lucky day.
“Scout? You need to keep an eye on her. She had quite a bit. She’s probably going to be …”
I hang up on him.
“What do you want to do with her?” Steve asks.
“Leave her,” I say and step away. “She’s about to pass the fuck out. When she wakes up tomorrow, she won’t remember what happened.” No one ever comes in the chapel. She’ll be fine. And Brenda’s body will be nowhere to be found anyway.
“What are you going to do about me?” He arches a brow.
My eyes narrow at his question. “What does that mean?”
He looks at Henley and then back at me, licking his lips like a starving man with a feast laid out before him. “What are you willing to do to keep me from telling what I saw tonight?”
GRAYSON LAW
Dax and I rush into my house.
“Hey, where have you been?” my mother asks, coming into the foyer with James.
I go to run up the stairs, to ignore them, but taking in a deep breath, I decide they deserve to know. “Listen, something has happened. And I need you two to both promise me that you won’t get the cops involved. I’m going to handle it.” Her father is going to find out she’s not in Switzerland, and once that happens, shit can get a lot worse if he acts irrationally.
My mom frowns, but James stiffens next to her. “Well, I can’t guarantee that,” he says.
“Then I can’t tell you.” I give them my back.
“Hamilton?” my mother snaps. “What is it?”
“I can’t trust you.” I shrug.
“Listen, son.” James steps forward, squaring his shoulders. “I have a feeling this has to do with my daughter, and if you don’t fucking tell me what’s going on, you’ll be the one calling the police because I’ll beat your ass.”
“James!” My mother gasps.
I almost smile. I like him. Henley needs men like him on her side to stand up for her, protect her. Too bad I didn’t do it sooner. “Henley didn’t go to Switzerland. She pretended to go but instead had an Uber take her to your house.”
“What?” he snaps, his nostrils flaring.
Oh, there’s more. “She called me. Panicked. Said that Steve tried to attack her in her room.”
“Oh, my God. Is she okay? And who is Steve?” my mother questions, gripping James’s arm like a life vest.
I ignore her and focus on James. He feels what I do—rage. Destruction. “She was on the phone with me one second and then gone the next. By the time we arrived, they were already gone …”
“I’m calling the police.” James removes his cell from his suit pocket.
I yank it from his hand, throw it to the marble floor, and step on it.
“Hamilton!” my mother shrieks, her hands coming up to her face in horror.
“What the fuck?” he snaps.
We can’t involve the police. She’s supposed to be dead. The Founders have them in their pocket. The police slip to them that she’s not dead … she’ll be in even more danger. Scout knows that. That’s why this was a perfect opportunity for him. I step into James. “Scout has her.”
He frowns at those words. “Well, call him and have him bring her home. I’ll put her back on the jet and personally fly her there first thing tomorrow morning.”
If only it was going to be that simple. “Scout was the one who killed Brenda. And now he has Henley.” Not sure how it happened, but I understood his meaning. It wasn’t Dax, and now he has the one woman in this world that means something to me.
“Oh, my God,” my mother whispers.