Only You by Jerry Cole (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

“Back-up will be here in a second.” Bradley gulped. It was small, barely noticeable, but it was there. “You.” He then pointed right at Sherman. “What’s your name.”

“Me?” Sherman blinked. “It’s... it’s... it’s —”

“Spit it out – no. Wait.” He grabbed Sherman by the arm. “You’re coming with me.” Then, without warning, he yanked on Sherman’s arm and dragged him toward the stairs. When he reached the base, he spun back to face the room. “This room only has one exit. That exit will be guarded by me until back-up arrive. Don’t even think of trying to make a fucking move.” He then glared down at Sherman. “Hurry the fuck up!”

Sherman just about shat himself as he hurried up the stairs behind Bradley. The whole way up, he worried that any moment now the spell Bradley had woven would wear off and Curly and the others would snap out of it and realize they were being duped. Surely, it had to?!

But no. A few moments later and Sherman was breathing that sweet, fresh air that he never thought he would again. A moment later and he was safe... well, relatively.

Really, he couldn’t believe that Bradley’s plan had worked. It turned out that Bradley actually was a pretty good actor after all.

“Bradley!” Sherman gasped the moment they were free of the alleyway. “How did you —”

“Don’t say a fucking word.” He was still in character. Or maybe he wasn’t? Really, he was probably just angry. He pushed Sherman toward Sherman’s car and pointed for him to get in. “Get in, start it up and meet me back at my place.”

“You’re place?” Sherman confirmed. “As in —”

“The apartment that I pay rent for. My place.” And that was it. Bradley stormed across the road toward his own car and didn’t once look back as he climbed on in.

As for Sherman? He was torn. On the one hand he was beyond grateful that he’d gotten out of that situation alive. If it wasn’t for Bradley... he didn’t even want to think what might have happened. Well, he knew what would have happened and it wouldn’t have been good. Not even close to that.

But on the other hand, this felt like a sort of ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ situation. Sure, he was free of Curly. And when he started his car up and took off down the road, he knew this to be truer than ever. But now he had Bradley to deal with. Somehow, that felt like it was going to be even worse. Maybe death wouldn’t have been such a bad thing...

Chapter Twenty-One

Bradley’s body shook for the entire drive back to his apartment; forty-five minutes of convulsions, perspiration and the feeling of his heart trying to escape his body it was beating that fast. When he did eventually pull up outside his place and turn the car off, he couldn’t believe he made it in one piece.

But that was also the least of his problems.

What the hell had just happened?! Like, Bradley knew what had happened. But... what the hell had just happened?!

He hadn’t really thought about it. At the time, he hadn’t really known what to think. He followed Sherman out to the middle of nowhere and watched in complete shock as his boyfriend participated in what could only be some sort of drug deal. When he saw it go down, he was rather far away, so he couldn’t tell how much Sherman was buying. He just hoped it wasn’t too much.

Well, he then followed Sherman even further out of town and watched from the safety of his car as two of the meanest looking guys he had ever seen in his life carried at least four large bricks of cocaine from the back of his car. It might have been more! Sherman, his boyfriend, his partner, the man he trusted with his life, was a drug mule.

When he saw that... a very large part of Bradley wanted to start the car up, drive back to his place and wait. He was angry, obviously. He was upset, clearly. He was a whole bunch of things that he was struggling to make clear to himself. Some serious alone time would be needed so he could assess what he saw, what it meant, and what he was going to do. Fuck, what could he do?

But then he became worried. Sherman disappeared down a long, dark alley and didn’t return. Bradley sat in his car for a few moments, wondering what he should do. Was this business as usual? Surely, Sherman would return.

The panic grew and before he knew what he was doing, Bradley was down that alley and listening at that door. He couldn’t hear anything but somehow... somehow, he just knew that something was wrong. Before he could stop to think, he was kicking that door open, channeling the character he’d been rehearsing for the last two months, and charging into the unknown like his life depended on it.

Well, it turned out that Sherman’s life might very well have depended on it. This should have come as some relief to Bradley, who might have been able to use this fact to soften the blow in regard to what he had just stumbled upon, what he had revealed his boyfriend to be doing. But it didn’t. And by the time he arrived back at his apartment, he was still no closer to calming down.

His entire body shook as he waited inside his apartment for Sherman. A small part of him hoped that Sherman might not show, that he’d go into hiding and thus give Bradley a little while longer to calm down. He needed it! But no. Bradley was in his apartment – basically an unused apartment – for all of one minute when Sherman came crawling in with his tail