The Sacrifice: Chapter 47

Senior year at Barrington University

“Tyson Crawford?” My name is called, and I look up from where I stand next to Lake holding her hair while she vomits into the trash can. Her shirt now covered in her sister’s blood from making contact with mine.

“Yeah?”

“Tyson Crawford, you are under arrest for the murder of Whitney Minson…” The cop walks up to me and yanks me away from Lake while reading me my rights.

“Wait—?” Ryat tries to jump in, but the other cop pushes him out of the way.

I’m shoved face-first into the wall, my arms pulled behind my back where the cop proceeds to cuff my wrists.

I look over to see Lake staring at me, color drained from her face from just getting sick and tears running down her cheeks. She shakes her head as she sobs, throwing her hand over her mouth.

The cops confirming what she already suspected.

“He didn’t do it!” Ryat shouts. “I was with him…”

“Ryat,” I bark, cutting him off, and the cop pulls me from the wall and grips my upper arm. He’s pulling me through the hospital as Ryat follows us, already dialing a number on his phone.

I sit at my desk on the second floor of Blackout as a knock sounds on my office door. “Come in,” I answer.

The door opens, and Bethany steps into the room. I had her come in early before her shift starts this evening. “You wanted to see me, Tyson?” She practically skips to my desk after looking around for who I can only guess is my wife. But she’s not here tonight. She’s at our home, in our bed asleep. I know this because I just checked the cameras in our room.

“Have a seat.” I gesture to the couch.

She plops down and crosses one leg over the other. Placing her arms along the back of the couch, she adjusts her hips to press her chest out. It’s the exact same spot I fucked her mouth just months ago when Ryat and Blakely walked in on me while I had my cock down her throat.

The thought makes me think of my wife and how I’d never let anyone watch me fuck her. I’ve always preferred an audience. And with Whitney, it was required of me.

Make it public.

But with Laikyn, I don’t want them to see what I do to her behind closed doors. The fact that no other man has ever been allowed to do what I do to her just makes me that much more protective of what’s mine.

“Do you have anything to tell me?” I ask her. Getting to my feet, I walk over to stand in front of her.

She looks up at me, her brown eyes widening in fear before she licks her lips and shakes her head softly. “No, sir.”

Sir? I almost snort at the change in her tone. “I won’t ask again,” I tell her.

Her arms drop off the back of the couch, and she leans forward, running her hands through her hair, all of a sudden on edge.

I don’t want to ask her about the phone directly. I want to see what information she’ll give up first. There might be other things she knows.

“Bethany,” I bark, and she flinches.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she rushes out.

“A choice to what?”

She stands too, and I take a step back, putting some space between us. “Mr. Minson came to me and told me he needed to talk to Lake. What was I supposed to say? No?” She shakes her head.

“You could have come to me,” I grind out. “Told me. Instead, you helped him get into this club. My club!”

“He threatened me.”

I snort. “With what?” I hold up my hand, stopping whatever bullshit she was about to say. “It doesn’t matter. You’re fired. Clean out your locker and get the fuck out of my club.”

“Tyson.” Her hands grip my shirt. “Please, you don’t understand…”

“I understand that I can’t trust you. And that’s enough. Get the fuck out, Beth.”

“Tyson?” She grabs my arm, pulling on it, and I yank it out of her hold. The force makes her trip forward, her body running into mine. “Please?” She begins to cry.

She knows me well enough to know that I don’t give a fuck about her tears. She was one of Whitney’s friends. They were both chosens at the same time. They weren’t extremely close but hung out often at the house of Lords. Whitney would have never let her parents know she was friends with Bethany because they would not have approved. So the fact that her father is using her makes me more than worried.

“How did he know he could come to you?” I question, pushing her to sit back on the couch. If she doesn’t want to leave, then I’ll get as much information out of her as I can. “What did you do that he thought you would cross me?”

She sniffs, dropping her head to look at her hands in her lap. “He found my number in Whitney’s phone after she passed.”

“And?” I ask tightly.

Wiping her tear-streaked cheeks, she whispers, “I slept with him.”

“Of course, you did.”

She glares up at me through her watery eyes. “It was years ago. I went over to her parents’ one night to see Whitney, but she was out with Laikyn and their mother. I was drunk, and we had sex. He said if I didn’t help him, he would show the video of us to everyone.”

“You let him record you?” I grind out, but I’m not surprised. Guys like Frank Minson always make sure they have some kind of leverage against you.

“I didn’t know he had cameras in his room,” she growls.

“What else has he had you do?” I ask, walking back behind my desk and sitting down for some more space. I push my keyboard to light up my computer and see my wife is still napping in our bed. I shut down the screen and look at Bethany expectantly.

“He had me follow her. He said he knew that you’d be at your house before the house of Lords party. So I waited outside and took pictures. Then I was at the party with…” She trails off, lowering her eyes to her hands in her lap.

“Who the fuck were you there with?” She has not married a Lord yet. I’m not even sure she ever will. Not all chosens become Ladies. Just like not all Ladies were once chosens.

“Miller,” she responds softly.

I’m unable to hold my chuckle in at that.

Her brown eyes narrow on me. “Did your wife tell you that her brother spoke to her while there at the party?” I stiffen, and then she’s the one laughing. “Didn’t think so.” Standing, she brushes off her leotard as if it’s dirty from our conversation, then she walks to the door.

“Bethany?” I call out.

She stops and turns around to face me with a smug smile on her face. I remove the cell phone from my pocket, and I lay it on my desk. Her face instantly falls when she sees it. I broke the lock off her locker when I got here earlier and found it. “Tell him you lost it.”

Without another word, she turns and exits my office, and I sit back in my seat. My hands come up to run through my hair. Why is my wife still keeping secrets from me? I’m damn sure going to find out.

I enter our bedroom with a whiskey in my hand. I needed a drink. It was a long night—three fights, lots of drunks, and one guy passed out in the bathroom in his own vomit. Then I hauled a guy downstairs and beat the shit out of him because I was just in the mood to smash someone’s face in. He was the unlucky bastard. On top of all that, Bethany is no longer working there and neither is my wife. Bethnay had been picking up Lake’s sections.

The longer I’ve thought about what Bethany said, the angrier I’ve gotten at my wife. I don’t know why. It’s not her fault that she feels she can’t talk to me. She told me earlier in this very room that she felt she couldn’t trust me or my intentions. Her father told her I was setting her up for failure. He’s filling her head with bullshit and trying to get between us. Honestly, it wouldn’t take much, considering how our marriage started.

Soft light filters through the floor-to-ceiling windows, giving me a perfect view of my naked wife lying in our bed. She’s on her side, facing me. One hand underneath the pillow, the other stretched out to my spot. The covers shoved down to her lower back, showing me part of her chest. She looks so peaceful right now. I hate to wake her up and piss her off, but I want, no, need to know exactly what her piece of shit brother said to her at the house of Lords party.

When did he even get the chance to talk to her? She was with me the entire time other than when she went to the bathroom. My hand tightens on the glass of whiskey. Surely that’s not when he spoke to her, but when else could it have been?

She returned from the bathroom with Blakely and Ellington, so she couldn’t have been in there too long with him if that’s the case.

I make my way to our bathroom and get undressed, needing a shower to wash off the night before I crawl into bed with her and wake her up.