Conspicuous Secrets

Chapter Sixty-One

Kason did the best he could to help me sit up and swing my legs over to the side of the bed. Once we were successful, I needed to stop and breathe because it hurt to move my shoulder. I looked up at Miles standing across the room and waited for him to continue.

"One night after a fight, I was confronted by a group of guys that I had messed with at one point," he explained. "They threatened to give the police some information on my involvement in street fighting."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I had messed with them at one point," he repeated.

"I know, but what did you do?"

He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The point is, they confronted me and threatened me. After they walked away, a man approached me and introduced himself as Charles. He immediately started the conversation by saying that he could take care of my debts to the guys. I guess he had overheard them threatening me."

"They were a gang, weren't they?" I guessed, recalling the high rate of gang activity in that area. He nodded, confirming my suspicions. "How in the world did you manage to angry a gang?"

He just stared at me like the answer was obvious. "I'm Miles Anderson. It really wasn't that difficult to do."

Kason assisted me as I stood from the hospital bed. Every slight movement of my torso sent an uncomfortable pain through my injured shoulder, making me wince. "Maybe you should use a wheelchair until it's more comfortable to move around," my boyfriend suggested.

I shook my head. "No, I'll survive. Now continue," I said to Miles.

"Anyway, I asked Charles what he wanted in return, since it was clear that a stranger wouldn't do something like that just to be generous," he informed me. "He wanted me to keep tabs on you and your brother."

I stared at the blond with narrowed eyes, not quite fully understanding the situation. "Why would he choose you to do it?'

He shrugged. "Maybe because he knew that you were hanging around Kason's group of friends and I guess he noticed how much of a hatred I had for Kason."

"It's not like it was a fact that you ever denied," Kason commented, making Miles shrug an agreement.

"That still leaves me with questions," I said.

"Then you will have to go visit him in prison and ask him yourself," Miles told me. "Because he still kept a lot of things from me." I really didn't like the idea of visiting Charles in prison. "Once he told me that you two had run away, I figured that there was a reason that you did. And I could definitely tell that this dude was obsessive and pretty much straight of his mind. So, I declined his offer and told him that I could take care of my own problems just fine." I furrowed my eyebrows at that.

"I turned to leave the alley when he stopped me," he continued. "Charles said that if I didn't help him get to you and your brother, then he would tell the gang about Olivia and my parents." He shook his head. "If that gang knew where to find my family, after everything I've done, they would've killed them."

My heart ached for him. If I were in his shoes, I probably would have helped Charles, too. "I'm sorry that you got mixed up in this," I told him honestly. This whole time, he was just trying to protect his family.

He nodded once and scratched the back of his neck. "So, he got the gang to leave me alone, and I helped him keep a close eye on you and Gavin."

"How did he take care of the gang?" I questioned.

Miles shrugged. "I never heard from them again, so I didn't care how he made it happen."

The room door opened, and Gavin walked in with a smile on his face. "Alright. You are officially free to leave this dump."