The blood drains from Beck’s face, and now he’s the one that jerks backward. “Christ, Sela. No, we can’t fucking kill JT. We have to go to the police.”

“But you said—”

He rolls right over me. “I said I’d make him pay. I might beat him senseless first, but then we’re going to the police. He’s going down for this but we’re letting the legal system handle it.”

I try to tamp down the rage that swelters hot within me and I push up from the coffee table until I’m standing over Beck on the couch. “He raped me with two of his buddies. Took away my innocence, held me down while some faceless monster tore my ass up, and then made fun of me when the jizz I didn’t swallow was dried to a crust in my hair. He put me in a cab, without a care in the world that he’d be caught, and then he went back inside to party with his friends. I’m sure the only thought that man has given me in the past ten years is to jack off to the memory of what he did to me, and you don’t think he deserves to die?”

“Yes, he deserves to die,” Beck says with a hard edge to his voice. “But not at the risk of you getting caught.”

“But we could come up with a plan—”

“For fuck’s sake, Sela,” Beck bellows as he stands up from the couch and gets in my face. He’s furious, and for the first time during this discussion, it’s at me and not himself or JT. “We cannot plot to murder someone. It won’t work. We’ll get caught.”

I know he’s right, and because he’s right and killing my dream of revenge with his practicality, I get just as pissed, so I yell back at him, “Then just how in the hell are you going to make him pay, Beck? Huh? What grand scheme do you have that could possibly make up for what he did to me?”

“I don’t know,” he says tiredly, stepping to the side and around me. I turn my body, keeping my eyes on him as he paces over to the window. He shoves his hands back inside his pockets and his shoulders sag with the weight of what I just placed on him.

“I can’t let it go,” I tell him softly, and I hope he hears the resolve in my voice.

“Neither can I,” he says as he stares out over the bay waters. “But I need time to think. To process all of this. I need to figure out how we can avenge you and let me keep The Sugar Bowl intact.”

“Murder,” I whisper, even though I know that’s not the right answer. Despite wanting JT’s blood on my hands—fuck, despite wanting to bathe in his blood—I know there’s too much at risk. I know the chances of doing this cleanly and without suspicion are low. I also know that the real reason I know I can’t do it is because if I were to get caught, I would lose Beck, and he’s the most precious thing in my life. He’s just more important than my wanting JT’s head on a platter.

Beck doesn’t answer me but he doesn’t need to. I suspect his brain is on overdrive right now, trying to figure something out.

The complete truth is out, and now it’s time to destroy JT.

Sela has two classes at Golden Gate this afternoon. I suggested she skip them because both of us are emotionally wrung out, and figured maybe we could go for a drive up the coast to continue to talk things out. I still had to tell her the details about JT’s relation to me, and I assume she wants to know more about Caroline.

But Sela nixed my idea, adamantly insisting that while we clearly had things to decide and even more things to discuss, that she needed to keep her life normal as well. This ended up being for the best, because it forced me to jump onto the problem of figuring out how to bring JT down. Ideally, I’d like to go to the police and let them handle it. They have DNA, and according to Sela, it’s JT’s. But I don’t know if her word and faulty memory would be enough to make them force a DNA test. And I don’t want JT to know we’re coming after him. I want to hit him when he doesn’t have a chance in hell to protect himself.

After Sela left, I unlocked my office door and didn’t have any intention of locking it again. While we may not see eye to eye on how to handle the situation with JT, I’m going to show her that I don’t intend on there being secrets between us ever again.

Within moments, I had the appropriate folder pulled from my filing cabinet and I was online, logging into the secure server at The Sugar Bowl. A few keystrokes and I was staring at a photo and personal profile of Melissa Fraye, the Sugar Baby JT tried to drug a little over two weeks ago at the mixer. One more tap on my keyboard and I was staring at her phone number and home address. I jotted them down on a yellow sticky pad sitting on my desk and pulled the note off after standing from my desk. Another fifteen minutes to take a quick shower and put on fresh clothes, and I was on my way to visit Melissa Fraye.

I knock on the apartment door and take a step back so if Melissa is inside, she can see my face clearly through her peephole. I immediately hear footsteps on the other side of the door before it opens a few inches, secured with a chain.

A woman who is not Melissa Fraye peeks around the edge at me.

“Is Melissa here?” I ask her.

“Yeah, just a minute,” she says before shutting the door on me, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest. This isn’t the best neighborhood, so it’s not wise to open the door to strange men.

I wait patiently for a few minutes, then the door opens again, this time fully, and I’m looking at Melissa Fraye as she appraises me. Eyes sliding down, taking in my John Varvatos jeans, Tomas Maier T-shirt that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe, and my Aquatalia suede boots, there’s no doubt she knows I’m wearing a fortune in designer clothes, and I know this because by the time her eyes reach me again, I can almost see dollar signs in them.

“Do you know who I am?” I ask.

She nods, cocks a hip, and presses it against the edge of the door. “Beckett North.”

“I need to talk to you. Can I come in for a moment?”

“Of course,” she says with a brilliant smile and a nervous flutter of her fingers through her hair. She’s a pretty girl and all, but she doesn’t have shit on Sela.

Melissa opens the door and steps aside to give me entrance. I immediately take in the small but clean apartment, decorated in mismatched, used furniture and cheap prints on the walls framed in acrylic. The woman who opened the door stands in the tiny kitchen, hunched over a gossip magazine, chewing gum heavily.