Page 28 of C is For Corruption (Horsemen #3)
Victoria
Az grabbed Joey by the back of his neck and steered him toward the warehouse, following Mel and Leighton as they packed Candy inside.
I could just make out Leighton complaining about having to carry her after she bit him, but against my better judgment, I was more concerned with Tiffany.
Joey had hit her hard enough for her head to bounce off the SUV.
I may have hated her at the moment, but I wasn’t heartless.
“You good?” I asked, not wanting her to read further into the question.
“Yeah… I’m okay,” Tiffany replied, her hand sliding from her face to the back of her head.
“Good.” I turned to start toward the warehouse when she called out to me.
“Can we talk? Please?” something in her tone caused me to stop and turn back around, even though the last thing I wanted to do was listen to whatever she had to say. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I fucked up, big time.”
“You didn’t just fuck up, Tiffany, you got one of the men I love killed. That’s..” I shook my head, unable to finish.
“I know,” She said, her eyes dropping to her feet. “If I knew how it would play out I never would have passed on the information I had. She wasn’t supposed to hurt any of you. She was just supposed to extract you from the horsemen and bring you to us so you’d be safe.”
“You let a fucking psychopath loose, what the hell did you think would happen?” I screamed, my hands fisting at my sides.
Tiffany winced. “That part wasn’t my call.
No, it doesn’t change what happened or the role I did play, but you have to believe me.
I really thought you were in trouble. I’ve spent the last several years in this world and you haven’t.
I had no way of knowing that you’d be able to get away if what I thought was happening had actually been happening. ”
“So, we’re dropping the ditzy rich bitch pretense now, huh? Just gonna pretend like you’ve been a gangster this whole time and never said a word and I’m just supposed to what? Believe that?”
“Because it’s true. Helen will tell you as much if you want to ask her.”
“How the fuck did you even get mixed up in all this shit, Tiffany? What the hell went so wrong in your life you couldn’t tell me, your supposed best friend, instead of joining a God damned criminal organization and ultimately ruining my fucking life in the process?
I think I at least deserve to know that since you’ve decided to take me down with you. ”
Tiffany’s eyes flicked up to mine, and she let out a heavy breath as she held my gaze. “Do you remember that party on Iverson’s boat?”
“That eurotrash you hooked up with a few summers ago? Yeah, I remember.” I scoffed. “You’ve always had terrible taste in men. He wasn’t an exception.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you what happened after the party ended.
Why he up and went back home the very next day.
He wasn’t interested in me for the arm candy or my personality.
He was looking for a mule. He had enough coke in one of the cabins that everyone on that boat that night could have OD many times over.
I like to party as much as the next girl, but I wasn’t interested in smuggling his drugs, not knowing who my older sister’s mother is.
We fought and he locked me in a closet. He was too stupid to take my phone, so I called Helen. ”
“You know, if you had told me any of this when it happened, I might have actually felt sorry for you, but after everything you did, I don’t think I can.” I interjected.
“You don’t fucking know what it means to owe someone like Helen.
” Tiffany snapped. “Yeah, she treats me like another daughter, I get a little more leeway than the average soldier because of it, but she’s a fucking mobster Tory.
If I told her no when she said I owed her for her help that night, she would have put a bullet in my head and tossed me over the side of the yacht.
Part of staying alive meant keeping my silence.
The only good I thought came out of the whole mess was being able to save you when every goddamned thing I found said you needed saving. ”
My head reared back like she’d slapped me.
Her words seemed to almost echo what Craig had said when he refused to take her as payment for Rich’s death.
I could feel my grip on the hatred I’d nursed for her starting to slip away as I started to understand, for probably the first time, everything that had led to the choices she made.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you.” I spoke finally.
“I’m so angry at you for all of it. I just…
Give me some time and space. I’m not going to promise we will ever be friends again, but I will think about what you just told me and maybe, when things aren’t so raw, maybe I can consider forgiving you. ”
“That’s the best I can hope for, I suppose.
” She replied with a half-hearted smile.
“For what it’s worth, I never stopped being your friend, even if you’ve stopped being mine.
Helen doesn’t know this, but I heard your boys are looking into Theo.
Word on the street is he’s secretly meeting with the Russians.
I had Georgialynn do a little digging, quietly, and, well…
here.” She stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a small flash drive, holding it out to me.
“There’s not much to find on the Russian he’s meeting with, but what is there, you and your boys will want to see. ”
I took the device from her hand and stuck it in my pocket without a word.
There was nothing else for either of us to say.
Tiffany could apologize all she wanted, but I needed time if I was ever going to get over her causing Rich’s death.
She may have thought she was extending an olive branch with whatever information she’d just handed me, but the branch wasn’t hers to extend.
“Fucking hell, we still gotta carry the other one in there.” Leighton’s voice rang out, giving me an excuse to walk away from Tiffany without a word. “This one better still be knocked out, Mel or I swear to God!”
Turning toward the warehouse, I spotted Craig following behind Leighton and Mel as they made their way back to the trailer.
He must have noticed the discomfort left over from my conversation with Tiffany on my face because he motioned me toward him and tucked me into his side as soon as I reached him.
“You alright, Bunny?” He murmured in my ear, not wanting to draw attention to us.
“Are any of us alright?” I snorted, shaking my head as I gently patted his chest. “I’ll fill you all in later, I don’t want to have to rehash it four times. Suffice it to say, Tiffany thinks she’s given me a peace offering. I haven’t decided if I want it to be a peace offering.”
“We don’t have to stay if you’re not up for it.” Craig offered. “Things are going to get pretty intense in there once the Golden Devils leave.”
“ That I want to deal with.” I replied. “I need to see the woman who took him from us suffer with my own eyes. Maybe even inflict some of the pain she’s caused us onto her with my own fucking hands.”
Leighton and Mel neared with the second Devil just in time for Leighton to hear the last part of what I’d said.
“That’s my vicious girlfriend. I’ll help you get your hands as dirty as you want ma petit. Like the only boyfriend in this harem should!” I couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. “I’ll even share if the others want in.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at his antics, though I had the brief thought that something had fundamentally changed in me for me to find them as funny as I did these days.
“It’s adorable that you’re willing to share, but you are not the only boyfriend, Leighton.
” I shot back, causing him to poke his lower lip out in a pout.
“You couldn’t have told me that privately ? Now what am I supposed to hold over the other guys?” He winked before shifting the weight of the sedated woman he was helping carry inside with a grunt.
It was that wink that did me in. I doubled over in laughter at how ridiculous the whole…
just everything was. I was standing outside of a warehouse with one of my four boyfriends after a conversation with my ex-best friend about her role in getting my fifth boyfriend killed, and about to watch the woman who pulled the trigger and her second in command be tortured for it.
If someone had told me I’d end up here back before the Gala, I’d have thought they lost their mind.
Now, all I wanted was to help gut Candy and then go home and curl up with my men.