Page 54 of Rebel

Mom called after me from the kitchen. “Are you sure you want to handle dinner, sweetie? You’ve been doing it all week.”

“It’s cool. I don’t mind. As long as you eat something. You can’t survive on coffee alone.” I popped back into the kitchen to give her a quick hug before heading out the front door.

“Be careful.” Her voice followed me. “Try not to be too long.”

I didn’t blame her for being more paranoid than usual. No doubt she felt like she needed to monitor my every move after what happened to Chase. If only she knew that I knew exactly who was behind his murder. Now if only I could prove it.

Sticking my earbuds into my ears, I opened one of my favorite playlists and headed down the driveway. Rebel’s car was gone from his side of the property line. I hadn’t heard from him since last night with Noah.

Hearing Noah confess that Venom had been behind my brother’s disappearance and murder had hit me like a punch in the gut. It penetrated right to my soul. On one hand, it made me feel so much better about Rebel. It would’ve killed me if he’d been the culprit. Yet it made me feel so much worse about not believing him when he first told me that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Trying to shove all thoughts out of my mind, I turned up the music and strolled down the sidewalk. I had no destination in mind. There was a small ice cream shop on the next street over. Maybe I would treat myself to something sweet. For now, I needed to move and breathe.

Steady deep breaths. One after the other. Keeping my focus on every rise and fall of my chest helped me to momentarily detach from reality. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long.

As I reached the end of the block about to round the corner toward the ice cream shop, a silver SUV screeched to a halt beside me. I barely had time to process what was happening before River Harris and Damon Price leapt out of the vehicle.

They grabbed me before I could flee. River pressed his hand over my mouth while the two of them dragged me into the vehicle. I kicked and flailed, doing my best to get away. They easily tossed me into the back seat and climbed in after me.

Noah sat in the driver seat. He promptly hit the gas. Colt, the fourth member of Venom, was in the passenger seat. Together, Damon and River pinned me down in the back. Wrapping a hand tight around my throat, River squeezed until I thought surely he would kill me. Only when I almost blacked out did he allow me to breathe.

“You and your boyfriend are seriously fucking shit up for me,” River seethed. “I won’t let you ruin everything I’ve been working for. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to take the Kings down. You will not take that from me.”

I gasped in a painful breath of air. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything.”

“So you weren’t there last night when they drugged Noah and made him talk? When they beat the crap out of him and left him in the graveyard to find his own way back to town?” River’s dark eyes flashed with a malice I’d never seen in him before.

It wasn’t as if I could deny it. His accusations were true.

“You guys killed my brother. You can’t get away with that. Pinning it on the Kings is seriously messed up. Why would you want to do that to them anyway? You guys don’t even run the same types of business.” I genuinely didn’t understand the rivalry between the two groups. Terror gripped me as I worried that they would kill me too.

Damon chuckled, a dark sound that filled the SUV. “This is about more than business. This is about power. Rebel and the Kings have run this town for long enough. It’s time for their reign to end.”

“That arrogant fuck has always found a way to stick it to me,” River added. “He’s humiliated me since high school. I’m done letting him walk all over me. He’s made his last move. The cops will bust him for Chase’s murder, and he’ll spend the rest of his pathetic life in jail. Where he belongs.”

“You can’t do that,” I protested. “Rebel didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no evidence that proves otherwise.”

“Sure there is. There’s the messages on Chase’s phone between him and Rebel that will indicate the bad blood between them. The cops will start looking a lot closer at Rebel once that phone turns up.” The twisted grin that spread across River’s face was an absolute nightmare come true.

Rebel had been right about him all along. River Harris was a special kind of evil. He seemed so nice and normal in the beginning. I’d never have suspected this was lying below the surface.

“You have Chase’s phone?” I asked. His phone had never been found. It wasn’t with his body.

“I sure do. Pretty soon it will be planted for the cops to find. They’ll find messages that make Rebel look pretty fucking guilty. It’s not like he really has an alibi for that night. Everyone was at that party. There’s no way of accounting for his whereabouts at the exact moment of Chase’s death.” River seemed to think he had this all tied up in a neat little package. Maybe he did. He’d clearly spent a lot of time thinking about this.

Panic held me in its grasp. I thought about the photo of Rebel and Chase together that night. There were so many incriminating factors working against him. If River was able to fake a message exchange between the two of them, that would only make things so much worse.

Outside the car window I noticed that the streets had changed. We were heading toward the edge of town. On our way to the graveyard. A sick sensation settled in my stomach.

River let go of my throat. He ran both hands through my hair before cupping my cheeks. In a sudden unexpected move, he kissed me hard. Angrily.

“Once the cops find your body at the graveyard, I’m pretty sure the case against Rebel will be all tied up with a neat little bow. There will be far too much evidence for anyone to suspect otherwise.” Rubbing his thumb across my bottom lip, River pondered me almost sadly. “It’s too bad that we didn’t get more of a chance. I think we would have been great together.”

“Are you serious? You’re going to kill me too? All because of some personal beef with Rebel that has nothing to do with me? Why would you do that?” My voice cracked as tears filled my eyes.

“Now it has everything to do with you. He beat my ass in front of an entire party of people because of you. I’ve taken too much shit from him. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” River relaxed, confident that there was no escape for me now that we were picking up speed on our way out of town. “If I believed you’d give me a chance once Rebel is locked away, I would let you live. But you know too much now, Storm. It has to be this way. You’re a loose end, and you need to be tied up, so to speak.”

My mind raced as I frantically try to assess the situation and find a way out. There was only one way that I could see. River and Damon had climbed into the vehicle after me, putting River in the middle and me next to the back passenger door. I had only one option here.

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