“Christ, man! Micah didn’t shoot him!”
“I didn’t fucking touch a gun. I set up the bomb, just like you asked, but I didn’t detonate—and I didn’t kill that man. Why the hell would you even think that way? I thought you’d have more respect for me than that.”
Zane spun away, his mind spinning and locking up as he tried desperately to regain composure. “Well if you didn’t do it, who did?” He turned back around. “Parker?”
“Fuck you, Alexander. I might be a prick, but I’m no murderer. Where’s the gun now? If I killed Jeremy, where’d I stash the heat?”
Parker and Micah stood side by side, their wolves buzzing beneath their skin, the air thick with the scent of wild and musk. Zane struggled to breathe. Just breathe. Panic surged forward, raw and powerful. If they didn’t do it…who did? “God damnit.”
Micah stepped up, his temper reigned back in until his expression was empty, hollow. “I told you your plan was insane. Congrats, it worked—you got the girl—but let’s see how much she loves you when she finds out the truth. Huh, Alexander?” He pointed and Zane followed his finger to Benji, who stood there gaping at them, soaking it all in.
“Shit.”
“What plan?” Benji was tentative.
“Drop it, Benj,” Zane said quietly. “Just keep your mouth shut.”
“Bull-fucking-shit! You just accused your two best friends of
killing
a man? And you expect me to stay quiet? What the hell is going on? What
plan
?”
“Go ahead, Z,” came Micah’s soft mock. “Tell him the truth.”
“Don’t put yourself on a fucking pedestal. You’re just as guilty as I am,” Zane snapped back. He threw back his beer and chugged it, then crushed the can in his hands to release an ounce of fury and fear. Guilt swam through him.
You deserve this. You knew it would happen, yet you did it anyway.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “So I might’ve planned the whole stalker thing.”
“What?”
“The bomb at the concert, the threat on my trailer. I had Micah and Parker do that to make it seem like I really needed a bodyguard. Together we planned a mugging, except Parker actually got in a few hits.”
“To make it look real,” Parker added, looking away.
Zane swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth. “Damn it, I just wanted her to stay, to give me a chance until the end of the tour and let me show her how I really felt. It wasn’t supposed to end this way…”
“So you fucked with her emotions too?” Benji’s voice was hard, his eyes cold.
“No! What we have is real—don’t look at me like that! I love Charlie. I was just about to tell her that, tell her everything, and someone tried to take a cheap shot. Jeremy’s dead.” He sagged against the wall and looked right at Micah. “Swear to me that you didn’t do it.”
Micah softened. “I didn’t. You know that.”
“Parker?”
“I’m guilty of girlfriend-thieving, not murder.”
Zane swung his gaze to Benji and saw the distrust and the anger playing across his friend’s face. He took a wary step forward. “Please, Benji, don’t say anything. I’m trying to figure out how to tell her, how to make it right, and—”
“You’ll never make this right, Zane,” Benji said.
He wanted to reach out and grab him, jerk him back around; he wanted to beg and plead and if that didn’t work, tie him up and stuff him in a closet with duct tape wrapped around his loud mouth.
He let out a bark of hysteria-laced laughter. That was it. Zane Alexander had finally cracked.
As the door slammed shut behind Benji’s retreating form, Zane sank down to sit on the floor, his heart sluggish and aching like someone had just taken a pickaxe to it and hacked it into a thousand tiny pieces.
He’d ruined everything…
Chapter Fourteen
Grumbling to herself and sweating up a storm, Charlie struggled to stay where she was instead of where she wanted to be—with the boys. With Zane. Instead, she had just finished sending the PD on their way and was jogging down the center aisle of the auditorium in hopes of finding Conner. She wanted clearance to head home. Funny how quickly she had adjusted to the idea of Zane being home. Shrugging aside the thought, her mind latched back onto what had happened that night.
Jeremy had been a good man. She hadn’t known him personally, but it was obvious he would be mourned and the shocked solemnity of those around her was just another sign of how serious things had turned. Whatever had been going on before meant nothing now. With someone dead, the police involved, and her own worries drawing to a boil, Charlie was ready to get down to business.
She was going to do everything in her power to make sure no more blood was spilled.
Although she was feeling freshly determined and grateful when Conner quickly and effortlessly cleared her to go home and get some sleep, she didn’t realize who the dark-haired figure headed towards her was, beyond the fact that he was moving much the way a bull would charge a flying red flag.
Benji. Her insides gave a quiver of fear. Was everything okay?
Charlie chastised herself for seeing danger where it obviously wasn’t, then turned around and jogged to meet him halfway. She hoped it was damned important because with the urgency in his step and the lack of anyone in particular following behind him, she had the feeling that security had no idea where he was. They probably still thought him safe and sound inside the citadel of Zane’s trailer. If this wasn’t a life or death sort of moment, she was going to have to give him a lecture.
The wolf stopped in front of her, looking incredibly young and incredibly angry. Charlie couldn’t help but cross her arms over herself for comfort at the waves of fury rippling off of him. Benji mad was an almost bizarre sight to see compared to his usual happy, quiet demeanor.
“Are you okay? You really shouldn’t be out here right now and—”
“It’s all a load of crap. They played you. I swear I didn’t have anything to do with this, Charlie. I’d never do anything like that.”
“Whoa, whoa. What are you talking about?”
“All the danger? It’s made up.”
“So you’re saying Jeremy’s not dead?”
“No. Damn it! Are you being deliberately obtuse?”
“No, are you being deliberately batshit crazy?”
Benji shifted his weight. “Look. Can we go talk somewhere? I’m not explaining this very well and I want to—no, I
need
to make sure you have all the facts straight before you cut and run.”
Confusion seemed to be an almost tangible object, and if it were real and solid, Charlie would’ve been holding it in that moment. What the hell was going on? Had he gotten a look at the body? Was he in shock, trying to deny what was really going on?
“Sure, just calm down. Do you have someone in particular that you want to go?”
His reply was immediate: “Forest.”
She hesitated, thinking of the gunman unidentified and probably still hanging around, just waiting to pick them off one by one, and she opened her mouth to argue.
“Please, I want to go to the forest. If it’s the last place that I’ll get to see you, it should be somewhere that I’ll have memories of.” He looked so sad.
“I have no clue where the dramatics are coming from, but I’m confused and really wish you’d just take a deep breath or chill or something. You’re starting to freak me out. It’s already been a rough day.” The knot in her stomach only wound tighter.
“I’m not going to make it any better, I promise you that.”
The pair moved fast and, after a quick call to Conner to let him know, cryptically, what was going on and where she was headed, they continued on their way. Neither of them said a word and the silence that spawned between them was like an elastic cord, stretched to the point of snapping in two and causing pain to whoever held either side.
Upon reaching the edge of the woods, Charlie plopped down on a nearby log and gazed up at Benji, expectant. “You were saying something about everything being fake, but you’re going to have to be a little more specific.”
“Zane played you.”
Her heart began to beat a bit faster. “Explain what you mean and be specific.”
“I swear I didn’t know. I swear.”
“Get on with it.” Her tone was abrupt and lacking in emotion. This had better be a damned good explanation. Zane wouldn’t…
“After the show, when we got to the trailer, Zane blew up on Micah and Parker, accused them of trying to shoot a gun between the two of you or some stupid shit. I’m still confused, but the explosion, the graffiti, the mugging—they were all a load of crap. That’s why none of them seemed worried about it, because they knew nobody was really out to get them. Zane just wanted to make sure that you didn’t leave, so he gave you a reason to stay, a reason to stay right next to him. I’m sorry, Char. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her chest grew so tight that breathing hurt and her face burned, with anger, with shock, with shame. All along, Zane had known that nothing was really going to hurt him. Had he been laughing at her the entire time? Every time she had voiced a concern, he’d soothed it away with a smile or distracted her with his love. No wonder he’d seemed insatiable—it had been the easiest way to keep her from paying attention to anything besides him. Had he even bothered to call security to take him from place to place all those times he’d left her alone in his bed?
The questions bounced around in her mind, multiplying at an alarming rate. She didn’t want to believe it. She wanted to laugh it off, wait for Benji to joke around and say “Just kidding!” but this was no laughing matter. Zane had used her, most certainly, but it wasn’t her pride that was breaking into a million pieces right now. Her heart felt as if it had been thrown around carelessly and she was going to have to pick it up and dust it off, alone.
Finally dragging her gaze up to Benji, unaware of the tears that shone in the corners of her eyes, Charlie gave an attempt at a smile as her mind reeled. She didn’t doubt that Benji had nothing to do with it, and because she believed him to be completely innocent, it was all too easy to push him from her mind and focus on the main problem, the main hurt.
“I don’t understand,” she said softly. “I really don’t. How on earth did Zane think that something that farfetched would work? Conner’s not stupid and even I was starting to have some major questions. Besides that, a
bomb
? Good lord, he could’ve killed people if whoever wired the stupid thing did it wrong.”
“I don’t have an explanation. I just knew that you needed to know.”
Charlie reached over and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “I appreciate it, but I… You’ll have to excuse me, Benji. I just want to run. I need to be alone right now.”
“Promise you’ll come back.”
Hesitating, her hand still in his, Charlie drew a deep breath in before blowing it out in a burst. “I promise, but I can’t promise that I won’t be coming back for more than just a goodbye.”
He frowned. “Just remember, someone out there really did kill Jeremy. I don’t think the guys did it, however stupid they might be acting. Zane was flipping out.”
“I need to be on my own to think, but I’ll be fine. I’m not in the band, remember?”
“Jeremy wasn’t in the band either.” But his tone told her he wasn’t going to stop her.
With his words reverberating through her mind, Charlie turned and headed into the woods. She needed to get away from everything, to just let loose and leave her beast in charge, to let her mind clear of today’s disaster, today’s pain. Thoughts seemed to be bombarding her faster than she could dodge.
She thought back to the time that she had spent with Zane, all the laughing and loving, and it had been incredible. But if he was capable of this kind of deceit, just to get his way, what would he do in a serious relationship? If she hurt this much now…
Screw it. For now, she was going for a run.
***
For the longest while, Zane just sat on the floor, his legs cramping beneath him. He sat there and let everything sink in. Parker and Micah said nothing; they’d just retreated to the living room to play video games in silence.
On the outside he was subdued, but on the inside? His mind was screaming at the top of its lungs, screaming until there was no longer any air left. How could he have let things get so out of control? What was he supposed to do? Charlie probably hated him by now if Benji got his way and the idea of losing her rattled him, truly rattled him. He’d become dependent on her. He was fond of every little thing she did, right down to the way her fingers danced across his arm, the way her voice got a little husky around the edges when he kissed her throat.
He was in love with her, plain and simple, and now she was going to hate his guts. She was going to pack up and leave—and he couldn’t blame her. He hated himself in that moment.
The door swung open and Benji walked in. Zane tipped his head up to stare at the younger wolf, who looked exhausted and weary and ready to collapse, and Zane felt another burst of guilt. For a moment, their eyes locked and they just stared at each other. When eye contact was broken, it was Zane who dropped it.
“What am I supposed to even say?” His voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming out loud instead of on the inside.