Treacherous (Harry Styles AU)

3 -The Brains of it All-

I don't know what came over me but I suddenly felt the need to have her lips on mine.

The idea of kissing Bethany made me uneasy and frankly a little nervous.

Something about her made me get this strange feeling inside. Not a gushy love feeling, but I felt something ignite inside of me when she was near me. I've met her before and may have possibly chatted with her for a quick minute. The only problem was that I couldn't recall if I actually did meet her yet alone speak to her. She was just so familiar. I couldn't tell if she was just a figment of my jumbled imagination or if I had actually met her in flesh.

I slowly pulled my hand away from the butterfly tattoo, which was almost identical to the one my stomach. It was strange seeing the similarities in the ink. I had gotten my tattoo when I was working in LA and she had just gotten hers here in London. I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head screaming the words "This must be Fate"  because I knew I could never see myself with Bethany, at least not in a committed relationship.

"It's beautiful." I said quietly, brushing my hands through my curls nervously.

"Thanks," She responded, moving her hair back over her shoulders.

"I told you I'd be nice about it." I smirked folding my arms over my chest.

"Don't push it," She said with a smile,"Anything new on the case?" She asked sitting down at her desk.

"No, basically just the stuff that we already knew. " I answered looking through the files I pulled on them,"It's weird though, the last time anything major happened with them was two years ago when four of their best guys were brutally murdered in one of their safe houses."

"God, I feel like detective." She said, jotting things down on notepad,"We shouldn't be sitting in here waiting for new information, we should be out there protecting th streets from people like them and from people like us." Beth said in a frustrated tone.

"Between you and me Harry, what we do here at Ebony is just as bad as what these gangs are doing. Everyone here is just brainwashed into thinking that we're doing good, but we're just creating a different kind of hell for any type of gang like Hamilton and Lewinsky." Beth said quietly, almost at a whisper,"Mr. Taylor tells everyone to play the game but he's running the game."

"I'm sorry Bethany, but you're not making sense here." I said confused.

"Ebony is just another gang here in London. Mr.Taylor who runs it likes to tell all of the his "employees" that were doing a good thing in taking down the bad people to make London a safer place, but what we're actually doing is taking down other gangs so we can be on top. Mr. Taylor knows that I'm the only one here who actually pays attention to know what he's doing here, I'm his most valuable player he has in this "little game", as he likes to call it."

I nodded taking it in all, everything was making sense,"But why do you stay?" I asked wanting to know as much as I could.

"Something happened in my life a few years ago, I got into this type of stuff to seek out revenge but it turned out I was actually pretty good at it so, I decided to stay." She shrugged glancing at the photo Penny had scribbled on earlier, a flash of guilt ran across her face but Bethany collected herself quickly.

"Did you get the revenge you wanted?" I asked leaning forward in my chair.

She shook her head,"No at least not yet, if you're going to make someones life a living hell then you'll have to give it some thought first. Was Penelope in her earlier?" She asked picking up the picture frame.

"Penny? Yeah she stopped by to say Hello, she's not very fond of you." I replied sitting up in my seat.

"One word of advice Harry, all the women who work in this office are extremely horny so just ignore them. And yes I know she hates me because I slept with her brother."