Chapter 13

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I yawned slightly stretching as I took a deep breath through my nose and sighed back out. My room smelt good, really good, it actually reminded me of Serg – I froze as I turned over slowly and my hand slid onto someone's bare skin.

My eyes widened but I froze as I remembered what happened. Oh my God. Oh God... Oh my – Oh shit!

I let my eyes run up his dark olive skin to his face and I felt my eyes grow wider if possible. I had not drank anything, and I doubt what he had would lead to this. I could remember everything we did...

Everything. I felt my face heat and almost groaned. I didn't regret it but I was so mad at myself. I didn't even know much about him! And hell, I sure hated what I did know about him! How the heck could I do this? I would never do this with someone that was practically a stranger to me!

But I did.

I jumped out of the bed as he moved and his head turned to look at me while he stretched his arms out beside him on the bed before pushing himself to sit up. I stood beside his bed frozen as his tired eyes ran over me before he looked back at my face and gave a smirk raising his brow. My eyes fell before I cursed as I grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered my waist letting the rest of it hang on the floor like a dress.

"Aw, I was enjoying that..." He pouted.

"Shut up." I rolled my eyes.

"What? I can't admire you?"

"No!" I hissed as I grabbed my underwear and pulled it on without removing the blanket, my jean following it before I threw his blanket back on his bed. He laughed as he sat up.

"Technically, no means that I can." I shot him a glare before I ran my eyes over his room, partially to avoid staring at his chest now that part of the blanket covering it had slid down. Where the hell was my shirt? "I had fun... We should do this again sometime." He said falling back onto his back and putting his hands behind his head as he smirked at me.

"Ha!" I laughed, "Never. This... This was..." I looked around searching for an appropriate word, "insanity, purely." I finished. I looked towards the door as I heard pounding from downstairs. We heard muffled voices that sounded like a few of Sergio's men were arguing about whether he was home or not from outside.

"Then insanity feels pretty fucking great. Don't you agree?" He said ignoring the commotion from outside.

I began laughing and he chuckled as he got out of bed and stood in front of me. My eyes automatically ran over his body and I could feel myself wanting to be close to him again... wanting to kiss him and touch him and –

Damn it, Alexander. Get your head straight.

"Aren't you going to put anything on?" I tore my eyes from his body to stare at his face.

"No. See, unlike you, I'm not going to be rude – it's not like you have not seen and touched it all before. You can stare." I couldn't help but laugh again as he smiled.

"Put some damn clothes on, Sergio." I threw his underwear at him after I grabbed it from the floor. He pulled it on along with his jean. More pounding before a 'let's just break it open' could be heard.

"Why didn't they just call me?" Sergio rolled his eyes as he grabbed his phone from the night stand but stopped when he tapped the screen. "Oh right... it's dead..." I smiled as he mumbled to himself before he smiled at me. "Thank you." He kissed my lips quickly. "Yes, I completely took advantage of your anger." He added as he grabbed one of his shirts and tugged it on.

"No, surprisingly, you didn't." He chuckled, "I needed a way to get things out." I shrugged.

"We both did." He winked. We laughed. He grabbed another phone beside his bed and dialled a number, "If you break my door, you're paying for it and the surgery you will need done to your face. I'm coming." He averted back to his usual self with just that call and walked out.

My shirt. Where is my –? Oh. The kitchen. I sprinted downstairs, past Sergio who chuckled at my urgency while I stumbled over the sand in the hall because I was too focused on retrieving my shirt to care about the mess before I entered the kitchen. I grabbed my shirt hearing Sergio mumble an 'Oh, Ma is not going to like that...' as he walked by the plants on the floor. I chuckled and threw my shirt on before I put my glasses back on as well. I grabbed Sergio's shirt and walked back upstairs as I heard Ben and some other men greet him at the door.

I checked the clock once I was in my room and realised I was pretty late so I got cleaned up really fast.

"Alex?! Are you in there? I have things to do!" Clyde yelled annoyed.

"I-I over slept!" I called back as I finished drying my hair before I ran from the bathroom and found him in my room looking pissed.

"You..." he muttered glaring at me.

"Good morning to you too," I said sarcastically as I reached for my bag and began to leave but Sergio walking into my room and grabbing my wrist stopped me.

"Give us a moment." Sergio said.

Clyde nodded without a word and walked out pulling my door shut behind him. Sergio looked at me but didn't say anything so I decided to speak.

"I have to get to school. But this was one time." I said. Yeah, the one time I completely lost my mind.

"Yes. One time. You tell no one." He agreed.

"You think I want anyone to know about this?" I raised my brows.

"No because you're obviously the type of person that pretends to be all conservative and shit." He laughed. I ran my tongue against the inside of my cheek before I smiled shaking my head. He wasn't wrong.

"Whatever. See you later." I turned to leave again but he held onto my wrist tighter. "Sergio, I'm late –" I turned back to him but he kissed me quickly before drawing back just as fast.

"Just something to remember it by." He smirked.

"Who said I would want to remember it?" I teased. He laughed as he let me go.

"Please, you know you're never going to forget it." Well... He was right there. I shook my head at him before I walked out of my room.

I made my way downstairs and found Clyde in his car outside where I climbed in beside him. We drove silently, which was weird because we were never silent when we were by ourselves. It was getting awkward, and though I didn't want to, I forced myself to speak.

"S-so... uh... how's work?" I asked before frowning at my question. I'm an idiot. That was confirmed by Clyde's laughter.

"Seriously?" He glanced at me, "You know, I know it was probably a one-time thing, I mean why the hell would you be interested in the man that practically kidnapped you – or blackmailed, whatever? And I bet you haven't been laid in a while – until last night, but I'm just going to throw a warning out there and tell you Sergio's only public relationships are with escorts." He said.

I felt my face heat. Okay...

"How… did you know?" I mumbled awkwardly.

"I know Sergio. I've lived with him for a long time, I know his moods, habits, I even know what he looks like after he... yeah. I know him a lot more than he thinks I do." He said. I looked at him.

"Is he gay?" I asked. I never thought he was, I just assumed he wasn't... until he kissed me.

"No," He shook his head, "He's straight." He said as he stopped in front of the stores not too far from my school's front entrance gates. I tilted my head looking at him seriously. That was not a straight man. He turned to me chuckling, "Well, that's what everyone thinks, but he's actually bisexual." He said.

"Wait, no one knows that?" I asked raising my brows.

"No one... Well, except Ben, he does." Clyde answered raising his brows at me and I gasped at what he meant.

"Ben?" My eyes widened. Sergio and Ben? What?! I would never even have dreamt of that being a possibility...

"Don't look so surprised." He laughed, "They have sex a lot. If you look really closely, you can see that Ben's actually really interested in Sergio. Sergio doesn't care about that stuff though; he's only in it for the sex. He always is, he isn’t one to get attached to people or admit it when he does." I was too stunned to speak.

"I... I don't know how I'm going to be able to learn now." I said after a while making Clyde laugh.

He pointed to the carpet at my feet and I leaned down to grab the drugs and shove them it into my backpack.

"If you confront Ben, he will deny everything." He said.

"Why would I do that?" I never even wanted to be in the same room as the jerk, he obviously had mutual feelings towards me.

He just shrugged. I shook my head chuckling and said bye to him before I began to leave the car but he grabbed my arm.

"If you sneak away from our men again, you might not be as lucky this time, Alexander." He warned.

"I think I'll wait until I'm healed before I do that again, Clyde. See you later." He chuckled waving as I shut the door and I immediately spotted a familiar guy standing at my school's gate watching me. Ah, great.

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I sat in the library running through some work. I had had an hour before Clyde was supposed to pick me up so I figured I would run over some past murder cases on the internet. It was why I had decided to study law to begin with. One murder case that I wasn't going to let go of until whoever committed the crime paid for what they did.

It had been hard. I had never known who the person that killed my parents was; no one had. What I did know though, was that everyone just accepted some guy's story of being invited over to my parents' house for work but when he arrived they had already been killed, for some reason I never liked that story. It just did not sit right with me.

The police brushed it off as a burglary seeing as all of my parents' cards, electronics and whatever money they had with them been taken. For some reason the case got put away pretty quickly as well, they searched for my parent's murder or murderers for a few months, apparently, and then it was forgotten.

I never believed any of that. I tried to find their 'friend' but no one that had worked for my parents had ever seen him or knew they were meeting with him that night, none of the managers at my parents' businesses had ever dealt with him and apparently he was a partner of some kind. I just felt like he was odd, it all was. I was going to find him and I was going to find their murderer if it wasn't him and they were going to pay. I would convict them no matter what. I did not even know how they died, because Rhonda – who became my guardian afterwards – thought it was best to have the coffins at their joint funeral closed throughout the ceremony and no one had given me any information on their deaths other than the fact that it was not natural.

"Interesting." I jumped slightly when hands grabbed my shoulders and heard Clyde laugh behind me.

"Asshole, why didn't you just call me?" I muttered.

"There's a tracker planted in your laptop and I wanted to see what you do when you’re here."

"Tracker? In my laptop?" I looked at him shocked.

"How do you think we found you when you snuck off?"

Oh... What the fuck?

"Nice." I muttered attempting to shut my laptop off but Clyde shoved my hand back.

"Studying murder cases? Is that what young lawyers do?" he asked.

"Not always, I'm going to convict a murderer as soon as I'm qualified." I shrugged. He raised his brows and took the seat next to me.

I noticed the two men that followed me everywhere had left; they had been sitting on the other side of the library reading - or pretending to - while I had been working. Did this really happen to every dealer they had? Because if it did, I should congratulate them for creating so many jobs for bodyguards... be it illegal...

"Who, you?" he asked, it was meant to be a joke, I guess, but he seemed to have realised it wasn't once it had left his mouth, "Sorry, stupid thing to joke about. Who?"

I narrowed my eyes at him before I shook my head. "I don't have to tell you anything." I said.

"Right, but look at it this way: if someone gets killed, it's likely to be because of a gang around here, and if it isn't, I can bet almost 90% of the time we know who it is." He said.

"Bullshit." I replied.

"Remember that shooting at the bakery three years ago –"

"In the Brynston mall?" I asked looking at him.

"I know who orchestrated that, and she's free."

"You know who orchestrated that? Nine people were killed there, including a child!" I hissed, "How could you let her go?!"

"Snitches do not get stitches, Alex. You get a bullet to your scull or get buried alive – literally." He said, "That and she's connected to some of our work so that would be a terrible war to start. So, what's his name?" I shook my head turning to shut my laptop and put my books away.

"Snitches –" I began.

"If we don't like him, I'll be happy to help you get him where you want him." I stopped and looked at him.

I sighed. "I don't know his name." His brows rose.

"Do you know what he looks like?"

"No." I replied. He looked at me dumbfound and I frowned he as opened his mouth but I spoke again before he could, "All I know is he was connected to the owners of NOVA in a way." I said.

"NOVA? Wait, you're looking for the person or people that killed Carl and Sonia Richardson?" he asked before he gave a snort, "Impossible."

"Impossible?"

"No one knows who it was; there was never a trace of evidence. Whoever did that was an absolute pro." He said.

"What about the guy that informed police? The man that was supposed to visit their house that night?" I asked.

"Someone informed the police?" he asked. I nodded. He frowned. "Why do you want to find their murderer anyway? Are you trying to impress their unknown beneficiary so that you can buy NOVA?" he asked.

"I don't think I would try this hard to impress myself, let's go. I think I know how I can use your 'sources'." I replied.

"Wait, you? Don't fucking kid me." He said wide-eyed.

"Why would I be joking?" I asked looking at him seriously.

"You're telling me you inherited NOVA? You inherited Horton – basically everything they owned?" he laughed, "Please," He scoffed, "And who the hell are you?"

"Their son."

"Wait – son? They had a son?" he asked shocked. "So you're the reason we could never buy Horton..." He frowned.

"Yes. That's paying my tuition fees; I love that shipping company..." I smiled. "No, it's not up for sale." I added when he opened his mouth. His frown deepened.

"Exactly what would you like our 'sources' to help you with?" he asked.

"Sergio told me you have connections within the police. I have tried to get the name of the 'friend' my parents were having over but they refuse to give it to me so you're going to help me get that." I said.

"And in return?" he asked.

"I'll be better behaved at the house." I smiled. He scoffed and I frowned. "I'll sell you three percent of my shares in Horton at a really nice price."

"Five." I scoffed.

"One."

"Alright, three." He said quickly and I smirked.

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