“No! No fucking way,” Liam barks.
Those are my sentiments exactly.
Fuck that rusty dusty cunt.
“To choose otherwise will ensure Karl Jefferson’s demise,” the voice cuts out and loops back to the beginning.
Liam cuts the video, then turns to meet our gazes.
Anguish- his eyes fall to the floor, and his shoulder slump.
“We-we have to get him back- h-h-he can’t go through this again. Not again. Not again,” Liam rambles. There’s so much pain in his tone that I close my eyes, trying to temper my own feelings.
I survey the room for the first time since storming back in and notice Brittany and the devil in question are missing.
“Where the fuck is the soulless skank on plastic legs?” I shout. “There’s no way this person mysteriously chose Samantha Davenport- that bitch is in on it.”
Sebastian answers, “She took off in the height of the fray. When we went to clear the room after the outburst, she was gone, and when we questioned Brittany, she said Sam ran out right after you did. We just didn’t see it.”
Of course she did- she’s in on this. She’d need to make a quick exit.
Piecing the events of the day together- everything becomes very clear.
I turn to my friend, still bent with his head in his hands.
“That’s why you called the emergency meeting. You needed to move fast,” I stammer and then face a distraught Donald Calloway. “Do we have a location?”
Mr. Calloway’s jaw clenches, “We’re working on it. Right now, they’re scrambling the signal. Thomas has a friend he believes can hack into the network and lock in on Karl’s location.”
Rowan’s father looks up, squeezing his eyes shut to compose himself. His mask is firmly back in place when his stare meets us again.
“I need you boys to go get Emma. If this person went this far to ensure Sam was chosen, it means she isn’t safe. When you bring her back, we can devise a plan. Once Karl is back, we can call off the sham engagement and make an official choice. The Chosen won’t be selected under duress, and the Fraternitas won’t fall at the hands of some usurper,” he commands.
“I want to wait to hear about Karl,” I say.
As much as it pains me. I know Emma would be more pissed if we went to her and she found out Karl’s missing, and we chose to rush to her aid instead of his.
“We won’t have any updates for now, and she’s not safe,” Mr. Calloway’s tone allows no room for arguments.
Rowan stands from the ground, wiping the remainder of the blood from his face with the back of his hand. “My dad’s right. Let’s go get our girl.”
* * *
I open Emma’s front door and immediately know something’s wrong.
The house is too quiet.
Kell and Ky aren’t running around wreaking havoc. I can’t hear Jamie anywhere. There’s no noise.
I take off for the stairs- my feet carrying me to her room on autopilot.
Emma’s bedroom door is ajar, and I push it the rest of the way open.
Clothes and boxes are everywhere.
I rush into the room, hoping I’m wrong and she’s just thrown a fit, but I know. I know it before I see it.
She’s gone.
Storming out of her room, I run to her siblings’ rooms, checking their closets and drawers- empty.
Racing back to her room, I don’t hear the guys approach.
“Where is she?” Sebastian asks, looking around at the state of Emma’s room.
“She’s gone,” I mutter.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Liam balks.
Rowan storms into the room, searching through whatever remains of her things.
“How-how could she be gone?” he mumbles, barely loud enough for us to hear as falls to his knees, pulling at the roots of his disheveled ink-black hair.
I want to punch him again, but I know this isn’t his fault.
He should’ve said something and let us all decide together. Instead, he was high-handed-now Emma’s left, and we’re stuck in some fucked up arrangement to marry quicksand pussy.
“I’m sorry,” he professes, but I’m not sure if it’s an apology for us or to her. He falls forward and when comes back up his eyes are wet. “I was just trying to do what I thought was best” He breathes. The torment in his voice softens me.
I understand what Rowan did- it doesn’t make the consequences of his actions any more palatable.
Sighing, I make my way over to the bed and drop to the mattress, landing on a pile of clothes. Leaning to the side to pull them from under me, my hand brushes over something hard.
I stand and toss the clothes to the side to see what’s there.
My eyes glaze over before refocusing, and I shout, “Fuck!”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.