All Grown Up (Eden High)

We had to practically drag Jared away from Belle, or Red as he calls her, something he’d eased up on doing since one of the SEALs calls his woman by the same nickname. Come to think of it; there’re a lot of name repeats in this bunch. One of the guys Mancini has us in contact with is also named Jace, but his is short for Jason, I think, and then Lyon’s right-hand man is Jared as well. Apparently, as far as I can tell anyway, Shane and I are the only two who don’t share a name with anyone else.

Yeah, I’m nervous; that’s why my mind is thinking of ignorant shit. I was all but vibrating by the time I took my seat and waited. Jace was playing around on his phone while the others leaned in. Then he looked up and around the rest of us two seconds before I was ready to lose my shit. “Right, Track, you tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

“So, we threw around some ideas as to who could be sending the notes; it came down to Liz or Kelly since they’re the only two left that had any real ties to Mandy before she was sent up. The rest of her little crew pretty much distanced themselves long before the case even went to trial and, from what we can tell, hasn’t been in contact with her since.

The fact that Liz and Kelly were the ones who helped put her away made it seem almost impossible, but we looked anyway.” I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to go on. His ‘we looked’ means he’d hacked into their shit. “It’s Liz…” I started to jump out of my chair, but Jace stopped me.

“Let him finish; if after he’s done, you still want to go break her neck, then I’ll drive you over there.” I took my seat again, but I was steaming. It’s a fact that Mandy’s two sidekicks had come around in the end, but their years of abusing Cassie weren’t that easily swept under the rug.

It’s true that until Sian came along, my brothers and I had no real idea of the damage they’d done, but once we learned about it, we’d put a stop to it ASAP. All of our women had borne the brunt of their shit, but none more so than Cassie. I still have no idea why she’d gone after her so hard. It seems that even her affair with Cassie’s dad stemmed from her jealousy of Cassie, but there’s still no real concrete evidence to back that up.

“Tell me!”

“It looks like Mandy is blackmailing her.”

“With what?”

“She hasn’t spelled it out, but reading between the lines, it seems like Liz’s dad was one of Mandy’s victims, she’s using that against her somehow.”

Once Track was through talking, it was Jace’s turn to chime in. “It’s your call how we move forward with the information. We can either work with her and get her out from under Mandy’s thumb, or we can burn her along with her.” My first instinct was to make her pay for scaring the shit out of my girl, but I’m no stranger to the evil that is Mandy.

“Shane, you know her better than the rest of us; what do you think?”

“Liz is…slow, she’s not the brightest bulb, but I think it’s more naivety than anything else. She’s a follower, but I never got the sense that deep down, she was pure evil, not like Mandy.”

“So you think we should work with her.”

“That’s your call.”

It was a lot to think about. My original plan was to go scorched earth on whoever was involved, but if Liz was being played by Mandy, self-preservation is understandable, still… “How about we wait and see? We just got here; if Liz realizes we’re here and comes to us for help, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, if not…”

“What if she’s too scared to come forward?”

“Let me ask you this Track; imagine your wife or one of our sisters in the same predicament; what do you think they’d do?” I watched each of their faces and uncle Chad’s, who’s been quiet until now. His smile told me he knew what I was getting at and that I was on the right track.

“We know she turned on Mandy at the end, but the truth is, she was part of that clique for a long time. If she’s really changed, and Mandy is, in fact, forcing her to do this, then it means it’s not something she really wants to do. If that’s the case, shouldn’t she want a way out?”

“Makes sense! So we’ll give her until the end of day tomorrow before we act.” Jace still had a concerned look on his face after saying this.

“What is it?”

“We think the women have been snooping; we just can’t figure out their angle. I don’t know what they plan to do with the information they find or what the hell they know, but they’re acting mighty suspicious lately.”