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“This isn’t your fault. We couldn’t have guessed that our past would collide with Brooklyn’s. We will get her back,”I murmured.
“You don’t know that,”Oliver replied dejectedly.
“I don’t. But that’s what I’m choosing to believe. And you need to as well. It’s what will fuel us to keep searching. This information is shocking, but it’s also another thread we can follow. We know what Missy wants.”
“What’s that?”Oliver asked.
I felt sick even thinking about it, but I knew the answer. In the short moments I saw Missy in person, it was clear she had an agenda. When she showed up at Brooklyn’s office, that agenda seemed clear to me. But I had no idea how far she would go to achieve her ultimate goal.
“She wants us, Oliver.”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Oliver
Everything felt sodark inside me and I didn’t know how to fix it. After Gideon held onto me in the elevator, I had to admit to myself that I was on a ledge, just waiting for a small thing to push me over. Brooklyn leaving us had started the unraveling and now, with her missing, there wasn’t a string for me to hold on to.
Thankfully, Gideon was quiet on the drive home. I didn’t want to talk about the breakdown I had at the hospital. I loved my brothers. They were my family. But they had picked me up before and I didn’t want them to have to do that again. As close as I was to losing it completely, I would never turn to oblivion like I had done before we got away from Jaxon’s father.
We all dabbled in using back in the day. It was hard not to try the product you were slinging day in and day out. Aiden was the first to know it wasn’t for him and he was always business when it came to Randy Stoller and his drugs. Gideon had never been a fan, so he had tried the least, knowing it put him off his game when it came to enforcement. Jaxon and I were the heaviest users. I wasn’t just a user; I was an addict. And my brothers and rehab pulled me out of the hole I had dug for myself. No matter what, I wouldn’t do that to them again.
The house was ablaze with light when we pulled through the gate. Gideon had shot a text to our group chat to let Jaxon and Aiden know we were coming home with information that was imperative to finding Brooklyn. We pulled into the garage and Jaxon already had the door to the mudroom open, waiting for us.
Inside the kitchen, the whiskey I had opened was sitting off to the side and in its place mugs of coffee had been poured. Aiden sat alert and waiting for us. I couldn’t sit. I still felt like my insides were on fire, my mind was having a hard time processing everything and I was fighting against screaming with the last pieces of my control. I could see Gideon watching me warily, but I carefully picked up a mug of coffee and sipped the hot liquid to act as normal as possible.
Jaxon, picking up on the tension between our brother and me, watched the both of us from across the kitchen, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Gideon slumped onto a stool, thefight suddenly going out of him. Now that we were safely at home, the four of us together.
“Frank woke up, and he had some alarming news,”Gideon started to say.
“We got that from your text, Gideon,”Aiden replied sharply.
“It’s Missy. She’s the partner we couldn’t figure out with Lyle,”Gideon said.
“What the fuck?”Jaxon exclaimed.
“Are you serious?”Aiden asked at the same time.
I just stared into the black liquid in my mug. In my mind, I could picture wrapping my hands around Missy’s neck and choking the life out of her. It was an odd picture for me. I had never been the violent one of our family. But losing Brooklyn was creating something dark inside me, something I didn’t know I was capable of. The thoughts should scare me, but instead they only encouraged me to find the deceitful bitch and deal with her.
“Both of them, Missy and Lyle, were there yesterday morning. Lyle’s the one that shot Frank, that much we had assumed. But Missy was there too,”Gideon said.
“Why would they show their cards like that?”Jaxon mused.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,”Gideon replied.
“Because they either didn’t think Frank would live, or they don’t plan on keeping Brooklyn alive,”I said quietly.
“I’m going with the first one. I don’t believe Lyle would go this far to get Brooklyn, just to kill her. He wants her…for other reasons…,”Gideon said, his voice breaking at the end.
The sound of shattering glass made me tear my eyes from my coffee. Across the kitchen, a splatter of coffee was running down the wall, and Aiden was pacing furiously on the other side. His hands were fists at his sides and red was rising up his neck.
“I can’t... we can’t let him...”Aiden growled.
“None of us want to think about that. But if Lyle has plans for her, that means he’s more likely to keep her alive,”Gideon said quietly.
“Alive, but broken,”Jaxon added.
