Leaving her with her jaw on the floor and my heart racing, I get in the car and I’m out the lot before either her of Nicky can say anything else, and head for school.
Only, I never really make it there.
Chapter Seven
Julian
Present time.
“Fuck!” I punch the dashboard over and over again, hardly aware of my busted-up knuckles or the deranged look on my face.
The last image was horrible but this one, this new one…
“Fuck this all to hell!”
I punch the dashboard over and over, again and again, not even bothered when blood starts trailing down my clenched fists or when the pain starts becoming too much.
Maybe I’m trying to exhaust myself but I’m really trying to punish myself the only way I can, the way I’ve been punishing myself for years… causing destruction to my own body because fuck, how could I let this happen? How could I leave her unprotected and vulnerable like that? How could I be in my feelings like that?
I thought I was punishing her for a bit before I eventually went back to her because by God, I was.
I’m too weak, too twisted up and fucking in love to stay away from Mia for long. I can admit that much.
I was just waiting to see how the charges against me and the court hearing would go before I eventually went back to her, guilty of setting me up or not, I was always going to return to her.
But now, it turns out she not only saved my fucking dumbass from an unknown fate, but she also partnered with the she-devil who’s probably the one who served her up to the fucking wolves and now, she’s been taken from me!
I punch the dashboard again, satisfied when I hear it creak and groan under the persistent abuse.
Cole is silent beside me. He doesn’t say a word, or flinch at the violence but a quick glance at him reveals he’s also brooding. He stares straight ahead, but I can feel the anger and rage radiating from him.
“I can’t believe you just took her words at fucking face value and didn’t see her for your fucking self!” I growl, stunned disbelief hanging in the air between us still.
“Me too,” he grits out. “I had a nagging suspicion at the back of my head when Courtney showed up after Mia said she’s sending someone instead without an explanation…”
“Yeah, but you didn’t fucking check on her!”
He falls silent and I realize then what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to put the blame on him for what I did, blaming him for the situation I put Mia in.
“Sorry,” I whisper, staring down at my busted knuckles, thinking of a time Mia tended to these hands, lovingly dabbing the blood away as she roped me in so many years ago. “I didn’t mean…”
“I know.”
I ragged sigh leaves me, the ire in me building, worsening like I’m a powder keg about to explode.
Cole notices, of course he does. He speeds up, weaving seamlessly through traffic like a hot knife to butter.
“I need to get to her,” I whisper.
“You will.”
“She better be—”
“She’s a fighter,” Cole murmurs. “She’ll be fine.”
I stare down at the new image on my phone, seeing that bastard, Sean fucking Matthews touching her… I see red all over again, a roar bubbling in my fucking chest.
“I tried to keep my fucking attention off of her. I tried keeping her a secret,” I mutter, looking back at the past four years and how I thought I was protecting her, even when I hated her. “After that party, I tried to keep my attraction and my fucking feelings for her low key. Saw her from a distance. Paid attention to how she seemed to close in on herself, growing sadder, the weight of responsibility of Nancy weighing her down bur still, I wanted to be close to her, but I couldn’t because I fucking knew!”
“J…”
“Even back then I fucking knew if I so much as get close to her, if I touched her, if I kissed her again, she’ll have a fucking target on her back all because she’s mine! I fucking knew they’d target her now after I fucking claimed her but even knowing that I fucking left her out in the cold! I fucking abandoned her when she needed me! I fucking did this!”
“Bro, calm down!”
“How the fuck am I going to do that?” I seethe. “She told me, years ago that I had to keep my mess to myself, that I’m a glutton for punishment; she told me and I… I ignored her, literally, and now my mess is both our undoing.”
“Matthews is not your fucking mess!” Cole snaps. “Don’t you even dare think that for a second.”
“Isn’t he though?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just stop!” Cole shouts now. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about this entire fuck-fest, is you and Mia are both atoning for sins your parents committed, for their vendetta and drama! You did not create that weasel as an enemy, him and his stupid airhead brother came on to you, using their sister because of some sort of unknown tension between their father and yours. John hinted on that shit just now.”
Yeah, I heard that but…
“If you’re going to fucking blame yourself—and for sure you have some guilt in this and I won’t be foolish enough to make you feel justified in ignoring Mia these past two weeks because that was a seriously fucked up move on your part, you asshole—but I’m saying, keep it in, just until we get the answers we need and then we go get her.”
“We should just go now!”
“No, we don’t!” he snaps. “We’ll be charging in blind, and we can’t afford to do that.”
He’s right. I know he is but with each second that passes, I’m painfully aware that Sean fucking Matthews has Mia, I want to blood to spill like a fucking river, buy I can’t divulge that last part to Cole, let alone anyone else. No, that part is only for me and what I have to do.
“Fuck!”
Silence.
The world becomes nothing but a blur as my mind races.
“Just a few answers and we’ll go get her,” Cole mutters, glancing at me in the tense silence.
I ignore him, feeling like I’d rather jump into a volcano than let Mia suffer another second with those… those, FUCK!
The moment Cole pulls into the driveway of the house that used to belong to Mia’s family but was so cunningly taken over by my mother, I already have my door open, throwing myself out and without thinking, aware of lack of time, I’m running to the front door.
Knowing better than to just barge in, I press the doorbell over and over again, literally stabbing it to death, impatient and needing to get this over and done with.
Cole is right behind me when the door is swung open.
“You have some nerve—” I trail off as soon as Nicky comes in full view, tears streaming down her face.
Her eyes are red, puffy and wide with horror that stops my heart. I notice the phone pressed tightly to her ear and I know it’s true.
A part of me was hoping, holding on to Liam’s theory about a manipulated photo but now, it’s all true. The reality is right there and can’t be denied anymore.
I glance at Cole, questions brimming in my eye shakes his head, confusion clear in his eyes.