Page 63 of Dangerous Deviance
Billy looked up. “You don’t know?” she asked.
“Know what?”
She studied me, those muddy red eyes shifting across my face. “I don’t know much,” she started slowly, “but I know Miles Muro is not someone you want to mess with.”
“Muro owns the company, Midnight Miles. He’s a crime lord. But not just that. He owns a corporation,” Maddie explained. “He’s growing quickly. And he’s…” She shook her head, thinking to herself. “Fuck!”
“Like them?” I nodded towards the door, hinting at the brothers.
“Kind of,” Maddie shrugged. “The family here,” she said carefully, eyeing Jane, cautious of saying the brothers’ surname, “They have rules. They murder. They gamble. They deal drugs. They protect. All of that. They’re criminals too. But they don’t traffic.” Fear was in her eyes, as if she had seen the terrors first hand of what Midnight Miles could do. “Muro? He ripped you guys from your lives. Made you his personal weapon. It’s a different form of slavery.” She shook her head, her eyes downcast. “At least the family here has loyalty. Midnight Miles?” She shrugged. “Family? He doesn’t care about family. Not even his wife.” She crossed her arms. “He has no loyalty.”
“What does that mean for us?” I asked, looking down in my lap, afraid to hear the answer.
“It means you were sent to kill the brothers,” she said. “In all honesty, Derek thinks the best decision is to get rid of you guys. But I willnotlet them harm you.” Her voice was forceful. “And Wil?” She nodded towards the door. “He’s with me. It’s just Derek and Axe that need convincing.”
How the hell was Wil on my side, when it came to this? I was just supposed to be a toy he could discard whenever he wanted, but this? I had tried to kill him. Had bitten him. Had cut his face and hand. And yet he was helping me.
Did he actually care?
I looked down at the metal links surrounding my wrists. The ringing filled my head again, and I closed my eyes, trying to make it go away.
Kill him, the voice said.
But I didn’t want to hurt him.
I turned to Maddie. “Will you adjust my cuffs?” I asked. “Make them tighter?”
“Of course,” she said. “You want to talk to Wil?”
I nodded. She tightened the bands connecting the two cuffs, so that my wrists were close together, making it harder for me to fight. After she did the same for the other two, Derek and Axe led them out of Wil’s study. I stayed behind, sitting at the round table.
Wil’s footsteps surged through me, awakening my spirit. I had told him everything I knew, and he hadn’t run; he was still here, still willing to help me, even when he knew that the easiest solution would have been to get rid of me.
He took a seat beside me. I looked into his deep brown eyes, seeing more than a criminal. I saw a man who wanted to protect his family. And a man who wanted to help a stranger, a woman who had tried to kill him. Me.
“If you didn’t kill her,” I asked. He stared at me, waiting for my response.You know his answer, Dr. Bates said in my mind.Lies. All lies.He will never be honest with you.
I squinched my eyes together, trying to drown out the voice, but then the ringing started. A tear went down my cheek, but as soon as Wil touched my hands, everything went silent. My head throbbed, but at least the noise had stopped.
“If I didn’t kill her,” he said, nodding for me to continue.
“If she’s not dead,” I corrected, “will you help me find who hurt her?”
“I will kill any fucker who touched her,” he said. My heart rate increased, and the pressure swelled in my head. I wanted to believe him. I wanted so badly to trust him. But the ringing started and I had to concentrate on thinking.
Why shouldn’t I trust him? He had kept to his word every single time.
Lies. All—
“I’m afraid,” I whispered, the tears making my throat ache. “They lied to me. Made me believe them. And it’s so hard not to believe them, not when you know what they’re capable of.” Wil’s features tensed, remembering what I had told him. “If I fail my mission, they’ll kill me, Wil. And I can’t kill you. I won’t let myself.” The tears streamed down now, and I couldn’t stop them. “You’ve got to believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said.
And those words struck my soul, hitting me where everything was shattered. It had been such a long time since anyone believed me. Officer Shines hadn’t. None of Julie’s friends did.
But Wil believed me. How could that be true?
“How can you?” I asked, breathless. “After what I’ve done.”
