Then, I tried again.
“What the fuck.” I whispered aloud.
I knew exactly where I was because I’d been here before, and not all that long ago either. I was lying on the ground in the center of that wine cellar restaurant, downstairs of the hotel Aiden had taken me to. But, it looked different this time.
“Oh, boy,” I said with a sigh.
I stood on shaky legs and walked around the room. There was only one table and one chair now, which was completely bare. The fireplace was empty and swept clean. A row of emergency floor lights gave the room an eerie, faint glow. The staircase Aiden and I once walked down arm in arm was now barricaded with an iron gate, which turned what had been an elegant, luxurious dining room into a jail cell.
And sitting in a chair, tapping on a smart phone, was Aiden.
I watched him as my jaw slowly unhinged. Was he kidding? He looked so nonchalant, like there wasn’t any issue with what was currently taking place. And I have to admit, I was in shock. Even I didn’t feel as if my internal freaking-out was doing this moment justice.
Yet, there he was. Scrolling through a phone as if nothing were happening.
After he finished whatever the hell he was doing that was more important than this, he locked the phone and dropped it in his pocket. With a slowness that was—frankly--overdramatic, he hauled himself up and walked to the grate, looking down through it with a frown.
“You know, Lila, I really hate to see you this way,” he said, and his voice dripped with disappointment. As if I had let him down somehow.
I bit my tongue. The dude was deranged, and my smart-ass comments were a surefire way to get myself killed. Besides, even though a furious rage was shooting through my veins, there was still an edge of panic inside and I didn’t trust my voice not to shake.
“I just wish you’d let me save you,” he said regretfully, fingers curling around one of the grate’s large holes as he leaned against it.
My voice cracked as I spoke, and I hated it. “Save me?”
His face warmed a little at my sign of weakness, and I saw his posture relax some. It made me sick to look at, too.
“I tried so hard, baby. So hard. But, my father always taught me that not all people can be saved. He told me to be prepared for that in my line of work, and he was right. Even the most amazing of people don’t even realize they need saving, and when you bring it to their attention, all they do is shun you. You shouldn’t have shunned me, Lila.”
He smacked his hand against the grate, making it rattle. And when I flinched, his smile grew wild. “You wouldn’t let me save you, but I can free you. I guess that’s just how you females are these days. Too damn proud to let a man help you out. Guess all of that talk about feminism and gender role reversal didn’t do you guys as much good as you thought, huh?”
I shrank back from the disgusting sound of his words, but I did not miss the emotion flare in his eyes at the sight. And damn it, my curiosity was simply too much.
“Help me out with what, Aiden? What are you trying to protect me from?”
“The mafia,” he said matter-of-factly.
I blinked. Was he totally insane? When did I end up caught in some sort of mafia movie? This scared me even more, too, because as far as I could tell he was absolutely off his rocker.
And I was at his mercy.
But, then my reasoning kicked in. I stuffed my emotions down long enough to see the simplistic formula in front of me. If he was upset that I wouldn’t let him help me—if he was upset that I kept defying him—then I needed to stop doing it. Not because I believed it to be right, but because I wanted to get out alive.
I decided to play along, hoping maybe I could work this to my advantage.
“Aiden, walk me through this,” I said, trying to sound calm. “You’re giving me puzzle pieces one at a time. So, why don’t you do us both a favor and just tell me everything?”
His face took on a genuinely sad expression. “But Lila… it’s far too late for that now.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
He didn’t look up. He just began walking to the staircase with slow, heavy steps.
“Aiden?” I grabbed onto the grate and rattled it in my hands. “Aiden!”
But all I heard was a heavy door close and a lock slide home. Shutting me off from the rest of the world and making me wonder if I’d ever see the light of day again.
Which made me bellow a sound I’d never heard come from my mouth before.
“Aiden, GOD DAMN IT!!!!”
19
Jude
I was making Brooklyn pancakes.
Well… kind of.
Really, she was hovering at my shoulder teaching me how to cook pancakes from a box. But I was doing okay at it so far.
“You know, the instructions written on this make it sound like it would be a whole lot easier,” I grumbled, looking in disgust at the chalky blob of a mess in the pan.
I could feel her laughing at me without even looking at her.
“You really don’t have to enjoy this quite so much,” I murmured.
She handed me a measuring cup of water. “Sorry, handsome. Now, mix in a little more water while you’re beating it like that.”
With my tongue between my lips, I poured the water out drip by drip until the batter seemed a bit more wet.
“Stop staring at me,” I said, not taking my eyes off the prize.
“Okay, okay,” she went to the fridge and pulled out some orange juice, pouring it into glasses for us. “Hey, have you heard from your sister?”
“No,” I said, finally deciding my mixture was balanced enough to try to cook a pancake again. “Why?”
“No real reason,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “I texted her to offer her a ride home from Aiden’s but she never responded.”
I spooned the batter into the pan, watching it morph into a shape that definitely wasn’t a circle. “Yeah, she hasn’t responded to me either. I guess she’s all wrapped up in him or something. I know her, though. She’ll tear through him until she’s bored and then she’ll act like he never existed. That’s usually how this goes.”
Brooklyn was silent. And when I peeked over at her, I made sure to keep one of my eyes trained on the stovetop. “What?”
“It’s just…” then she shook her head, red hair flying around her shoulders. “Nothing. Nothing.”
“What?” I turned to face her. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
She shifted from foot to foot and her cheeks blazed a sudden, burning red. “Lila didn’t want you to know.”
Now, I wasn’t focused on the pan. “Is it something bad? It must be, but why are you bringing this up now?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine. I’m sure.” But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She simply kept drying and re-drying her surely dry-by-now hands on the towel and peering out the balcony window.
“Brooklyn,” I growled. “Spit it out, or so help me…”
“Fine, fine! It’s just that Lila seemed truly over Aiden. They got in a really bad fight the day you dropped her off at his house and she came home in bad shape. She didn’t want you to know, because she didn’t want you going after a cop.” Her words were tumbling out, thick and fast. “But he sent those flowers and showed up here so I figured she’d gotten over it or he was making him pay for it, you know? But now we haven’t heard from her and I’m starting to get nervous.” She had begun twisting the towel in her hands and now finally could look me in the eye, hers bright with concern.
I put the spatula down and thought about what she’d told me. “What do you mean by ‘she came home in bad shape’, exactly?”
My voice was deadly quiet, and I watched Red’s face pale. She heard it. I heard it. And now, she needed to stop fucking around and get to the point.
“He didn’t hurt her, not like that,” she rushed to explain. “But, her clothes were torn. She said they had…” she hesitated, probably realizing that she was talk
ing to the brother, but forged on. “…had sex and that’s how her clothes got torn. But she was pretty upset.”
“And you kept this from me? For this long?” I strode across the room and grabbed up my phone, checking to see if there’d been anything from Lila. There was nothing, though.
Panic surged then, cold and sticky across my chest. Something was going on with my sister. Something bad. Something terrible.
And Brooklyn kept that from me.
She sighed. “I’m sorry, Jude. I just didn’t know whether to tell you or keep her--.“
I held my hand up to stop her words before she shoved her foot further down her throat. And as I put my phone to my ear, it rang as I tried to call Lila. She didn’t answer, though. So, I shot her a quick text.
9:42 AM
Lila, getting worried about you now. Can you just shoot me a quick text so I know you’re fine?
I stared at the screen for a moment to see if the blue dots appeared, but nothing. Pacing the length of the room, I tried to think of what we should do now. Waiting calmly was probably the most rational option, but what Brooklyn had said had sparked something in my brain, and it had me on high alert. Because she was right, if Lila had decided she was for sure done with the guy, then it would have been pretty hard for him to get her to disappear with him for this long. She was too logical to just disappear impulsively with someone who had shown her his bad side.
“I should have seen it before,” I hissed. “I can’t believe we waited this long.”
I grabbed my coat and pulled it on before shoving my hat on my head and my feet into my boots.
“Where are you going?” Brooklyn asked.
I snickered. “To Aiden’s house. Where are your keys?”
She shot an anxious look outside, where the snow had started to fall once more. The plows had come through twice, but the roads were bound to still be treacherous, and her little car wasn’t up for much.
But all she said was, “I’m coming with you.” And I loved her for that. She turned off the burner, snagged her coat, and we ran down the stairs to her car.
Aiden’s house was barely three miles away, but it took us over twenty minutes to get there. Brooklyn insisted on driving, probably not trusting me not to fly over regardless of the weather. A good call. She eased around slick spots and ice patches, staying far back from other drivers on the road. I forced myself to stay calm. It hadn’t been that long. She was probably holed up inside, riding out the storm in Aiden’s cozy little house.
At last, we pulled up. Brooklyn barely hit the brakes before I was out of the car and up the drive, banging on the door. I hit the doorbell a few times, then six times in a row. No lights inside flickered on, no movement on the other side of the door. I turned a blank face to Brooklyn, who was peering worriedly from the car, and shook my head.
Before returning to the car, I circled the house, my ankles sinking into deep snow. There were no fresh footsteps anywhere to be seen, the driveway hadn’t been cleared, and not a single window was lit up from the inside. Fuck.
I went back to the car, my mind racing.
“Nothing?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been there since the snow started.”
She frowned and started the car once more. “We’ll go to your house next. Maybe she decided to get more of her stuff before coming back to my place.”
I nodded, grateful that she’d had an idea, even though it didn’t seem at all likely to me. But we picked our way across town to… what was I supposed to call it now? It had never really been home, and it certainly wasn’t now. The Manor I guess, like Brooklyn and the other staff had always called it.
We pulled in, the driveway cleared like no other part of town had been, and got out together. Brooklyn took my hand, probably sensing how very much I did not want to be here.
“I’ll check her room,” I said. “Can you look around a bit and see what you see?”
She nodded, but I could tell she was just as unhappy to be back as I was, and I knew I was asking a lot. I pulled her to me tightly and kissed her hard, out in the freezing cold and with the snow falling around us. Then, without another word I went inside.
The house felt incredibly strange. It was far too quiet, first of all, without the hum of usual activity I was so used to. Growing up, our house had never been empty. There were tags on various items, and some items, ones I knew to be incredibly valuable, were missing altogether. I ran up to her room and found just what I had been expecting. Nothing.
It had been tidied since our quick exodus, but barely. Her room still looked mostly the same, considering how little we had been able to pack and take with us.
“Li?” I called. But, it wasn’t as if I expected an answer.
And that’s exactly what I got.
“Shit,” I hissed.
I checked her closet and bathroom for the sake of thoroughness, then left. I was eager to get out of that house, mostly because I wanted to find Lila. A little bit because I wanted to murder Aiden myself. And partially because I didn’t want to run into Mother.
Where the hell did that bastard take my sister?
Downstairs, Brooklyn was chatting with Janey in the kitchen. A weird sight in and of itself, especially the politeness they were treating each other with. But when Brooklyn saw me, she came right over to me as Janey shot me a sympathetic look.
A look I needed to get used to if I was going to testify in front of the entire world against my own damn mother.
“She’s not here,” Brooklyn said as she approached me. “But Janey’s going to keep an ear out. If she hears anything, she’ll call me.”
“Thanks, Janey,” I said, glad that she hadn’t held her recent firing against me too much to do this. “I really appreciate it.”
She nodded and glanced down the hall. “You two had better go. The Congresswoman is bound to come sniffing around for her lunch at any moment now.”
We went out the back door through the kitchen and got back in Brooklyn’s car, where we both sat in the cold for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do next.
“Why don’t we go by the coffeeshop he took her to? It’s a long shot, but maybe someone saw something. We can walk around the area too, see if there’s anything we see,” she suggested.
“We don’t even know that he actually took her to Blenders,” I said. “He could have just told her that to get her in his car and then left.” I sighed. “But we might as well try.”
My panic was ratcheting up now. Where was she? It no longer felt like there was a reasonable answer for why she had been gone all this time. I could only think of the terrible things that might have happened to her.
Brooklyn took my hand in hers, glancing briefly from the road to meet my eye. “We’re going to find her,” she promised.
Blenders was thankfully open. The good thing about Hampshire was no matter how hard the weather might hit us, we rarely went down. Our power might go out, outside services might not come to us, but our little town always soldiered on.
We stepped inside, where a teenage girl was at the counter. And the place was dead.
“What can I get you?” she asked at the counter.
“Actually, we were hoping you could help us with something. We’re looking for someone, his sister,” she nodded to me. “And we’re worried something happened to her. This is the last place she should have been, around noon the day before yesterday.”
The girl’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa, like… she’s missing?”
“Yes,” Brooklyn said with more patience than I would have managed. “Do you guys have security cameras or something we could look at?”
The girl glanced up, as if the answer were written on the ceiling. “No, sorry. No cameras.”
“Did you possibly work the day before yesterday, in the afternoon?” Brooklyn pressed.
“Nope,” the girl said. “But Meryl did.”
“Can we talk to Meryl?” Brooklyn looked like she was losi
ng her patience now.
“Yeah, definitely.” But the girl made no move at all.
“Oh my God, please keep up,” Brooklyn said. “How do we talk to Meryl?”
“Oh! Sorry! Yeah, she’s in the back. Meryl!”
Right away, a girl in red cat-eyed glasses came out from the back. “What’s up, Michelle?”
Michelle nodded to us, popping a stick of gum in her mouth and not moving at all to give us privacy.
“Hey, Meryl,” Brooklyn moved forward and shook the other girl’s hand. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’re hoping you can help us. His sister went missing and we’re trying to find her. We think this might have been the last place she was before something happened.”
Meryl started to nod, but then she caught my eye and froze. “Oh my God you look exactly like her,” she blurted out, and then looked mortified. “I’m sorry, that was so rude.”
Hope flared in my chest. A clue, at last! Maybe she’d have something for us. “No, that’s great. You obviously did see her, and you know who we’re talking about.”
She nodded slowly, her face pale. “Yeah, I do. I mean, I don’t remember every customer, we see so many, but she really stuck out… and for more reasons than one.”
“Why? Did something happen?” Dread trickled down my chest.
“Well, yeah. She got arrested right outside,” Meryl said. “So, I guess that answers your question, huh? Sorry about that,” she said, looking genuinely sorry.
“But—but…” I was struggling to come to terms with this information.
“Listen, Meryl, do you think you can talk us through everything that happened while she was here and until she got arrested? Obviously, I don’t expect you to know everything, but anything you noticed at all that might’ve seemed weird? Or off?”
“Sure, of course,” Meryl frowned, thinking. “Your sister was super nice. She complimented my on my glasses,” she said shyly, touching a finger to the arm of them on her face. “The guy she was with though…”
VENGEFUL ROYALS | A DARK COLLEGE BULLY ROMANCE: HEIRS OF HAVOC Page 13
