Page 107 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
“Who’s the killer?” Basti grits out through his teeth, making prayer hands at me. He says something in Spanish which, I think, with my limited knowledge, translates to you are a supreme idiot, and if you don’t tell me now, I’m going to slap you. Or … whatever. I only know a minute amount of Spanish because Bastian’s grandmother has been using her native language to shout at the four of us—me, Nisha, Lemon, and her own grandson—since we all started at the crappy preschool together.
“Aspen’s brother—Ash Kelly,” I say, my mouth tightening into a thin line, my voice low enough that sure as shit nobody can hear me over the roar of the track. I give my besties a dark look. “I’m handling it. I don’t want either of you involved.”
“You’re handling it?” Nisha quips as Basti’s brown eyes flick in the direction of the road, as if he can still see Kellin Bohnes. He gets it. “By yourself?”
I give her a look and she closes her eyes in frustration.
“We’re a crew, Scarlett,” she bites out, opening her eyes to glare at me. “You were never meant to handle anything with just Bohnes for backup. I don’t trust him anyway. He’s not all there.”
“Maybe not, but I’d rather put his life at risk than yours. I don’t want you on the mayor’s radar.” I turn and grab for the door of my Pantera when Nisha reaches out to take my wrist.
“Don’t make any moves without at least talking to us about them. I’m not sayin’ we have to be there on the ground with you, Scar, but at least fuckin’ have the decency to have a conversation.”
I nod at that, but it’s a non-committal response at best. I’m not sure that I will. If I have to take my secrets to the grave, I won’t involve Nisha and Bastian in anything to do with the mayor.
“You, and your best buddy from Archer Realty, are destroying the integrity of this neighborhood and this city one steel and glass monstrosity at a time.”
Mayor Kelly. Archer Realty. That reporter, Emma Jean …
“If you tell anyone about this, it puts you at risk. It puts them at risk, too. I won’t allow that.” Aspen’s words to me earlier in the night.
I mull all of that information over as I bite my lip, yank my door open, and hop in.
I think about those things all the way home and well into the night.
Scarlett
I sleep like the fucking dead that night, my body sore and achy in all the best possible ways. The first thing on my mind when I blink myself back to consciousness is Aspen, the way he tastes, the way he smells, the feel of him coming apart and climaxing beneath the cool kiss of the rain.
I did not expect that.
His face unashamedly buried in my pussy, the wild thrusts on the hood of the Mustang, the way he paused with his hand on the door like I’d shot him right through the heart with my last utterance of that name. Ash.
I search myself for regret, but there’s none there.
What a night.
In many ways, it was a victory. I got the information I needed. Ash Kelly. The name of Aspen’s brother. I know now who to look into—and trust me, I will look into him before I make any moves. I’m not stupid enough to go after the mayor’s son without heavy preparation.
Speaking of …
I need to talk to Bohnes again, and more than just a quickie ‘I’ll let you fuck me after Aspen fucked me’ sort of thing. If I’m going to do this, and do it without putting my crew in danger, then I’ll need his help.
It occurs to me that Widow might also be an option, some additional backup.
I don’t have to lay my soul on the table, but maybe we could come to some sort of agreement?
That money from Aspen feels tainted somehow, like maybe I shouldn’t use it on myself. Some of it I’ll give to Evelyn’s family. It’s the least that I can do, a pathetic attempt at trying to staunch some of the impossible bleeding the Morenos are going to go through when Evelyn doesn’t come home.
At first, they’ll assume what every Prescott parent wants to assume.
She’s just run away; she’ll come back.
But as the days tick by, it’ll dawn on them with a disturbing sense of sickness, of vertigo, like the world is no longer straight. That they exist in twisted and tilted angles, that reality is forever altered.
They’ll know, like the parents of so many missing teenage girls know, that she is never coming back.
I put my face in my hands for a moment to get myself together, listening to the thump of Alexis’ music through the wall. She listens to KMZI 66.6, too. Everyone does, because I listen to it.
