She can’t help but wonder what Adam is doing with Isabella at this moment.
Shit. She can’t help but wonder if Adam already knows of what she is doing at this very moment and how pissed off he might be.
Her fingers tremble at the thought of making him angry. Not because of the fear of losing him but she finds…he’s the first man that she wants to please. The first man who sets her body and her soul on fire, making her feel alive again. Truly alive.
“Come on,” Tommy whispers and startles her out of her thoughts.
He takes her hand again and they meet Brooks in the hallway. Amongst the three of them, Brooks is the biggest, not the tallest but the biggest and the most silent one. They carefully retrace their steps back the way they came, meeting up with James and Jason just right outside of the back door.
Like a unit, they move quietly in the dark of the night.
She grabs a hold of Brooks's arm, stopping him.
“Can…can we please stop at my cottage?” she asks softly. “There are sentimental things that I’d like to retrieve. It’s just right over there,” she says, pointing the way.
“We shouldn’t,” James says with a shake of his head.
“Go,” Jason tells Brooks and then looks at her with a smile. “She might not get to come back here.”
She didn’t even tell them that there’s a good chance that there might be someone else living there to take care of the property with the length of time she’s been gone. If that’s the case, then her belongings are probably long gone. Call her selfish for keeping that to herself but she’s holding onto hope that she can at least retrieve the picture of her mother.
“Fuck,” Tommy whispers through clenched teeth. “Let’s go,” he says, taking her hand again while James and Jason seem to have vanished into the night.
She can feel the tense vibrations permeating off of Brooks. He’s on high alert and it sends her jitters into a frenzy. She clamps down her teeth to keep them from chattering as they move quickly in the shadows to get to the cottage.
She steps up to the door in her excitement and Brooks immediately shoves her to the side.
“Let him go first,” Tommy whispers to her.
She waits for what seems like hours before Brooks steps out and nods for her to go inside.
“Make it quick,” Brooks tells her.
This time, Tommy follows her inside the cottage with Brooks standing guard at the doorway.
It’s small. One bedroom with one bathroom inside. She looks over at the small kitchenette and tears fill her eyes as memories of her and her mother cooking meals together overwhelm her. But other than those memories, everything has changed. All of her belongings, her drawings on the wall, are all gone.
She rushes over to the bedroom. It’s nicely kept with the familiar bed set covering the bed but other than that, nothing else is familiar. Her drawings. Her mother’s photo. All gone.
She didn’t need to check the armoire to know that her clothes and her small jewelry box containing her mother’s locket are no longer there either.
Everything that is her. Gone. As if she never existed. She’d lived here her whole life since the day her mother brought her home from the hospital. Nothing bad ever happened to her in this cottage but it’s housed so many tragic memories. It’s where she came to recover from the beatings. It’s where she came when she’d been too used to face the world.
It’s where she came when they were done with her.
The emotions and memories overwhelm her. The jitters and the cravings crash over her all at once too. She falls to her knees in sobs, curling into herself on the floor like she’s done so many times before.
“Keep it together, Ari. Now’s not the time or place.” It’s Brooks’s harsh words yet gentle voice that almost completely snaps her back.
Her vision goes from blur to clear again. Her teeth stop chattering though the jitters still make her hands and fingers tremble. She swallows down the feeling of needing to vomit and sits up, drying her tears.
“Good girl,” he whispers. His strong hands hold her by the shoulders, pulling her up to her feet.
Good girl. Adam has said that to her many times and the thought of him warms her from head to toe.
“Time to go,” Brooks says as he ushers her out of the bedroom.
That’s when a wide-eyed Tommy steps in and swiftly closes the door with the softest of clicks behind him.
“Incoming,” he hisses.
Brooks immediately shoves her back into the bedroom.
“Shit!” Tommy hisses when he steps in behind them and sees that there’s nowhere to hide.
There’s no closet, only a small bathroom and she doubts all three of them would fit inside of it. And even if they did, whoever is coming into this cottage would likely be using the windowless bathroom at some point.
“Go!” Brooks hisses out to her this time and shoves her towards the bathroom. “Leave the door open as it is.”
She gets to the bathroom and slams herself against the wall on sheer adrenaline. She sees the look of terror in the mirror and somehow manages to have the mind frame to think and slide over more to make sure that she can’t be seen through the reflection.
The sounds of a giggling woman and a laughing man reverberates through what seems like the whole cottage.
She waits, holding her breath. She wanted to know with all of her being where Tommy and Brooks are but she dares not peek to see.
It takes a second for her to hear a loud huff and then words being muffled. Two seconds later, two thuds vibrate through the walls.
“Ari,” Brooks calls for her quietly yet urgently. “We have to go! Now!”
Brooks may have called for her but it’s Tommy who shows up through the doorway to retrieve her. He pulls her out by the hand and she sees the body of a man and a woman side by side right in front of the bedroom doorway.
Her hands immediately clap over her mouth to suppress the scream forming at the back of her throat.
“Don’t do it!” Tommy hisses at her. “Keep it in!”
Then two more giant men are standing in the doorway. Thank God it’s only James and Jason.
“Go!” they both say in unison.
The men gather around Brooks who’s already got the male corpse slung over his shoulders. James slings the women’s body over his shoulder as if she were a bag of potatoes.
“We can’t leave them behind,” Tommy tells her as he pulls her out of the cottage behind Jason.
As climatic as in the movies, a roar of thunder crackles above, pulling her away before drowns in the scene of death that’s surrounding her, threatening to suck her under into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Where doth thou beloveth goeth?” Chase asks him as he slumps into the seat beside his.
“Shut the fuck up!” he harks at Chase.
He looks around to see if anyone else heard the stupid ass remark but finds that everyone seems to be enjoying the festivities. The music was loud enough to drown out Chase’s absurdity.
“Well, the bitch has been hanging on your arm like a fucking horse fly,” Chase grumbles.
Not by choice. Since Isabella stepped into the club with her entourage of uninvited guests, that’s exactly where she’s been. At his side. Introducing him to her friends. He doubts a single one of them even consider themselves friends. She’s nothing more than a free meal ticket. She probably knows that too but can’t pass the opportunity to show off anyway.