Panic (Rook and Ronin 3)

I’ve never heard that name. Who the f**k? “So? Why do they want to talk to me?”

“They think you have something of Jon’s. Something you got in Vegas. Did you get something of Jon’s in Vegas, Rook?”

My entire body is buzzing with anxiety right now. What the hell is all this about? I want to say I never went to Vegas and I have nothing of Jon’s, not a damn thing. But I’m just not sure I should play that card so soon. “What if I did?”

Wade breathes out a sigh of relief. “Oh, f**k, thank God. You need to hand that over, Rook. These people are not f**king around, OK? They want that information and if you saw any of it, you better pretend you didn’t.” He stops and grabs my shoulders with both hands. “Did you read any of it?”

I shake my head, far too frightened to actually form words right now.

“Where is it?” His eyes race around my face like he’s too amped up to concentrate on one point for more than a millisecond.

“I never saw it,” I say, backpedaling. I know Jon went to Vegas on business sometimes, but I have no idea what he did there. “I lied, I never saw it. I never went to Vegas, Wade, I came straight here, to Denver. You can check, I was in a homeless shelter, then I had a house-cleaning job—”

“So you never went to Vegas? Do you know if he had a security box there?”

I nod my head, because he is freaking me the f**k out and I need to give up something. “But I don’t know anything else about it. Not where it is or how to get into it, nothing.”

“Well, they checked the box, Rook. And it’s empty.” He sorta laughs here, but it’s one of those I’m-about-to-go-insane laughs and my heart rate jacks up about a thousand notches. “So that means someone has the stuff.” He shakes his head. It’s a jerky motion that definitely tells me he’s about to lose it and then he turns, his head down a little so his eyes are peeking up at me though a curtain of wet hair and dark lashes. He whispers, “Do you have the stuff?”

I swallow down the fear and say calmly, “I have no stuff, Wade. I don’t have anything of Jon’s.”

“Rook, listen to me, OK? You and those guys you’re with are the only ones who’ve had access to Jon, OK? So one of you has the shit they’re looking for. And let me just tell you, these people are not f**king around, OK?”

Each time he says ‘OK,’ the pitch of his voice raises, making him sound even more crazy, and my whole body begins to tremble, because I might not get out of this. Wade is not acting right.

“If you have it, Rook, you gotta tell me. Because they’ve got my mom, Rook. They’ve got my mom locked up on some fake-ass charges and they’ll send her to prison if I don’t figure out where this shit is. Do you understand?”

This snaps me back from the edge of fear and puts me on the offense immediately. “Am I supposed to give a shit about your mother?” I laugh. “Really? Let them lock her up! After what she did to me!”

“I’m sorry about that. I tried to stop her, you know that. I tried to stop her from sending you back to the State. She just wouldn’t listen and she threatened to cut me off. I needed her help to race.”

“You were a grown-ass man, Wade. You were eighteen years old. You could’ve helped me if you cared one shit about what was happening.”

“Yeah, and you were underage, Rook. It’s called statutory rape, sexual predator-type stuff—it was a huge risk.”

He’s serious. This ass**le thinks that saving me from living on the streets, from those crack-houses the f**king foster care people sent me to… saving me was a risk? “You’re pathetic. You have no idea what it means to take a risk for someone you love. To put it all on the line for them. None. You’re nothing but one pathetic, selfish, f**king ass**le.”

“What was I supposed to do, go to jail for you? That would’ve helped how? How would throwing my life away help you?”

“Oh, you poor, poor baby. And for your information, Jon was twenty-one when he found me. And he sure the f**k found a way to keep me.”

“Yeah, and look what that sick f**k was doing!”

“And you know who I blame for all those years, Wade? Just take one educated guess.” I stop to glare at him, the full depth of my hatred for everyone who ever met me as a child coming out, seeping through my pores like some hot sticky mess left over from all that sex I had with Jon as a teenager. All that filthy f**king sex that was not anything close to love. That entire relationship made me feel dirty, and unwanted, and useless, and… and… and insignificant.

“You, that’s who,” I say in a whisper. “I blame you for all the terrible, horrific things that happened to me back in that house. All of it. It’s one hundred percent your fault. Because I was just a girl, you were a man. I asked you for help. You said you loved me, for f**k’s sake. And then you just walked out. You are nothing but a selfish f**king piece-of-shit coward! You left me to live on the streets, to be picked up by that predator, to be held under his thumb for years.”

“That wasn’t me, Rook. I had nothing to do with that. That wasn’t—”

“You are the darkness, Wade. You are nothing but my dark, disgusting past trying to suck me back in to a life of shame.”

“I just want to say I’m sorry, Rook. And please, just listen to me about this FBI stuff, OK? I need you to—”