Precarious

A moment later, the door swings open and Tristan appears. His eyes widen when he sees me. I know I have to act this out well, so I raise my hand, and I slap him across the face. “How could you?”

“Shit, Ash, what are you doing here?”

“Doing here?” I screech. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. How could you, Tristan? I thought we were friends.”

His eyes scan the street and road, and then he mutters. “Come in.”

“I don’t think I trust that,” I say, my voice wobbling for effect.

“I’m alone.”

“You are the last person I thought would do such a horrible thing. Really, Tristan? Guards died because of you.”

He narrows his eyes. “You wired?”

“What?” I gasp.

Maddox was right.

“Is this a set-up?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Turn around and lift your shirt.”

I roll my eyes dramatically, and I do so, lifting my shirt’s front and back. I even slide my jacket off. He leans forward, patting my pockets and legs, before staring at me. Lucky I taped the recorder in my cleavage.

“Why the hell would I be wired?” I ask.

He glares at me. “Because your boyfriend got arrested.”

“Beau?” I ask. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Can we do this inside?”

“I’m not sure I can trust you, Tristan,” I say sadly. “Why would you do something like that?”

He growls and leans in close. “You have no fuckin’ idea how much money we were paid to pass information out, and set that ambush up.”

Shit. I just realized if Tristan talks about the ambush, he’ll give away that Maddox got there before Howard. I quickly change the subject.

“I don’t care about the ambush. I’m talking about lying to me, and feeding information out of the prison.”

“He was giving me a lot of money; he set me up. It was just fuckin’ information on one person. It was only one fuckin’ job.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I cry. “Claire and Leo got hurt because of you. I nearly got killed.”

“Do you think I wanted them to shoot at you? Fuck, Ash, of course I didn’t, but you knew too much; you’d seen too much. I didn’t want it anymore than you did, but I had no choice.”

“And Claire and Leo?” I whisper, my voice shaky. “They didn’t deserve any of it.”

“We needed to draw you out. You were hiding with that club, and Howard was growing impatient. We needed to scare you, to give you a reason to hand yourself over. The sooner you were killed, the sooner our plan could continue.”

“You set an innocent man up,” I yell.

“I didn’t fuckin’ do any of that. Howard set the café scene up; Howard shot the other people. He just made it look like Beau did it. The club were then in the cop’s sights. Howard only came in to us when he wanted to plan that ambush. He wanted information; we gave it to him.”

“Then you continued to help him, even when your friend was at risk.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “Fuck, Ash, I never wanted to hurt you.”

“They’re going to catch up with you, Tristan. They’ll figure out Beau is innocent, and you’ll go away for a long time.”

His face flickers with rage and he reaches forward, taking my arm. “They’ll find out fuckin’ nothing. No one is going to believe anyone’s story of corrupt guards. Not when the focus is on Beau, and that fuckin’ club. It’s worked out exactly how we needed it to.”

I shake my head, snatching my arm out of his. “I wish I’d never met you.”

I turn and rush off down the path. He doesn’t try to stop me. I have no doubt he’ll go inside and ring in my location so another bullet can come flying in my direction. I have no doubt they still want me dead, so I don’t spill anything. That’s why it’s lucky for me that Maddox is waiting in an SUV down the road.

I climb in the car and turn to him.

“You get it?” he asks.

I grin. “Oh, I got it. Let’s take these fuckers down.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The recording was enough to have Tristan, Luke, and a police officer arrested. It was also enough, with the combined evidence and Whiskey’s confession, to get Krypt out of prison. A trial will still be carried out, however it looks hopeful for him.

Maddox told me Howard also got arrested, the evidence Maddox left at the ambush scene as well as Claire’s, Santana’s and my confessions, was enough to lock him up, however Maddox said there’s a good chance he will get out. He’s got good connections.

The war isn’t over; it’s merely being put on hold. Howard will be back for his revenge.

For now, though, we’re dealing with the fact that Whiskey is in prison for something he didn’t do. Krypt isn’t taking it that well, drinking himself into oblivion every day. So much so it’s concerning. Penny returned home after everything went down, deciding that staying was just not something she wanted to do.

So that just leaves me.

It’s been three days since Krypt got out of prison. He’s sitting in the old shed, bottle of Jack in his lap, staring at nothing. Every time I’ve tried to talk to him he’s refused to answer, but today I’m not giving him a choice. He will talk to me, because otherwise he’ll kill himself drinking that much.