Page 4 of These Shattered Memories

I pulled the Death card for you this morning,” Halle says, placing a Strawberry Shortcake-themed mug of hot chocolate on the table in front of me. On the Sundays we’re not working, Halle and I try new breakfast places and assign it a rating out of ten.

After that, we come back to one of our apartments to watch a movie with hot chocolate or some fancy cocktail she’s learnt how to make from the internet or from the high-end bar she works in—well used to work in.

They fired her as soon as they heard she might be up for the murder of a client she met in their establishment.

It’s always been our dream to open up a bar of our own since we were in Canning working late shifts for under the table pay. Maybe when we’re old and grey. Maybe when we survive this.

“Why does that sound ominous?” I ask.

Her apartment smells of sage and almost every surface is covered in creeping ivies that I suspect will soon take over the entire living area if she isn’t careful. There’s one I suspect listens in to our conversations.

She laughs, her eyes catching the blurry silver light. “That solely depends on you.”

“Of course it does.”

She rolls her eyes. “The card fell sideways, so it could mean anything.”

I remember the night Halle moved in with us at Jim and Irina’s place. She had a wild mess of curly hair and eyes that looked too large for her face. I was the youngest foster kid they were taking care of and the two older boys enjoyed using me as a punching bag to ease their childhood traumas.

Halle was a year older but just as small and yet somehow she packed a mean punch. She taught me how to punch them back— knuckles up, palm down and just go for it —and we’ve been inseparable since. From the streets of Canning to a life across the river.

Everything we’ve ever wanted.

“Anything like what?” I ask.

She sighs loudly, as if she’s the one being inconvenienced. Her interests have jumped from the occult to astrology to palmistry. Name it and she’s tried it. Her latest obsession is Tarot, and I’ve received dozens of messages with pictures of card spreads I barely understand.

She crosses her legs on the plush blue couch across from me, a golden cuff circling her tattoo-covered left arm. “If the card is upright, it can mean you’re letting go of old patterns, or you’re transforming into something new and releasing bad energy.”

That doesn’t sound so bad. I really need a breakthrough right about now. “And if it’s upside down?”

“If it’s upside down, it can mean you’re afraid of changing or that you’re repeating old and harmful patterns. It could point to stagnancy and, at worst, decay.”

“Fun,” I mutter.

“Are you refusing to let go of old patterns, Alex?” She wiggles her brows with a playful smile. “Ex-boyfriend maybe?”

My mug pauses at my lips. Of course, I know she’s messing with me, but it still makes my heart stutter.

She’s the only one I’ve ever confided in about Rowan, and even then, I kept the details vague.

To the OCU, I was a rising star who had successfully infiltrated the most dangerous clan in Senna.

But the truth is, it didn’t make me a great detective—it just meant I fell in love with him, and he was intrigued enough to let me stick around.

Not wanting to keep my thoughts spiralling because of Rowan, I turn the attention back on Halle. “Has the lawyer been in touch?”

She immediately loses the smile and sighs quietly, “Yeah, she says his security cameras inside the apartment didn’t pick up anything. They mostly focused on his safe and his office.”

I grit my teeth. The footage from the apartment was the final Hail Mary. Right now, she still has no alibi. She was in the apartment with Richard alone.

“Halle…”

She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t do it, Alex. I was asleep and then I woke up and found him at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t kill him. His family are just assholes.”

I nod. I know she’s innocent, but it’s getting harder and harder to prove as each minute ticks by. “I know, I know. I just … I’ll figure something out, okay?”

Her final lifeline is whoever is behind those emails. I just need to find a name before an arrest is made and this could all be over. Not for the first time, I say a quiet prayer to whoever is listening that they aren’t playing me, even though I have a sinking feeling they are.

Across from me, Halle scrunches her nose slightly. “I hope you’re not working yourself up over this. I don’t need you to take care of me,” she says. “It’s my job to take care of you. It has always been.”

“I know,” I say. “But let me try at least? Just this one time, and then you can go back to being the overbearing older sister.”

She gives me a careful once-over before smiling easily, as if we aren’t discussing her potential murder trial. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”

“Might head to the gym and then read up on a case.” I don’t like lying, but I know she’ll want to know more about Rowan if I tell her I’m meeting up with him. I don’t think I’m ready to open that can of worms yet. “You?”

“I need to pick up a new plant, and Solena asked me out for a drink tonight. You remember her, right?”

Solena is one of the many girls Halle keeps in her harem of admirers. “The one you moved in with after a week? The one who also keyed your car?”

She grins. “The very one.”

I laugh, my first genuine one in days. “Why did she do that again?”

“Something about me being too friendly with a waiter.” She waves a dismissive hand. “But that’s in the past. Jesus says you have to forgive.”

“Oh, so you’re religious now?”

She rolls her eyes. “Obviously not, but He is right in that one regard.”

I grin. “I think that Death card was actually for you. Maybe you need to let go of old patterns and stop being stagnant.”

She barks out a laugh. “Oh, I’m so getting you a deck for your birthday. You might have a gift.”

It’s October now, and my birthday is in February. I swallow, a ripple of fear traveling through me. If I don’t move quickly, Halle won’t make it to my birthday, she won’t even make it to her own in December.

I look down at my watch. It’s nearly three in the afternoon.

Time to go meet Rowan.

***

The night I met Rowan, I was sitting at the bar in Summit, loud house music pumping from the speakers, a breathy voice mourning a lost love over the thumping base.

Red and gold strobe lights flashed through the room as I watched him approach me, confidence seeping out of his pores like everything and everyone in the room belonged to him, which I suppose was true.

His voice was smoky and his scent a blend of vanilla, spiced amber, and wealth.

I was supposed to charm him, but the way he looked at me, his eyes full of nothing but lust, left me completely undone.

I’d studied his file, looked at as many pictures of him as I could, but nothing prepared me for the real thing.

Rowan Vasilyev was made of hard glass, all beautiful lines that could cut if you got too close.

But I knew how to lie through my teeth by then, knew how to smile and preen to keep myself alive. So, I smiled back at him and let him have me. It’s how I’d learnt to survive for all those years being passed from home to home and finally shelter to shelter with Halle.

In a few minutes of speaking, I realised pretending with Rowan wouldn’t be difficult. I liked the way his hand felt against the small of my back, steady and sure. I liked the way he looked at me, like I was the most important thing, even if I knew he looked at everyone like that.

Rowan knew how to possess things, and I was more than ready to let him have me.

Now, I lean against my car, a standard issue sleek sedan that goes fast enough if you’re ever caught in a high-speed chase, not that I ever am.

The rain has stopped but the clouds refuse to let up, a miserable omen for the months to come.

We’re in a quiet part of the city, Harrow, the old industrial part of the city that has been transformed into a low-cost housing area.

Out here, old mill houses have been turned into tight apartment buildings with stained paint and rusty gutters.

But it’s out of the way, away from any unwanted eyes that undoubtedly follow Rowan as the potential heir to The Snake.

My shoulders are heavy with tension as I look at him now. He’s wearing trendy sunglasses despite the lack of sun, but they do nothing to hide just how attractive he is.

“So, what changed your mind?” I ask, picking at the peeling skin on my thumb.

I need a cigarette or a joint. Maybe both.

I’m not half as nervous as I was when we met a few days ago or even when he called yesterday, but there is still that feeling of apprehension, like if I’m not careful, he might actually kill me.

“Who said I did?” he asks,

Standing up, we’re pretty much the same height, but Rowan has more muscle on him.

He works out, and in his short-sleeved t-shirt, thick veins trail up his arms like they are trying to escape his body.

They are bare, but I’m wildly aware of the serpent tattoo that traces his back in hypnotic black lines, marking allegiance to his clan and his family.

I purse my lips, my eyes falling on a woman dragging her screaming toddler out of the convenience store. She lets him go and begins to walk away from him, but all he does is scream more.

I turn away, focusing back on Rowan. “Forgive me for my confusion, but you explicitly asked me to stay away from you, and then you asked me to come here,” I say. “I think that’s the definition of changing your mind.”

He laughs quietly then, “Okay, you got me. I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to help.”

“Cut the bullshit, Rowan. Why ?”

“Why wouldn’t I want to help you?” He tilts his head.

He’s baiting me, but I’m not going to bite. I shake my head, somehow already exhausted. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I haven’t been sleeping well for weeks.

“You called me here to talk about Haze?”

He watches me for a second, but I can’t read his eyes hidden behind the dark sunglasses. Finally, he nods and says, “I also need to know who is behind it, so I figured we could help each other out.”

It’s my turn to tilt my head. “Why?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

I try to remember whether he has always been so frustrating, but maybe there was no time for me to experience this part of his personality between all the sex and lies.

“You can’t ask me to show you mine and then refuse to show yours,” I say.

“From what I recall, you were always quite happy to show yours without me showing mine. What’s changed?”

My cheeks flare and I hope to God I don’t look as embarrassed as I feel.

He must read the look on my face, because he chuckles quietly.

“Okay, fine. I don’t need to know why you’re so curious about Haze, but it must be a huge secret if you don’t have any backup.

You weren’t carrying your gun when we first met and you’re not carrying it now, which is another sign you’re not on official police business,” he says with a triumphant smile. “So, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

I instinctively reach for my hip, where I usually stow my .9mm. Of course he’d notice I don’t have it. I take in a quiet breath, tempted to get into my car and drive back to work, but I need him more than he needs me right now and judging by the way he’s smiling at me, he knows it too.

“Okay, you win,” I say finally, “But I don’t have much.

That’s why I called you. All I know is that Haze is relatively new on the street.

It’s being passed off as a new fashion party drug, a combination of molly and some other shit.

There isn’t much on it in the databases either.

So far, four deaths have been reported in the last three weeks and, like I said last time, I think they are connected to Haze, but I can’t be sure.

The autopsies have all come back inconclusive. ”

“Five,” Rowan says.

“What?”

“Five deaths.”

I bite my lip, my mind whirring. I’ve been keeping an eye on any drug-related or inconclusive deaths that have happened at parties or clubs around Senna recently, but nothing has come up since the last one, a twenty-two-year-old college student and lacrosse player who was found dead in his bed the morning after a party.

He was healthy with no underlying conditions, but when he was discovered, his body was already in rigor mortis, just like the other three.

I don’t think I should ask about how Rowan knows the about the fifth death either. Positive deniability and all. Not that it matters.

“All right, five deaths then. It’s unclear whether Haze itself is causing the deaths, or they are simply overdoses. That’s why no one has rung the alarm bells yet, but the college kids have latched onto it, and things could get pretty ugly fast.”

“So, this is a noble cause? You hate seeing kids who spend mommy and daddy’s money on drugs dying?” he asks.

Asshole , I think, but I smile instead. “Your lack of self-awareness is truly astounding.”

Rowan doesn’t lose that self-satisfied smirk on his face. “Oh, he bites.”

I should leave.

“I don’t know who is behind it, but I’ve done a bit of digging and I know someone who can point us in the right direction.”

I pause. It’s more than I have currently, and any clue would be the first breakthrough I’ve had since I got that email.

“Who?” I ask, turning back to him.

“I’m meeting him this Friday. You want to come?”

I narrow my eyes. This feels too easy. Why is he suddenly so willing to help me?

“Don’t worry, it’s not a trap, Alex,” he says, like he read my mind.

“Then why?”

He shrugs. “What can I say? I’ve missed you.”

My heart all but stumbles to a stop, my eyes widening but his grin quickly tells me he’s fucking with me and it’s working. I school my features, balling my hands into fists and biting down whatever feeling is making my neck hot.

“Friday is too late. I’m working on a deadline.”

Even though I can’t see his eyes behind his shades, I know he wants to pry. But he won’t. We’re staying out of each other’s way after all and if I told him the truth, it’s more than likely he would find a way to use it against me. That’s how it works.

“Fine, tomorrow night?” he asks.

“Good with me.”

“Great, wear something pretty.”

And then he’s walking back to his car, and I have to watch him drive away, my stomach in knots. I’ve seen Rowan twice in the last three days after two years. Of course, I feel a little unbalanced, but I have to stay focused. Rowan is a means to an end, just like he was before.