Falling for Hadley: A Novel (Chasing the Harlyton Sisters 2)

I sound less convincing than I want to. While I want to believe everything is fixable, this time around, I feel like I have no control over the situation. Like all these unseen forces are flying at me from all angles and there’s no way to avoid one without letting another smack me in the face.

Tears start to burn in my eyes, so I increase my speed, zooming well past the speed limit as I near the school. The houses and buildings lining the street blur by. But heart only thunders in my chest instead of relaxing. And my pulse only increasing when flashing blue and red lights flash from behind me.

“Shit.” I grasp the shifter. “I should’ve taken the back roads.”

For a split-second, I deliberate trying to outrun them, but then I remember how I need to behave so I can get guardianship over my sisters. So, I pull over and park beside the curb.

The school is only a few blocks down so basically every car that drives by probably belongs to someone I’m going to see at school today.

Great. I’m sure this little incident will only add to the whole flyer episode.

Sighing, I get my proof of registration and insurance from the glovebox and dig my driver’s license from out of my bag. Then I glance in the rearview mirror, trying to get a vibe on the cop approaching my car.

He looks young, maybe in his early twenties, and is decked out in a uniform. He’s got that douchebag walk, his legs a bit spread apart too far and his shoulder exaggeratedly swaying. He looks like he thinks he’s the shit, which means a big old fat ticket is going to be written for me.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try to sweet talk my way out of this.

Opening and flexing my hands, I plaster on a fake innocent smile as the officer stops beside my door and lowers his head to look into the cab.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” he asks.

He has a nice face, smooth angles, a straight nose. If Bailey or Payton were here, they’d nickname him Officer Yummy or something like that. Me, I’ll just refer to him as Officer Please Let Me Off the Fucking Hook.

“Because I was slightly speeding?” I say more as a question.

“Slightly?” He frowns. “I clocked you going thirty-seven miles over the speed limit. That’s pushing toward reckless endangerment.”

“Oh.” My fake smile fades. “I’m sorry. I was just …” I rack my brain for some dumb excuse to give him, like I’m on my period or something, but he holds up his hand.

“I don’t want to hear excuses,” he says. “I just need to see your license, registration, and insurance.”

I hand them over, noticing a raised scar on his palm, like someone slashed his hand open. Maybe that’s exactly what happened. Cops’ jobs can get dangerous, right? Especially for the cops in Honeyton, who are being bought off by Axel and Blaise’s father.

Crap, crap, crap. Double crap. What if this officer is being paid off and recognizes my name on my driver’s license? Will he know about Mel? Will he hand me over to Axel? Does Axel even want me? Blaise said he’d try to use us to get to my father but never gave me the specifics on how.

I stab my fingernails into my palms, struggling to surrender to the urge to just rev up the engine and take off as Officer—I glance at his nametag—Mklinney scans over my license.

He presses his lips together, lifting his gaze to mine. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”

I dig my fingernails deeper into my palms, my gaze traveling to the rearview mirror as he walks away and climbs into his car. Then he takes out his phone and makes a call.

I tap my foot against the floor, twitchy and irritated with myself.

I should’ve just drove to school with the Porterson brothers. Then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess.

Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I bottle down my pride and reach for my phone that’s in my bag so I can text Blaise. But Officer Mklinney returns before I can pick it up.

“I’m going to need you to step out of your car.” He hands me back my license, registration, and insurance card.

I toss them onto the passenger seat. “Why?”

“Because,” he says, looping his fingers through his belt loop.

Getting a bad-cop-I’m-about-to-do-something-really-sketchy-and-abuse-my-authority vibe, I peer around the area to see how many witnesses are around. A couple of people are wandering around the parking lot just to my right and enough people are driving down the road that if he took me somewhere, he’d definitely be seen. The real question, though, is how many people in Honeyton would do something about it? From everything Blaise has told me, my bet is not a whole hell of a lot.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. “I’m an officer of the law here in Honeyton.”

“Like that makes me feel any better,” I grumble as I shove open the door and climb out.

He signals for me to follow him as he hikes back to his vehicle. I begrudgingly obey, trying to remain positive and focus on the fact that he didn’t cuff me. But when we near the back end of his vehicle and a sleek, black car with tinted windows pulls up, my fear spikes.

Is that the car that was parked in my driveway this morning?

I slam to a halt, my boots scuffing in the gravel, and start to turn to run.

“Relax,” officer Mklinney says, sticking his arm out in front of me. “Mr. Porterson would just like a word with you.”

Mr. Porterson, as in Blaise’s father?

I eyeball the car. “About what?”

“Just about some stuff,” Officer Mklinney replies vaguely, putting on his sunglasses. “Look, you really don’t have a choice. Either you can get in the car or I can haul you down to the station and you can talk to him there.”

“Just talk, my ass,” I mutter as the back door to the car is opened.

No one steps out, which is both creepy and ominous. Maybe I should try to run. But my father attempted to do that once when he was being arrested and his ass got tased.

Opening and flexing my hands, I summon up every ounce of my courage and march up to the vehicle like I’m a badass girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone. Because it’s either that or act like the scared little girl I feel like inside. The one who wishes she’d broke down at the house and blacked out for a couple of hours because it’s got to be the better alternative than what’s about to happen to me.

Hadley

If I could go back in time, there’s a lot of things that I’d changed. The biggest being, of course, telling my mom not to race that day. But another would be to deal with my father a hell of a lot sooner, before things got so out of hand that I’m forced to sit in the backseat of a car with very tinted windows and suspiciously smells like rusty nails and salt. The really creepy part is no one is in here but the driver, an older dude with dark hair wearing a chauffeur hat, with a scruffy jawline, and sporting a suit. He hasn’t uttered a damn word to me. And honestly, I’m a really freaked out, not just about the situation but because who the hell opened the back door of the car right before I climbed in?

“Tell me where you’re taking me,” I demand for the fifteen

th time as he drives me farther away from my car and toward who the hell knows where.

When he remains silent, my temper boils. I scoot to the edge of the seat and extend my hand for the door handle, fully planning on jumping out of a moving vehicle. But the door is locked. I try to manually unlock it, but to no avail.

I glare at the driver. “Dude, did you put the child safety lock on?”

His lips quirk, as if he’s on the verge of laughing at me. “Just relax. We’re almost there.”

“Oh, so you can speak.” I slump back in the leather seat and cross my arms. “For a minute there, I thought maybe you were mute or didn’t speak English. Well, either that or you were stupid and didn’t know how to speak.”

His lips twitch again.

Well, at least the mobster’s driver thinks I’m amusing.

But is Blaise’s dad even a mobster? Sure, he’s corrupt but the term mobster hasn’t been throw out from anyone and wasn’t mentioned in any of the dirt I dug up on him. Calling him one seems a bit over the top. I mean, a mobster of Honeyton, population next to nothing.

Then again, with everything I’ve seen and read…

My thoughts trail off as the driver turns onto a winding, paved driveway that stretches up a shallow hill and toward a three-story mansion with columns and a six-car garage.

“Holy shit! Who the hell lives here?” I mutter, my eyes wide as I take in probably one of the biggest houses I’ve ever laid eyes on.

“This is Mr. Porterson’s house,” the driver replies with a small smile.

“This is Blaise’s dad’s house?” I question with skepticism.

The driver nods. “One of the finest in Honeyton.”

That leaves a foul taste in my mouth. Blaise and his brothers live in one of the shittiest houses in Honeyton whereas their dad lives in this godly mansion that looms over the city like freakin’ batman—although, I doubt the dude is anything like batman. How is that far? What kind of father would be okay with his kids living in a shithole when they clearly don’t have to? Then again, who am I to judge when my father beat the shit out of me just last night?