When Fates Align

by Isabelle Richards

I slide into the back of the BMW and drown in despair. Was he dying whilst I was waiting outside? If I’d stormed in there, could I have kept him alive long enough to get information out of him? My imagination percolates image after image of the horrible situation Lily could be in. What if she’s hurt? Trapped?

  Trying to find her before was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but now she could be anywhere. The trunk of a car. A cheap motel. A bloody hole in the ground. As the scenery passes, everywhere I look, I spot potential hiding places. She could literally be anywhere. It’s like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

  “Isaac,” I shout, “drive faster.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lily

  Fate hates me. Or Karma. Whoever’s moving the pieces in this fucked up game of life must take sadistic pleasure in teaching me lessons.

  My freshman year, I was foolish enough to sign up for an eight o’clock psych class. I went religiously, until I started dating Ash. Then I missed more classes than I attended. The final consisted of one essay question. Explain the impact of sensory deprivation on a wounded psyche. I failed because I’d missed that lecture, and I couldn’t fathom how some time in the dark and quiet would be a bad thing. Apparently someone thinks failing the class wasn’t enough. I need to live it first hand.

  Without the light bulb, its pitch black in here. There’s not even a speck of light from a crack in the wall or where the door meets the frame. Absolute blackness. The only sound I’ve heard is the scurrying of rats. So it’s just me, trapped with no possible means of escape.

  I’m trying to keep my hope alive, but it’s freaking hard to feel any optimism right now. My mind goes to dark places, filled with questions without answers. The uncertainty makes the wheels in my tired brain spin to come up with answers, but all of the answers end in my death.

  How long have I been here? How long has it been since they left? I can’t decide what’s worse: whatever they have planned for me or slowly dying here in the dark. Am I sealed in? These things can’t be airtight, can they? Is there enough air? Take little breaths, Lily, I tell myself over and over, but that just makes me panic and suck in as much air as I can. I know I’m being irrational, but rationality disappeared with the light bulb.

  Frustrated and scared senseless, I scream in vain into the gag and pull against the restraints. I thrash and shriek until my body aches and my throat hurts. It’s futile, but I need to do something.

  I get it, bitch! You hate me. You win! Somewhere along the way, I pissed you off and you’ve spent the rest of my life proving you can crush me. I surrender! Now let me the fuck out of here or kill me, but get on with it already!

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gavin

  I’m out of the car before Isaac puts it in park.

  “Roger,” I bellow after bursting through the front doors.

  When he doesn’t respond, I storm through the house, my anger propelling me forward like a whirlwind. I’ve lost all grace and motor control, my body frantically trying to get to Roger, to get answers. I wind up clipping side tables and knocking into priceless paintings. I’m quite certain I hear a few crashes behind me as I plow through the house, but I don’t care. I could have smashed the Holy Grail, and I wouldn’t bat an eye. All I care about is praying that Roger has found some thread, some crumb of a clue that might lead us to Lily.

  After entering the theatre room, where Roger has taken up residence, I shake him, making his glasses to fall from his head.

  Looking at me with weary eyes, he holds his hands. “Have a seat, mate, let’s talk.”

  “I don’t want to sit. Tell me you have something,” I bark.

  He exhales. “I received the description from Isla. The man she thought the doctor identified died last month. I just confirmed it.”

  “You have something else, right? Tell me you haven’t been sitting here for days, click-clacking away on that thing, and you don’t have anything to go off of.”

  “Right now, I’m still looking. The GPS in the rental car is turned off. But I’ve been searching traffic cameras from around the farm, trying to figure out which direction he went. He needs to stop for petrol at some point. I’ll find him. I just need you to give me time.”

  “Time!” I say through gritted teeth. “We don’t have bloody time! Don’t you get that?”

  “Nigel and the boys are turning over rocks, trying to see where they could have her. I promise you, mate, we’re doing everything we can.”

  “It’s not enough!” I scream at him. “We had him and let him slip through our fingers because I was stuck here arguing with you and waiting for Nigel to orchestrate his grand plan of busting in, guns blazing. Had we not sat around with our cocks in our hands, we could have interrogated the prick and gotten somewhere!”

  “We haven’t exhausted all avenues yet—”

  I’m sure he has a long list of hypotheses to explore, but I don’t want to hear them. My patience for theoretical guessing has worn thin. I need some sort of evidence that’s strong enough to wrap my hope in and make it real so that I can hold on, because hope is slipping through my fingers like sand.

  He prattles on about algorithms and equations, but I’ve reached my breaking point. “Stop trying to sell me on your mumbo jumbo and find her,” I say before leaving the room, slamming the door behind me.

  Dire for a drink, I head to the study. The growing mound of couriered packages on my desk catches my eye. I’m not in any frame of mind to work, yet as if on auto pilot, I start to sift through them. My knees give way when I come upon a box from Poppy. In typical Poppy fashion, it’s wrapped in fancy paper, which I shred without pause for the care that went into its presentation.

  Prying the box open, I find a polished silver frame with a picture from the gala. Poppy must either not know yet, or she sent this before she heard. The air in the room disappears when I catch a glimpse of Lily’s beaming smile. She looked so beautiful that night. Lily has the uncanny ability to change the atmosphere of a room just by walking into it. She’s stunningly gorgeous, but that’s only part of it. Her beauty captures attention, but she has the unique ability to make a person feel as though they’re the only one in the room. It draws people to her like moths to a flame. She looks at you with bright eyes, full of wonder and curiosity, as if you’re a hidden gem she just stumbled upon and one she would treasure always. She loves fiercely, devoutly, and unconditionally. I’ve never met anyone like her.

  Loved. She loved fiercely, devoutly and unconditionally. Bloody hell. Is that ever going to get easier?

  I put the frame back in the box and gently place the box on my chair. Something detonates inside me, and I explode. Ripping my monitor from my desk, I hurl it against the wall, and the screen shatters. I throw the printer across the room and watch it burst apart when it crashes onto the floor. The heavy, ornate desk that has sat in this study for generations I heave onto its side, sending everything that was on the desk and in the drawers flying.

  All this destruction does nothing but make me crave more things to abuse.

  Spotting all the awards on my shelf, I find my new target. Bullshit awards for being a community leader, a humanitarian, a proud veteran. It’s all bullocks! I throw each statue, trophy, and plaque against the wall. I don’t deserve to be honored. I’m a fucking failure. All the resources in the world, and I can’t keep the one person who means the world to me safe. When I run out of awards, I pull the goddamn shelves out of the wall.

  Panting, I stop when I see Mason in the doorway.

  Arms folded across his chest, he glowers whilst taking in the rubble. “Feel better?”

  “No,” I spit back.

  He points down the hall. “The studio is stocked. I suggest you go create something amazing with your anger rather than take it out on priceless, irreplaceable family heirlooms.”

  Art has always been Mason’s answer for everything. When I was a lad, fraught with typical teenage angst and an unhealthy dose of contempt for my parents, he stee
red me away from impulsive acts of revenge, such as filling the fountain with baking soda and vinegar or inviting the entire class over for a treasure hunt in the garden. Six hours of digging up the perfectly manicured lawns only to find that I’d “accidentally” forgotten to bury the treasure. Mason preached finding a constructive use for emotion, and he taught me to lose myself in art. It’s better to vent my frustration by taking a chainsaw to a piece of wood and crafting something beautiful than to destroy out of spite.

  Knowing that he’s right—Mason’s always right—I follow his orders and go to the studio. A wall-sized blank canvas waits for me. Of course he saw this coming. The man always knows what I’m about to do.

  I immerse myself in the art of mixing the paint to the right shade for my mood. Deep crimsons, rich aubergine so dark it’s almost black, midnight blues. I take my fury out on the canvas. If anyone from the art world ever sees it, I’m sure they’ll take one look at the angry knifing and hostile brush strokes and guess that I was downright homicidal when I painted this. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

  The natural light fades, my only indication of the time that’s passed. Turning to the wall to turn on the light, I notice a tray of food. Mason must have dropped it off, but I was so entrenched in the work, I didn’t even notice.

  Ignoring the food, I open one of the bottles of water and drink it in one long gulp. The door taunts me. Should I go check in with Roger? If there was a development, he would have found me. The fact that he hasn’t is all too telling. Why leave the sanctity of this room simply to be heartbroken again? I return to the canvas, adding layer upon layer of texture.

  Isla strolls into the room. “Whoa, you’ve managed to paint pure evil on that canvas. Pretty impressive. Never would have pinned you for the artsy type, but like I’ve said, you continually surprise me.” She looks at me with wide eyes, looking almost joyful. “That’s hard to do.”

  I wipe my hands on a tea towel. “What can I do for you?”

  “Mason said I could find you in here.” Her eyes rake over me, setting me slightly ill at ease. “He didn’t say you’d be so exposed.”

  Restrictive clothing hinders brush strokes, especially on a canvas this large. Throughout the course of the day, I’ve discarded my shirt, socks, and shoes, so I stand before her in only my trousers and splattered paint. Feeling disquiet, I take my brushes to the sink to break the strange tension mounting between us.

  “It’s good that you have this,” she says in a curious tone. “At times like this, you need a way to channel your emotions so they don’t eat you alive. Healthy distractions are the only thing that will save you.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t come in here to talk about my hobbies,” I reply.

  She sits on the bench along the wall and pats the seat next to her. “Come sit. We need to talk.” The pleasant look on her face is gone, replaced by her typical impenetrable façade. When I make no move toward her, she glares at me. “Now.”

  Reluctantly, I cross the room, grabbing two bottles of water from the tray on my way. I offer Isla one, but she declines. Needing to create a little space from her, I sit on the floor in front of her, rather than next to her on the small bench.

  “I don’t beat around the bush, so I’m just going to say it. We haven’t been able to identify Soto’s partner. No known living member of Morelia fits his description. It could be some guy he picked up here, or maybe a friend who’s not in the cartel. There’s always the possibility there is someone in the cartel we haven’t identified. We have no idea. Roger’s still looking, but it’s a long shot.”

  I pick at the label on the bottle. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’ve asked my contacts in Mexico to keep an ear out for anything about Lily or their plans for her. If the plan was to hold her for ransom, there’d be chatter. If the plan was to sell her, there’d be chatter. There hasn’t been anything. Not one word about a package in the UK.”

  “What are you saying, Isla?”

  “Lily’s dead, Gavin.”

  “No! I refuse to believe it.”

  “If she were still alive, we would have heard something by now,” she says. “K and R takes money, especially overseas. I know for a fact that Morelia’s bleeding money right now. If they went to the effort to snatch her, you would have been called that day. You’d be the easiest payday in the world, because they know you’d pay anything, yet your mobile remains silent.”

  The bottle of water spills when I jump up and pace the room. “No. She’s alive. I can feel it. Even when I saw that body on the wall in my flat, part of me knew it wasn’t her. The moment we found out that her prints didn’t match, a light went off in my head, telling me she’s alive and out there somewhere, waiting for me to find her. I can feel it in my bones.”

  She pushes off the bench and blocks me from pacing. Putting her hands on my shoulders, she looks in my eyes. “That’s just denial. People want to believe that they have a spiritual connection to the person they love, that they can feel their soul. I did. I thought I was tied to my sister in such a way that I’d know if she was gone.” She shrugs. “But I was wrong. It’s just a lovely thought we’ve created to make ourselves feel important. Souls are a naïve concept for people unwilling to believe that our only purpose on Earth is to live in the moment. Cogs in a machine with no higher function.”

  “Stop,” I beg her.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to. You need to start accepting that Lily is dead.”

  I don’t want to believe her. I want to push her away and tell her to shut the fuck up and piss off, but I can’t. Grief overtakes me. My knees give out, and I fall to the floor. I should feel a jolt of pain when my ass hits the marble, but I can no longer differentiate between emotional pain and physical.

  Isla sits next to me and places her hand on my bicep. “I know it’s hard, but you have to accept it so you can move forward.”

  “I’m not ready to stop looking.”

  She runs her fingers along my arm. “You have to face reality.”

  I shake my head and look away. “I can’t.”

  She moves so she’s sitting in front of me. “Step by step, you can and will. Don’t expect it to come easily. It won’t. The pain will feel raw at first, like your body is one giant exposed nerve. If you let it, all you’ll feel is pain.” She puts her hands on my knees. “If you’re not careful, the emotions will bottle up, and you’ll combust. You need to give yourself an outlet. I’m sure painting’s therapeutic and everything, but in my experience, you need something that’ll allow you to channel all your angst and anger, and then give you the means to let it all go, a release. I can help you.” She inches closer. Her hand moves to my cheek, her thumb tracing my jaw. “You have a little paint right here.”

  Her hands feel alien and wrong on my body. I don’t want her here, don’t want her touching me. My body craves Lily, but that’s one addiction that will never again be satiated.

  I know what she’s doing, and there’s truth in what she’s offering. An angry fuck would reconfigure my despair into a carnal release that might ease the ache in my chest. For a brief moment, I wish I were still the guy who could fuck his way through this. Bury myself inside some faceless, nameless woman and forget the living hell my life has become whilst I lose myself in ecstasy. But I’m not that guy. The thought of being with anyone else is repulsive to me.

  Isla grabs my neck and pulls me toward her. My body recoils, as if touched by poison. She grins then moves to a crouched position, looking like a panther stalking its prey.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” a voice shouts from the doorway.

  I turn to see Max leaning against the doorframe, a bag slung over his shoulder.

  Isla leans back on her hands. “I was just informing Gavin that we’ve exhausted all leads.”

  Max drops his bag. “Yeah, it looks like you were ready to debrief him all right.” His eyes shoot daggers at me.

  Isla stands and wipes off the back of her
jeans. “Don’t be so sanctimonious, Yankee.” She looks over her shoulder as she leaves the room. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  Once the echo of her footsteps disappear, he snaps, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  I stand and collect my supplies to clean up. Anything to avoid his judgmental glare. “What are you talking about?”

  “With her? What are you doing with her?”

  “It’s nothing. I was having an emotional moment, and she was trying to be supportive. You’re reading too much into it.”

  He scoffs. “Supportive? Is that what you Brits call fucking?”

  I throw my hands in the air. “Piss off!”

  He shakes an accusing finger at me. “You forget how well I know you. I was there when you were told that Brooke had died. You had that same weepy look of disbelief, like your world was crumbling. We hadn’t finished sweeping the glass out of the street before you jumped into bed with Lily.” He points toward the stairs. “How long are you going to wait before you get the redhead between the sheets?”

  “How dare you! The situations are hardly comparable. When Brooke died, I was saddened at the loss of life, but it was a life she’d thrown away years before. I’d made my peace with that long before. Lily is my life! Don’t you dare cheapen what we have by making it sound like some tawdry rebound.”

  “Lily’s out there somewhere, her life possibly hanging by a thread, and you’re in here playing grab ass. Pardon me if I don’t believe a word you say. Your actions say it all. Maybe this is just how you heal. You get your dick wet, and all memories of your lost lover are forgotten!”

  Rage detonates within me, and I punch Max as hard as I can. He falls back and hits his head on a bookshelf. Grabbing the side of his head, he falls to the floor.

  “Fuck,” he groans.

  It takes all my restraint to hold myself back. I want to break his fucking jaw for saying such things. I step away, knowing if I don’t, I’ll unleash a violent fury upon him that I don’t have the strength to stop. What he’s saying is pure bullocks. I never would have done anything with Isla, but I’m furious I allowed myself to be in that situation.