Page 40 of Provocation (Den of Deception #3)

Chapter Nine

DAISY

W e don't leave the club for the rest of the day, nor the next, and no one comes in either. It’s just the four of us.

Mav spends a few hours teaching me how to mix drinks, and I find that after a good night's sleep and some time with my guys, I feel a lot better after all the things that happened yesterday.

After our impromptu Thanksgiving dinner of tacos, I did tell them what had happened, omitting the part about the Stinger. I'm just not ready to tell them about The Heath yet.

They were upset, as I knew they would be. Blake punched a hole in the wall of the office, snarling that they should never have let me go there. Shade, pissed as well, clenched his jaw and his fists and ground out that it would be worse if John thought I wasn’t playing ball.

He's right, of course. I know it just as he does. John still has absolute control over my life however much we pretend he doesn’t.

He can sell me to the Bandervilles. And, once that’s done, that power cedes to Joe and his family.

They, like John, can use the system to do what they want.

They can keep me prisoner like they do with the clearly indoctrinated Martha and their beaten-down sister.

Joe could have me taken back to The Heath if I don’t do whatever he wants. Or maybe put in a facility closer so that he can visit me, probably force me to get pregnant with the next generation of monstrous Bandervilles. Yeah, he could easily do that. Legally, probably.

The thought makes me break out into a cold sweat and feel like I’m going to throw up, but I say it all out loud and by the horror in Blake’s face when I do, and the fact that he goes quiet as the grave and sits down, I think he gets it.

‘Jesus,’ he whispers, looking at the other guys. ‘This is… We need to do something .’

‘What?’

‘Take her away from all this.’

I smile at him, sitting down next to him and putting my head on his shoulder. After a moment, he rests his on top of mine.

‘Would you marry me?’ Shade asks.

My heart skips a beat as I look over and see that he’s serious. I’m shocked to realize that I’d say yes under different circumstances, if he really wanted that. But I couldn’t ask that of any of them, not marriage to me, especially not with everything else happening.

‘It wouldn’t matter,’ Blake murmurs, his eyes closed. ‘Daisy can only marry if her guardian approves it. Eloping isn’t a way out of this. The marriage will just be annulled. We need to get out of here. Run.’

‘If I left today, they’d just find me and bring me back,’ I say quietly, giving voice to the other fear I now have.

‘They have money and power. More than we do. Why do you think I wanted Envy to work? I thought I might be able to just leave if I had enough money. I thought maybe I could disappear. But that was before John made the agreement with the Bandervilles and I realized what kind of a man Joe is. That isn’t going to work.

Joe’s ego won’t let me just disappear. He’ll probably enjoy chasing me. ’

‘She’s right,’ Shade says. ‘Joe would come after her. It’d be a matter of pride.’

‘I wouldn’t let myself be brought back,’ I whisper. ‘I’d die first.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Mav says sharply.

‘Why not? It’s true. I’d rather be dead than live a life like that after…’ I look down. ‘After coming back here and things being…mostly good.’

I look at Shade. ‘What if Joe is at the Christmas gala?’

I had been almost looking forward to it only because I'm hoping we find some information while we're there. A lot of the same people will have been at the party the night my mom was killed. But with Joe or one of the other Bandervilles there making sure they have more reasons to punish me, I don’t think I want to go.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ Shade says grimly.

‘Like you have so far?’ Blake asks with a scoff.

‘Lay off!’ Shade snarls. ‘I’m not going to explain this shit to you again. This isn’t helping!’

‘ You’re not helping!’

‘Enough!’ I shout, standing up and whirling on them. ‘You’re friends. Please don’t let this…’

‘Daisy,’ Shade sighs, ‘don’t be upset. We’re still friends when we fight.’

‘We’re more. We’re brothers when we fight,’ Blake says quietly, taking my hand. ‘We all care about each other. That’s not going to change no matter what we might say to each other, okay, Gorgeous?’

I nod jerkily.

‘Sit down,’ Blake says, taking me to the couch, and pulling me into his lap. ‘I’m sorry we’re fighting. We’re just?—’

‘Scared,’ Shade finishes, and Blake and Mav nod.

‘Let’s put on a movie and relax for a while,’ Mav suggests. ‘We’re all caught up with everything. Let’s just take a minute to chill.’

He opens Blake’s laptop, and I sink against Blake. A minute later, Shade sits down with us and, after giving Blake a friendly shove, takes my legs and puts them on his lap.

I relax, and it’s remarkably easy to do so here with them. Mav was right. I do enjoy being at the club. Once I pass through its doors, there are no windows to the outside. No one can see me. No one knows I'm here. Just them.

I haven't heard anything more from the stalker since the crumpled note that was thrown at me either.

I know it's only a matter of time, but maybe he doesn't yet realize, since he can't see me in the cameras in the house anymore, that I'm not living there at the moment.

When he does figure it out, will he try to find me? Will he come here looking for me?

Just then, a small message pops up in the middle of Blake’s laptop screen.

‘It’s done!’ Blake says excitedly. ‘The program that was rebuilding those files. It’s finally finished.’

I move so that he can have his knees back, and he takes the laptop. He goes to the desk and sits down to, I guess, see if his fix has worked.

Shade grabs a tablet and puts on the same movie, and the rest of us sit together to watch it without Blake while he works.

About an hour later, he suddenly sits upright. 'Holy shit.'

'What is it?' Shade asks, and Blake looks over his laptop at us.

'I think I might have found something. I was looking through the files that were reconstructed. To be honest, most of it’s just the KIP guys doing their usual shit. Except for this.'

He turns his laptop around, and we can see some grainy footage of what looks like a man in a hat skulking up the stairs to the top of the house.

‘Do you recognize him?’

We all squint at the screen. ‘He’s not a KIP guy, I don’t think,’ Shade says finally, ‘but it’s pretty grainy. It’s hard to tell’

'Can you follow him on the cameras?' I ask. ‘Where does he go?’

Blake shakes his head a little and turns the laptop back to face him. 'I'm not sure. Let me just—' He clicks a few things and then he turns it back around, and we see the same figure going into my room.

'When was this?' I mutter, watching him skulk around and then leave a note on the desk.

I watch myself come into the room on crutches a few minutes later, completely unaware that a stranger had been in my room, and I shudder.

'October,’ Mav mutters. 'Why is it so degraded?'

Blake shakes his head. 'The virus. There's nothing I can do about that. It's the best that we're gonna get. I can try to clean it up a little more, but I don't think we’ll be able to figure out who it is from this.'

Shade's eyes narrow. 'Well, it’s a male, that much we can tell. Blond hair. Look at the way he's walking. He's solid. Maybe six foot, or a little less.

Mav nods. 'And look,' he points at the image. 'He's not a big guy, but his shoulders are wide. You can tell he doesn’t lift. He has more of a runner’s build.'

The guys nod and I tilt my head at the screen, trying to figure out what they're seeing. To me, it just looks like a grainy guy.

'What about the clothes?'

Shade tilts his head to the side. 'The jacket—it's designer.'

'How can you tell?'

He squints. 'It’s from a couple years ago. I'm sure of it.'

'So, this guy's probably got money.'

Shade sighs. ‘Narrows it down to about thirty percent of Richmond. I wish we had more to go on.’

‘At least it's something,’ Mav says.

Blake nods. ‘I'll get a still shot and see what I can do with it. I might be able to clean it up, maybe figure out some of the features.'

'Do it,' Shade mutters and then he sits back and holds me close. 'We're going to find out who this asshole is.’

‘We need a real plan regarding the Bandervilles, too,' I say.

Their eyes all find each other, giving each other those looks I can’t understand.

‘I have, what, four months ’til I'm forced to marry into his horrible family. I can't do it,' I say to them. 'I can't marry him. It'll be worse than—' I almost say The Heath,—'anything that I've ever dealt with before,' I amend.

'Maybe I should just try to disappear,' I say quietly. ‘Even without the money. If I do unexpected things, he might not catch up to me.’

'No,’ Mav snarls. 'Don't you dare talk like that.'

He stands up and takes my hand.

'Promise me,' he says. 'Promise me you won't try. Because I swear to God, if you run, we will go to the ends of the earth to find you. There'll be nowhere you can hide from us either, Tulip.'

My eyes widen, only just realizing that they really would try to find me and not give up until they had. I try to shake off my surprise and reply.

'Then we need to come up with another way to get me out of this,' I say, 'or I'm going to have to, even if I don't get my degree.' I roll my eyes. 'Joe's not going to let me keep going to Richmond U anyway, even though he thinks—in his words—that I'm doing a ‘little art degree’.’

'Condescending asshole,' Blake mutters. 'You're a hundred times smarter than him.'

I smile at him. 'Thanks,' I say, and settle back to watch the movie.