The Debt 10 (Club Alpha) (12 page)

“Can you please go now?” she said,
shivering, folding her arms across her chest.
 
“Before I—“

“Call the police.”
 
He grinned toothily.
 
“You know, you might not want to do
that.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he said.
 
“I’m an old friend of his.
 
My name’s Boogie.
 
Charles, actually—but everybody in
Detroit knows me as Boogie.”

“Well, Boogie,” she said, trying to sound
confident, “Chase never mentioned anything about you, and I don’t think he was
expecting your visit.”

Boogie nodded.
 
“Yeah, that’s true, that’s true.”
 
He pulled a toothpick out of his jacket
pocket and inserted it between his lips.
 
“I mean, I didn’t really plan this visit in advance.
 
I’m not one for formalities.”

Faith was getting more and more uncomfortable
as Boogie stared at the inside of the house, with his droopy eyes and his
eerie, confident grin like he knew all the secrets she didn’t.
 
“I’m going to leave now,” she said,
starting out the door, fully intending to call the police and Chase from somewhere
safe.
 

Anywhere, as long as it was away from
this creepy man who claimed to know Chase.

“I recommend you don’t call the police,
though,” Boogie told her.

“I’m sure you would recommend that,” she
retorted, as she got to the threshold.

“I mean, you and I both know our boy has
a lot of baggage from the past,” he continued, casually.

Faith froze as she heard his words.
 
“What?”

“He was a funny cat back then,” Boogie
said.
 
“Back when he used to run the
streets with me.
 
Wild kid.
 
And I do mean
wild
,” Boogie said, laughing appreciatively.
 
“Some of the shit I seen that boy do
would turn your hair white.”

Faith turned and stared at him.
 
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re even
talking about.
 
He’s never mentioned
you.”

“Well now, I believe that,” Boogie said,
walking over to a table and picking up a small sculpture.
 
He nodded like an art buyer for Christie’s
auction house, appreciating what he was holding.
 
“Look at this shit.
 
Now I know our boy didn’t buy this fancy
shit himself.”

“What do you want?”

Finally, he made eye contact with her,
and his eyes blazed.
 
“I want what’s
coming to me,” he told her.
 
“And
it’s been too fucking long.”

“I don’t know anything—“

“Listen…uh…what’s your name?” Boogie
asked, stepping forward.

She stepped back.
 
“I’m not telling you my name.”

“Okay, Cupcake.
 
I’ll just call you that from now
on.
 
I like that name.”
 
He grinned.
 
“Me and Chase, see—we have an
understanding.
 
Now, if you run along
and call the police, we both know they could show up and find out all sorts of
things that our boy don’t want anybody knowing.”

Faith felt cold chills run up her
spine.
 
“Are you blackmailing him?”

His eyes didn’t waver.
 
“We have a nice little arrangement.
 
We’re friends, Cupcake.
 
I took care of that boy like he was my
own, and now he takes care of me.”
 
Suddenly, his head turned and he glanced upstairs.
 
“Let me see if he keeps the stash where
I taught him.”

And then Boogie darted up the stairs,
taking them two at a time.

Faith gave a little yelp, but she
realized soon that the man had little to no interest in her.
 
She glanced at the wide open door.
 

I
need to call the police.

But her phone was upstairs in the
bedroom.

And by the time she got someone else to
let her use their phone, and certainly by the time the police
arrived—Boogie would be long gone.

Besides, he’d been right about Chase
having baggage he didn’t want coming out.

This
man knows things about Chase that nobody else knows.

Faith deliberated, but finally decided
she at least had to see what he was doing upstairs so she could tell Chase what
had happened.

Slowly, she climbed the steps and went to
the master bedroom.
 
Just as she was
peeking inside, Boogie emerged from the closet holding a large stack of cash in
his hand.
 
It was more money than
she’d ever seen at once in her life.

Boogie grinned, showing her his
prize.
 
“See?
 
He always did what I taught him.
 
And he still does.
 
Kept the stash under the false floor in
that nice closet of his.”
 
Boogie
sniffed the stack of bills and made a satisfied face.
 
“Mmmm…smells like green, baby.
 
Smells like freedom.”
 
He took the cash and stuffed it into a
small black satchel hanging just inside his jacket.

“You’re stealing his money,” she said, as
Boogie brushed past her and down the stairs.

“This is my motherfucking money, Cupcake,”
he called over his shoulder.
 
“You
just ask him.”
 
And then he
disappeared out the front door.
 

She came the rest of the way down and
looked outside to see which direction he’d gone.
 
But Boogie, if that was even his
nickname—or Charles, if that was even his real name—had disappeared
as quickly as he’d come.

Faith felt herself begin to tear up.

Only now did she realize how scared she’d
been, as her entire body began violently trembling.

All of the warmth and happiness she’d
been feeling earlier had been washed away in seconds by that horrible man and
everything he represented.

Because what he represented, she
understood now, as the cool wind whipped against her face—was reality.

She and Chase weren’t going to run off
together like some fairytale couple, after all.

There was not going to be any happily
ever after for them.

Chase Winters had a dark, horrible
past.
 
He’d told her a little of it,
but she knew she’d only begun to scratch the surface of things.

And now, apparently, someone from his
past was making visits to his present, and Faith had a terrible feeling that it
was only going to get worse from here on out.

THE END OF THE DEBT 10 (CLUB ALPHA)

Stay tuned for
book 11 in the Club Alpha series, coming soon!

***For another
sexy hot read, be sure to
check
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series, available for free if you’re a
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Blurb and Excerpt Below:

Introducing Obsessed With Him, the dark and sexy
new adult romance series from Hannah Ford...

Some promises are meant to be broken…

Twenty-year-old Olivia Reilly has promised
herself to one man and one man only – her best friend and soul mate,
Declan Keene. And she’s kept that promise, through countless foster homes and
moves across state. She’s never even kissed a boy – all because of a vow
she made to Declan years ago. There’s only one problem. She doesn’t know where
Declan is.

Enter Colt Cannon. When Olivia starts working for
the sexy and dangerous bad boy, she asks him to help her find Declan. Surely
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But as Olivia’s about to find out, sometimes the
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EXCERPT:

I took a step toward him, and his eyes blazed as
he reached out and put his hands on my hips, guiding me. “That’s it.”

The bottom of my shirt rose up just a tiny bit
and his thumb grazed against my bare skin. A searing heat pulsed through my
body, almost in time to the music. I went to pull away, but Colt’s hands held
me firmly in place.

“Take off your shirt,” he commanded, his voice still
low and sexy.

I reached up, mesmerized, and did as I was told.
I would have expected my hands to be shaking, that I would be nervous about
taking my clothes of in front of this gorgeous stranger. But it was the
opposite. His gaze was like an anchor, keeping me grounded, holding me in
place, right there in the moment.

One button.

Two.

Three.

I felt the cool air on my bare skin as the top of
my bra became exposed.

When my shirt was completely open, Colt’s hands
moved from my hips up the sides of my body, stopping just below the band of my
bra, right under my breasts. His touch was setting me on fire and an ache I’d
never felt before rolled up inside of me.

His hands moved slowly up my back, then hooked
around my shoulders. He pulled me to him, his grip strong. I leaned forward,
meeting him, not even caring that my shirt was completely open, that I was
exposed to him, more exposed than I’d ever been to any person in my life.

And even though I’d only just met him, my
instinct was to let him in, to give myself to him and do whatever he asked. My
nipples tightened and my pulse quickened as his mouth moved toward mine. Colt’s
eyes were still locked on mine, and I felt like I was falling into them.

His intent was clear. He was going to kiss me,
and maybe more, right here, in this room, on this chair…

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