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“Release me, you piece of shit!” I try to scream through a mouth filled with my own blood. The coppery taste fills my senses, and the adrenaline causes my body to spasm and try to buck him off. I won’t go down without a fight. I won’t allow anyone else to harm me without feeling my wrath. I bite down hard on his elbow, ripping the exposed flesh between my teeth. A grunt leaves his lips, and he bears down harder on the back of my neck.
“I don’t take orders from you, little cunt.” He pulls me roughly over onto my back, his hand wrapping tightly around my neck. His fist comes flying at the side of my right temple, and my head swims with the impact. The last thing I see before darkness takes is the North Carolina sky mocking me with its beauty.
Chapter 47
Theo
“Do you believe a man can truly love a woman and constantly betray her?” Mario Puzo, Fools Die
Mateostormsintotheroom, followed by Carter and Finn. “Fucker, we need to talk.” He demands. I watch as they all approach me, fury on Mateo and Carter’s faces and worry on Finn’s. I pocket my phone and stand up from the window sill I had been sitting on, lost in my thoughts and despair.
I’ve been trying for days to access my trust fund to no avail. My father has changed all the login parameters, and I can’t access any accounts designated in my name. It’s driving me bat shit crazy, being dependent on Mia for everything. My pride is taking a massive hit, letting her and Stella pay and provide everything we need. I can’t go on like this; I have to figure something out, especially now that she hates me.
“What happened?” I look closer at Mateo and notice the anxiety riding him; he’s practically shaking. I gaze behind him to see if June has followed him into the room. Where Mateo is, June is never far. I get it; the girl has been through something incredible, life-altering, and traumatic. Mateo is a safety blanket when the rest of the world feels threatening.
A fist flying at my face has my head swinging back and pain bursting in my jaw. “What the fuck, Carter!”
“Tell him, Mat! Tell him what you just fucking did to hurt the girl I love because he told you it was the only way!” Carter paces back and forth in front of me, his hands clenching and unclenching into tight fists. I rub my hand across my tender jaw and watch him out of the corner of my eye in case he throws another hit.Fucking asshole, that stung like a bitch.
“You! You did this, Theo. You and your stupid control issues. Your demands that you always know best. You fucker, you know shit!” Mateo spews from furious lips. He looks like an enraged wild animal. His green eyes are bright and filled with anger. Unease slithers down my spine. Mateo is not one for dramatics; that’s more Carter’s style. What has happened to set him off like this?
“You’re not making any damn sense. Would you fucking explain to me what you’re here incoherently babbling about and why Carter felt the need to sucker punch me?” I question with concern and meet Finn’s dark eyes. A heavy weight settles in the pit of my stomach; whatever happened is bad. Finn looks disgusted with me.
“Mat, breathe. Tell him what happened with Mia this afternoon.” Finn moves further into the room but keeps himself at a distance from me like he too can’t contain the urge to hit me. I see it in the way he’s holding himself. He’s going to swing at me any moment. Whatever this is about, if it has to do with Mia, I fucking deserve it, and I won’t even bother to fight back. Any pain other than what my mind and heart are currently experiencing is welcome. There is nothing they could subject me to that would feel worse right now.
“Mia walked in on June kissing me a couple of hours ago. I fucked up. I let it happen and didn’t stop June in time. I could tell Mia was angry, but she restrained herself from coming at June or me. Probably because of the condition we are still in.” Mateo runs his hand through his shorn locks, grabbing the short strands and pulling on them with agitation. Seeing him with hair just below his ears still feels weird, but there was no other way to get the knots and weeks of grime out, so he took a scissor to it. Now it’s ragged and uneven, making him look older and more feral. I’m sure he aged immensely at my father’s hands. Trauma has a way of doing that to you. I should fucking know; my mind and body feel like we have lived two miserable lifetimes.
“It gets worse.” Mateo continues. “She advised us that a room was ready for June, but June denied her, telling her she would continue to bunk with me. I...FUCK! I didn’t fucking shut it down when Mia asked me if that was what I wanted. I heard your psycho voice in my head saying it was the only way to protect her, to push her away. I told her it’s what I wanted.” He stares into my eyes, tears glistening down his cheeks. “Theo, she was devastated but tried to hide it. I just chose another girl over her. I chose June, knowing it would hurt her.”
A lump forms in my throat at his words, fuck, this is bad. Mia would have been angry and hurt already by the way we have been treating her. At the way I treated her like a whore and something dirty under my feet. Then to have Carter hurt her, too; now Mateo betrays her by picking June over her. That had to have crushed her. Once again, my heart and mind question this path that we are on. There has to be another way. I don’t want to continue to hurt her. Hurting her hurts us too. I don’t know if I can live without her. Fuck, I know that I don’t want to.
“Where is Mia now?” I inquire, staring from one brother to another. My mind is racing, trying to devise a way to make this right, how I’m going to apologize to her and beg for her forgiveness. She’s going to make us pay for every last hurt inflicted, and I know I will take the penance gratefully if she will just let us keep her.
“We haven’t seen her for hours now. After the confrontation with Mateo, I saw her walk out of the patio doors but lost track of her outdoors.” Finn shakes his head, his lips a hard line and his eyes intense. He’s scared; you can see it in his features. He knows we may have already lost her.
“Where are Raegan and Isabella?” I demand. Usually, where those two are, Mia’s not far or vice versa.
“Issy and Rae-Rae are in Mia’s suite. I questioned them a little while ago about Mia’s whereabouts, but Issy spat on me and slammed the damn door in my face.” Carter sighs and sits down on the loveseat. Those two are going to hold a grudge forever.Shit, can you blame them?My mind laughs at me.
“Are we sure Mia isn’t in there with them?” Fear is starting to tighten my throat and slide up my spine. Something is wrong; I can feel it in my bones.
“Naw, man. I’m positive Mia is not inside the house. I questioned Adam, but you know how he is. Fucker won’t tell us anything unless Tom or Mia approves it.” Finn sighs and sits next to Carter. His whole long body is filled with aggravation.
“You think she might still be outside? It’s getting dark out there, and the temperature has dipped in the last couple of hours?” I turn back to stare out the window, trying to discern if I see Mia’s beautiful form outside in any of the shadows. I know she’s been spending as much time outside as she can to get away from us. We are all prisoners here in the glass house, stepping on each other’s toes and getting on each other’s nerves. It would be so much worse for her now, with all of us here acting as if we hate her.
That’s the thing, though; we don’t hate her. The four of us have somehow fallen in love with the same girl. If that wasn’t fucked up enough, not one of us was willing to back down from having her. So we agreed to share the one girl that lights each of us up, only to realize she’s not who she seemed. You would think betrayal and lies would be the end of the story, but not for any of us. No matter what or who she is, all four of us still want her with a desperation that bleeds insanity.
Do we let that perfect, beautiful, strong-willed girl who brought us to our knees know that? Know that she owns each of our hearts and that we would do anything to protect and save her. Even if that meant ripping out our own beating hearts, no, we push her away. Make her feel like shit about her past and ours. Shame her righteous need for revenge, cause make no mistake, we deserved everything she came to Cabsury to serve us. We push her away in the name of protecting her and keeping her safe from my father. At the same time, hurting her over and over again and making her fury rise and hate relight inside of her.
If she had relinquished any of the hatred towards us for what we put her through in our youth before we rescued Mateo, that has all disappeared now. I am solely to blame for that. It was my adamant demand that we force her back to Manhattan without us.
“Let’s each take a section of the property and search.” I start heading towards the doors leading out to the patio and outdoors.” My steps quicken, a sense of urgency fills me, and the need to get my arms around her is overwhelming me.
“What do you suggest we do if we find her? It’s not like she will come willingly with any of us now.” Finn inquires just before I step outside.
“Finn’s right; Mia is more likely to stab one of us or give us a beatdown if any of us tries to force her back to the house now. We’ve royally fucked this all up, Theo.” Carter stands from the loveseat, following me towards the doors.
‘Fuck it, we confess. We tell her why we are trying to push her away and that we were trying to protect her and keep her safe. That it was never about who she was in the past or who she is now.“ I turn back around and meet each of my brother’s eyes. “I can’t live without her. There is no future for me without her in it. I would rather have died at my father’s hands than live without Mia.”
