Vice (Tortured Heroes Book 1) (15 page)

“So, worst-case scenario, Uncle Cy figures out Devin’s following in her sister’s footsteps. Then I suppose you’ve got a matching body bag all picked out for her. Or if she’s lucky, she gets a prison cell right next to him for something she had no real part in. And if she’s
really
lucky, she just loses her bar and everything she’s worked for.”

No one said a word. They didn’t have to. Everything I just said was true. God help us both.

D
evin

Jase finally came to me just after noon. When I opened my apartment door, my heart sank to my knees. He stood before me broken and battered. One eye was swollen shut and the light gone out of the other. I wanted to go to him. I wanted to throttle him. I’d spent the day imagining all the terrible things that Cy’s investigator had found out about him.

“What the hell happened to you?” I finally asked.

“Would you believe me if I told you I walked into a door?”

“No.” I hesitated. A moment passed between us. We both had things to say to each other and no matter what, there’d be no going back to the way things were just twenty-four hours ago. Except I knew that twenty-four hours ago he’d told me lies. Now it was time for the truth, no matter what that brought with it.

“So,” I said. “We need to talk. Is that my line or yours?”

He smiled, wincing past pain as the muscles of his face tightened. “Come on in. Let me get you some ice for that.”

“Thanks.” He brushed past me and sat on the couch. I stood in the doorway for a moment. Again, I had the sense of crossing an invisible threshold. He’d come in one way, he would leave another. I knew instinctively one of us would end up with a broken heart. That too was a lie. It would be me. I never had any doubt. I closed the door, crossed to the kitchen, and opened the freezer.

When I came back out, Jase stretched out on the couch with his feet resting on my coffee table. He was weary and tired. Whatever happened seemed to drain the life out of him. But he came here anyway. That gave me a glimmer of hope. He could have just done what every other person who held my heart does. He could leave me. I knew that the secret he kept might make me want him to. But I didn’t think that would make it hurt any less.

“Out of ice. Can I interest you in a bag of California vegetable medley?”

He gave me a thumbs-up as I sank onto the cushion next to him. He sucked air through his teeth as I gently placed the frozen bag over the purplest part of his bruised temple.

“You going to tell me I should get a look at the other guy?”

“Nope. Not a scratch on him. Sucker punch.”

“So you’re slipping. Not good, Jase Randall. Not good.” Jase stiffened, then let out a breath as he settled back on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Well, you haven’t done anything yet, have you? Though, I haven’t been a bartender for this long without picking up on a few nonverbal cues now and then. So, you wanna do me the courtesy of letting me go first?”

He turned to look at me, raising his good eyebrow. Then he leaned back again and repositioned the bag. I moved away from him, raising my knees to my chin I sat on the other end of the couch.

“Devin …” I put a hand up to silence him.

“Me first. Remember?” He nodded and his whole body sagged into the couch. My heart lurched as I realized this would be much harder and much worse than I thought.

“You’ve been lying to me, haven’t you?” I said, my voice sounding flatter, and more distant.

“Yes.” The floor seemed to drop out from under me. Like that feeling you get when you’ve crested the top hill of a roller coaster, just before your guts get sucked out. Just like that, there was really no way to prepare for the drop.

“So what is it? Felony record? Rapist? Ex-girlfriend with a restraining order? Are you married?”

He laughed. That low, wicked sound that even now heated my blood. “You know, except for the rapist part, all of the rest of those would be a hell of a lot easier to explain.”

“Don’t. Fuck. Jase. Don’t. Don’t make jokes. I can’t stand it. Just be honest with me. I think I can handle anything right now but lies.”

“Fine,” he said, turning to me. “Then let me start out with what’s true. Because when you hear the rest of it, you might not want to hear that part.”

I swallowed hard. Here came the drop.

“I love you,” he said.

My breath went out of me. I rested my chin on my knees and hugged my shins. I became two people at once. The rational, educated part of me knew exactly what I was doing. I tried to curl in on myself. It was a defensive gesture. I tried to make myself small. Everyone who loved me hurt me in some way. Those words came with a price. One I wasn’t sure I’d be willing to pay this time. But then there was the other part of me that wanted to leap across the couch and kiss Jase’s pain away and with it, my own.

I couldn’t say it back. I couldn’t even let myself feel it.

“Everything that’s happened between us since that night in the cellar has been real, Devin. You may try and tell yourself it wasn’t. But it was. I swear to God.”

“Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t swear on anything. Don’t make me any promises, Jase, except for the one you just did. You promised me the truth.”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “Okay. God, I don’t know where to start.”

I looked over his shoulder and out the window. The giant steeple of Rosary Cathedral filled my window frame. That seemed fitting. My apartment had become Jase’s confessional. I just prayed he could do what he said and give me the answers I needed.

“Why don’t you start with your name. You reacted a minute ago when I said it.”

Shaking his head, Jase closed his eyes. “Jase Reddick. Not Randall. The jobs I listed on that application for you weren’t real. Up until about a year ago, I was a cop, Devin. With the Lincolnshire, Ohio PD.”

I cocked my head to the side. It was the last thing I expected him to tell me. “That’s all? That’s what this is all about? You were a cop?”

Jase stood up. He didn’t seem able to contain himself and started pacing behind the couch. “I
am
a cop. It’s not something you can quit. Even when they try and take it away from you. And that’s what happened. God. It’s complicated.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Make it simple, Jase. Tell me why my uncle thinks you’re bad for the bar? Tell me why he wants me to fire you?”

Jase stopped pacing and color drained from his face. He gripped the back of the couch and let out a breath. “I got caught up in some things back in Lincolnshire. Most of it was trumped-up bullshit. I know you have no reason to take anything I say on faith, but I promised you the truth. This is it. I told you I had a twin brother. I do. His name’s Colt. He’s the president of the Great Wolves Motorcycle Club down there. That’s caused me no end of grief because people assume things about the club that aren’t true anymore. But my association with the club made me a target. A scapegoat. I’m no angel. I bent some rules for Colt. But I swear, anything I did was to help bring down someone far worse or protect someone innocent. Anyway, it caught up with me and I lost my job. They accused me of being dirty. I’m not. But it didn’t matter. I lost my badge anyway.”

“I see.”

“I thought I was finished. It nearly
killed
me. That’s why I left Lincolnshire. I needed a fresh start. And Chief Lewandowski reached out to me. He offered me a way to earn back my badge working for the Northpointe PD undercover. That’s how I ended up at
The Dive Bar
. The local heroin trade … the Hot Shot that’s killing people around here … Devin, it’s running through your bar.”

My brain buzzed. I pressed my forehead against the back of my wrist. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying
The Dive’s
been on local law enforcement and FBI radar for months. I was sent in to try and build a case against whoever was running it.”

I couldn’t breathe. “And you think that’s me?”

“No! God. No. I know it isn’t you. I’ve been trying to protect you. But Devin, I can’t. Not anymore. Not without your help. I promised you the truth. I have a lot more to tell and it’s going to hurt you. I can’t help that. But you need to hear it.”

“Go on.”

“We think your Uncle Cy is the main heroin supplier for most of the Midwest. He’s running an operation through your bar. The shit’s coming down from Canada across the Detroit River and into Northpointe. It’s deep, Devin. We tried to keep this local, but the feds are involved now. It’s too big to contain. And you need to know everything. You’ve put your trust in people who could really hurt you, baby.”

I put a hand up. “Don’t say that. Don’t call me that. I don’t know what to think, Jase.” I’d heard these rumors my whole life. Uncle Cy made his money using less-than-scrupulous means. But this was more than that. If I believed Jase, he was using
my
club for his operations? Oh God. It was too much. It felt like my skull might burst.

Jase told me he loved me again, but I couldn’t hear it. It had all been a lie. He used me to try and get to my uncle.

“Maybe you should leave now,” I said. Again, it felt like the words were coming out of a different person. Like I had left my body and hovered somewhere over my shoulder, listening, seeing, but not participating.

“I can’t. I won’t. Not until you hear it all. Kinney and Floyd are involved. Deep. Kinney’s selling, Floyd’s supplying.”

“Floyd?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d known Floyd since I was a kid. He’d been my father’s last friend. The only one who hadn’t left when his drinking got out of control in the end. He was there after my mom left.

“Last year, they’d put a tight case together. Your uncle was about to be indicted under RICO. Racketeering. He’s a kingpin, Devin. Do you understand what I’m telling you? But the case fell apart.”

I unclenched my fists and stretched out my legs. Trembling, I rose to my feet and went to the other end of the couch. I needed to put something physical between us. Like a shield, absorbing the worst of the blow of Jase’s words.

“Devin, I think you should sit down.”

“I’d rather not. Is that all?”

“No. I wish it were. Baby …”

“I asked you not to call me that. Not now. I can’t hear that, Jase.”

“Okay.” He made a move toward me but I backed away. Jase put his hands up and took a step back. “Okay. You’re not safe, Devin. Your uncle is dangerous.”

“He told me the same thing about you.”

Jase gripped the couch again. His knuckles turned white and for an instant, I thought he might rip the fabric apart at the seams. “Think, Devin. You probably know your uncle better than anyone, but you still don’t know him at all, do you? Do you really know everything he’s capable of?”

I swallowed hard. Images slammed into my brain. Uncle Cy had threatened me. He didn’t want to relinquish control of the bar. If Jase’s story was true, it made sense. And something had definitely changed about Uncle Cy the last few times I saw him. I saw menace in his eyes he’d only ever turned on other people. Was he dangerous? As I exhaled, the truth burned through me. Yes. God. Yes. Uncle Cy
was
ruthless.

“The case against your uncle fell apart because the government’s star witness disappeared on the eve of her testimony.”

I heard Jase’s words, but couldn’t process them. They seemed to hang in the air like heat-seeking missiles. If I stopped moving, if I let their meaning sink through, they would find their target and destroy me.

Her testimony … her testimony … her
.

“No.” I backed away from the couch, nearly tripping over the end table. I stopped only when I hit the edge of the kitchen island, knocking bar stools to the ground. I sank to my knees and Jase was there. He put gentle hands on my upper arms and looked at me with pain and tenderness.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I can’t hear this.”

“You have to. God. Devin. I’m so sorry.”

I looked up at him. I couldn’t focus. The lights in the apartment seemed to flicker and brighten. Air stabbed through my lungs as I struggled to focus and breathe.

“Mandy was going to testify,” he said. “She was selling for him in the bar. Kinney took over for her when she left. She tried to get out. They had her in witness protection, but your uncle found her.”

I shook my head. If Jase’s hands weren’t on my shoulders, I would have squeezed my palms over my ears to try and drive out his words.

He found her. Uncle Cy found her. I
knew
it. I knew it all along. Everything fell into place. He lied to me. Bile rose in my throat. I shuddered and pushed Jase aside. I crawled to the potted plant two feet away and vomited into it.

Shaking, I turned toward him. Jase crouched before me, his eyes filled with concern. God. I didn’t want it. I wanted all of it to go away. Snippets of conversations I had with my uncle replayed in my mind. I’d gone to him. I’d asked him for help in finding Mandy. His face went white the day I told him she’d finally reached out to me. I showed him her emails. Her texts. I downloaded the data from my phone so he could give it to his private investigator.

“No!” I howled the word. “Jase. No. No. No. No.”

“It’s not your fault. Devin, look at me. This isn’t your fault.”

Except it was. People don’t have to tell you something’s not your fault unless part of it is.

“What happened to Mandy, Jase?”

He looked down. A tiny flicker in his temple gave me my answers. Still, I needed to hear the words. He could have said it gently, sugarcoated it. In the back of my mind I wondered if this was part of his training as a police officer. Surely he’d had to deliver bad news like this over and over again. A father who never came home after a wrong-way driver took him out on the freeway. A child who never came home from the bus stop just twenty yards away.

“She’s gone, baby. Mandy’s dead. She was shot. I’m so sorry.”

The drop was very far down indeed.

D
evin

He never touched me. He waited for me to show him some sign that I wanted him to. I couldn’t. It was too much. It was as if my skin itself burned with this new, horrible truth. Mandy was dead. Murdered. I asked him where she was and he told me she was still in some morgue in Chicago.

I asked Jase to leave. Go home. He’d be just across the hall but I knew he might as well be a million miles away. Or I was. But all of it was just too much. He said other things. He could help me. The police wanted to talk to me. He could protect me.

Later, I said. Tomorrow. Not now.

Jase’s phone rang and he held up a finger and turned his back to take it. His face went white as he talked to the caller and I knew it had more to do with me. He gave one-word answers and hung up the phone.

“Devin, I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”

“Then go. I just can’t, Jase. I can’t be around you. I need to think.”

He nodded. “I can help you if you let me. I wish I could tell you to take all the time you need, but I can’t do that. This investigation is snowballing into something bigger. The feds are going to want to talk to you.”

“What happens next?”

“I set up a meeting. You don’t have to be alone, Devin. I can be with you every step of the way.”

“Is that what they told Mandy?”

He took a step back and grimaced as if my words caused him physical pain. Part of me wanted to go to him. Even now. After everything he’d told me, it was Jase’s arms my body craved. My head and heart told me something else.

“Just go, Jase. Please. I need … I don’t know … silence. Just for a while.”

I thought he would argue with me. Tell me I shouldn’t be alone. He didn’t. Instead, he gave me a grim nod and took a step toward me. He reached for me, then curled his fists and pulled them back to his sides.

“I’ll be back in an hour, tops. Just across the hall if you need anything.”

I nodded and folded my arms in front of me.

“Devin.”

Looking toward the ceiling, I shook my head. I couldn’t hear it. Not now. Not from him. He said it anyway.

“I love you.”

A single tear finally spilled out of my eye, but I couldn’t look at him. I turned my back and walked toward the kitchen. At the last second I turned one last time to face him. “And Jase. You’re fired.”

I saw the hint of a pained smile before I gave him my back again. He hesitated for a moment, then I heard his heavy footsteps as he walked out the door and closed it behind him.

* * *

I
don’t know
what made me do it, but I had to go to
The Dive
. I needed to be in the last place I saw my sister. She’d worked a shift behind the bar on one of our busiest nights. The first time
The HolyRocks
played. She was happy. Smiling. Lying. She told me she had a date that night but none of it was true. She got on a train or a plane or something else before morning and I never saw her again.

She knew. Mandy
knew
. I couldn’t even process everything I felt. Grief. Yes. But deep down, hadn’t I always known she’d meet her end this way? Hadn’t I always expected some phone call in the middle of the night that my junkie sister had finally overdosed, just like Bella did the night I first met Jase?

Anger. That was it. I couldn’t even get to grief. Everyone around me lied and probably always would.

The bar was dark when I got there. Two more hours until we opened. Business as usual. It was all I could do. Kinney had the night off so that was a blessing. But Floyd? Could I believe everything Jase said about him?

I went back to my office and closed the door. Sitting at my desk, I crashed my forehead on top of it and tried to make the world stop spinning. I reached down and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Daddy’s favorite brand. I’d never opened it. I just kept it there as a reminder of one more person who’d let me down when I needed him.

An hour passed since Jase left. Maybe more. He’d told me to call him if I needed anything. I wanted to. I wanted to need him. I wanted to let him wrap me in his arms and kiss my pain away. But that would be just one more lie to pile on all the rest. I ran my finger over his picture on my phone. I’d taken it here at the bar. His hands in sudsy water, he’d just flicked water at me.

I heard footsteps in the hallway and set the phone down. The doorknob turned and I expected to see Jase. Hoped for it maybe, in spite of everything. But it wasn’t Jase at all.

Floyd walked in, smiling. I rose to my feet and stepped around the desk.

“You’re early.” My heart zoomed into my throat. It was three o’clock. Floyd was never here then. This was bad. Very bad. My phone rested face down on the desk in front of me.

But this was Floyd. He was family. Whatever he did for Uncle Cy, his feelings for me were real. God. Did he know about Mandy? Was he part of that too? My nerves rang like alarm bells. Floyd walked toward me.

“Sorry, boss,” he said. “Had some things come up at the last minute. I figured we needed to talk.”

“Not now, Floyd. I really don’t feel well. I’m actually thinking about closing for the night. We’re never busy on Wednesdays anyway.”

“Not like you,” he said, advancing on me. He was calm. Smiling. And I knew I was in deep, deep trouble.

“Your uncle wants to talk to you,” he said.

“So why is he sending you here to tell me that, Floyd? Did he expand your job description?”

“Devin, don’t make this any harder for me or yourself than it has to be. Your uncle just needs to talk to you. You owe him that much.”

“What? I what?”

“Yeah. You need to hear him out. There are two sides to every story. You’ve got someone filling your head with a lot of lies. And not just someone … him. I warned you. I told you nothing good was going to come of your spending time with that piece-of-shit dishwasher.”

He knew. Floyd acted like he knew everything Jase had told me. How could he? My head spun. The only thing clear to me was that I needed to get the hell away from Floyd now. Coming to the bar was a mistake. My first big one.

I thought I could reason with him. That was my second mistake. But Floyd moved faster than I could have expected. He came at me, backing me against the desk. Only then did I notice he had something stuffed in his hand. A rag. He grabbed my arm and covered my mouth. I kicked and tried to scream. I made contact with his shin and he growled with pain but didn’t let go.

I put up a fight. Some detached part of my brain told me that should be some consolation. Maybe Mandy never got the chance to. Did she know the end was coming when it stared her in the face? For me, the end came from the noxious smell of a dirty rag shoved halfway down my throat.

Then the world went black.