Chase was upset because of me.
I am the boyfriend.
Whoever carried her off in their arms was not performing some romantic gesture.
“What did he look like?” I rage.
“Tall. Sandy blond hair. Handsome. But…really shitty tattoos,” the girl says.
I don’t need to hear this description to confirm my suspicions. I already know perfectly well who took Chase. Because I brought him here. I arranged to meet him here, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to show for another two hours, though. Chase was supposed to be long gone by then.
The bastard came early.
44
PRES
* * *
“Wakey wakey eggs and bakey…”
Something cold and sharp presses against my cheek, shocking me back to consciousness. The ground is icy and rough underneath me, and my head…ah, shit, my head is pounding. I wince, trying to open my eyes, but it hurts too bad to contemplate.
“That friend of yours is a real piece of work. He threatened me, y’know. Told me I couldn’t even come to my own father’s restaurant opening. I gotta say, that made me pretty mad, Red. You shouldn’t have had him do that.”
Jonah is close. Too close. His breath fans across my face, and I gag involuntarily, nausea making my mouth sweat. He’s here. In New York. He found me outside the bathrooms and hit me over the head with…something…
The pieces slowly fit together.
They don’t make much sense, though.
God, I’m going to throw up.
Groaning, I roll onto my side just in time as I retch, the contents of my stomach rushing up my throat.
“Jesus. You’re fucking disgusting. I knew you were a mess but look at you.”
Cold seeps into my bones. I’m shaking. I feel like death. Slowly, I make my eyes open, even though my thumping head protests. Where the hell are we? There are cars, lined up in rows, stretching on forever and ever. The walls are close, the ceiling low…
A parking garage?
Oh, God...
“I assumed you’d broken your promise to me at first. I thought you’d told that dumb meathead what happened back at the house, but then I get a text from him and I realized you’d kept that pretty little mouth shut after all.” Jonah’s deranged laughter bounces off the concrete walls. I drag myself up into a sitting position, trying not to vomit again when my stomach rolls, and there he is, crouching a couple of feet away, turning a knife over in his hands.
It's the same knife I took into my bedroom that night—the one from Dad’s chef’s set. The same one he used to slice my wrists open. Fear jangles through my nerve endings when I see the blade catch the light and glint wickedly. It looks even sharper now. Even more deadly.
“That moron said that he’d stave my face in with a fire extinguisher if I came back to Mountain Lakes for Dad’s party.” Jonah says, smiling. “I’ll give him ten out of ten for creativity. A fire extinguisher? That would have fucking hurt, Pres.”
My vision doubles, then merges again as I try to breathe through the pain. “For god’s sake, Jonah. Why can’t you just…leave me alone?”
“I don’t like your friend,” he says, ignoring me. “He threatened to call the cops if I didn’t hang out here in New York and wait for him. Said he’d tell them that my car dropped you off at the hospital the other night when we had our fun. Said he’d sic his little friend on me and find out all of my dirty secrets. That’s how I knew you hadn’t told him the truth.” Jonah shifts forward. I feel his leering gaze on my skin like a thousand crawling bugs. I feel dirty. Filthy. Sick. “If he knew that I’d fucked you ragged that night,” he croons, tracing his fingers along the line of my jaw, “I don’t think he’d have been making threats. If he knew I’d cut your wrists, he would have come to find me. I could tell he liked you from the way he spoke to me at your stupid fucking school…”
“Stop, Jonah. Just…fucking stop!”
He doesn’t, though.
“He’s a bully, your Pax Davis. He thinks he can just jab at me and get me to do what he likes? He’s got another thing coming, little sister. Did you know I was meeting him tonight? Did he tell you that?”
“No!” It makes sense now, though—how angry Pax was when we showed up at his hotel. How he kept trying to bait me, to make me go home. He’s been talking to Jonah, trying to figure out what’s been going on between us, because I made him promise never to ask me again. Why couldn’t he just leave it alone?
Jonah holds the knife tight in one hand, chewing on his thumb nail thoughtfully. “When we’re done here, I’m gonna deal with him next, y’know. I’m gonna gut the piece of shit and pull his insides out. He doesn’t get to threaten me. No one does.”
“There are cameras everywhere,” I say wearily. “Your face has been recorded on all of them. They’re gonna know it was you.”
Jonah lunges forward, grabbing me by the throat. “I’ll be in fucking Mexico before they figure out who I am, you dumb cunt. I have a whole life set up there, waiting for me. Rosarito, baby. I don’t care if I never come back. So long as I finish what I started with you, and I make that fucker pay for his arrogance, I’ll be happy as a pig in shit.”
“And what about…Dad?” I rasp. “He’ll know what you…did.”
“I don’t care anymore. Our father is a weak, sorry excuse of a man. Pathetic. I’m glad that he’ll know it was me.”
“Jonah—”
He shakes me, raising his hand and holding the knife to my eye. The point hovers a millimeter above my pupil. If I so much as blink, he’ll drive the steel straight into my brain. I know there’s no talking him down this time. No sense in bargaining.
“I think I’ll fuck you again, Presley,” Jonah sneers. “For old time’s sake. I’m gonna leave you conscious this time. You can kick and scream all you like. I wanna see the fear in your eyes when I—”
He comes out of nowhere, a roaring streak of black fury. One moment, Jonah’s pinning me to the ground, wielding the blade perilously close to my eye, and the next he’s tumbling off me, slamming hard into the dusty bare concrete next to me.
Pax is living, breathing rage.
He stands over me, his jacket gone, his hat gone. His knuckles are bloody. His normally cold eyes are full of fire. I don’t even recognize him. He looks like he’s about to explode when he turns to me and says, “You’re hurt?”
“No. No, I—” I flinch, sucking in a sharp breath. “Well. My head…”
Pax focuses his attention on Jonah, who’s scrambling to his feet, still clutching the knife in his hand. “You are a fucking dead man,” he says. I can hear the ice in his voice. He speaks calmly, very clearly, but I can tell he’s about to lose control of himself. “Put down the knife.”
“You really are fucking stupid, aren’t you?” Jonah spits. “Why the fuck would I do that?”
“You don’t put it down and I’m gonna wind up using it on you, you fucking psycho. And I won’t slit your wrists—”