Something Wicked: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 2)

by Savannah Rose

  “Understood,” I told him. “Completely.”

  “Wonderful,” he said warmly. “Welcome to the Seymore house, Kennedy. We’re happy to have you.” He reached out to shake my hand. When I took it, he pulled me to my feet.

  “Thank you,” I said. My throat tightened. He opened his arms slightly, offering a hug with no pressure to accept. I hugged him the way I’d wanted to hug my dad for the longest time, and cried my eyes out all over his sensible polo shirt.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  RUDY

  Game night had been in full swing for over an hour and Eric hadn’t shown up yet. I’d already texted him twice and called him once and got no answer.

  I hunted down Benjamin, who was pouting after being severely scolded by Julio for aiding and abetting juvenile delinquency, and asked him if he’d heard anything.

  “I haven’t talked to him all week,” Benjamin said. “But I didn’t really try. I was kind of caught up in the whole Halloween thing. Didn’t want to slip up and tell on myself. Like it did any good.” He glowered darkly in Julio’s general direction.

  “Call him,” I said, ignoring the dramatics. “He isn’t answering me.”

  “He’s probably driving,” Benjamin said with a shrug. “He’s late, but he’s coming. He always does.”

  “His car’s got the whole Bluetooth thing going on,” I said impatiently. “Just call him. Please?”

  Benjamin blinked at me, shocked. Maybe I didn’t use that word enough. “Well damn, okay.” He whipped out his phone and called. He listened for half a minute, then shook his head. “Rang through to voicemail. I’m telling you, he’s probably driving. Even with Bluetooth he’s kind of anxious on the freeway, he probably doesn’t want to answer. He’ll be here, quit worrying.”

  I would have loved to quit worrying, but it seemed like everything I’d touched lately had blown up. I didn’t want Eric to be one of those things. He kind of had a history—I mean hell, we all did—but he’d been pretty deep into meth before Jason got ahold of him.

  I didn’t exactly expect him to relapse, but it was one of those concerns that hovered in the corners of my mind—like Chris jacking cars or Gary using slurs in mixed company without realizing it and getting his ass beat.

  The longer I didn’t hear from him, the bigger and more central that concern grew. I cornered Julio next.

  “Last time I talked to him was last Saturday,” Julio said. “Oh, no, Sunday. He called me and told me he was worried about you guys and that he was thinking about taking his vacation time early and spending it here.”

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “Nothing since then?”

  Julio shook his head. His brow furrowed in concern for a moment, then he shrugged. “It’s Eric, though. He’s fallen off the face of the earth before, he’ll be back as soon as he gets on the other side of his epiphany.”

  “He’s never missed game night before though,” I insisted.

  “Which you have to admit is astonishing consistency, coming from Eric,” Julio said with a smile. “It’s statistically necessary for him to miss at least one. Here, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll call him.”

  His smile lasted for thirty-two seconds and was replaced by a frown when Eric’s voicemail answered.

  “Huh. That’s odd.”

  “You see?” I didn’t like feeling triumphant about this. It mixed with my concern about as well as orange juice mixes with toothpaste.

  Julio called again, only to shake his head a moment later. “Okay, so maybe he has his phone on silent. He’ll turn up.”

  Their lack of concern was fanning my concern into something similar to panic. Similar, damn it, I was definitely not panicking just because my brother wasn’t picking up his phone.

  “Julio, you’re a therapist,” I said.

  “I am? I am! Thank you, I’d almost forgotten.”

  I ignored his sarcasm. “You know Eric’s history. Pre-Jason. What are the chances—I mean, how likely do you think it is—it’s just, he’s been under a lot of stress lately, you know?”

  Julio was only confused for a second, then he nodded his understanding.

  “Oh, I see. No, I don’t think that’s what happened. I was there for the detox. You don’t forget something like that. Seriously, put that out of your mind. He was young—very, very young for something like that—and hasn’t touched it since he got away from his birth mother. He wouldn’t just relapse out of nowhere.” Julio clapped me on the shoulder and gave me a little smile. “It’s all good, buddy. He’ll get here eventually.”

  Chris didn’t get an answer either, and neither did Gary. Both of them shrugged it off and told me I shouldn’t be worried. That Eric does his own thing, relax and live a little, let go of my shirt, quit shaking me, blah blah blah.

  I finally took my concerns to Jason, who had a shining track record of not being dismissive.

  “I called him yesterday,” Jason said. “He didn’t answer, but I assumed he was working. It is strange that he isn’t here yet, though.”

  “Can you please call him?” I asked. God I was tired of repeating myself.

  “Already dialing, son.”

  I sighed. Really should have started with Jason. Might have saved myself a whole lot of trouble. Jason gave it three tries before stopping and frowning at the phone.

  “Should we, I don’t know, drive out there?” I asked.

  He checked the time then shook his head. “By the time we get there it will be after eleven. He’s got some sensitive neighbors. Got a complaint the last time he played Tchaikovsky after ten.”

  “I’d make a noise complaint if he played Tchaikovsky at noon,” I muttered.

  “Snob,” Jason snorted. “Okay, tell you what. If he doesn’t show up tonight, I’ll—wait, crap, I can’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “I was going to say that I’d drive out there and check on him in the morning, but the kids’ mom finally got herself together enough for a visit. I need to have them at the visitor’s center by ten a.m., which means leaving here at seven. It’s in the opposite direction from Eric’s place.”

  “I’ll do it then,” I said. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Better make it early,” Jason said. “Ice storms are supposed to be blowing in from that direction tomorrow. Supposed to get down to freezing by nine.”

  “Then I’ll leave at six,” I decided. “Enough time to get there, check on him, and get back before it gets bad.”

  “Good. Oh, couple things. Jean—your vice principal—wants to speak to both of us on Monday. And did Kennedy tell you the deal with her staying here?”

  “Yeah, she did. She’s really grateful. That’s not even the right word, honestly. I think she’s kind of stunned.”

  “Hey Rudy,” Benjamin called from the living room. “Come watch this.”

  Jason and I found Benjamin watching the news. Vice Principal Jean’s face was up on the screen. Frowning, I sat down on the floor. “What’s going on?”

  “She works at your school, right?”

  “Yeah, VP. What happened?”

  “Guess she’s gone missing,” Benjamin said. “Her husband filed a missing person’s report. Said she was working late Friday night and never made it home.”

  My stomach curled into a cold fist. Whatever curse was following me around was being exceptionally thorough. Julio, reclining on the couch, gave me a thoughtful look.

  “I didn’t do it,” I told him with a scowl.

  “Didn’t say you did,” Julio said with a shrug. “Weird, though.”

  “Very,” Jason said quietly. “Rudy, could you go get Kennedy for me? I should tell you both what Jean said to me on the phone and I would rather not repeat myself. I have a feeling I’m going to be repeating myself quite a bit.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  KENNEDY

  Game night had been a lot looser and more chaotic than the first time I’d joined.

  Eric’s absence, my suddenly more per
manent presence, and the littles’ excitement about visiting their mother had everyone a little off-center. I’d retreated to the room Jason had given me for a little breather and was trying to connect with it somehow.

  It had definitely been designed for boys. A pair of twin beds took up most of the space, and each of them had a wooden toy chest at the foot. One chest was spaceship themed and the other was painted with a herd of galloping horses.

  There were glowing stars on the ceiling and a rolling pasture painted on the wall. Empty white shelves held promise, and the wide closet held my much-reduced wardrobe.

  I was lying on the spaceship bed, making constellations in the glowing stars, when Rudy tapped on the open door.

  “Come in,” I said. I propped myself up on my elbows and grinned at him. “What do you think? Too blue?”

  “I think it suits you perfectly,” he said.

  “Only because it’s right down the hall from your room.” I hopped off the bed and kissed him.

  “What?” he said, drawing out the syllable. He was going for playful, but there was something in his eyes that bothered me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He squeezed my hand. “VP went missing last night. They think she was abducted from the school. She called Jason—must have been right before it happened. I guess she told him something important. He wants to talk to us.”

  My stomach squeezed and I broke out in a cold sweat.

  Abducted from the school—for a moment I could feel the rough car carpet on my skin, could taste the stale air of the trunk, could feel the heat waves beating me into the metal.

  I raced to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before losing all my game night snacks in one go.

  Rudy held my hair back. Then he washed my face and offered me mouthwash. I managed to get cleaned up in spite of the tremors wracking my body. Rudy held me close and stroked my hair.

  “You’re okay,” he murmured. “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

  “I’m safe,” I answered. “I’m safe.”

  It took a few minutes, but eventually we made it back downstairs. Jason was in the kitchen, frowning at the coffee pot. His expression cleared when he noticed us.

  “You okay, Kennedy?”

  “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat. “Rudy told me what happened.”

  Jason nodded. “The timing is a little funky to me. I’ll be talking to the police as soon as I’m finished talking to you.”

  “Why us first?” I asked.

  “Well, because it has a lot to do with you, and once the investigation gets rolling you’ll probably have to answer a lot of really uncomfortable questions. I wanted to give you time to prepare.”

  I swallowed hard and clung tightly to Rudy’s hand.

  “When Jean called me, she told me that she’d confiscated a flash drive which contained evidence of felonies that had been committed against some of the students. She wanted to sit down and talk it out to make sure she wasn’t misreading the situation as something that it wasn’t—such as an art project or staged photos for social media, something along those lines.”

  “What kind of felonies?” I asked. My pulse raced as I ran down the list of everything that I, Rudy, Julianne, and Thomas had been up to recently. It was dauntingly long and I didn’t know enough about the law to know which things were felonies and which weren’t.

  “Kidnapping,” he said. “Destruction of property. Sexual harassment. Unlicensed distribution of lewd photos. Credit card fraud. Blackmail. Possibly more, I don’t know. She named you and Rudy as two of the victims. The only reason she told me about your part in it is because she couldn’t get ahold of your parents.”

  Shocker, I thought. I tried not to roll my eyes. I mostly succeeded.

  “I believe she was calling other families too,” Jason said quietly. “Probably everybody who had any connection to that thumb drive.”

  My body didn’t even react to that. I’d burned out all of the anxiety circuits connected to Julianne and all that was left was a dull sort of certainty which made me feel bone tired.

  “If you have a piece of paper I can write down their names for you,” I told him. “It’s Julianne’s crew. It’s their drive. I don’t know who all contributed, but I know Julianne and Macy had it. Thomas was part of the kidnapping.”

  “Hold on,” Rudy said, dark fury coloring his voice. “Did you say unlicensed distribution? As in, distributed? As in, lewd photos made it off the drive and into people’s eyeballs?”

  “I would assume so, yes,” Jason said calmly.

  Rudy swallowed over and over, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Those bitches,” he growled.

  I squeezed his hand. “Those bitches will get what’s coming to them,” I told him firmly. “We’ll make sure of it. By calling the cops. Right, Jason?”

  He nodded. “I’m going to go do that right now. You two just talk it out, think it over, figure out what questions they’re liable to ask and get your thoughts together.”

  We went out to the deck. It was cold outside. I needed the cold, and the clarity that went with it.

  “Why would they keep evidence like that?” I asked. “Why bring it to school?”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Rudy said. “I wrote it off as arrogance. They act like they’re untouchable.”

  “They kind of are,” I admitted ruefully. “What do you want to bet her uncle is the one who shows up to ask us questions?”

  Chapter Forty

  KENNEDY

  “Tell me about the thumb drive,” Julianne’s cop uncle said.

  “All I know for sure is that the thumb drive had pictures of my boyfriend on it. Naked pictures, taken without his consent.”

  He smirked. “Right, without his consent. And you know that how, because he’s just so trustworthy?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “So you admit that he’s not trustworthy?”

  I stared at him unblinking until his “gotcha” sneer faded into a disgruntled scowl. “I know the pictures were taken without his consent because I was there.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You were with your naked boyfriend and somebody else took pictures of him? How do I know you weren’t the one who was taking the pictures?”

  “Because I’m in the pictures,” I said, annoyed. “Do you have any questions for me that might actually help you find Jean, or does harassing people with annoying, pointless inquiries just get you off?”

  He snapped his notebook shut and leaned toward me, glaring at me.

  “Jean is family,” he hissed through his teeth. “I wouldn’t be wasting time with you if I didn’t think you had answers.”

  I leaned forward too, sick to death of being jerked around by people like him. “You’re not going to like the answers.”

  “What I don’t like is my sister in law going missing on my watch,” he snapped. “So start talking before I book you for obstruction.”

  “The thumb drive belonged to Julianne. Julianne’s boyfriend Thomas kidnapped me from the school the same way—after dark, when everyone else was gone, on a day when he knew I’d be working late because Julianne told him so. According to Jean, the thumb drive had evidence of the kidnapping. Photos, I’m assuming, because she identified me as the victim. She called my parents and Rudy’s parents to set up a conference for Monday. I’m assuming she called Julianne’s parents too—or Julianne herself.”

  I pushed myself back in my chair. “If you’re looking for motive, try looking a little closer to home.”

  “Don’t play cop, little girl,” he said, rising to his feet. “That’s how kids like you get hurt.”

  “Is that a threat?” I didn’t mean to say it, but God was he infuriating.

  “You’re walking a very thin line here, little girl.”

  I closed my eyes, reminding myself to breathe. “And you’re not doing your job. You say you want to find Jean, but all I’m getting are snappy comments when I give you actual information.”

&nb
sp; He narrowed his gaze at me. If this was one of those cartoons, I’m pretty sure he’d be illustrated with steam coming out of his ears.

  “There’s a difference between lies and information,” then scowled at me one more time. “This is far from over.” It was a promise and I took it as such.

  I kept myself together until he dragged himself entirely out of my sight. Then I fell to pieces.

  I went up to Rudy’s room, needing his comforting familiarity after the upheaval of the last few days.

  “Did you tell him?” Rudy asked.

  I nodded. “I don’t know if he’s going to follow up on it, though. What did you tell him?”

  “I told him that Jean was investigating a thumb drive that had my naked pictures on it. Told him how the pictures got there. Didn’t say much more than that.”

  “How come?” I sat down on the bed and let him curl himself around me.

  “I don’t trust him,” he said. “He’s the kind who would bury any information he didn’t like. Cops like him made Eric’s ordeal way worse than it needed to be, just because they had an agenda. Protect and serve—specific people who I like at the expense of anybody I don’t like.”

  “Gross,” I muttered.

  “Yeah. Speaking of Eric, though, I’m going to go check on him in the morning. I’m leaving hella early so I probably won’t be here when you wake up.”

  I pulled away from him so I could see his face. “You want company?”

  “Babe. I always want your company. But you need sleep and I’m going to be getting up at five thirty.”

  “So get me up at five thirty,” I told him. “I don’t need sleep that bad. Besides, you’re driving, right? If I need to crash, I’ll crash in the car. Wait. That doesn’t sound right.”

  “No car crashes,” Rudy said, tickling my sides. “Only naps.”