My Bad Boy's Secret: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (202 page)

Chapter 5 – Rose

Clarissa Petersen was still hospitalized, but she could at least speak for limited periods of time, and she miraculously agreed to answer some questions we had. The assistant U.S. attorney assigned me the job, since I was the only woman prosecutor working on the Blood Brothers case, and he thought that a woman would be better at coaxing information from the girl. The Department of Justice paid for my flight to Chicago, giving me only a day to interview her. I had to arrive in Chicago at 5 a.m., meet Clarissa at 9, and leave on the 7:30 flight back to Atlanta. Lucky me.

I got to the hospital and was led to the room Clarissa was recovering in. It was reserved for her, and two police officers guarded it at all times. Everyone who entered had to be patted down and scanned for anything dangerous. After what happened to the other witnesses, the government wasn’t taking any chances.

I held back a grimace as I first saw Clarissa. The poor girl had her head wrapped in bandages stained red. Her eyes had ugly black rings around them, while her nose and mandible had wires wrapping and surrounding them. She cradled her left arm in a cast and both of her legs were in casts too. I could hear her struggling to breathe through her badly crushed trachea.

I sat beside her and started on my rehearsed introduction. “Good morning, Clarissa. My name is Rose Whitney. You can call me Rose. I’m a lawyer with the government. How are you today?” I knew that it was a stupid question, because I could predict the awful answer. However, I felt it was necessary to ask, just to be polite. I couldn’t think of anything else.

Clarissa turned her head toward me and peered through her tired eyes. The constant rounds of painkillers must have kept her weak and sleepy all the time.

“I promised I wouldn’t say anything,” she croaked out.

“I know that you’ve just been through a terrible tragedy, but you are the most important person to the government right now,” I said calmly. “You are the only surviving witness, and we need to know who did this to you so we can catch that person.”

Clarissa didn’t look convinced. “That man killed everyone around me,” she murmured with effort, “was almost going to kill me too. I could see it in his eyes. I barely survived. I had to beg him to let me live. If he finds out that I told on him, he’ll come back to get me for sure.”

“We’ll make sure he won’t,” I declared. “When we arrest him, he’ll be under too much surveillance to ever escape from prison. He’ll be convicted and executed. You can be sure.” I was ready to say anything in order to not lose Clarissa as a witness. If she backed out, we were screwed.

“I’m not stupid,” she snapped with more strength than I thought was possible. Her head separated from her pillow momentarily, then she coughed and fell back. Heaving, she continued, “I know there are a bunch of gangs out there. If I go to court and talk, they’ll do everything to find me. They almost killed me once before. There’s no way you can protect me. Maybe you can catch the guy, but you can’t save me.” Tears started flowing down her face.

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew she had a point. The Blood Brothers were merciless. Almost the few people who dared to go to court and testify ended up dead within a few years. I decided to try a new strategy.

“At least please just tell me what the man who attacked you looked like. How tall was he? What color was his hair and eyes? Did he have any tattoos? Even this info can help us find him.”

Clarissa hesitated for a while. Finally, she opened her mouth.

“He was huge…like a giant. A giant demon. His body was really hairy. Even though he had a ski mask on, I could see this really big black beard poking out of it.” She paused.

“Go on,” I quietly said. We finally were getting somewhere.

She shuddered. “And, and, all of his arms had tattoos everywhere. There were these ones that looked like fires, and weird circles, like targets and drops of blood or water. Some creepy monsters. Tattoos were even on his neck.” She buried her face in a pillow. “I can’t, I just can’t. Just thinking about it. I don’t want to talk anymore about it.”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything else. Thank you for doing this. You’re very brave.”

Clarissa took her face away from her pillow and glared at me. “Please don’t ever come back here again. I don’t want to do this.”

My heart hit my stomach. “Clarissa, are you saying that – ”

“I can’t go to court,” she cried. “I just want to go home and be with my family. Seeing them murder a little boy that day is something I still see in my nightmares. I know they’ll get me too. They’ll kill my family. Please, just go.”

“Clarissa, if you do this, then we’ll have to give up the case, and all our work will be for noth – ”

But Clarissa didn’t let me finish. “Go away!”, she screamed as loudly as she could, then started gasping for air.

An alarm went off and a nurse rushed in to check on Clarissa. I knew it was my cue to leave.

As I turned the doorknob to exit, I glanced back at her.

“Thank you, Clarissa. I promise that we’ll find the monster who did this to you. We’ll make him pay.”

I felt like crap as I flew back to Atlanta. For all the travel and work, I ended up losing our last witness. Now the case was guaranteed to fail. The defense lawyers for the Blood Brothers would insist on dismissing the case, and the judge would have no choice but to agree, since the prosecution had no witnesses to call.

It was small comfort that we at least had a description of the killer. Our goal now was to find and arrest him, then shake him down for evidence on the Blood Brothers. It was back to the drawing board. I sighed angrily and drank my second mini-bottle of whiskey.

Chapter 6 – Luciana

I had swiped Blake’s key and meant to give it to him at the hospital, but I genuinely forgot it in the midst of the hot and heavy sex we had. I remembered it as I was driving away, but then I decided I could give it to him later after meeting him again for more fun. I had to admit, even among all the guys I’ve been with, Blake stood a good chance of being one of my top ten fucks. He never seemed to run out of energy. He was creative and generous in loving, and moved like a pro. He probably had as much experience as I had.

Blake’s prowess made my plan all the more easier. I smirked leisurely as I scanned my body in front of my closet mirror. On my neck, face, and body, I had quite a few souvenirs from banging Blake. I counted the hickeys forming around my throat, neck, and shoulders, and felt my hands glide over the bruises and scratch marks over my back and chest. He even left some bites on some parts of me. I could feel the pulsing pain in the muscles all over my limbs and back. Like all good sex, being with Blake left me exhausted.

It was all perfect.

My phone vibrated, and I picked it up. I was expecting daddy’s call.

“Hi, daddy!”, I chirped.

“
Cuore
, how is our plan going?”, he asked. I could tell he was excited and apprehensive.

I smiled with pride. “It’s all going swimmingly. I just completed stage 1. In a few days I’ll be carrying out my next step. The whole thing is perfect right now. No one suspects anything.”

I could hear him grin. “Good. But I worry about you sometimes. And I miss you. Be careful.”

Oh, daddy. Always worrying about his only daughter.

“I told you moving to Atlanta was the right thing to do. And you said I shouldn’t have been a lawyer,” I smugly told him.

“I never said it like that,” he denied. “I just didn’t want you to be away from me for so long. You make sure to come back to Chicago for Christmas.”

“We’ll see. The city handles some of its biggest criminal cases during the holidays. And with everyone visiting family and partying, their guard is down. It makes lifting the files and getting intel that much easier.”

“Be that as it may, I don’t like you working so hard. You do remember that I’m due to fly into Atlanta on business next week? This is a case I want to oversee personally.”

I silently scolded myself for forgetting. “Of course, daddy. I’ll pick you up from the airport.”

“Very good. So how is our prey? Still sick?”

“He got out of the hospital, but he’s still weak. I’ve got my eye on him, so he’s not going anywhere. I think I’ve been very persuasive.” 

“Excellent. Then I leave it all in your hands.”

Chapter 7 – Blake

My second date with Rose felt quieter than the first one. We met at her place and had dinner that she and I made together. The kids were having a sleepover with their friends elsewhere, so luckily we were alone. I felt kind of awkward. Obviously, after screwing her best friend and not telling her, I’d be feeling weird. Tonight, I was moving really slowly and cautiously. For some reason, I thought that any moment, Rose would figure out what I did, and turn and scream at me, then maybe stab me with a kitchen knife. It was stupid, but I had so much guilt in me that it hurt.

I was worried Rose was bored. We didn’t talk much tonight, and she looked tired and stressed.

“You look worse than usual,” I probed. “What’s getting you?”

She turned to me and perked up a bit. “It’s nothing you can really do about. Work is just a bitch. The only witness we had for a huge case just pulled out. That means we’ll have no choice but to give up. We spent months planning to prosecute a biker gang, but we did all this for nothing now.”

I tried not to look scared. “Cheer up, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe a new witness will come forward.”

Rose laughed grimly. “Believe me, with these bikers, no one will talk. Everyone is too scared of them. They’re ruthless savages. They kill anyone who crosses them, which is why it’s been so hard to put them in prison.” She sighed harshly.

I had a thought. “What if you get new evidence? Like, what if you get some solid photos and stuff that relate to the case? Would that be enough to make your case?”

I got a quizzical look from Rose first. Then she spoke cautiously. “I suppose it would help. It’s better than nothing. Even with any witnesses, we could present the evidence and argue our case. So it gives us a chance. Unlikely that we’ll get any of that, though.”

No matter how I tried, Rose was in a deep funk. We had a pretty dull date, in which we ate dinner and watched some bad movies. Even the sex we had that night was vanilla and not worth reliving. We tried missionary, and ate each other out, but neither of us felt really into it and didn’t make any effort to be good lovers.

I hated myself as I put on my clothes and went home in the early morning. I felt like the whole bad date was my fault. I ruined it as soon as I fucked Luciana, but telling Rose wouldn’t solve anything. It would make things worse, and I’d have to deal with an angry ex near me.

As soon as I got back to my laptop, I started a new email account. I gave it the name John Doe, to be fully anonymous. I attached all my stored photos of the Blood Brothers. It included stuff I’d taken and stuff they sent me. I had photos of the bodies of victims, bikers producing and selling drugs, stealing bikes and cars, and raping women. I found the recordings of bikers’ conversations, as well as PDFs of their club charters and private records, and attached those as well. There was so much that I had to send about a dozen emails.

I sent it all to Rose. I made sure that no one would ever find out it was me. I had a pseudonym and email account that I’d never use again. I had to wait to see her reaction. I just hoped that this would save her case.

Chapter 8 – Rose

I’d been even busier than usual this week. For almost four straight days, Luciana had been absent. She didn’t even call in sick. She just disappeared, and no one could reach her by phone or email. I had to cover for her and take on her workload, and I felt like collapsing and dying from working so hard and barely sleeping. The whole office has no idea where she could be, since she’s never missed a day of work before.