“Don’t open it,” Cole mutters silently, sitting in the passenger seat ready for anything, looking around for something out the fucking window.
“I’m waiting for a fucking text.”
“Looks to me like you’re expecting another taunt from that asshole,” he growls unhappily.
“I’ve already been taunted to my fucking wits end, at this point there’s only one thing left to do.”
Silence.
“You know he’ll be waiting.”
“I know.”
“With a fucking medieval plan already in play.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Silence. This time, it’s heavy and I already know what he’s thinking.
But to his fucking credit, Cole doesn’t speak up or ask me if I’m really going to do it. He already knows.
“Man, I swear, some parents though…” he grits out, the words laced with repressed anger. “Some fucking parents.”
“They’re not parents,” I mutter, the blood in my veins boiling. When I get my hands on Nathan, I swear to God.
“They’re fucking monsters that should be boiled in fucking tar and drown in boiling paint.”
Silence.
“What happened?” I ask instead.
“Your father is going to kill his brother.”
I’m not opposed to that plan, so I don’t fucking give a damn.
“And your mother—” I growl. “—I mean, Courtney, she was knocked out cold by Nicky before she went batshit crazy at John. That’s all I got before I fucking tracked you, anyway.”
Nicky and John, that’s another fucking mysterious piece of the fucking puzzle that still makes no sense to me.
“What did Courtney mean?” Cole starts after a moment. “About Aiden. What did she mean?”
I stay silent. He gets the message.
“Okay, fine. What do you think that fucking party those bastards threw was for then?” Cole questions after a while of tense silence, his leg tapping on the hard floor of the SUV, his only tell of nervousness.
“Why do you ask? It’s not like it fucking matters.”
“It’s bothering me, and I hate that I can’t stop thinking this is more than just some rivalry.”
“It is more than rivalry,” I mutter. “That deadbeat proved it the moment he decided to go for what’s mine.”
“Nah, you know what I mean.”
I do know what he means, but I just don’t want to think about that right now. I press down on the gas, going with the vague directions I was given by my guy, waiting for him to trace the latest message.
“What are you going to do?”
“Cole—”
“Just don’t,” he says, cutting me off. “I’m not Liam who you’re obviously still lying to and recklessly adding to the pile. Besides, I heard what John said.”
“I don’t have fucking time to care about my fucked up relationship with Liam,” I grit out, wanting to rip off the steering wheel as a violent anger I’m sure I can’t control rushes through me, wreaking all manner of havoc in me. “It’s all messed up so for tonight, consider your complaints and grievances against my fucking methods and assholery tabled for a later date.”
“Yeah, at this point that later date will be you in a fucking prison cell somewhere, with no chance of parole just to make a fucking example out of you.”
Yeah, he knows what’s going to go down tonight.
I’m deadly silent, but I can feel his broody, bust strangely non-judgmental stare on me.
“The party?” he prompts impatiently.
“It was a fucking set up! A decoy to waste my fucking time.”
“But they couldn’t possibly think you’d catch on. Which means they wanted us there.”
“And we gave then just that, but with a fucking twist.”
“Something else is going to happen at that fucking party, which is why we need chaos.”
And who better to incite chaos and fucking mayhem than an angry asshole who won’t have me breathing down his neck anymore pretty fucking soon?
Cole sighs and then, “He’ll be calling.”
“You’ll answer and tell him the truth.”
“And what will—”
“When we get there, your only objective, your fucking sole direction, is to get Mia out of there.”
“Julian—”
“Don’t fucking do anything else or try to get in on the fight, or I swear to God, Cole, I’ll never fucking forgive you.”
Silence.
“This is fucked up.”
“I didn’t ask you to come,” I seethe. Just then, my phone starts ringing. I sigh heavily.
“Well, are you going to fucking answer that?”
I grit my teeth and stare up ahead.
“This is all my fault,” I whisper to myself, the thing in my chest tightening with an excruciating vice. I don’t mind it at all.
“Beat yourself up later when you’re rotting in prison or in your fucking grave,” Cole mutters silently, grabbing his now ringing phone. “For now, there’s work to be done.”
His phone rings incessantly. He ignores it. We both know who it is. Just then, the GPS in the SUV lights up, someone—the owner of this fucking death trap—remotely punching in an address that’s apparently….
“It’s five minutes down that abandoned road,” Cole says, then he looks around out the window. “This used to be was some kind of farm or something. It’s been abandoned for years.”
I grit my teeth, my jaw ticking. From the corner of my eye, I see him typing something on his phone and then he curses under his breath.
“What?”
“There are too many fucking buildings and structures on this land. She could be anywhere.”
No, she won’t, but I’m not going to tell him that, but I take it as an opportunity to keep him out of this nightmare. “Then we need to spread the fuck out,” I say.
“Wait, what? You want to split up now? Are you out of your mind?”
“We don’t have a fucking choice!” I snap, strangely aware that I’m speeding. My phone lights up, this time with a text that says simply; ‘Mr. Fitzgerald knows.’
And then, my phone starts ringing again.
“Not now,” I growl.
“You know he’ll find you.”
“He should’ve dedicated those resources to finding Mia but he’s so up Nathan’s ass that he can’t even stop to save another person just because I love her. I’m in love with her and it’s because of me that she’s in this fucking mess and anything might’ve happened to her and I…”
I punch the steering wheel.
The pain is nothing.
The darkness creeping in my soul each second, is worse.
But Mia’s absence is a poison.
Cole’s phone starts ringing as well. He looks at me. “If I don’t…”
“Yeah.”
He sighs and then answers, “Mr. Fitz, sir, how are—”
“Cut the crap, Cole Joseph Perry! Where are you boys?” Dad demands, his voice filtering into car. I ignore them, focusing instead on the little structures and building scattered on the abandoned land.