Complicated: A Tainted Love Novella (4 page)

I disconnect the call quickly, smiling in triumph. I’m sure no one has ever hung up on him before. Maybe my sister has, since she isn’t afraid of anyone. I have a feeling, though, that this guy is the type to not take no for an answer, the type to not like being drip fed information. By now he realizes that there are secrets, things he doesn’t know or can even begin to comprehend. He wants to know them and will get the answers he needs by any means necessary. That is my only warning to him to ease up on Rachel, because if he hurts her in any way or scares her, money or not, he will feel the strength of my fists.

I had taken up martial arts –
Gojo Ryu
– as a way to take out my frustrations of losing Rachel. Seido karate has been a savior of sorts for my anger. It has taught me discipline in more ways than one and now, as a budding third degree black belt, restraint had become my master.

But if he ever scared her, all bets were off.

Rachel

A
nticipation.

That’s what I’d been feeling the moment I heard that Marshall was coming.

My heart began to beat erratically and to my utter shame, I grew slick between my legs. God, what that man still did to me. I would never be free of him, even if I did meet someone else.
Shit!

Speaking of, I hadn’t heard from Ryan in the last few days. We’d texted each other a few times and had had textual phone sex, but since then I hadn’t heard from him. I feel guilty letting another man affect me in this way; so bad that I wish I could hear Ryan’s voice right now. Not that it would do me any good. I want to have him hold my hand through this; because God knows I’d need him to distract me from Marshall and everything that having him near me would bring.

I’d met Ryan Baylor at a club called Joelle’s Nightlife, the night Delilah and I celebrated our ten year friendship. Delilah…

I gasp back a sob, but let the tears flow free. My best friend has been taken from me. I can’t even imagine what horrors her sick fuck of an ex is currently putting her through. I suck in a breath and try to get myself under control. I needed to provide the police with as much information as I can without giving away all her secrets. She isn’t here, but I still have to protect the woman that has become a sister to me. I just hoped withholding this information doesn’t bring her any further harm or delay her rescue.

I just need Marshall here already. Fuck, there I go again, thinking about Marshall. And now, I’m flooded with memories of him cheating on me, the magnitude of which is lost when compared to the baby I’d lost…the baby I got rid of. Guilt swarms over me and I try to shake myself free of its dark clutches. I can’t think about that right now. One tragedy at a time, I think, as I put that memory to the back of my mind and focus on Delilah.

After checking in with my job and informing them of the current situation, I head back to the station, only to see a still-worried Ben sitting and staring into nothing. It breaks my heart to see him like this. He is always such a determined guy, so single-minded in focus when it comes to my best friend. He looks helpless, scared. I want to comfort him but then, who will comfort me? I may have lost my best friend. She was just pussy to him at one point. She’s my blood.

After seeing him react to the fact that officers had found Delilah’s smashed phone out on the Schuylkill Expressway though, I have to change my mind. This guy just might love my girl for real…and she would deserve his love, the same way she deserved Jared Mayhew’s love all those years ago. I never thought she would find it again – the type of love that would make her past seem miniscule in the grand scheme of things – but it seems she has, and I couldn’t be happier. It makes me even sadder, though, because what if we never find her?

I shake off those thoughts. No. I won’t entertain that. We
have to
find her.

Finally, after more hours than I would have liked to remain without news, and after meeting Ben’s very handsome brother, Matt, Ben and I are ushered into the interview room. Seeing Matt once again reminded me that I needed to tell Ryan what was going on. I needed him. I need Marshall, but I am done with admitting that.

“Do either of you know a Ryan Baylor?” Sergeant Winston, the officer who took the case on, asks when we’re finally seated.

Ben and I stare at him in confusion. What does Ryan have to do with this? Does he have information? And if he does, one: why isn’t he here? And two:
why
would he have information?

“That’s my boyfriend,” I answer, confusion still laced in my tone. “I don’t understand. What does he have to do with this?”

“Did they have a good relationship?” he questions further. My brow knits with the oddness I hear in his tone, almost accusatory.

“They hardly spoke,” I respond shakily, my defenses going up. They might have hardly spoken to each other, but they never got in each other’s way and they never battled. Where is this question going?

“But they were working on it,” Ben finishes for me. “Sullivan had an unwarranted suspicion of the guy and she was working on it for her best friend’s sake.”

He’s right, and Ryan was also working on his feelings toward her too. I wanted them to have a relationship because they were the two most important people in my life.

Sergeant Winston sighs heavily and the next thing he says annihilates my world and destroys Ben’s.

“She was right to be suspicious,” he says, referring to Delilah.

I reel back as if he’s just slapped me.
What the fuck?

“There were two matching signals that our tech team picked up,” he continues. “One was unknown – a pre-pay – and the other was from Ryan Baylor’s phone.”

A strangled sob rips from my throat. Ben stares at me in equal parts anger and devastation. I can’t imagine how I look. I am in agony as I try to take it all in. My hold on his hand is deathly, but I shake; shake with the sheer, terrifying shock of it all, the truth that Ryan, the man I thought was it for me, has betrayed me, stolen my best friend from me.
Oh, God…

I trusted him. I gave myself to him. All those nights I called out his name as he fed me to the heights of pleasure. Pleasure I had only attained with Marshall. It was never as good with him as Marshall, but the fact remained that I had slept with this man.
Oh God…

He’d tricked me, played with my emotions, with my body so he could get close to Delilah. I trusted him, even when Delilah didn’t. I made her give him a chance because I was entranced by his cock and what he could do with it. I’m pathetic. A poor excuse for a best friend.

A broken moan dismantles the tense quiet in the room and I fall apart when I realize it’s from me. I watch Ben’s face go from white as a sheet, to red with rage. He is trying to reel his anger in, but I feel it in waves. I flinch away from him when his hands grip the arm of the chair and I hear the wood groan from the applied pressure. He could break it, of that I have no doubt.

“H-how do you know f-for sure?” I manage to stutter out. I don’t even know why I’m asking this question. He hasn’t so much as called me in a few days. Yes, he’s fucking guilty.

The hate rises in my chest like blood pressure. I hate that he did this to me. I
detest
that he’s done this to my best friend.

“We asked the witness to identify the other person she had seen,” Sergeant Winston confirms. “From her description of the driver, we got some pictures. She chose Mr. Baylor’s and confirmed that he was the driver she had seen.”

This confirmation makes me crumble further. I release the death grip on Ben’s hand and fold myself over, screaming out my anguish. I’ve failed my best friend. How could I have been so blind? There must have been something to give him away, to show me that he wasn’t genuine, but he was a great pretender. Then I gasp, screaming, as something dawns on me.

He loved that fucking song so much –
Pretender
by the Foo Fighters. Oh, my God! He had been telling me all along. Every time we took a long drive he would blast that song, clutching my hand, bringing it to his lips and sweeping a kiss across the top of it. He’d give me what I thought was a panty-melting smile, when all along it was a conniving one; a smile that said
I know something you don’t.

He was taunting me, taunting us all with that damn song.

After what seems like hours, I finally stop crying, hiccupping every three seconds to accommodate my breathing. I feel like shit, I’ve been taken for a fool…because I am a fool. I let a big cock trick me. Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid!

“Did either of you have the slightest idea of his plans?” Officer Winston asks with his eyes on me.

I want to hide from his accusing eyes, but I harden my own in a stare right back at him. Does he think I knew about this?

“Sergeant,” Ben begins, taking the officer’s focus from me. “Do you believe that if I’d known anything he’d still be breathing?” Ben grits through clenched teeth and even tighter clenched fists.

“Fair enough,” he nods, turning to face me once more.

His suspicion disarms me and I start crying. Had I known about Ryan’s plans and pretended not to know, sweeping it under the rug because he’d been a good bed partner? I start blubbering, tears streaming down my face once more as I try to answer.

“S-s-s-sergeant, I p-promise y-you,” I stammer, shaking my head. I take a deep, stuttering breath and then another, keeping my rising panic down. I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack. I’m not guilty. I know it. I just need to be coherent enough to convince Sergeant Winston.

Grabbing my hand, Ben squeezes, trying to ease my panic. I whip my eyes to him and in his face I see what Delilah always saw: peace, a promise that he is there for me too. Jeez, now I know what all her fuss was about, why he freaked her out. I could fall in love with him; I saw how easy it would be with that look in his eyes. That was how it was with Marshall. His very touch had me melting; a look from him had me falling down a rabbit hole that I knew he was at the end of.

I need him.

I nod my head shakily and resign myself to calming the fuck down and answering the Sergeant. “I promise, Sergeant, if I had had any clue whatsoever that Ryan…Mr. Baylor,” I correct myself, curling my lip in disgust, before continuing, “had plans to kidnap my best friend, I would have killed him myself.”

Even his very name makes me homicidal now, where all I used to think about were orgasms, roses and rain-fucking-bows. I am mad as hell and I want to get my hands on him so I can rip him to shreds. He will regret the day he ever took my best friend from me. No one messes with my Delilah. No one.

Sergeant Winston nods and I see him clutch the papers he holds in his hands tighter. Delilah’s name is on it and a nervous sweat breaks out on my forehead.

Oh, God.
What else does he know?

Sergeant Winston sighs, looking straight at us and inquires, “Is there anything that you both have not told us?”

“We’ve told you everything, Sergeant Winston,” Ben answers quickly.

“Is there anything we here at the precinct need to know, Miss Welles?” he asks, staring pointedly at me.

He knows. He knows
everything.
I go white and my eyes bug out with fright. I stammer out a lie and Sergeant Winston shakes his head. Oh God, I can’t tell him. I can’t let Ben know this. I need Marshall to get here. Now.

“If we don’t get to the truth here, Miss Welles, we can’t help your friend,” he declares, fixing me with an annoyed stare.

“Can I talk to her for a minute, Sergeant?” Ben entreats the big, greying man with kind eyes.

He nods in affirmation. “Yeah, and talk some sense into her, will ya?”

I cringe, knowing how stupid it is to not say anything; knowing that the smallest thing could help, but I need Marshall here. I won’t say anything without my lawyer, my Savior.

Ben all but drags me out of the room. As soon as we’re out of earshot of the Sergeant, he pounces, “What the fuck don’t I know, Rachel?”

“Ben,” I sigh, feeling the panic rise up my neck. I don’t think I can deny him. I need Marshall. He’ll know what to do, what to say

“Stop with the secrets, Rachel!” he shouts at me, making me flinch. I want to curl up in a ball and shield myself from his anger. He has every right to be angry.

“This is life or death, so if there’s anything we need to know, you better fucking say it right now,” he demands. “Isn’t Ryan enough of a scare?” I hate that name. “Is he not enough of a motivation to tell the officers everything so we can find her and get our revenge on Rick
and
Ryan?” I hate
both
those names.

His plea is working, though. God, he deserves the truth, leaving him and the Sergeant in the dark is not helping anyone a goddamn. I open my mouth to tell him something, anything…the truth. That’s when I smell that familiar warm, spicy, citrusy scent of the man I once loved…still love. I would know his smell anywhere.

I suck in a breath, retracting everything I had been about to say. My nipples bead tight, already feeling his hands on me.

Jesus Christ
. What this man still does to me.