Matthieu: Hello to you too, Asshole!
Me: Not the time.
Matthieu: What’s going on?
Me: Not here.
Matthieu: Meet me at the club in 2 hours.
Me: Copy.
Once my meeting with Matthieu is set, I look around the room and notice a now very empty spot in the corner by the window. “Where the fuck is August?”
AUGUST
Samantha sleeping with her half-brother should be the most shocking news we’ve received to date. Instead, it’s just another thing on the long list of fucked up shit that’s happened.
Samantha Davenport has been toxic since the day she learned to talk. Was there a time some of the guys considered her a friend? Absolutely. Was I ever really among that group? Absolutely the fuck not. No matter the revisionist history she paints in her head, I’ve always seen a spoiled brat who would manipulate anyone who’d allow it. Now I’m even more convinced Liam was right, and she played a pivotal role in their kidnapping. She all but confirmed it with her part in Karl being taken again.
After the bullshit announcement that she and her brother have been fucking for years, I knew it was time for me to get the hell out of there. If I had stayed longer, I would’ve driven to her house and killed her, risking O’s life. Instead, I hopped on the jet and left the fucking east coast altogether. The further away I am, the better. Once the doctor confirmed it would be another three days before Karl would be awake, I knew it was time. I just didn’t disclose where I was going.
The closer I get to my destination, the greater the tension in my body ratchets up.
I needed to distract myself. I can’t fuck this up. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back here.
Don’t think like that. This bullshit will be over soon. At least that’s what I tell myself as I drive down the highway past the city line.
Pulling along the curb, I park between two cars, turn on the satellite radio and glance at the clock.
Ten minutes.
My phone rings through the speakers, I hit ignore, but it immediately begins to ring again, and I send it to voicemail yet again. I’ve ignored every text and call from the guys. My phone goes off four more times before I realize if I don’t answer, I might miss the reason I came here in the first place. So when it rings again, I answer.
“
For fuck’s sake! What do you assholes want?” I bark, frustrated they won’t give me a moment’s peace.
“Where the hell did you go? We find out Samantha has been twirling on her big brother’s dick, and you disappear?” Sebastian inquires without a hint of anger in his tone.
“I had to handle a few things before Karl wakes up,” I reply.
Sebastian hums into the line, “Care to explain?”
“No.”
He huffs a laugh, “I figured as much. Just don’t do anything stu-.”
Sebastian’s sentence is cut off by Rowan, “Where the fuck are you?”
Rolling my eyes, I check the time, six minutes. “Minding my fucking business, as you should be,” I retort at the broody asshole.
“Do we need to chip you?” Liam jokes, but there’s an edge to his voice. “The last time one of us went off on our own…” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but he doesn’t have to.
Fuck! I didn’t think through my disappearance and radio silence. “I’m sorry,” I sigh, “I didn’t…I didn’t mean to worry you guys. I just needed space.”
“Space doesn’t have anything to do with a certain toxic bitch ending up dead, does it?” Liam asks.
I fucking wish. Fifty ideas of how I could end Samantha immediately come to mind. Each one plays out in rapid succession as I feel a smile grow on my face. I must be quiet for too long because I hear Rowan shout through the line, “August, now’s not the time to fuck around. We can’t risk O!”
“As much as I would like it to-no, it doesn’t,” I state as I glance at the clock, one minute. “Listen, I’m good. I’ll be back soon, but I need to go.” I end the call before anyone can protest and focus on the corner, and I don’t have to wait long.
My heart stops in my chest before doubling in speed as I breathe for what feels like the first time in forever as I watch the beautiful girl whose hair is no longer midnight blue step into view. Strawberry blond locks catch the wind, and I try to taste her scent with everything.
It’s been one thousand and eight hours, five hundred and fifty-six minutes, and forty-eight seconds since I last laid eyes on my girl. I’d be dead if I was vampiric and relied on her for blood. I want to punch the universe in its bitch ass face, kick Father Time in his balls, and flay fate alive for this bullshit. Emma should never be where I can’t reach her. She should never feel anything less than love from me-from us- and because of the dusty, moldy cunt, Samantha, she’s both. The second one is a bold-faced lie, but Emma doesn’t know that. She thinks the worst of us, and at this moment, I’d have to agree.
Emma’s surrounded by three men as she walks back to their car with her dad. I only recognize Reign and her father. Holding up my phone, I snap pictures of each guy and shoot a text to Coop. He and his brother will have a file on them before I leave Bronston. She stops and locks eyes with me. Only she can’t see through the tints. That doesn’t stop me from believing that she might feel me staring. One of the guys taps her shoulder, breaking our connection. She shakes her head clear before disappearing into the back of their tinted-out SUV.
I watch in resigned acceptance as they drive off.
* * *
Sitting outside the Bradfords’ Colorado estate, waiting for the lights to go out, reminds me of the times I would wait for Emma’s light to go out when she first moved to Calloway. Emma slept like the dead. I snort, remembering how I thought I’d need to drug her or something in order to snoop around, but I learned a bomb could go off, and she’d sleep through it. She’d come on my fingers so hard, but her eyes would never open.
The sound of my phone buzzing interrupts my musings. Colt’s name pops across the screen, and I answer, “What do you have for me?”
“Elias Jeremiah Prescott. Age twenty-one from Bronston and will attend LWU as a junior in the fall. He quickly worked his way up through naval intelligence rank before he was dishonorably discharged last year, but I can’t find out why because his file has top secret clearance, and I’m not hacking into the Pentagon,” Colt states.
“And the other one?” I inquire.
Cooper answers this time, “Fernando Nicolas Cruz. Age twenty-four from Polanco in Mexico City, Mexico. He’ll be a grad student also attending LWU in the fall. His story is as interesting as Reign’s. His family disowned him six years ago when he decided to enlist.”
Interesting. They’re military. “Why were they with Emma?”
“They’re part of her security detail. She has a team of twenty that rotate shifts,” Colt explains.
At least she’s protected.
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.