by Rachel Angel
I chuckled. “You have it all planned out, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Haven said. “I do.”
“Is there any plans for love? For us?” I had to ask no matter what she would say.
“Maybe,” Haven said. “I’m leaving that open.”
I inwardly sighed. She was open to having relationships. I closed my eyes. If she cut me off…if she dropped me from her life, I would be truly devastated. Crushed. I couldn’t even imagine it.
So I would do everything I could to protect her, help her reach her dreams.
“So,” Haven said, happily munching on her multiple orgasm sushi roll. “What did you want to tell me?”
I took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know how to say this gently, but I think you’re in danger.”
Chapter 11
Tristan
I couldn’t believe how we still couldn’t crack the code to get into the flash drive that we found in the lining of Megan’s purse.
Drake had been working on it for hours, and even his brilliant computer hacking skills could not break the code.
I looked at the clock. “We’d better head home,” I said. “Or people will start asking questions.”
“I’m beat,” Drake said. “I tried everything I could think of to break the code, but I think it will have to be something we don’t have any idea about. This purse was sent to Max, so Max should know how to open this drive. He was meant to receive it so he could open it.”
“I hate to see that guy,” I said. “Especially since he’s getting serious about wanting to have a real relationship with Haven. I could see it in every inch of him how he’s wound up so tight to pounce on our girl. He is so hot for her, I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to let them make out or even hang out with each other at school.”
“Can you do anything about it?” Drake asked drily. “If Haven wants to see him, she’ll find a way. Yes, Max wants her, but so do all the guys at school, along with all the guys at her old school. Fuck, I sometimes see one of those three assholes who bullied her, sending text messages asking how she’s doing. Our Haven is H-O-T. and we’ll have to deal with our jealousy over guys who know it just as well as we do.”
“Fuck, I know,” I said. “Why can’t guys get the message that she’s ours? Why do they still flirt with her, text her, comment on her social media with crude things about what they want to do with her, sexual fantasies…”
“It’s driving you crazy,” Drake said.
“You think?” I shot back.
“Fuck, we are running out of time,” I said. “Let’s wrap this up and meet up with Max to force the code out of him.”
“Sounds like a plan I like,” Drake said. “Tell you the truth…I’m fucking jealous of Max being able to act like he’s her boyfriend in public. He could touch and kiss her in public all he wants, but when I want to in public, I have to hold back. I have to pretend to have only brotherly feelings for her when we all know there is nothing brotherly about how we love her. It was never brotherly. We never saw her that way…but now it has to be. And it’s killing me we have to keep this a secret.”
“I know how you feel,” I said. “Same boat. But maybe one day, we can find a solution.”
Chapter 12
Haven
Max and I finished eating at the Sushi restaurant, which I have mentally marked as my next favorite restaurant in Heartbreak Falls, when he leaned over to whisper into my ear.
“About that purse you found in the Ferrari’s trunk. I need it back.”
I swung my head away from Max so fast, I nearly gave myself whiplash.
“I don’t have any of your purses,” I said.
“It was in my trunk along with your backpack,” Max said.
“I didn’t see any purses when I got my backpack out of the trunk.”
“It was there when you placed your backpack in there. Then it was gone after you took it out,” he said, looking accusingly at me.
Suddenly, Max was not at all like the Max I knew.
Why was he concerned about Megan’s purse so much? Did he actually need it?
Again, did he murdered Megan to get it?
“Max,” I said, “You’re scaring me. Why do you think I have this purse? Maybe you left it somewhere else?”
Max gently touched my face then and kissed me. “I’m sorry, Haven,” he said. “It’s just that there’s something very important in that purse, and whoever sent it to me, would kill for it. So if you have it, they would go after you to get it.”
OMG. Megan was really bad.
Was Max just like her?
“If you have the purse, hand it over to me, and you could just walk away. You wouldn’t know what to do with it anyways, so why endanger yourself for it?”
I turned to Max and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see a purse at all, and I most certainly don’t have it.”
Max pulled up my backpack, unzipped it, and looked inside.
“Hey what are you doing?” I asked.
“Seeing if it’s inside,” Max said.
“Okay, I’m offended now. So you don’t believe my word. Now you think you can violate my privacy. Tristan was right about his judgment of you…you can’t be trusted, and I won’t date you now or ever!”
Max was panic-stricken. “I’m sorry Haven. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m just so worry for you.”
I desperately sent texts to Tristan and Drake, and even Dillon to come get me at the Sushi Ramen restaurant.
Between the three of them, one of them would get to me soon.
Chapter 13
Tristan
I knew I was right about Max. He was a Bradshaw after all. That text Drake and I received from Haven to come get her at the restaurant had me careening like a race car back to Heartbreak Falls.
“Dillon received her text, too,” Drake said. “He’s closer to her. He’ll get there faster.”
“Good,” I said. “Max will never go near Haven again after we get through with him.”
“We’ll take this opportunity to question him about the flash drive,” Drake said.
“Exactly what I was thinking,” I said.
I gunned the accelerator until we were minutes from the restaurant.
Dillon may have been closer to Haven, but we arrived at the same time.
“Text Haven to come out of the restaurant with Max,” I said. “When he comes out, we’ll grab him.”
We stood close to the exit of the restaurant waiting and ready to beat the shit out of Max.
When the blonde pretty boy finally walked out, Dillon had tackled him to the ground, and Drake had already wrapped a belt around Max’s wrists.
Haven walked out calmly with a takeout box and said, “What’s going on?”
Max called out, “Your stepbrothers attacked me.”
“We thought you were in trouble,” I said.
“I was,” Haven said. “Until I realized how not to be, and how to get you guys to work this out. Max was looking for a purse I didn’t have, but I figured out who most likely would have the purse Max thought I had…you, Tristan.”
Max looked over at Tristan from the ground. “You have Megan’s purse?”
I gestured for Dillon and Drake to lift Max up. I walked up to him and asked, “You want her purse? Why? What’s it to you?”
“It belongs to the Bradshaws,” Max said. “In memory of Megan.”
“Really?” Drake said. “As in a memory drive of Megan’s?”
Max’s face paled in the night light beaming down at him in the parking lot. “Shit.”
“Come with us,” I said, gesturing for Drake and Dillon to bring Max with us into my Black Escalade. “Haven, too.”
Chapter 14
Haven
We all sat in Tristan’s large black Escalade SUV. The twins in the back seat with Max between them. Tristan driving and me in the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” Max asked.
“Tha
t’s for us to know, and you to never find out,” Dillon said.
I already knew where we were going, having been on this route before. Tristan’s lair.
We sat mostly in silence as Tristan drove as fast as he could to the hangar he called the Lair.
I couldn’t stand the silence. Apparently Max couldn’t either. “Haven,” he said. “I’m sorry how I behaved to you just now over the purse. I’m telling the truth. I’m just worried that you would get hurt by having it. But now that I know you didn’t have it, and it’s out of your hands, I’m not worried.”
“Why are you worried about Haven having the purse?” Drake asked.
“Because the people who sent me the purse would kill to get what was in it.”
“Why would they send it to you then?” Drake asked.
“Because I know how to get what they want from it.”
“Do you know what’s inside this flash drive?” Drake asked.
“No,” Max said.
“But you know how to open the files?” Drake asked.
“I do,” Max said.
“Did Megan?” Drake asked.
“Actually, I don’t think she did. If she did, she wouldn’t have gotten killed.”
“Oh?” Tristan said from up front. “Why?”
“Because what’s on the flash drive is so important to these people, she would have taken advantage of the knowledge that’s within and blackmail them or do something to get the upperhand.”
“Just like Megan,” Tristan said. “She was a formidable rival to the Bradshaw fortune and heritage, right Max?”
“What are you insinuating?” Max asked.
“Just that we really knew how competitive you and Megan had always been over everything…including Haven.”
“If you are suggesting I murdered my own cousin,” Max said, “You are dead wrong.”
“Then you were working together with Megan to kidnap Haven and sell her into sex slavery?” Tristan asked. “Be careful of what you say, I would never forgive Megan for what she did and was attempting to do.”
Max cried out in anger, “What? What did you say Megan did?”
“She filmed Haven when she was sleeping in her hotel room that night she won the bid for Haven, and was using that video to try to sell ‘the Triton piece of ass’ to some anonymous wealthy foreign bidder for sex.”
“Fuck Megan!” Max shouted. “I had no idea she did that. Had I known, I would never had introduced her to Haven. I would have hid Haven from her. What a fucking no-good bitch. How could you even think I would put Haven through that?”
“So you weren’t part of that diabolical plot?” Tristan asked.
“Hell no!” Max said.
“If you were,” Drake said, “You’re not seeing the light of day.”
“I said I wasn’t,” Max said.
“Well, we’ll see what you do know,” Tristan said, stopping the car.
*****
We walked into the hangar, and Max laughed. “You have an interesting set up here, Tristan.”
“No one gets to see this place and live to tell of it,” Tristan said. “Unless you can prove to be trustworthy, you won’t be leaving here alive.”
Max’s smile disappeared then. “He’s serious, isn’t he?”
“Dead serious,” Dillon said, tying Max to a chair.
Drake went to Tristan’s table where there was a large screen computer.
He turned on the computer and installed the flash drive.
“What’s the password, Bradshaw?” Drake asked.
Dillon was about to force Max to say it when everyone’s phones began ringing.
It was dinner time.
“Oh, Mom said she’ll meet me for dinner at this time,” I said.
“I told Dad we’ll be there for dinner earlier today,” Tristan said.
“That’s probably them,” Drake said, answering his phone.
I looked down at my phone. Terrence had texted me earlier asking where my mother was.
I noticed more texts from Terrence about a minute apart asking the same question.
“Hey guys,” Drake said, “It’s Dad.”
“Did you tell him we won’t be home for dinner?” Tristan asked.
“No,” Drake said, his face suddenly pale. He looked over at me, his lips trembling.
“What is it?” I asked going up to Drake to take the phone out of his shaking hands.
I placed the phone to my ear and asked, “Hi Terrence, it’s Haven. What is it?”
“Oh Haven, I’m so sorry. Your mother…she’s missing. I’ve been searching for an hour, but there’s been no word. Even her New York contacts.”
I gulped. “What do you think happened? What can we do?”
“Haven, she’s missing because she’s been kidnapped. Oh my God, it’s starting all over again!”
I dropped the phone, and Tristan caught me before I crumbled to the ground.
Drake grabbed the phone to talk to Terrence.
When he hung up, Dillon asked, “What’s going on? Why has Haven crumbled?”
Drake announced, “Haven’s mom is missing.”
*****
Haven, Tristan, Drake, Dillon, and Max’s story continues in
Book 4 and 5 of The Heartbreak Falls Series
Destroy Me Not
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084C143VR
Love Me Not
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084BTRVYN
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Excerpt
CRUEL CRUSH:
Hidden Falls High #1
kailin gow
Loving Summer Prequel Series
3 Years Before Loving Summer Book 1
Summary
Dante Black
Another home, another new school.
Another target.
Life was supposed to be smooth sailing when you're at the end of your high school year.
Of course it is.
Especially when you're the one your father relies on to take care of loose ends. And by the time you're 17, you've already earned yourself a reputation amongst the Inner Circle as someone to be feared.
Who am I? I'm the charming Prince, the Golden Boy, the one no one suspects to have no heart.
Until I saw her...my target. The girl I will bring down because she is his crush.
Who knew crushes could be so cruel?
Summer
There is someone new living in the Donovans' old mansion in Hidden Falls, the exclusive enclave in Malibu. He's a senior at the Academy, but he seems older like he's already seen so much in the world. Maybe he has. Maybe he's not of this world.
I thought I had finally found peace at Hidden Falls High...but the nightmare is just beginning...
***Hidden Falls High is a mature YA/New Adult series intended for 17 and up due to language and mature matters. Cruel Crush ends on a cliffhanger.
Prologue
Dante Black
L.A. shouldn’t have welcomed me with open arms as it did when I landed into LAX this morning.
Not when I came here for the very reason I was sent here for.
