The Debt 6 (2 page)

“How much more?” he said.

She took a deep breath and let it out at once.
 
“I didn’t get mugged last night.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed.
 
“You didn’t?”

“It wasn’t some random mugger who attacked me.
 
It was Club Alpha,” she said, watching his expression for a reaction.
 

His eyes hardened.
 
“Tell me who it was and exactly what they did.
 
I want every detail, Raven.”
 
His teeth were clenched and his shoulders stiffened.
 

“But Jake, you can’t just go beat them up.
 
Not this time.”

He smiled coldly.
 
“I’m going to do much worse than that, don’t worry.”

“I need you to stay calm.”

“So it was Club Alpha that burned your parents’ house down?” he asked, his fists clenching.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to fucking kill them.”
 
Jake’s eyes were on fire with the kind of anger that Raven thought might allow one person to murder another.
 

Jake looked like the warrior he was at heart, and she could easily imagine him with this expression on his face leading men into battle in the desert a world away.

“This isn’t the time,” Raven said, trying to calm him.
 
She put a hand on his forearm.
 
“Not everything can be handled with violence, Jake.”

His distant gaze focused and returned to her.
 
“I know that, Raven.
 
I know that violence isn’t the solution to every problem.
 
It just happens to be the solution to this particular problem.”

She rolled her eyes.
 
“This reaction is exactly why I was afraid to tell you what happened to me.”

Jake smiled a little, almost despite himself.
 
“Maybe you know me too well.”

“Promise me that I won’t regret telling you.
 
This is dangerous for me.
 
Club Alpha will punish me if they find out I told you.”

“I’m not going to let them near you, Raven.
 
Yesterday was the last time anyone from Club Alpha will get anywhere close to you again.
 
And they’re going to wish they’d never heard your name when I’m through with them.”

“Please, just calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” Jake said, shrugging his muscular shoulders.
 
“Come on.
 
We should hit the road before it gets too late.”

“You’re coming with me to see my family?” she asked.

“Of course.
 
I’m not letting you out of my sight from now on.
 
Not until this problem is resolved.”
 
He grabbed her hand tightly and started out of the room.
 
“You can tell me the rest of the story on the drive.”

***

On the drive to her hometown, Jake and Raven were in the back of a sedan with their usual driver, but this time they had a car of security driving in front of them and one car bringing up the rear.
 

For the first time, Jake had seen fit to make sure they had a heavy security detail taking care of them.
 
Raven had to admit it made her breathe a little easier knowing that there were so many people watching over them.

It was like what she imagined the First Lady must feel when she had the secret service making sure that nobody could get to her or the President.

Once they’d settled into the car ride for a few minutes, Jake turned to Raven with a serious expression on his face.
 
“Okay,” he said.
 
“Now you need to tell me everything that happened yesterday.
 
I mean every single detail.
 
Nothing’s unimportant.”

Raven swallowed.
 
“Are you angry with me for not telling you the truth last night?”

Jake shook his head.
 
“I’m not angry with you.”
 
He sighed and glanced out the window at the quickly passing highway.
 
“But we can’t have anymore secrets between us.
 
It’s getting too dangerous.”

She nodded.
 
“I know.
 
And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.
 
It’s been hard to trust…hard to trust anyone after the things I’ve been through.”

“I get it,” Jake said, and she knew that he wasn’t just saying empty words.

“Okay,” Raven said, taking a deep breath.
 
“Here goes.”

She started to tell Jake what had happened to her when she’d left the hospital and Max had grabbed her and forced her into the car where the man who called himself Zeke had been waiting.

When she mentioned Zeke’s name, she expected to see some flicker of recognition in Jake’s eyes.
 
Jake had known who Scott from Club Alpha was when she’d told him about that little encounter, but there was no reaction to this new person who’d entered their world.

Raven told him everything, and when she got to the part about Club Alpha’s spying operation, she saw Jake’s hands close into fists again and tighten until his knuckles were white.
 
But his face was cool and impassive.
 
He showed no emotion, not even as she continued to recount how they’d wanted her to find out information about Jake’s missions in the Middle East during his military service.

It was actually strange how little he was reacting to the story, given his temper.

Somehow, his lack of anger was almost more unnerving.
 
It signaled to
Raven
that this situation was far more serious than anything else they’d ever discussed.

Finally, she told how they’d thrown her out of the car and told her to lie about being mugged.
 

At this point, Jake startled a little, as if he’d just been jolted by a cattle prod.
 
“They told you to say that?”

She looked down, guilty.
 
“Yeah.”

“And you went right along with it.”
 
His voice was disbelieving.

“I was scared.
 
I didn’t know what else to do.”

“But you realize that everything you’re telling me now could be a lie too, another lie in a series of lies.
 
How can I trust anything you tell me after so much dishonesty?”

She looked back at him again, and her jaw quivered.
 
“I didn’t think I had a choice.
 
They’re powerful, and they’re stronger than me.
 
You and I weren’t even speaking at the time, so how could I feel safe telling you the truth?”

Jake folded his arms.
 
“But you just went along with their plan.
 
Were you going to try and find out about my military secrets too?
 
Was that seriously going through your mind as a realistic way to handle their threats?”

“No, of course not.”

“But you used their cover story.”

“I told you I didn’t know what else to do, Jake.
 
I’d been thrown out of a car, threatened, and I was terrified.”

Jake shook his head.
 
“You should have told me the truth,
Raven
.
 
Right away.”

“I know that.
 
But I was foolish and I lied.
 
I’ve apologized and now you can either choose to believe me or not.”

Jake looked upwards, as if asking for help from above.
 
He closed his eyes and didn’t speak for a little while.
 
When he opened his eyes again, he was staring at her with the kind of intensity that seemed so dramatic as to have been part of a scene from one of his movies.

Only she knew he meant it.
 
This wasn’t just a role in a film.
 
This was Jake’s life, and he wasn’t fooling around.

“Raven, I’m going to choose to trust you now.
 
I have to, because I care about you and I want to believe you’re worthy of my trust.
 
But you’re not the only one who’s been burned in the past.”

“I know.”

“And if you lie to me again—if you withhold anything from me--then I’ll have to do something very difficult.”
 
He looked away as if it was too hard to even think about such a possibility.
 
But then he looked at her again, finally.
 
“If you ever intentionally mislead me again, I’ll cut you loose for good.
 
It won’t be my choice—it will be because you’ve left me no choice.”

Hearing him say the words brought tears to her eyes, and they spilled over and down her cheeks.
 
As hard as it was to hear him say such things, she understood his need to say it and know that she’d heard him.
 
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she told him.

“So we understand each other,” he said, his brown eyes hard and unforgiving.

“Yes.”

He nodded, seeming like he wanted to say more, but then he finally just glanced toward the front of the sedan.
 
“So Club Alpha’s expecting you to give them some dirt,” he said, musing aloud.
 
“Maybe we can oblige them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m not sure yet,” Jake said, “but I think maybe we can give them something to chew on.
 
If we slow them down a little, it’ll give me time to plan a real response.”

“Don’t we need to involve the police?” Raven asked.
 
“Hasn’t it gone far enough?”

“It’s already gone too far for the police,” Jake said, and his tone was ominous.

“I don’t understand how that’s even possible.”

“Well it is.”
 
Jake took out his phone and then put it to his ear.
 

“Who are you calling?”

“Kurt,” he said.
 
“I need to tell him what’s going on.”

Raven felt her stomach lurch at the mention of his manager.
 
“Please don’t call Kurt.”

Jake looked up from his phone.
 
“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, “I don’t trust him.”

Jake’s expression turned skeptical as he hung up and took the phone away from his ear.
 
“You don’t trust him?” he said.
 
“Well, I do.
 
I fought side-by-side with him, and he’s been with me through everything.
 
And I mean everything.”
 

Raven had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
 
She was coming up against the worst situation now—the one she’d been afraid of from the very beginning of their relationship.
 
She’d never wanted to tell Jake about Kurt’s underhanded maneuvers and the way he’d tried to sabotage her and Jake’s relationship.
 
She knew that Jake confided in Kurt more than anyone else, and she didn’t stand a chance when put up against a man that Jake felt he could trust one hundred and fifty percent.

“You said you didn’t want me to hold anything back,” Raven replied, her voice shaking as she said the dreaded words.
 
“Well, there’s something about Kurt I haven’t told you because I was afraid of your reaction.”

Jake ran a hand through his hair.
 
“You can’t be serious.
 
How many things are there?
 
How many stories can there be?”

Raven clenched her fists.
 
“I’m sorry that there’s so much to tell you.
 
You think I wanted it to be like this?”

“I don’t know anymore.
 
It seems like everywhere I turn with you, something new pops up.
 
Something new, and it’s never anything good.”

“I can’t change the fact that these things are happening.
 
It’s not my fault.”

Jake rubbed at his forehead above his eyes, his head slightly bowed.
 
“Just tell me the damn story.
 
Tell me what Kurt did to you.”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice.”

He looked up at her.
 
“If you’re going to stick the knife in, at least be quick about it.”

“Fine,” Raven replied, holding her chin higher.
 
“That first day when we decided to pretend I was your girlfriend, Kurt called me and threatened me.”

Jake’s eyebrows raised.
 
“Maybe you misunderstood him.
 
Kurt’s a very intense guy.”

“No, I didn’t misunderstand anything.
 
He told me that he knew I was a gold digger and he offered me money to disappear from your life.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed.
 
“He offered you money?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.
 
I think it was because of how much money you stood to lose by cancelling your shows.”