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Taylor pushedher body against the door frame she was hiding behind in the alley. This was a shitastic neighborhood, and there were people shouting just down the street and bottles smashing. It was like something out of a sketchy B movie and Taylor was the stupid starlet in the leading role. This was such a crazy idea, yet here she was.
A singsong whistling alerted Taylor to Ben’s arrival, and she peeked out around the doorway to see a figure coming through the shadows. The figure whistled again and then the figure spoke, “Libby?”
“Ben?” Taylor called, ensuring it was, in fact, who she was there to meet.
“The one and only,” he replied and Taylor was surprised by how she could still recognize the sound of his voice.
She stepped out of the shadows and cleared her throat, which signaled Henry to come in and tackle Ben.
“What the fuck!” Ben shouted as he hit the ground with a thud because there was really no other way to hit the ground if Henry came flying at you than with a thud. He struggled, but his lithe figure was absolutely no match for Henry’s ginormous frame.
Taylor jumped back as Ben was taken down, and watched as Henry zip-tied his hands together effortlessly.
Ben moved and wriggled the entire time that Henry restrained him. He flipped his head back and forth and finally turned his face to Taylor. “What happened to meeting alone, Taylor?” Ben asked.
Irritation crept all over Taylor. “Oh, so now I’m Taylor? Okay,Jeff,” she threw at him. On the way to the meeting, Henry had revealed some of the information he had found on Ben, the first being his name was not Ben Watson, but Jeff Benson.
“You lied to me, too,” he said.
Taylor threw her hands up in the air. ”Then why did you trust me to come here alone? Did you think I would just come here unprotected? Huh? You yourself said I was in danger, how fucking stupid would that have been?” she demanded in exasperation.
Henry pulled Ben or Jeff or whoever he was to his feet. “Yeah well, not everything between us was always a lie, now was it, Taylor?” he asked crassly, the innuendo not lost on her.
It also wasn’t missed by Derrick who came out from the shadows and punched him across the face, knocking him out.
Taylor rubbed her face with her hands, “Really, Derrick?” she asked all muffled through her hands. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes,” he answered blankly, shaking his hand out.
Taylor felt her face redden with anger as she glared at her husband.
“Taylor, the way he was shooting his mouth off, he is lucky I didn’t snap his neck,” Derrick sneered.
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Yes, but now he is unconscious and useless to us finding anything out,” Taylor pointed out.
Derrick shrugged, emotionless. “He’ll wake up,” he said flatly.
Henry hefted Benson’s limp frame from the ground and passed him off to Mick and Ian. “Truly, he was asking for it, Taylor,” Henry remarked.
Taylor took in the faces of Henry and Derrick and then finally shook her head. She had liked it better when Henry hadn’t been trying to get on Derrick’s good side. Taylor stalked over to the car wondering how long it would be before Benson would be able to talk to them. He claimed he had something to explain and Taylor was eager to hear it.
* * *
The formerly bearded douche,or Ben or Jeff, as anyone but Derrick may have referred to him, was in the back of an SUV that Taylor and Derrick’s SUV was following.
“Are you going to stay mad long?” Derrick finally asked Taylor. She had been looking out the window and had not acknowledged his presence the entire ride.
Taylor turned and opened her mouth to answer him when their vehicle pulled over to the side of the road. Derrick looked around, as did Taylor. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Is it paparazzi?”
“No,” Henry said, turning back to look at them in the back seat. “Mick just messaged me, said Benson woke up, says he is willing to talk,” he explained. “I figured you two would want to talk to him.”
“Yes,” Taylor said eagerly, a little too eagerly for Derrick’s liking. “If he has answers then we need to talk to him.
“Okay, so do you want to bring him to the mansion?”
“Hell freaking no,” Derrick said. “I am not letting that beatnik near my house.”
Taylor turned to her husband. “Well, where are we supposed to take him?”