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I look towards Victor again, realising now that I don't feel the same way for him as I initially thought I did. I'd realised while away that I didn't feel as strongly for him as I did for Crow and Liam, but seeing him in person only cements that feeling.
"Go on. Tell her then," My dad encourages impatiently, his hands sliding in the air between Victor and I.
"It's my fault you were taken," he says, his hands fidgeting on the table in front of us.
My brows crease, not understanding how it could possibly be his fault.
I look at the men around me. My dad. Crow. Liam. Gray. Victor. They're all sat at the table and it seems myself, Gray, and Liam are the only ones in the dark here. Their faces are as confused as I expect mine is.
But then I look at Crow and my dad again. They know something.
"How was it your fault?" I am tempted to tell him it wasn't, but I have a feeling I'm missing some rather significant pieces of information here considering how tense and awkward everything currently feels. The air around us is filled with a nervous energy that seems to be emitting from myself and Victor in waves.
"My dad wasn't really interested in a merge with the Cobras, but I had a meeting with an unknown source which wasn't unusual. This person explained that he needed a way to get close to you and he needed my potential connections to do it. I, of course, refused initially. I didn't know you and I had no interest in getting involved in whatever this was, but he threatened my father's life and despite how little we get along, I do love him and couldn't see his life being taken because of me, so I agreed." He winces as he looks up at me before returning his gaze back to his hands. "Except then I really did care for you but I still had this in the back of my mind. Crow didn't want to," he looks around awkwardly, "share you, but I did everything I could to convince him. I needed you both to trust me, so when the source explained that I needed to get you to the club alone that night, I told you I was going but never showed. I didn't ask what their plan for you was, but I knew it had to be bad. I just thought that you'd be safe in the club with Crow," he finishes.
I take a moment of doing nothing but staring at him before I speak.
It was him. It wasn't his fault. I don't for a second feel that it was. I am angry with him, sure, but I know that in his situation, I'd do just about anything I could to protect the people I care about as well.
He wasn't the one that set it all up. He wasn't the one that raped me or held me hostage, but he did trick me. Lied to me. Made me vulnerable.
"Who was the source?" Liam asks, his tone lethal as he eyes Victor.
"I don't know. I never got a name. Just some bloke with a skull tattoo over his face. Creepy as fuck if you ask me," Victor says with a shiver.
"Jonesy," Gray says with a nod from Liam.
I have no idea who this Jonesy bloke is, and I have absolutely no interest in finding out. If he is a part of the reason that happened to me then he can stay as far away from me as humanly possible.
"Right. So, what happened to you?" I ask Crow. "Dad says you were ambushed."
"Yeah, this fucker told me at the very last minute what was going down, so as I was freshly out of the shower, I put my boxers on and ran the fuck to my bike. Basically naked, might I add. Got on, got all of a mile down the road, and got fucking ran off the damn road. Wake up in hospital and here we are," he says with a huff, his eyes never leaving Victor.
"What? That's not right. You gave me vodka at the club," I tell him. I remember it. Clear as day. I remember going in and him giving me a drink of vodka.
Crow’s head spins to me so quickly I'm surprised he's not got whiplash.
"What are you talking about? You can check the CCTV, Char, I wasn't there. Not at all that night. Not once."
"Alice saw you. She was at the bar, she saw you," I tell him, not understanding what's happening.
I know he wouldn't lie to me. Not about this. Dad would have said something if Crow was wrong. He would know if this had or hadn't happened, and he doesn't speak up to tell me otherwise, so I have to assume that Crow at least thinks he's telling the truth - but he's not. He can't be because I remember him being there.
"You gave me a cup of vodka and then went to the bathroom and didn't come back. I went looking for you but because I was drunk, I accidently stumbled into the wrong room. That's where they were," I say, not needing to go into any more detail than absolutely needed into what happened after I entered the room.
"Do you really think I'd leave you? I take you to the fucking bathroom with me in your house half the time, baby, let alone in a Club packed full of people," he says, his hands reaching mine over the table and rubbing my palm softly.
He's right. Shit, he's right, but I saw him. It was him.
"Do you have the CCTV?" I ask my dad, who's already got his laptop out without me realising.
"Fuck. Who were you around that day, Charlie? That isn't Crow. I don't know what happened or what you saw but that was not Crow," my dad says, his voice weary and scared as he looks at the screen on the laptop.
He spins the laptop around to me and I watch in horror as I take the drink, the vodka from Matt's hand before he walks away. To the bathroom.
"That's not possible. I'm telling you, I saw Crow," I say as I back away and begin shaking my head.
I don't understand. I thought the vodka was spiked. I mean, it probably was but how was it possible that I saw Crow?
