Page 6 of Misconduct & Manipulation

“How are you so sure they weren’t aiming for the girl. They gotta know she’s a reporter and one can easily assume why she’d be following you.”

“It’s too calculative. Even if they were following me, I shut down Hailey’s proposition too quickly for them to give her motives much thought. They want me to be their puppet.”

He quirks an eyebrow.

“Henchmen is the word I’d use.”

He isn’t wrong.

Sighing, he drops his arms to his sides.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t let you do this alone. So, you go in there and you do whatever the fuck you gotta do to make them truly believe you are in line to become one of them. I’ll keep Cassie and baby safe, but I got resources too, man, and when the time comes, we can take them down.”

“If you could take them down, you would’ve done it already.”

His football career nearly went up in smoke and he didn’t do shit to take down the Society. Same goes for his pal, Alex Reggiano. Everyone on campus knows his girlfriend is heavily connected to the mob, and they couldn’t do anything more than make Jennings disappear. The point is anyone who has ever tried to abolish the Scorpio Society has failed. But to my knowledge they’ve all been outsiders.

“What about the girl?”

“Hailey?”

He nods.

“What are you going to do with her?”

I consider the question for a moment.

“I guess that depends on how much she knows.”

He shakes his head.

“Man, if you think that girl is not a target after tonight, you’re in way over your head.”

Sadly, the second those words leave his lips, I realize they’re very fucking true.

Chapter4

HAILEY MARSH

When I woke up there was no sign of blood. Then again, I was too doped up on painkillers to remember I had been shot therefore I didn’t think to look. But when the Percocet’s wore off, I took notice of the gauze that covered my shoulder and most of my clavicle and it all came flooding back to me.

I barely had a chance to process it, though, because the second I started to hyperventilate, my eyes connected with Johnny’s. He kicked off the wall he was leaning on and came to my bedside.

“How do you feel?” He asked, his voice hoarse as he shoved his hands into his pockets, flinching slightly as the denim scratched against the abrasions on his knuckles.

It took me a moment to find my voice, mainly because my mouth was dry, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little hypnotized by the way he stared at me.

“Like I was shot,” I finally replied.

His tongue slicked over his teeth, and his jaw locked as his eyes bore into mine. There was an intensity there, one that matched how he looked at me when his body laid over mine and he inspected my wound after I had been shot.

“You still want that story?”

His question pulled me from my stupor, and I blinked. Were we really going to argue about an article? The possibility angered me as I vaguely recalled telling him I didn’t care about the story when I offered to get him cleaned up.

“I’m going to be straightforward with you, Hailey. There are two officers down the hall that are going to question you and if your story doesn’t line up with mine, the odds of you getting shot again are great. The odds of you not surviving are even greater.”

“I’m sorry, are you threatening me?”

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