Pretty Vile (The Ruthless Boys of Ridgeway #2)(3)
Author: R.A. Smyth

 

“I’ve reached out to the tech team,” he continues. “They’re scouring traffic camera footage as we speak.”

 

Dammit. I should have thought of that. Maybe I would have if my head was clearer and I wasn’t behaving like a frantic boyfriend.

 

Forcing my teeth to unclench, I spit out, “Smart.”

 

"What now?" Hawk asks when I don't say anything else because I'm still caught up in the fact that Emilia might not even be on campus, and we don't have a single lead as to where she is.

 

The question reminds me that I am supposed to be in charge. The one he’s looking to for direction because situations like this are where I thrive. Because Hawk’s job is mainly conducted from behind a desk, and mine is keeping people like Emilia safe.

 

People like Emilia.

 

Children who need rescuing from abusive parents; men and women escaping their violent exes; women running from obsessive stalkers.

 

People who the legal system has failed. Who the law can’t protect. Cops who won't intervene until it is too late. By which time, an innocent person has become just another statistic, nothing but a half-hearted political speech about how we need to do better. Only nothing will ever change.

 

It’s my job to extract these people from their precarious situations and take them to safety.

 

It is not my job to develop feelings for them and mess with their already delicate emotional states. When I enter their lives, these people are in highly volatile situations, making them vulnerable. I’ve had more than one woman develop feelings for me because they viewed me as their savior.

 

Nevertheless, I have never developed inappropriate feelings for one of them. If anything, I’ve kept every one of my charges at arm’s length, treating them with clinical proficiency. My top priority was ensuring their safety, and I refused to let anything interfere with that.

 

Until Emilia.

 

I don’t know if it’s because Hadley approached me and asked for my help as a personal favor or because this job has lasted longer than most, resulting in Emilia and I spending a lot of time alone together. Or maybe it’s because she reminds me of Laura when I catch her in a particular light, or the way she chews on her lip when she reads, or how her nose wrinkles when she laughs. In those moments, I find it impossible to glance away.

 

It’s been a long time since the pain of my past has been this raw and exposed. I thought I’d come to terms with what happened. All my guilt and grief have been channeled into something positive, something that ensured others didn’t suffer the same fate as Laura. However, since Emilia stumbled into my life, I’ve begun to notice similarities between the two of them. Each one I find picks at that long-buried wound, prying it apart. Today has been the last catastrophe to rip it wide open.

 

Every repressed feeling, every smothered memory, is now bubbling to the surface. It won’t be long until they overflow, and if we don’t find Emilia, there will be no stopping the explosion.

 

I'm startled out of my trance by the buzzing of the phone in my hand, and as I wade through the murky waters of my disorganized thoughts, I murmur, "Hold on, Wilder's calling."

 

With the touch of a few buttons, I add Wilder to my phone call with Hawk so we can all hear what each other is saying.

 

“Anything?” I ask.

 

“No. You?”

 

“No.”

 

“The security cameras didn’t catch anything either,” Hawk informs him.

 

“Now, what?”

 

“We were just discussing that,” Hawk says.

 

I force my head back into the game. "We need to explore the entire campus before doing anything else," I remark.

 

Hawk, who is more familiar with the school than I am, says, "Okay, well, the English department, where you are, is on the east side of campus. The west side is where sorority row and student dormitories are located.”

 

“Hawk, you take the west side of campus,” I instruct. “I’ll remain on this side, and Wilder, you search the center of campus.”

 

With everyone in agreement, we hang up, and with renewed determination and agonizing pain shredding my soul, I continue my search.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

 

 

 

EMILIA

 

 

Blinking, I stare up into a face I’m familiar with. Very familiar with. A face I’ve looked at nearly every day for the last four years. The person whose face I sought, after receiving a B on my freshman year English essay, which detailed the empowerment of significant female figures of the past and how they were ahead of their time, because I was convinced the male teacher was a closet anti-feminist.

 

The person on whose shoulder I sobbed after having sex for the first time since Hawk and Wilder and discovering it did nothing to erase them from my heart and mind.

 

The person who I celebrated with when I got my dream job offer.

 

The person with whom I confided all my hidden fears about Richard and our relationship.

 

The person who is both my best friend and a stranger.

 

Although, as I peer up at the chilling gleam in her eye and the detached smile slowly playing along her lips, I come to the realization that I never actually knew this woman I shared a dorm with for four years.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

There’s barely enough strength behind my words to make them audible. Nevertheless, in the small, otherwise silent space, she hears me.

 

Reaching out a hand, Mel strokes her fingers along my hair before tucking it behind my ear and brushing my cheek. It’s an oddly gentle and caring gesture, but instead of comforting me, it sends a skitter of chills down my spine.

 

“That’s okay. You will.”

 

Stepping into the middle of the room, she holds her arms out to her sides and does a little twirl, a maniacal grin brightening her features. “I did all of this for you. What do you think?”

 

I take another look around the room in confusion. We are in what appears to be some sort of storage space. There are no windows; the only source of light is a fluorescent bulb hanging overhead. That, together with the musty odor of disuse, only reinforces my initial suspicions that we are in a basement.

 

Mel, however, has redecorated, choosing an out-there theme featuring my every private moment from the last few weeks. Everywhere I look, I’m confronted with photos of myself with Hawk, Wilder, and Kai, each one serving as a reminder that none of those intimate moments we shared were the private, impassioned touches I believed them to be. That they should have been.