I tried to get up but my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls and the moment I tried to stand, I sat back down. The rush of blood to the head was so intense I couldn’t stand it.
“No text until you tell me how you feel about my ex-lover.”
“I care a lot about him and yeah . . . I’m falling in love with him.” I scratched my disheveled hair. “The cynical girl who didn’t even believe in fucking love found it right here in this country.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” she murmured. “So, what did you want to say to him about not showing up? I can’t have him looking for you. I mean, I will return you but you tell him I had anything to do with this and you won’t live to see your twenty-fourth birthday.”
I scratched my forehead absentmindedly. “Tell him I’ll meet him soon—I had to deal with a family emergency.”
Sorsha began to type and then stopped. “Yeah, that’s good and all but you’re not going to meet him in Nice so what’s to explain for that?”
My heart began to thunder at all of the horrible scenarios racing through my head at the hands of this demonic bitch. “Cold feet. He’ll believe it because I’m naturally skittish. My friends will too.”
“Perhaps you’re not as much of an idiot as I thought.” She typed the message and pressed send before showing me. “You see, I keep my promises so . . . now, I have a little secret to tell you why you’re here. You wanna know, dontcha?”
I lay back on the filthy mattress and held my knees against my chest. “Not really. I mean . . . I know it can’t have anything to do with Adrien. You can have any hot guy in the world you want. You’re fucking beautiful and why would you give two shits about who he’s dating?”
“Thanks for the compliment, love.” She walked closer to the bed before it sagged under what little weight she had on her body. “Who ever said I was doing anything for Diablo? I never really liked him that much to be honest. He was just an ‘in’ to Damien. Now, that man I would do anything for but he already knows this and so he just uses me and he knows how I feel about him—the stupid git—and he also knows I’m going to do what he wants anyway.”
I began to laugh out loud. I couldn’t stop, even when Sorsha slapped me several times against each cheek. “Damien? What planet are you on? The guy is hot—I’ll give you that much—but I don’t see passion or even a guy who could simply curl your toes in bed. How is he?”
Sorsha stood up and began to pace the space in front of the bed. “Why do you care unless you’re into incest?”
My laugh stopped immediately. “What . . . what are you talking about?”
She looked at me as if she’d spilled some awful secret. “Well, your mum spent a summer in France thirty-three years ago. What’s the age of the old bird anyway?”
“She’s fifty,” I said without thinking about it. “She just had a birthday on the fourth of July.”
“No wonder she’s such a selfish cow—she’s a fucking Cancer.” Sorsha lit a cigarette and began to pace again. “So, she was underage . . . what did she come over here for? A school trip?”
“How the hell should I know? My mother doesn’t disclose her teen years to me. I don’t know shit about her until after she married my dad.”
She stopped pacing and raised a suspicious eyebrow. “You don’t know anything about your own mum before she married your father? Why haven’t you Googled the bitch at least?”
“I assumed she’d tell me when she was ready.” I felt stupid about the whole situation especially talking about my mom. “Besides, her past doesn’t really interest me. I mean, she’s always been pretty closed off and not exactly the kind of parent who opens up. You get used to it.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Sorsha walked over to a table with several lines of what I assumed were cocaine. She snorted a couple lines and immediately wiped her nose before she dragged on her cigarette again. “My mum is cold as ice. You’d think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. However, I got around that by doing a lot of research on me own. You’ve never been interested at all about why she wants to keep those early years so . . . guarded?”
“Okay, fine. Yes, I am but my mother isn’t someone I’d want as an enemy and I’m not really a favorite as it is. I try to keep my head down, get extraordinary grades at university, and focus on the praise my father bestows upon me. I’ve always been more of a daddy’s girl anyway. She prefers to dote on my oldest brother. He’s her . . . life. It’s always been like that in our family. I don’t know, I always thought it was because she hoped I’d look more like my dad and I remind her of a poor man’s version of herself. This is all supposition, of course.”
I looked around the place and it seemed like some kind of warehouse. It wasn’t particularly clean or well kept up. I wanted to see the sun so bad, and feel the rays on my skin. The place, though rather large, gave me the feeling of being completely shut in. It wouldn’t be long before I had a panic attack from being claustrophobic. I wasn’t good with tight spaces. Hell, I had to take a Xanax just to get through a plane ride longer than an hour.
Sorsha merely glared at me and seemed comfortable and unthreatened. I would be careful not to pose a threat but this “Twenty Questions” bullshit was weighing on my last nerve.
“Listen, I know you want some info but . . . is it all right if we get some fresh air? I’m dying in here.”
“You wouldn’t have a reason to run, would you? I mean, yes, this is abduction but we plan to deliver you back safe and sound. I just wanted to rattle Adrien’s cage a smidge—see how much you really mean to him.”
I wasn’t that great of a liar but when my life had become involved and there was a possibility I would never see my family again, I could act with the best of them. “Listen, I think Adrien cares about me—if that—but he only wants me as a possession. He’s not in love with me and I don’t think he’ll lose his head if I disappeared on him. He’s just not that kind of guy.”
She stood and walked to a corner of the warehouse where a cardboard box was kept, grabbed an ugly paisley print sundress and strode over to me. Throwing it on the bed, she replied, “Get dressed. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
I slowly stood up, trying to beat down the sudden wave of fresh dizziness and nausea that hit me as I slipped out of my shorts and put the dress on. It was slightly tight on me but obviously was meant for someone a size smaller than myself. Someone like Sorsha. A pair of flimsy flip-flops fell at my feet and I slid them on before I followed her outside.
The day was brilliant and beautiful with the sun shining through cotton candy clouds. My “holding facility” turned out to be s warehouse of sorts. The two guys she’d shown up with during my initial abduction were working on Harleys and chatting to one another. They paid us little to no attention.
She lit another cigarette and blew out the smoke as soon as she dragged from it. “Listen to me,” she said, grabbing my left upped arm. “I’m an heiress so I didn’t do shit to you. I know some very dangerous people though so when we part, if any of this gets back to Diablo, you’re going to wish I did kill you.”
“My lips are tightly sealed.” I looked off in all directions and noticed there was nowhere to go anyway. We were off the beaten path, not near anything but an area cut through the forest and not near a highway of any sort.
“Good. So, if you mean absolutely nothing to Diablo and you two are just having a casual fuck-a-thon then why did he send you this as a response?”
Sorsha handed the phone to me and I read the message.
Diablo: You don’t sound like yourself. Are you sure there is nothing going on? I’m starting to go out of my mind with worry here.
Shit.
This was bad, very bad.
In fact, this whole situation fucking sucked.
I shook my head and handed the phone back to her before she snatched it away. “I dunno. He probably just likes what I do for him in bed. Believe me, there are no real emotions involved on his part. If anything, I was just some s
tupid American who fell in love with a rock star. The feelings don’t go both ways—trust me.”
“Mmm hmm. You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
I stared at the sky as the wind rustled gently around us. “Listen to me, I don’t know what the hell is going on in his head. All I wanna know is what this has to do with Damien, my mother and me. You said it yourself—you don’t give a fuck about Diablo but what about this infatuation with his brother?”
Sorsha pushed me hard and I fell to the ground. The loose rocks scraped up my knees and the palms of my hands but I would survive if I could get back on my feet. My head spun, my stomach did topsy-turvy flips and any moment I felt like I was going to vomit.
“It’s not an infatuation with Damien—I love him. What we have is unrequited love—not you and Diablo. You and your mum are the reason he’s so fucked in the head and can’t trust women. I mean, if a parent could just abandon his or her own child then what does that say about the kid? He’ll never be able to love women—not when the two closest women in his life he despises with an overwhelming and undeniable passion.”
I found the strength to rise and stood up but it was an effort to continue.
“What does my mother have to do with this? What the fuck do I?” I finally screamed in anger, losing all self-control.
“Come on, it’s time for a little ride.” Sorsha dragged on her cigarette and put it out with her shoe before we began to walk toward the guys again.
“Have you ever been on a motorcycle?”
“Not lately,” I mumbled.
“Well, come on then. Time to reacquaint yourself, poppet.”
I climbed on behind Dieter as she climbed on behind Callum. I slid on my helmet and adjusted it accordingly. The chopper roared to life and Dieter undid the kickstand. I held on to his waist for life and wondered what the hell I’d just gotten myself involved in?
Why was it up to me to pay for someone else’s sins?
Because, my conscience whispered back, you are your mother’s daughter.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG with Sierra, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. It gave me absolutely no pleasure or satisfaction knowing that there was fuck all I could about it because I was in the middle of performing my first concert in Nice.
I’d always been a consummate and flawless player but I was so disturbed by the latest turn of events that Zero end up covering a whole shit load of mistakes I made. The whole band knew something was up with me but they also knew if I’d wanted to tell them, I would have already.
After our first show and that vague fucking text I received from her, I decided to take matters into my own hands. During the private after party, held at the lavish hotel the band stayed in just minutes from some of the most gorgeous beaches in Nice, I pulled Angie to the side. She and Damien were in the middle of what looked like a quiet discussion that could quickly turn into an argument but I didn’t give a shit. My woman seemed to disappear off the face of the earth and no one was taking this seriously.
“Diablo, what’s going on with you?” Damien glared at me with unrepressed anger as I pulled Angie’s hand and led her to the ostentatious balcony.
No expense had been spared for the band, including enough hors d’oeuvres and booze to be consumed by a small, impoverished country. The décor was understated but with all the sumptuously expensive luxury that surrounded me at that moment, I felt numb.
I’d already had half a bottle of Grey Goose before I’d switched to Cristal just to keep my wits about me. It was clutched possessively in my hand now though it did nothing to quell the feeling that something was fucking wrong and no one seemed to care, not even Sierra’s so-called fucking best friends. They were too busy partying like rock stars.
Angie looked dashing of course decked in a scarlet, one-shouldered Versace dress that clung to her curves and a pair of five-inch Yves Saint Laurent stilettos. She and Lizzy had obviously enjoyed a girl’s day out since they both sported fresh manicures and pedicures.
“What’s up?” Her tone wasn’t exactly friendly but she continued to knock back two hundred dollar champagne the band generously paid for so I didn’t truly feel all that bad for interrupting her. As far as I was concerned, she and Lizzy were guests.
I chugged from my bottle of Cristal and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, noticing the subtle shake in it. I wasn’t high—I was fucking frightened that something had happened to Sierra and none of us would know until it was too fucking late.
“Have you heard from her?” I demanded in an icy tone.
“Who?” Why were her cool amber eyes making me feel like I was the one going crazy when she, of all people, should have shown at least some concern?
I finished the bottle of Cristal and threw the empty bottle against the balcony wall where it shattered on impact. “What are you? A fucking owl? I’m not talking about the World Health Organization here!”
She actually stepped back from me as if she feared for her safety. “Yes, I have. She left me a message on my phone. Why? Do you wanna see it?”
“Yes, actually, I do.” I began to pace and wished for nothing more than more alcohol to be floating through my bloodstream but it could wait until I saw this so-called text.
“Why are you acting so goddamn possessive all the sudden? You barely know her! So what if you fucked her six ways to Sunday, that doesn’t give you the right to question her movements or wonder where she is. She’s probably not here for that very same reason—just to get away from you!”
My eyes dropped the balmy temperature of the evening as I looked at Angie with such a menacing gaze; I wanted to choke the ever-living shit out of her. “You might be her best friend but you don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on between us. I’m not being jealous or possessive because when it comes out in me, believe me you’ll know. This is me worried about her well being—”
“Bullshit!” Angie shouted. “You’re just pissed because she won’t be here to suck your cock or fuck you tonight. Maybe she decided to go off on her own and think. Did the thought ever occur to you?”
I snatched her iPhone from her hands as soon as she produced it from her clutch.
Angie: What up? Everything ok?
Sierra: Yeah… don’t think I’ll show in Nice. Diablo starting to scare me a bit. Make something up and I’ll take care of it on my end with him.
I couldn’t breathe as my heart thundered in my chest with a pounding that bordered on palpitations. No way did I believe Sierra had written this message even if it did come from her phone. She’d never once given me a hint she thought I was dangerous, and I had never ever hinted I’d ever hurt her.
Or had I?
Fuck, the booze was getting to me and nothing fucking made sense anymore.
I shook my head in denial. “She didn’t fucking write this.”
“Are you sure?” Angie snatched her phone back from me and gazed at me with cool brown eyes. “It came from the phone you gave her.”
I didn’t try to stop her as she spun on her heels and walked back inside.
Why would she do that?
Send her friend such a different message than the one she’d sent to me?
It didn’t make any sense at all and the more I thought about it, the more confused I became.
I walked off the balcony and strode directly to my private suite where I locked myself inside and dialed my father. If anyone would know what to do then he would.
“Adrien, what’s going on?”
I smiled at the whiskey and cigarette-soaked voice of my old man. He was the only family member that never referred to me as Diablo. He hated the nickname in fact and banned anyone from using it in his presence when speaking about me.
“Pop, I’m worried,” I explained in hurried French. “Anything unusual goin’ on that you’ve heard about?”
We both knew the phones weren’t secure therefore we spoke in code.
“Nothing really except for a few outsiders spotted around lately. Th
ey’re not local. Their colors aren’t affiliated with ours—they aren’t bleu, blanc ou rouge unless you turn the flag horizontal.”
There were various Dutch MC clubs but we knew them all and although my father wasn’t on a friendly basis with every one of them, it was just good old fashioned courtesy to give a fellow club a head’s up if you were passing through their territory. That way, if les flics started to fuck with them then they could use a fellow club as a reason to be in town and not be mistaken for hoodlums who were notorious for causing trouble, especially during football matches.
“Anyone we should be concerned about?”
His father sighed out loud. “Dieter but he’s not poaching. He’s just been here with a few of his fellow countrymen showing them some of the local scenery. I could call Rotterdam and speak to Frisk but they’re not really doing anything so what’s the use?”
I nodded my head as I heard my sister yell in the background, “Papa, ask him about his new lady friend.”
“Ah, yes, of course. We were all a little surprised when pictures of you and the American surfaced. She looks very familiar, son. Too familiar. What’s her name again?”
I sat down on a chair with a matching ottoman. My father’s voice had changed. There was concern and something else—perhaps apprehension—in the way he sounded though he tried to keep it light.
“Since when do you care about who I fuck, Pop?”
“I don’t but some women are . . . trouble. Look at that salope you just left. She’s crazy you know. I never understood why she was with you in the first place when she was always gazing at Damien like some long lost lover.”
“I can assure you that Sierra is not remotely interested in Damien, Pop.”
“Keep it that way.” My father was quiet for a moment. “If something comes up, I’ll let you know. Next time, don’t call me while you’re on tour. You never know who could be listening. If I hear anything, I’ll get in touch through the proper channels.”
Sympathy For Diablo (Breathless Eternity #1) Page 14
