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I follow him up the cobble path as he leads me into the most beautiful entryway. It’s like something from a film. The walls and decoration are all autumn shades. Yellows, oranges, purples, reds, and browns surround me.
As Crow shows me around, I’m taken aback by the natural beauty of the place. The inside is furnished with oak and it’s breath-taking to say the least. It’s a small, quaint place but it’s so utterly beautiful that the size is just an added part of its charm.
“How did you have time to do this?” I ask in astonishment.
I turn to look at Crow and find him smiling mischievously at me.
“I started a few months ago when I bought the place. I knew you wanted to get away. Not far away, I know, but enough so that you had independence and a home you loved, so I’ve been working on it for us. When I wasn't looking for you, I was doing this," he says with a small, tense smile.
I swing my arms up and around him, squeezing him in ways that would surely suffocate anyone else, but has him only chuckling into my hair.
"I take it this is the mighty Charlie Keller then?" a voice asks from behind me. I twist on the bar stool I'm sitting on in front of the breakfast bar to find a man I've never seen before.
He's tall with ice white hair sweeping across the top of his head and ridiculously bright, practically translucent green eyes.
"Oh, you alright, man? Yeah, this is Char. Char, meet Kenny. He's come to set up the security for the place."
Kenny. Kenny. Kenny.
"You called me a dick last time we spoke," Kenny tells me with a mischievous smile as he puts his hand out for me to shake.
"You were being a dick that night. Super unhelpful," I say pointedly as I shake his much larger hand. Firm, but not intimidatingly so handshake though. My dad would be impressed. He always used to tell me that I needed to improve my handshaking skills - as if that is even a thing.
"We're just heading off but you've got a key, haven't you?" Crow asks him as he rounds the table and helps me off the stool.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll message you when I'm done. Nice meeting you, Miss Keller. A mini O'banian in the making, this one," he tells Crow with a nod in my direction.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"She hasn't stopped glaring at me since I walked in." He laughs.
I have not been glaring at him, at least not on purpose. I'm pretty sure that's just my face. Oops.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to. It's nice to meet you too." I smile as Crow takes my hand, utters a few more words Kenny's way before he's taking me to his car out front.
"Do you think Liam will come back now? He's had long enough to think, right?" I ask as Crow begins driving off.
"Yeah, he'll be back, I'm sure o-fuck!" he exclaims as I feel the seat belt tighten around my chest and neck as the car jolts forward and stops abruptly.
"What the hell was that?" I mutter out, looking towards Crow as I notice a man pulling Crow’s door open and grabbing him, pulling him out of the car.
By the time I take my seat belt off, there's a presence behind me and I know I'm done for. Again.
Twenty-Eight
Charlie
There's bad luck and then there's me it seems. Who manages to get taken twice in a short amount of time? Yep, that would be me, it seems, so as I sit up groggily on the surprisingly comfortable bed and look around the bare room, I wonder why the fuck I was taken this time.
My thoughts immediately run to Liam’s father. Maybe Theo or Victor's father on behalf of Theo, though Victor had said that the two of them weren't particularly close. His father seemed more interested in the wellbeing of his club as a whole than the actions of an individual within it.
My body feels fine, other than half asleep. The pain in my stomach is still there though dulled by the magnitude of the situation that I am trying to play down in my mind in an attempt not to have a full-blown panic attack without anyone around and no idea where I am.
The bleeding is now lighter than it has been, which upsets me at just the thought that the loss is nearly over. I don't want the loss to last forever but knowing that I still have even just a small part of my baby inside of me fills with a strange sense of joy, but the bleeding stopping often means that it is coming to an end and that the baby, the foetus, the whatever you want to call it has left and I am alone again. Despite the fact that I wasn't aware I was pregnant, the thought of now being truly alone having lost the smallest thing that means the most absolute courses me. The door creaks open at that exact moment, and I realise that I don't have time to mourn. I only have time to do what needs to be done and, in this situation, that's working out who's taken me and form a plan to escape.
And yet as the man walks in, completely relaxed and calm, I realise that I am completely fucked because I don't need him to tell me who he is. I know exactly who he is because he looks identical to his son.
Liam’s dad doesn't say a word as he enters the chamber and just watches me in silence for what feels like a lifetime.
