I exited the hotel with Jay and his two guys without any trouble, but then again, I'd been leaving the hotel around this time for the past week and a half. I didn't expect anyone to be up. They were all sound asleep in their beds and it made sense to be why no one could see to find many spottings of gang activity during the day. Everyone was out at night and if they were out in the daytime, well, they knew the backstreets better than my co-workers did.
As I went to leave the hotel and walk out onto the sidewalk, I noticed that Jay and his crew had veered off to the side and toward the parking lot. Quickly, I ran to catch up to them, falling into step next to him.
I looked up at him but he kept his eyes straight ahead.
"You have a car?" I asked.
His eyes found mine for a second and I saw the annoyance in them.
"You could have picked me up from the alley ways in your car but I've been walking around this whole time?" I accused. I didn't really mind but I still found it odd.
Most of the time, I saw the gang out and walking lately.
"And you parked it here?" My eyes widened as he unlocked a large sedan, the lights flickering as he did so. "Every other time I was with him, he dropped me off like, miles and miles from the hotel," I exaggerated, not wanting to say Travis' name out loud.
Jay rolled his eyes and looked innocently at me from the top of his car, his hands resting on the hood. "We're just three businessmen, coming in here for a meeting," he replied professionally. I realized that apart from the blood stain on his shirt and their massive size, they were all dressed very formal and his words could sound true to anyone who didn't know him.
"It would look weird if we didn't park here," he argued and hopped in.
The two guys got into the backseat and I felt bad. I opened the front door and stuck my head in, looking at them.
"Do one of you want to sit in the front?" I asked.
"No thanks," one said while the other shook his head to decline.
I hesitantly got in the front and moved my seat up as much as I could so the guy behind me could have as much legroom as possible. They were much bigger, both width wise and height wise so surely they would appreciate the extra leg room if they got the front seat but I guess not.
Jay started driving and it was weird to be in the car with one of the Casey members and not be flying at least twenty miles over the speed limit. He was actually going the speed limit, coming to a full stop at all of the stop signs, and using his blinker. Jay was probably a better driver than I was.
I turned around in my seat.
"I'm Lacey, by the way." I waved at the men.
One of them chuckled but tried to hide it with his hand.
"They know who you are," Jay said, keeping his eyes on the road.
I turned to look back at the guys in the backseat and one shrugged, guilty.
"You can call me Q and this is Max. We all know who you are," Q explained with a shrug, trying not to look too guilty. I tried not to point out that Max obviously was the odd man out of this 'letter thing' Jay and Q had going on. Though, I suspected Q wasn't the name on his birth certificate.
Sitting forward, I let his words soak in. That seemed to be a trend yet I never knew who anyone was. The girl at the hospital, Hannah, knew who I was after three years of time. Jay and Eli knew who I was before I knew them, Officer Gordon and all of the Dacosta gang knew who I was. And now apparently all of the Casey gang knew who I was.
"Why?" I asked, keeping my gaze out the window as Jay drove.
No one said anything and I didn't know if the two in the back were waiting for Jay to speak up or not, so I kept going.
"Surely I'm not the only girl besides Annabeth that has stepped foot in Melkin but everyone here seems to act like it," I said. "Have you guys not seen girls before?"
Jay drummed his fingers on the steering wheel awkwardly. "We've seen chicks. Some of the other guys have girlfriends, too."
Q leaned forward, pulling against my headrest to hold onto as he did so. "I thought he said she knew." He was talking to Jay.
"She does."
Looking bored out the window, Max answered, "You're Miller's girl."
I groaned. "I swear to god, that's all people know me as here. It's going to say 'Miller's girl' on my gravestone."
Q chuckled but I wasn't trying to be funny. "You don't get it? You think any Casey in their right mind's going to brush past you like a dick and not get their ass handed to them later if Miller finds out?"
I scrunched up my face in confusion.
"You guys know what my job is technically, right?" I asked. I didn't understand why they would actively be nice to someone whose job assignment was to arrest gang members. Sure, I wasn't about to do that to anyone in the Casey gang, but still. I figured it would be like pulling teeth to get people to believe I wasn't about to arrest them.
"If you were anyone else, you wouldn't have made it passed the main gates of the house when you snuck in," Jay said seriously.
I bit my lip. "I don't want people to do things just because they're afraid Travis is going to be mean to them."
Jay shook his head. "That's not how it works. It's not fear. It's respect."
I stayed silent, looking out the window as we pulled up to the Casey mansion, the gates already opened and multiple cars parked along the grass near the front of the house.
"You say jump," Jay added, glancing to me for a second before looking forward and pulling off into the grass, "Someone's going to jump."
My stomach dropped at the sentence. It was one of Cameron's main rules and it was built mainly on trust. I'd learned that first hand trying to use the same method with my training program. Josh never listened. He always did as he wanted and it was usually what caused the whistle to get blown on whatever fake mission we were on when I was in charge and we'd have to start all over. He would never trust that whatever I had envisioned might possibly maybe work out in the end and be better than whatever he had in his head.
The fact that Jay assured me that Casey members would do just that: listen, had me stunned into silence even after the car had shut off.
My door opened and Jay stood there, looking annoyed.
"Are you gonna come in or would you prefer to sneak in like you've been doing?" he asked. "I want to change shirts sometime today."
I snapped out of my daze and hopped out of the car, following the three of them inside the house. Max went his separate way while I followed Jay and Q upstairs. I wanted to pop in Travis' room and I assumed Jay was going to change.
As we were walking up the stairs, I noticed a few guys glance my way.
"Are you sure they're not afraid Travis is going to hurt them?" I whispered.
"They might be a little afraid," he admitted. "But they're not afraid of Ben and they act the same way."
"I thought just Travis was in charge."
Q put a finger up to his head and gave me a sly look. "Ben, Finn, and Travis. But it depends on who you're talking to."
The idea that the three of them, combined, were in charge of things together eased my mind a little bit in all honesty. Only because Ben seemed a bit more level headed than Travis most days.
"You thought it was just Travis? He wouldn't have asked me to babysit you," Jay shot me an amused look. "He doesn't like help. Wanted to do it himself. It took a lot of convincing, apparently."
"Huh." I said, as we walked down the hall. "And if any of my co-workers were to question Finn or Ben..."
"Technically," Jay said, "They're just advisors, if you want to put a label on it. Can't pin it on them."
I wondered who thought of that because it was technically true, that Finn and Ben wouldn't be lying if they said they weren't really the leaders of the gang. But behind the scenes they basically participated in everything that the leader did. Travis just had that "official" title. And my co-workers were running around looking for the leader of the gang while Josh had interacted with Finn and Ben a few times now. It was probably Ben's idea.
I put a hand on the door to Travis' room, as the boys walked by, not bothering to follow me in. No one came in here.
"By the way," Jay yelled slightly, still walking forward. "Travis keeps moaning about you wasting electricity."
I pulled my lips into a smile as I turned the handle of the door and opened it. The light was shut off and my heart soared. The only downside was I kept missing him. He wasn't in here and I knew if he was in the Casey house, Jay would've told me. Or told on me for coming and Travis would've sought me out.
So I couldn't help but wonder where he was all the time and at what times he did he manage to come back.
I slipped out of the room and went back down the to kitchen, carrying my purse in case I saw Ben I could give him the camera and memory card.
A few people were already in here. One looked to be eating dinner. Some looked to be eating breakfast. I wondered what the average sleeping pattern was like in this house.
"Hi," I said, to one of the men as I scooted into a barstool at the counter next to him.
He looked older than I was, for sure. He had long, black hair tired back in a ponytail that looked like it desperately needed a wash.
His spoon paused in the air as I spoke, milk dropping off of it as he tentatively waved to me.
"Where did you get that?" I asked, leaning closer to see what kind of cereal he had. Cheerios.
He pointed to a pantry.
"Thank you," I grinned.
I hopped off the stool and went to it.
God. I highly doubted what Jay said. I was really starting to think most of these guys hadn't seen a girl before. Not even in an egotistical way, but they just barely ever spoke. At all. It was like I was dealing with dozens of Cameron's all at once only with slightly less murderous glares on their faces.
Stepping into the pantry, I glanced at the man I had been talking to. Yeah, definitely not as mean mugged as Cameron had been nearly every time I encountered him. I didn't doubt the men here could be mean but I figured they were here relaxing. Cooling off. But heaven forbid they speak.
"Who does the shopping?" I asked out loud as I glanced at the full pantry. It was full of food and baking supplies but with a house full of guys literally fighting off calories, I guess it had to be stocked.
No one answered.
Shocking.
I read and heard countless times that a way to a man's heart was through his stomach. And while I didn't want in their hearts entirely, I wanted in a little bit. So I started pulling out a bunch of cooking supplies.
"Where's the bowls?" I asked the same guy. He pointed.
I had made sure to turn my phone off before we got close to the Casey house, a habit to not get tracked just in case and I groaned.
"Do you have your phone on you?"
A nod.
"Can you look up a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, please?"
He did so and placed his phone down on the countertop so I could read the ingredients.
"Thank you," I mumbled. "Do you have Ben's number, by the way? I need to give him something," I added as I tried to estimate the measurements. I'd made cookies countless times back home so I could eyeball it for the most part but I was still following the recipe more or less.
And the entire reason I was here was for Ben today. I needed to give him the camera back and I didn't want to give it to just anyone. I wanted to give it specifically to him so it stayed safe, since I would be the one getting in trouble if the pictures got out.
"Yeah," the black haired guy said and quickly grabbed his phone back. He clicked a few buttons before placing it down on the counter.
With my hands full, he'd put it on speaker phone and my heart warmed at this guy just not assuming he'd make the call himself or just ignoring me in general.
After a few rings, Ben's voice filled the kitchen.
"Hello?"
"It's Lacey," I said, pouring the flour into the bowl.
"What are you doing? Are you okay?" he asked, panic easing into his voice.
The man sitting at a table across from the countertop eating dinner took it upon himself to pipe in, yelling slightly so his voice was heard. "She's makin' cookies."
"Pardon?" Ben asked.
"I finished the task," I said, trying not to smile. "I didn't know where to find you to give the camera back."
"Oh, that's great!" Ben said. "Hey, Lacey's at the house," I heard him say, his voice slightly quieter like he was talking to someone else.
"Jay told me," I heard Travis mumble before muttering a string of fucks.
So Jay did have his number. That lying little...I was about to ask if everything was alright when Ben laughed.
"You're dumb, I told you not to touch it" Ben said to Travis. "I'll swing by soon, Lacey."
The call ended and I smiled at the guy in front of me.
"Thanks," I said.
He quickly pulled up the cookie recipe again.
"Do you want help mixing?" he offered.
"Depends. What's your name?" I asked, realizing this entire time I had yet to get it.
I learned it was Carlos and he insisted one batch wasn't going to be enough, which is why he helped mix while I worked on another. A bit later, when multiple batches were done and the smell of cookies filled the kitchen, I had learned the names of multiple guys.
They would come into the kitchen with curious, hungry eyes and I told them they could have some cookies if they told me their name and agree not to refer to me as "Miller's girl".
Almost all of the cookies were gone by now as Carlos and Jay sat on the barstools, munching on some of the last remaining ones.
A handful of guys came in, glared, and left and I was sure they were recruited or trained by Annabeth and Cameron by their attitude. I didn't mind. I didn't expect everyone to like me. But I felt weird with all of these guys knowing so much about me and I didn't even know their names. Most of them probably helped try to take down Sterling which I only added fuel to the fire when I was here years before. So if they were there and helping out, I owed them at least learning their names.
Not to mention, none of these guys seemed to be blabbing that Travis was alive and well.
Someone from earlier came back to get seconds and I smiled at them, trying to be a friendly face, knowing that Travis either wasn't the nicest or scared these guys somehow and they deserved at least some appreciation. I doubted Cameron had handed out thank you cards left and right, either.
Ben popped into the room and he grinned at me. He was covered in dirt and my face scrunched up as he leaned in to give me a one armed hug.
"I thought it was a joke," he said, eyes glancing over the countertop of crumbs.
I shook my head and grabbed my purse, pulling out the camera. "I believe this is for you. There's files that weren't in the room when I was taking pictures but I know they used to be there. I don't know what happened to them. I guess they had it on them?" I tried to reason.
Ben grinned. "No problem. Let me go change out of these clothes and we can check this out," he said.
"Where's Travis?" I asked as he started to leave the room.
"Finishing up some things," was all Ben said before disappearing.
I sat in silence, drawing nonsense into the countertop with my finger. Suddenly, the guys started to hustle around in another room. I assumed they all were about to go out and do something. Or maybe they just all woke up, assuming the sleeping patterns in this house we're so messed up. Screams started all at once.
"Get down!"
"Shit!"
"What the hell?"
"Clear out!"
Before I could even grasp what was happening in the room next to us, there was a loud bang in the kitchen. I ducked down into the ground, covering my ears but I knew my hearing was already temporarily wasted.
Confusion hit me as I tried to get my bearings. I knew I was right next to the counter but all I could see was white smoke pouring into the room. I told myself not to panic, I'd been through training for this type of thing. Ringing filled my ears and I looked down at the ground to see my feet still planted. I reached up blindly looking for my purse in the smoke, relief washing over me when I felt the fabric. I felt around in it for my knife, holding it at the ready as I used my other hand to try to shoo some of the smoke away.
A hand grasped my wrist. I was yanked to my feet and started to get dragged with them, in whatever direction they were headed.
I gripped my knife tighter, my arm swinging back ready to fight. When I caught sight of their face in the smoke, my arm paused in the air.
Jay.
He looked angrily down at me, his lips moving but I couldn't hear what he said as I lowered my knife. He must not have liked my silence because then hands were hitting behind my kneecaps and forcing me to squat again. He had a death grip on my wrist as he trekked his way through the smoke.
I kept my knife out, my hearing slowly returning to me. The screams returned. Gunfire. Yelling. Jay kept pulling me away from the commotion and soon we were out of the smoke. He stood up and started running with me.
"Jay!"
He ignored me, taking me through halls I'd never been to before. He took determined steps forward, not even listening to the chaos around him. My gut dropped as the sounds from the kitchen became quieter and quieter the more he pulled me. Had this been something he planned? He didn't even stick around to see if anyone was okay.
"Jay!"
Nothing.
I pulled against him to try to get him to stop and slow down but he was twice my size. So I tried to pry his hand off my wrist to let me go but it wasn't working. I wanted him to stop, talk to me, tell me where we were going and why we weren't helping others.
He opened a steel door and pulled me into a large, concrete garage and opened the garage door.
"Where the heck," I began as I glanced around at the multiple cars parked inside. I never saw any garage from the front entrance so this much be somewhere in the back of the house.
Expensive cars lined both sides of the garage and my eyes nearly bugged out if my head as I looked. They contrasted with the plain ones I saw out on the main lawn so much. And yet all of these looked ten times better than anything in the Dacosta grounds. If the Dacostas had anything like this, they'd have to ruin it with bad paint jobs or tacky bling to show off their money.
I trailed my hand over a black car that looked fast.
"That's Annabeth's, don't touch. Come on," Jay snapped.
I glanced back at the all black car, down to even the rims. I wondered why I never saw them driving any of these.
He held open the back door to a black Escalade, much like the one I'd seem years earlier but I couldn't be sure if it was the same one or not.
"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to figure out what his plan was.
He didn't wait for my answer. Instead, he practically shoved me in and got in behind me in the backseat. Wait, why was he in the back seat?
"What the hell are you doing?" I screeched.
"My job," he answered, trying to hold my arms down as I went to grab at the door handle to run out of the car.
This was not his job. He made it very clear earlier today what his job was and kidnapping was a different class of babysitting.
"Jay!" I pushed against him, trying to get out of the vehicle if he wasn't going to answer what the heck was going on.
"When the cops show up, you can't be seen here," Jay yelled, trying to restrict my movements to get free.
Wait, what?
I faltered enough for him to get a good grip on me. My head turned to look at him but Ben came barrelling through the door with a small backpack on. He threw it into the passenger seat before getting in. Ben glanced at me for a second before starting the car and speeding out of the garage.
"Wait," I protested as we pulled away from the back of the Casey house. "What? What about everyone? What's happening?"
I could see one side of the house engulfed in smoke and my stomach clenched. Some of the smoke was white and some was black. I just prayed there wasn't a fire.
"We're just leaving them?" I asked angrily the image burned into my head.
"They can hold their own and they know to get out," Ben answered.
"But we just bailed! We didn't even try to help, we have room in the car!" I argued. I tried to gesture with my hands to all of the extra room we had, including and entire passenger seat, but Jay was still restricting me like I was a mental patient.
Suddenly, Jay's phone rang and he hesitantly let go of me like he was afraid I was going to jump out of Ben's speeding vehicle. I scooted to the middle seat, to put at least some distance between us and buckled up.
Jay didn't even say hello before the other person started talking.
"He's at Third and Kent," Jay said before ending the call.
Ben nodded and turned sharply, smashing me slightly into Jay. I looked at his phone and glared.
"Give me that," I said and swiped the phone out of his hand, pressing call on the person who had just called him.
It barely rang before he answered.
"What," he practically growled into the phone and I almost gave the phone back to Jay. Almost.
"What's going on?" I asked Travis.
He was silent for awhile and I thought he'd hung up before I heard a sigh.
"I don't know," he admitted before the line went dead. He didn't need to stay on the phone any longer, I'd already heard it. Travis' voice wavered as he spoke and it was something I could count on one hand the amount of times I'd heard.
He was worried.
"Who attacked us?" I asked as Jay snatched his phone back.
"Dacostas," Jay answered.
"Why?"
No answer.
They didn't know. I thought they'd been fairly civil. But Jay had said he'd pulled me out of there to avoid the cops.
I looked back and even from far away, you could see the destruction to the house. There was definitely a fire now, the black smoke billowing into the morning sky.
I turned on my phone to see if any texts were popping up in the work group chat about it. I was positive you could see at least the smoke from where the hotel was, with how high it was rising in the air.
Nothing was said about it in the chat.
I pulled up my conversations with Josh.
Do you see that out your window?, I texted.
Duh.
What is that??
No idea.
Dylan hasn't pulled you guys into it?
Nope, looking for him now.
Surely a massive destruction of a house like this was the type of noise Dylan and Owen we're searching for. I shut my phone off.
We stopped along the side of a road and I saw the same hooded, masked figure approaching the vehicle from the other day as he stepped out of an alleyway. Travis threw open the passenger door to get in and before he had even shut it all the way, Ben had taken off again.
He took off his mask and his eyes found mine. They traveled over me, looking to make sure I was okay.
"Are you hurt?" he finally asked.
"No," I assured him. My wrist hurt from Jay but that wasn't anything to complain about if it was because he was just trying to get me to safety.
His eyes lingered on me for a big longer before he turned around in his seat and started dusting off a bit of dirt from his clothes. He was nowhere near as dirty as Ben had been.
Ben kept glaring at Travis every now and then.
"What?" Travis finally snapped.
"What did you do?" Ben asked like a scolding parent.
"Fucking nothing," Travis whined, before slouching in his seat and crossing his arms.
Ben kept glaring whenever he had a chance between driving well over the speed limit.
Travis held his hands out for a second in a defensive stance. "I didn't cause that."
"Then we have a big problem," Ben said.
"No fucking shit," Travis said and then mumbled under his breath, "I'm going to get my ass handed to me."
But I'd heard him and my eyes widened. "What?"
I leaned forward in my seat, temporarily choking when Ben hit the breaks to turn and my seatbelt locked on me. The second time, I managed to move without restriction.
"We left everyone just back there. What the hell is going on?" I asked because as far as I knew, the Caseys weren't ones to just up and run from a fight.
I watched as Travis clenched and unclenched his hands a few times.
"I told you, I don't know!"
"Then why don't we turn around and find out," I argued. "Because maybe that's not your home but that's other's homes and we just left them there to fight on their own."
He tightened his jaw and looked at me. "Half of them are probably gone now."
"What?! I just learned their names!"
Travis pinched the bridge of his nose. "I mean they would've left. None of the Caseys would've stayed to fight. Everyone would've bailed. Okay?" he asked, his voice slowly getting calmer as he tried to explain himself to me.
My shoulders relaxed but only slightly. I was tired of being left in the dark and only more questions popped into my head as we drove down the road and I felt the SUV starting to slow. Ben turned into the hospital and I leaned over Jay to look out the window, just to be sure that we were without a doubt, pulling into the hospital. I saw that giant building out his window as Ben found a parking spot near the side of the building, bypassing a ton of available spots which were closer.
I stayed in the car as everyone else got out. Jay left his door open, expecting me to follow but I had no clue what we were even doing here so I didn't move. Travis appeared in the view from the backdoor.
"Let's go," he said.
"Why?" I argued. "Is this because of my wrist? It doesn't even hurt that bad."
He narrowed his eyes and reached into the car to grab at my hands. He lifted the leather jacket that was too big for me to reveal my wrists, one of which had a red hand print forming on it. His eyes looked up at me darkly and I knew he was upset I'd lied when he asked if I was okay earlier.
I quickly pushed the jacket back down and he linked his hand with mine. He used his other to unbuckle me and slowly led me out of the car, our hands still linked. Travis reached back into the car and grabbed my knife, sticking it into the pocket of my jacket.
He shut the door and I kept my feet grounded as much as I could as he started to walk, panic hitting me like cold water.
"Travis! Put your mask on," I hissed through my teeth.
He raised his hand and lifted his hood so it covered some of his face but didn't make any moves to get his mask.
"I can't go in a hospital with a mask on," he said. "They'll probably arrest me."
"Then how about you don't go in at all," I countered because they'll arrest him without it. "You can wait in the car with me."
He shook his head and let go of my hand. "Please listen to me."
"Do you know how many cameras are in a hospital?" I said, trying to keep my voice low so anyone walking by wouldn't hear but all I wanted to do was scream at him. The second any of my team got word he was still alive, they would come after him.
"Lacey," he said lowly, like he was trying to boss me around again.
"What are we even doing here?" I asked, pointing with my hands at the hospital.
Travis stepped closer to me and his jaw was clenched. His eyes were cold and I narrowed mine.
"Let's. Go."
I bit my lip and looked at the ground. "Please don't talk to me like that. I just don't know what we're doing." Or what's going on. Or half of anything. I'd gone into training for special ops just so I could maybe be a little competent the next time I saw these guys and still, I found myself just as much as a lost cause as before.
Travis sighed. "The car isn't safe. We'll be in and out. Trust me."
I nodded but didn't look at him as I followed. I didn't want to see the Travis Miller everyone else was afraid of. I didn't want to watch as he marched forward confidently, not even caring that he could be found out.
I glanced over at Ben to see if he could reason with Travis but he was on his phone. He wasn't talking to anyone and I watched as he pulled the phone away and tried to dial someone again.
My gut dropped as Travis led Jay, Ben, and I to the doors.
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If you're reading this as soon as I've updated it, Chapter 13 is also up so let me know what you think and keep reading!!!
Have a great day!!