“Shit, fucking shit,” Cole mutters, looking around. “We don’t need attention right now. Not with what I assume is about to happen.”
He’s probably right but at this point, it’s useless to try and tame the blazing inferno of pain, anguish and torture I’ve been thrust in.
Mia…
“Okay, hold the fuck up,” Liam says quickly. “Before we lose our fucking heads over this... this disgusting picture, let’s focus and talk this out.”
“Liam—” Cole mutters, but I cut him off.
“There’s nothing to fucking talk about here!” I growl and just as quickly, my gaze falls back on the image on my phone.
I can feel my stomach flipping in my chest, every muscle in my body tightening to a point of pain as my vision hazes with a tint of red, but still in all that, I can’t look away.
“What the fuck, man?” Liam bites out again. “What kind of sick joke is this?”
“Liam, I fucking told you before,” Cole starts, his voice low and pained. I can feel his gaze settling on me even as he speaks to my brother. “This isn’t a joke.”
“You’re damn right this isn’t a joke!” Liam explodes. “If they think we’ll let this slide like that trashy picture they had floating on the internet of Mia’s dead mother-aunt whoever the fuck she was to Mia, then they have another thing coming!”
“What fucking picture now?” Cole seethes.
“The one they had with Mia’s old house in the background, talking about sucking dock for two fucking dollars!”
“Ah, Liam—” Cole starts but it’s too late. I turn to my brother.
“If you so much as say something like that shit again in my presence or to anyone else for that fucking matter, brother or not, I’ll wring your fucking neck.”
“J—”
“I fucking mean it.”
He clamps his jaw shut and jerks his head in resigned surrender, silently and angrily conceding.
“Yeah, I get it, but let’s not pretend like we have all the facts right now,” he bites out. “Because of this is real—” he trails off, a shudder going through his body as his face clouds with anger.
“I don’t need fucking facts for this or some kind of fucking confirmation,” I say. “They took what’s mine. They took her.”
I know the Matthews inbred bastards and I also know this is not some fucking threat. This is fucking real.
“Yes, I understand the urgency of this fuck fest but Liam’s right,” Cole mutters. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Not with this. We need all the facts before we…”
“Before we fucking what? Charge in and fuck it all up?” I seethe, stepping away from him. “This is a call for me and I’ll fucking answer it!”
“Keep your damn voice down, people are staring.”
Ah, fuck this. Gripping the phone with a white knuckled grip, I turn on the heel of my fucking dress shoes that I apparently now have reserved for things like Aiden’s funeral, a court case made up against me and now, ripping the fucking Matthews assholes heads from their fucking shoulders for touching Mia.
“Where?” I demand.
“Over there,” Cole says. Spotting Cole’s matte black Dodge Challenger parked in front of Liam’s Lamborghini, I start striding toward it, fucking glad that he and my brother drove separately. It makes this all fucking easier.
“Will you ride with me?” I mutter.
“You don’t even have to say a word,” Cole answers.
Just then, my father looks up, finally noticing that something’s up with us. I watch from the corner of my eye as he quickly ends his call and rushes to us. It’s then that I notice Cole and Liam are both walking with me, thunderous yet impassive expressions on their faces. I have no fucking clue how I look like and right now, I don’t give a flying fuck. Not when I’ve failed this hellishly.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s going on here?” John demands, stopping in front of us, his searching, suspicious gaze moving from me to Liam and Cole. “Why do you all look like you’re about to go on a murder spree?”
Cole glances at me warily, his gaze shifting from me, to Liam, then toward his car parked across the courtyard by the curb. I can just about hear him calculate how fast he’ll be able to drag me toward the car before I snap.
“What’s going on?” Dad demands.
A heavy, violent silence hangs over us until Dad faces Liam.
“These two might be fucking tight lipped like a dead fish but you, what’s going on here?”
With a grunt of annoyance, Liam passes his phone to my dad and I sidestep him and continue on my warpath toward the car. Cole’s car is throaty and loud, we’re going to need something more silent for what’s in store.
Already, my mind is whirring with all sorts of strategies and contingency plans I need to put in place, but one thing is clear, Sean and his fucking brother won’t make it to the end of this fucking night.
“Jesus Christ,” Dad curses, his voice filled with disbelief, horror and disgust behind me. “What is this?”
“We still don’t…” Cole starts, but Liam cuts him off.
“It’s a fucking prank we’re going to return with a swift brutality.”
I stop, my palms balled into fists as the phone cuts into my hand, but the pain is nothing like the chaos in me.
“This?” Dad starts, a catch in his voice. I don’t have to see his face to know what he’s thinking. “This is a prank?”
Swiftly turning around, my gaze lands on my brother who clearly still in fucking denial over this.
“A prank?” I start, the incredulity of the word scorching my tongue like acid. Cole and Liam pause, their dark, hooded gazes now on me as they both finally see the rage in me, but dad just stares down at the phone, his jaw locked.
You sold her off just so you could avoid paying for your sins...
The empty, almost lifeless look in her once vibrant, aquamarine eyes.
She’s delicious though...
The way she was lying there fucking naked, battered, bruised and bleeding.
My Little Minx.
I’ve failed this girl so many fucking times but now the universe has finally conspired to really fuck me up.
It’s as if the universe has finally demanded for my existence to come to an end, and now here I am, feeling like I’m taking in my last breath, going straight to the pits of hell.
“You think this is a prank, Liam?” Dad questions, the doubt in his voice clear as the alarm in his eyes when he looks up at me.
“I mean what else could it be?” Liam says, shifting on his feet, regarding me with caution. “Well, to be fair, maybe it’s just a manipulated photo.”
“A manipulated photo, huh?” I whisper, ignoring how broken I sound as I walk back to my brother. Cole steps in, shaking his head slightly. “Do you really think that’s some fucking cadaver with bruises and a nasty bleeding gash to the head? You think that’s manipulated to resemble the girl who’s had my back when I didn’t have hers?”
The truth of my actions and the shit I said to her the last time I saw her is disgusting.
Great move, asshole. Get a fucking pat on the back while you’re fucking at it.