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Arielle
"What is it?" I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice.
"Chase said to give this to you." She handed me a folded piece of paper. I took it from her with a frown.
When I opened it, I saw a diagram of a building with scribbles and lines on certain passageways. "What is it?"
"Chase thinks that Alexander finally wants to take you to the main building tonight, after the errand, if it's a success. This is what the inside of the place looks like, in case you'd like to familiarize yourself with it before you go."
"Wait, but didn't they already take me to headquarters last time?" I frowned in confusion.
"No, Chase heard that they call that place headquarters a lot because it's Vincenzo's residence within the city, or maybe they do it to throw people off. I don't know, but this is where all the main operations happen for the gang." I didn't suppose it would be any use asking how Chase had heard this.
I felt my heart begin to beat faster at her words though. Could this be where Clara was last seen? "And how exactly did Chase get his hands on this?" I asked, holding up the map.
Kayla hesitated. "I'm not really sure. I feel like he may have a connection inside-"
"Impossible." I interrupted. "If he did, he would have said something. Or asked them to recruit me. There would have been no point in getting me to approach Trey."
"I know... but look at the back." I raised an eyebrow at her before doing so. On the back of the paper was a name scrawled in Chase's handwriting.
Vaughn Hughes.
"He said that this person may have some information."
"And how does he know this?" I felt a strange feeling within me that I could not quite explain. I couldn't allow my confidence to waver. Chase kept a lot of things about his personal intentions secret, but surely he wouldn't keep things from me when it came to helping Clara.
"I don't know, Arielle. That's something you ought to speak to him about. That leads into something else I wanted to speak to you about, actually. I honestly don't even know how to start..." she hesitated. I raised an eyebrow at her. "Right, I'm just going to say it. Chase has been acting really weird."
"Weird? How so?" This caught my attention.
"It's like...he's slowly losing his patience with everyone? He acts paranoid that something will go wrong every time you run an errand with Alexander."
I shrugged. "I mean, he could just be worried."
Kayla's face hardened. "Look, Ari, you haven't been in the office much lately so you don't know, but he's different, I swear."
I sighed. "When did this start happening?"
"About the same time that he heard that Tristan Vincenzo agreed to recruit you."
"And what are you hoping I can do about this?" I sighed again.
"Talk to him?"
"I can try, but what makes you think he will tell me anything?"
"Aside from Avery, he's probably the closest to you." She pointed out.
"Then why not ask Avery?"
"B-because...I feel like she knows what's going on, but she won't say anything."
"Maybe it's personal." I replied, turning to leave.
"Please, Arielle, just come by the office tomorrow and see for yourself."
I sighed and nodded. "Fine." I hadn't been to the office for a bit anyways since I was busy with the gang, school, ...and Isabelle. Then, I walked off before she could keep me any longer. I couldn't help the thoughts that began to plague my mind. How well did I really know Chase? How did he get all of this information? I tried my best not to overthink the situation. If I started questioning Chase's motives now, I would get distracted.
When I arrived at the place that we had agreed to meet, I scanned the area for Trey, but he was nowhere in sight. About five minutes later, right as I was about to text him, he appeared, but he wasn't alone. He was followed by two girls. I didn't recognize them, but they looked about three years older than me.
I raised an eyebrow at him and he said something to them before they both walked off. "What was that?" I couldn't contain my curiosity as he walked over to me.
He just shrugged and avoided the question. "Alright, you good?"
"I'm ready."
"Rex and Justin are coming too. They're waiting in the car." I nodded and began to follow him.
We silently walked to the parking lot. Rex was sitting in the backseat and an unfamiliar guy, whom I assumed was Justin, occupied the passenger's seat.
He glared at Trey the minute I entered the car and spoke in a highly frustrated tone. "You know the rules, Alexander, we can't take any of your girls, no matter how "trustworthy" they are."
Trey rolled his eyes. "She's with us, Matthews. Boss' orders."
"He's lost his mind."
"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't beat your ass." I snarled angrily.
He turned to glare at me. "Watch your tone, kid. Girls like your type don't belong with us. You don't know what you're getting into."
"Yeah? How many times have I heard that?" I fumed.
"Calm down, Justin." Rex muttered. "Remember how I mentioned that the cops caught up to us last week? She helped throw them off."
"How d'you know she's didn't tip them off just to play hero?"
"You want a fight? I'll give it to you-"
"Shut the f*ck up! The next person to say another word on this can get out of my car." Trey glared at the both of us.
When the atmosphere had calmed down a bit, I finally decided to ask. "What exactly are we doing?"
Silence.
"Okay then..." I muttered awkwardly.
"We're going to the warehouse to pick up some stock."
"Are we doing an exchange again?"
"No, we're just picking up stock this time. We need to look it over and do a quality check for the boss." I felt relieved that it didn't appear to be anything too dangerous that we were doing.
"If you mess up, know that there's 20k at stake here." Justin growled nastily.
"Take your own advice, Matthews."
"Sh*thead."
"I told you both to shut up." Trey growled warningly at both of us. "She knows what to do, Justin."
We drove to the warehouse in silence, but I sent daggers at the back of Justin's head for the entirety of the ride. As we exited the car, I saw that we had driven to a secluded area by the docks. To the left, I noticed a series of buildings, but to my surprise, they didn't look sketchy or run down. On the other hand, they appeared to be quite well-maintained.
I kept my mouth shut, despite my many questions. I walked next to Rex and Trey and Justin walked in front of us. We approached the buildings and walked around the centre building until we reached the entrance. Trey reached inside his wallet and pulled out a card hooked onto a lanyard.
He reached forward and scanned it on the electronic door. The security system beeped and the door slid open. I prepared to enter the building, but instead, he turned around and handed the card to me. My eyes widened in surprise. "That's yours now. Don't lose it." I felt Justin shoot me another glare but I ignored him.
I fought to keep the smile off my face as I reveled in the fact that the boss had clearly begun to trust me now. "I understand."
He gave me a curt nod and finally turned to enter the building. We stood in a warehouse factory. Although the inside was far less nice than the outside, it was still quite organized. Several people stood by the back exit, unloading trucks, and others examined the stock on pallets.
"Max." Trey called. A buff-looking blonde guy turned his head before approaching us.
"Alexander." He greeted. His eyes darkened when he noticed me. "You know you're not supposed to be bringing your girls here." I was beginning to get extremely tired of people saying that. I had seen other girls in the gang too, but I supposed that they didn't look like me. I could use my appearance to my advantage if I needed though.
"She's not one of my girls." Trey snarled. "Why does everyone keep saying that? Does she look like my type?"
"Yes."
I scowled at the other guy's response, but his expression of amusement clearly gave away that he was trying to wind Trey up. "I don't have the patience for this, Maxwell. She's with us. We need to pick up the shipment for boss."
Max rolled his eyes. "It's over there." He pointed lazily in the direction where two guys who were currently unloading a truck.
"Rebecca." My head immediately snapped to Trey. "Go collect the paperwork and count every single bag in the shipment." I nodded curtly and made my way over to the two guys. I was handed a stack of papers and directed to the shipment.
I gasped. There had to be several hundred bags. I wasn't naive. I knew what was in the bags. I began to count everything very carefully. Ten minutes later, I made my way back over to the guys.
"Three hundred and eighty-two."
Trey nodded and took the paperwork from me. He gestured for me to follow him. "Load the bags into the cars out front as I hand them to you." I nodded as he removed a stack of swabs and began to swab at a small sample from each bag.
When he seemed satisfied, he resealed the bags and handed them to me. I silently took them out to the car. Justin glared at me as he waited by three cars. He helped me load the bags and this repeated for an hour until we had gotten everything packed up.
Trey paid the guy, Max, while we waited in the cars. Trey, Rex, and Justin drove, but I rode with Rex since I didn't know where headquarters was, and he seemed to be the least hostile towards me.
"Why was Trey testing the samples? To see if they're fake?" I found myself asking.
"That, and to test for for dangerous amounts of fentanyl."
I raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize your boss would care-"
He cut me off. "He doesn't, Trey does. His brother passed from an overdose." I fell silent, unsure of how to respond. "Don't mention this to him."
"I won't." I replied softly.
The rest of the ride was mostly silent, but Rex occasionally made small talk in an attempt to disperse the air of awkwardness.
We arrived at the safe house a little after dark. It was very big, but not lavishly decorated like the boss' house. Inside the entrance was a very large sitting room, followed by a hallway to the kitchen, and stairs to the rooms upstairs.
More people were inside the house than I expected, but none really spoke to us as we entered. Trey and Justin began to unload the stock and I helped the best I could. Rex went to deliver the paperwork upstairs. After we were done, Trey sat down in the sitting room to wait for Rex and I hesitantly asked him if I could explore for a bit. He shrugged so I took that as my cue to go ahead.
I began to wander the hallways, and realized that it led to more rooms than I had noticed before. The strangest thing was that everything was laid out exactly like the sketch Kayla had handed me today. I bit my lip as I remembered the path that Chase had marked off and made my way up the stairs as quietly as I could.
I was met by a long hallway with many rooms. The structure was slightly different from the map Chase had drawn, but not significantly so.
Had he been here before? The thought hit me like a ton of bricks. I stiffened and felt a chill go down my back. Before I could change my mind, I walked down the hallway to the door at the very end.
Suddenly, a door to my left swung open. I jumped backwards as a tall and well-built guy with brown hair and hazel eyes walked out and stared at me with his arms crossed. "Who are you?"
"I'm here with Trey to deliver the shipment."
"I didn't ask that, I asked who you were."
I met his stare with one of my own before I finally answered. "I'm Rebecca. Who are you?"
He stared at me with a look of suspicion before finally replying. "You can call me Jason. If you're with Trey, what are you doing upstairs?"
I shrugged. "Just wanted to take a look around since we're waiting for Rex."
"I see..." He narrowed his eyes at me before abruptly turning to leave.
Before I could stop myself, I called out to stop him. "Wait! Do you know anyone named Vaughn Hughes?"
He stiffened noticeably before turning back around. "No."
"You're lying."
He glared at me. "What's it to you?"
"I need to ask him something."
"He dead." He replied coldly before turning to leave. I felt an odd feeling rush through my body and I decided to trust my instincts. The worst case scenario was that I had made a mistake.
"You're Vaughn, aren't you?"
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*edited*
Hello hello.
Hope you guys are enjoying this book:). No Isabelle in this chapter sadly:(. She'll be back soon!
-Cindy