by C. M. Owens
But I get worried that she’ll call once she reads it, and I just can’t talk about it right now. Whatever was going on, it hurt to see him ignore my call and focus on her, even if I wasn’t technically the one calling.
I power my phone down, adding to the tranquility, and Tria just drives.
“How far do you want to go?” she asks softly.
“You can take me to get my car if you want, because I want to ride until I stop crying,” I say as the first tear descends. “And that could be a while.”
She sighs, looking so sympathetic, or possibly empathetic—as though she feels my pain.
“I’m up for a road trip,” she tells me, and I lean back, happy that I don’t have to drive when the tears start pouring harder.
Chapter 35
WREN
“She said five,” I tell Mom, pacing back and forth through her house while glancing at the clock. It’s after six. Something is wrong. Has to be.
“Calm down, Wren. I’m sure she’s coming. She’d have called if something was wrong,” Mom says, glancing around the corner to see Angel sitting at the bar, eating her pizza like all is fine in the world.
I almost hugged her too hard when I got here over two hours ago. After that, I filled Mom in on everything. Everyone is watching that video, and they have been all day. Erica is contesting it with her lawyer, but if she manages to get it taken down, it’ll be too late. It’s already too late.
I want to show Allie the new viral show going on, and this one is digital. Erica will hate me for the rest of her life, and I can make peace with that after what she did to Allie and Angel. When she called to berate me, I told her I loved Allie, and I told her to never call me again.
I doubt that will work, but as of right now, she’s leaving Sterling Shore. She’d be snubbed by the rich world here that she loves so much if she tried to stay. Hell, she might even endure the insanity she unleashed on Allie. She’ll be on a flight to Paris tonight to stay in her parents’ vacation home. No more drama from her.
I see Toby walking through—my mother’s newest butler—as though he’s going to the door, and I run to beat him to it. Finally. Someone must have called to say a car was coming through the gate.
But when I swing open the door, my brow furrows, seeing a red Acura instead of a blue Focus driving toward me. Why is Bella here?
My stomach lurches as Bella comes to a stop near the stairs that lead to the porch, and she gets out. If looks could kill, Bella’s glare would be digging my grave right now.
“Where’s Allie?” I ask, dread coming over me.
Did something happen? I knew something was—
“As if you give a fuck,” she growls, taking a wide berth path to steer far away from me.
“The hell? Where is she? Of course I fucking care.”
“Yeah, is that why you had lunch with your ex after you told her you had important plans? Or why you ignored her phone call when she saw you sitting with Erica right in front of her?”
Venom seeps from her tone, but I feel frozen instead of poisoned. Fucking hell.
“What?” I ask hoarsely. “She was watching me with Erica?”
Then she has to know what I was—
“She was outside with Tria. She called. You blatantly ignored her call and she got to see Erica smile at what a sweet gesture it was. I really feel like the dumbest person on the planet, because I swore you were so damn good. Turns out, you’re worse than all the creeps I’ve dated… combined.”
Fuuuuck. No wonder she’s not here.
“Bella, it’s not—”
“Please don’t tell me it’s not what it looked like. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” Tears fill her eyes as she takes a menacing step forward. “Allie has had nothing, Wren. Nothing. Her entire life, she’s had no one to depend on other than me. And I’ve had no one but her since I didn’t do exactly what was planned for me. It hurts me knowing how easy it was for my parents to turn their backs on me. But at least I had more love than Allie had as a child. She dared to care about you—she let you into her life. And you… I can’t even look at you.”
Her tears fall harder, and a knife twists in my chest. If I’d known she was just outside and reading the situation completely wrong, I’d have abandoned the sabotage and left it at what I had.
“Bella, damn it! I didn’t meet with Erica for any other reason than to crush her—not Allie.”
She glares at me, clearly unconvinced, not that I can blame her, and I pull up my phone while I continue speaking. “I destroyed Erica today, and fixed this mess. Everyone knows the truth now—all of it. Including what I did to her seven years ago. She has all kinds of apologies flooding in from everywhere.”
I find the YouTube link that already has millions of hits since it went live earlier, and I hand it to her.
She takes my phone, a wary guard up around her, and she hits play. Slowly, as Erica goes on and on, spilling all her jealous ramblings and voicing the lies she told, Bella’s shoulders stiffen. Then it gets to the part I filmed after my meeting with Erica, and Bella’s shoulders drop in defeat as her head falls back.
“Shit,” she exhales.
“Please call Allie. She’s sending my calls straight to voicemail.” I really don’t care if it sounds like I’m begging, because frankly, I am.
“She’s not sending your calls to voicemail,” she groans. “She turned her phone off.”
I start to say something, but my phone rings, and I answer it quickly without looking.
“Allie?”
“No. It’s Kode. I was hoping you’d get ahold of Allie for me, though,” he says quickly, his breath rushed like he’s upset or pissed.
“I can’t get her to answer my calls. What’s going on?”
“I can’t reach Tria, and she’s with Allie. Pete Mercer was in transit to the federal prison upstate, but he was riding with several other big name criminals. One of them is the leader of some sort of drug ring, and a crew of his men crashed the convoy, and sprung the prisoners so they could free their boss. Pete—the lucky fucker he is—just happened to be one of the many prisoners that escaped. It was hours ago, and I just found out thirty minutes ago.”
I try to catch my breath, because Pete has come after Tria before, but surely he’s more interested in escape than revenge.
“He could be heading to Canada or Mexico by now,” I tell Kode, unsure of who I’m trying harder to convince—him or me.
“He blames Tria for everything, and he doesn’t have any money to run. And he doesn’t have any friends willing to help him. She’s all he’s thinking about and you know it. He has nothing left to lose since he had ten years added to his sentence for attacking that guard.”
I dig in my pocket for my keys and point to Bella. “Stay here. Don’t go anywhere. Keep Angel here.”
She nods, not looking even a little bit defiant, and I run down to my car.
“Bella said they went for a drive. But that has to have been hours ago,” I tell Kode.
“She’d want to be close to the beach,” Bella calls out. “That’s what she does. She finds somewhere peaceful to drive when she’s really upset. Or walk.”
I just nod, and Kode mutters a curse before hanging up. I’ll drive all around the beaches near town. It’s a long shot, but it’s a shot.
Chapter 36
ALLIE
“You feeling any better?” Tria asks from beside me.
Taking in a clean breath of air, I nod. “A little. At least I’m not crying now.”
It’s dark and almost eight at night. Guilt nags at me.
“Sorry. I bet Kode is probably worried about you.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it. He’s had to be there for the guys numerous times. I can assure you that he understands. I’ve been where you are. Kode hurt me once. But… I really don’t know what to say other than to talk to Wren. I’ve never seen him be the way he is with you. Maybe today was a misunderstanding.”
We’v
e driven in silence for miles and miles, and Sterling Shore is just now coming back into view. I’m still not ready to talk about it, though. I hate spilling my feelings out to anyone, which is why I’m glad Bella’s not here. She would have dug it out of me against my will because that’s what she does. But I just couldn’t take it tonight.
“Call Kode. Let him know you’re heading home,” I say to Tria, handing her the phone she abandoned so many hours ago.
She frowns, but takes the hint that I don’t want to talk about Wren.
As soon as her phone powers up, it starts going crazy with alerts and messages.
“Holy shit,” she says on a breath. “My phone has apparently been blowing up.”
She laughs while putting it back down, not calling Kode yet. “Do me a favor and check my texts, please. I can’t drive and read.”
I do grab her phone, and the first message is from Brin earlier today.
“You have one from Brin,” I tell her, even though the list under it is endless. None of them are very big previews, and I feel like I’m doing something wrong by even glancing at them.
“Read it to me.”
I click it, but it’s actually a YouTube link. I start to tell her, but my thumb hits and suddenly I’m on a video uploaded by Wren Prize. Curious, I click play and watch.
It’s Erica—inside that same restaurant where I saw him, and my heart clenches as bile rises to my throat. But just as quickly, the pang of hurt fades when I hear what she’s saying. She’s confessing everything—about how she lied and how she intentionally tried to ruin me, but she didn’t know it would get blown out of proportion the way it did.
“Is that Erica?” Tria asks, glancing over at me.
“It’s a video. From his lunch with her.”
We both fall silent as Erica continues to dig herself a grave, and then I watch Wren ignoring my call. But it wasn’t the way I thought it was. He just didn’t want her to stop telling the world what a bitch she is.
Tears fill my eyes for an entirely new reason, and I feel relieved and weighted at the same time. Why didn’t he just tell me what he was doing?
“Wow,” Tria says as Erica finishes up. Wren doesn’t say anything besides bye to her after she finishes. All the times he leaned in to talk to her was just to essentially goad her into telling more.
I read it all wrong.
Then Wren comes on, and the video is in a new place.
“Allie Thrash didn’t wreck my life, as you can see. In fact,” he says with a thoughtful smile, “she changed it in a way I never thought possible. I pursued her. I wanted her. And I love her. So, you understand why I don’t want anyone attacking her. It’s not just because she’s the mother of my daughter; it’s not just because she’s really the victim of petty jealousy. It’s because she’s part of me—a really good part that I didn’t know existed before her.
“Allie was the target of a vindictive ex and a cousin who allowed himself to be seduced by the same woman you sought justice for—Erica. The same woman most of you never knew cheated on me. The same woman who would do anything and everything to hurt my daughter and her mother.”
With that, he ends the feed with his jaw ticking angrily, as though he was cutting himself off before he lost his cool. Oh no. Oh no. No. No.
“That’s… so… I’m about to cry,” Tria says, sniffling around a small laugh.
He just told the world he loves me, and I’m the idiot who thought he was playing me. More tears prick my eyes, and I sigh in content, ignoring the truck behind us that is now riding our ass and blinding us with their bright lights.
Her phone rings, and I look back down.
“Dominant Lover?” I ask, confused by the name flashing on the screen, and she bursts out laughing while taking the phone from my hands.
“Hey, Kode,” she says, smiling, but her smile falls quickly, and even in the dark, I can tell she just paled. “When?” There’s a long pause and she sucks in a breath while turning down my road. “Yeah. We’re close to Allie’s house, and since Wren just went viral with that epic video, I’m sure it’ll be safe to stay there… Be careful. I’ll see you when you get here.”
She hangs up, and her hands are shaking.
“Tria, what’s wrong?” I ask when my house comes into view.
The blinding lights behind us don’t fade, and I scowl behind me at the jerk. “Oh no,” she whispers. “Please don’t let that be Pete,” she adds under her breath.
“Pete? As in your psycho ex—”
Air explodes from my chest, and my words end in a screech when the truck behind us suddenly slams into our rear. Tria jerks forward, crying out when her seatbelt catches, and she tries to speed up, ready to pass my house. But the truck revs loudly, ramming into us twice as hard this time, and it forces us to spin out of control.
The world around us spins violently, sending my stomach to my throat and my heart into my mouth. My body tenses as the seatbelt painfully catches again, keeping me from being thrown around in the car.
The car jolts again from a third attack, and metal whines and crunches. I hear the glass shattering as the world outside us blurs when the car is slung around harder, sliding into the grass of my small front yard. The smell of burning rubber assaults me, and my breath heaves out when the seatbelt holds me in place, bruising me with its forceful hold.
Seconds feel like hours, and my head pounds with my pulse. Actually, my pulse feels like it’s all over my body, thudding heavily and in panic as the madness continues.
The car rocks once it finally stops sliding, fortunately still staying upright. Tria groans, blood dripping down the side of her face from her lip that looks to be cut. I feel a warm trickle and reach up, wincing when my fingers touch my forehead, feeling a burning pain. I pull my hand down to see the small touch has loaded my fingertips with blood, and it’s dripping down my face, sliding onto my chest.
The front windshield is intact, but the back glass is shattered, and those damn lights are still blaring at us. I look over to see a spider-vein crack in the window of my door, and my blood is smeared all over it.
Since I bleed easily, I try not to freak out. What the hell just—
Tria’s door is ripped open, and she screams, “Run!”
Two large hands grab her out of the car after the seatbelt is cut away, and she struggles uselessly, while I helplessly stay trapped, finally managing to get my seatbelt undone.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears when I hear the muffled voice of a man, and I shove my shoulder against my door when it refuses to budge. Fuck!
Tria yelps in pain after a loud smack resonates in my ears, and I look for anything at all, but only find an ink pen. I scramble across the car, shifting over the awkward space to climb through Tria’s side just as the big, bald man throws her to the ground.
“Call the cops!” someone yells from down the street as Tria screams again, unable to stop him when he kicks her in the stomach.
My feet are moving before I realize it, and I suck in a breath just before I slam the ink pen into his side as hard as I can. I feel the flesh give, I hear the roar of pain, and I watch as blood coats the wound. I kick him as hard as I can right between the legs the second I get an angle, considering it’s the only way I really know how to hurt a man.
I don’t wait when I see him fall to the ground, because I know I don’t have long. Reaching down, I start dragging Tria to the house, and she whimpers as she pulls herself up. I don’t chance a glance back as I throw her arm over my shoulder, trying to support her weight as I force her to move faster.
“You bitch!” the crazy bastard yells, but we’re already to the door, and I’m punching in the code with shaky fingers, tingling all over when it beeps and opens.
Tria falls in, and I go to slam the door, but the psycho shoves against the door before it latches. It takes all my strength to shove it back, keeping him outside, and it becomes a battle back and forth.
“Bat!” I yell to Tria, pointing, praying my adrenaline k
eeps pumping so I have the strength to hold him back.
Tria grabs Angel’s bat from against the wall, and she finds it in her to run, even though she’s in so much pain. She swings the bat through the narrow crack, connecting loudly with something that cracks.
Another roar of pain sounds out just as the door gives, slamming shut, and I lock it with both locks, praying Ray is right about it keeping out a battering ram. The second the thump hits on the other side, I wonder if it’s his shoulder or his foot.
Then it grows quiet, nothing but my alarm is sounding, but it’s not exactly piercing eardrums.
I glance outside to see him in his truck, trying to crank it. I don’t know if he’s going to drive it through the house or drive away, but fortunately, the thing won’t start. The front end is smashed after destroying the rear of Tria’s car.
Silence outside descends again as he disappears into the shadows. I watch, searching for any movement, but there’s nothing.
“Maybe he left,” I say to Tria, and I go to help her up. She cries out in pain when I try to shift her, and I lift her shirt to see the dark bruises forming on her side where he kicked her.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” I say, cursing when I realize my phone is still in the car and we don’t have a landline.
The alarm is buzzing on the wall, though. That means help is coming.
“Watch out!” Tria screams, trying to tug me down just as the bald-headed menace slams a crowbar against my living room window. I scream reflexively, expecting a shatter.
Nothing. It doesn’t even crack the glass. What the hell kind of glass did Ray Capperton put in here?
He slams the crowbar again, but this time I don’t jump. I just watch him swing over and over, like a bird trying to fly through a sliding glass door, and I take an easy breath.
My heart is pounding, and my wounded head keeps the same rhythm with its throb. “You’re dead!” the asshole yells, slamming the crowbar against the window again as he glares at Tria, murder definitely promised in his eyes.
