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Chapter forty-four
They said chaos breeds madness. Which was why I controlled everything in my life—where I kept my fruit, how I ran my business, who I fucked. All of it was part of a carefully orchestrated plan to keep me the fuck sane. I hated surprises.
But this wasn’t asurprise. This was a goddamn blow to the chest.
I should have known she wouldn’t be safe.
I should have changed my elevator code, bolted all the doors, and kept her ass locked up in New York until I got home.
I thought I had it under control.
I should have protected her.
Now, chaos swarmed in my brain, and I had no idea where the fuck she even was.
Bring on the madness.
Guilt stirred in my gut like rotten fruit. She shouldn’t have been alone.
I threatened to ass-rape her father with a goddamn knife. Tore his clothes from his body and humiliated him in front of his own son. There was no telling what kind of shit he would do to get back at me. He’d already proved he didn’t give a damn about using his daughter. The only reason he was pissed off about the scene at The Induction was because it ruined his chances of sealing whatever deal he’d made with the king of Norway.
I stared at the blood stains sprinkled on the plush carpet of her bedroom floor. It was a Persian rug, probably hand-woven, light cream with blue paisley designs. It was classic, pure and beautiful before this smattering of blood.Just like her.
“She’s not somewhere else in the palace? The kitchen, maybe.” I remembered her stories about watching the chef.
Liam shook his head. “No. I looked.”
That was what took him so long to come back.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Who the fuck would do this to her?”
Grey was still down the hall with the king, meaning someone else was here. There was another player in this game.
I need a little more time. It’s not just my decision.Those were Winston’s words when I’d called him from my car the day Anniston learned what a piece of shit he was. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time. I figured it had something to do with Malcolm Huntington. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.” My mind raced, cataloguing through everything that had happened, every video we’d watched, every word that was spoken over the last few weeks. It all led back to the king and Malcolm. I had to be missing something. “I’m going back to the cottage.” Maybe there was something there to help me find this mystery player. Maybe he left something behind.
“I’m going with you.”
Liam was quickly earning my trust. Anyone who was this protective of Anniston automatically got a lifetime membership to Club Chandler.
“Did you really fuck my sister in front of the entire Brotherhood?” he asked as we followed the stone path back to the cottage.
“Do you really have orgies around a fire in the woods?”
I’d heard of Summer’s End—Ayelswick’s version of Mischief Night. Every-fucking-body who spent more than an hour on Twitter had heard of Summer’s End.
“Did she know what you were doing? Why you were doing it?”
“Nah. She just thinks I’m a freak,” I said with a wink. It was a lie. Anniston was closer to the truth than she thought.
I thought about the way she looked at me that night, about the way her fingertips traced over where the water sprays had marked my skin and how gentle she was. How kind, even after I tried to destroy her. After I fucked her in a room full of strangers and made her bleed. She was so much stronger than I gave her credit for, and I swore on everything holy that when I found her, I would kill whoever took her from me before I had the chance to tell her that.
