Chasing Hope (IceHawks #3)
1. Matteo
Matteo
ELLINGTON
dude answer your goddamn phone
MATTEO
aren’t you meant to be on a plane?
ELLINGTON
you can answer texts but not pick up a call???
MATTEO
you know I don’t do phone calls
ELLINGTON
WTF???
dude just pick up the phone
MATTEO
no
most calls can be summarized in a text
ELLINGTON
not this call
stop being a dick and answer
My phone buzzes across my desk for the tenth time in the past five minutes, and the flow I was feeling while working on a recent code is now officially long gone.
Reluctantly, my thumb swipes across the screen as I spin in my office chair and try not to sigh as I answer. “Yes?”
“Dude, we need to work on your phone mannerisms.”
“My mannerisms are just fine.”
Caleb Ellington, my best friend and pain in my ass, scoffs over the line. “We’ll continue this lesson another time. Right now, I need a favor.”
The sudden hitch of his breath at the end of that statement has me sitting up straighter, my attention diverting from the twin monitors on my desk.
“What’s wrong? Is everything all right?”
Caleb should be on a flight to Greece right now, his annual galivanting trip he takes during off-season to blow off steam.
He’s been talking nonstop about the islands he’s going to hop around; the stories he brought back from Ibiza last year made my eyes bulge out of my head. God only knows what trouble he’s in.
I was hoping I wouldn’t get a bail-me-out-of-jail call until he at least landed in the country, though.
The heavy sigh Caleb lets out has my heart skipping a beat, but then it plummets as he whispers, “No, it’s Evie.”
I’m standing before he finishes the sentence. “Where is she? Is she all right? Is she hurt?”
“Physically, she’s fine. Emotionally, on the other hand…”
My eyes rake over the apartment Caleb and I share, as if I’ll find answers between the sofa cushions. My feet begin to move of their own accord, pacing around the large gray couch.
“What happened?” I hear myself ask, but I sound far away, my voice cold and detached despite feeling anything but. It’s clipped, precise, sterile—I sound like my father.
If I wasn’t so focused on Evie right now, I’d shudder at the thought, but when it comes to her, I’ve always had tunnel vision.
My best friend’s little sister, the girl I watched grow into a woman, the one that I would throw myself in front of a moving car for, take a bullet for, stab myself in the heart for if it meant saving her.
I would do anything for her.
And something tells me I’m about to prove just how true that statement is.
“I swear to God, man, if I weren’t in London right now sitting on the tarmac I would be on a flight back to Colorado.
” He sighs again, the venom in his voice intensifying with every passing word.
“Evie just called me hysterical; I could barely understand a word. I thought she got in an accident or something happened to our parents.”
“She didn’t, did she?”
“No, but I don’t think what happened is any better. She got fired from her job, fuck knows why. Before I could ask her about it, she said she went home early and caught Carter balls deep in another woman.”
My body freezes, my eyes slamming closed as all the air in my lungs evaporates.
I knew he was cheating and I was the bastard that was too cowardly to tell Evie. I tried to go about it anonymously, the old-fashioned way, hiring a PI and mailing photos of him out at “work lunches” with his female coworker where he just so happened to shove his tongue down her throat.
I’m presuming she never got them. Perhaps Carter got the mail first and threw the pictures out, or worse, Evie saw them and chose to stay. But if she’s this hysterical over catching him in bed with another woman, then I’m leaning toward the former.
“Fuck,” I curse, running a hand through my hair.
“Fuck indeed.”
A commotion comes over the line, a woman’s voice in a soft lilting British accent saying, “Sir, you can’t be on the phone. We’re taking off.”
“Just give me one minute please.”
“Sir, I must ask that you kindly hang up—”
My body unfreezes, my pacing resuming as a million thoughts begin to churn, every single one of them about her. Always her. “Don’t worry, Ellington, I’ve got her. I’ll head over and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m not worried about him doing something stupid, Valenti.”
“Sir, if you don’t put the phone away, I’ll be forced to—”
“Yes, yes, I’m turning it off, okay? I’m sorry, it’s a family emergency.”
I place my phone in the crook of my shoulder as I rush to grab my keys and slip my feet into sneakers. “Ellington, I’ve got it, okay? Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back here and take care of her until we can talk again.”
He groans, the sound full of pain and a heavy weariness. I don’t even have to see him to know he’s sitting in that chair, knees bouncing a mile a minute. He’s always been fiercely protective of her, more so since she’s pulled away from the family.
It’s no doubt killing him to be stuck on that plane.
“Thanks, man.”
“Anytime.”
Caleb pauses. “Feel free to punch the fucker for me.” And with that, he disconnects the call.
My fingers drum the wheel relentlessly as I curse this godforsaken slow garage gate.
Peeking back down at the last text Caleb sent before the flight attendant probably confiscated his phone or threw him off the plane, I reread the instructions on how to get into Evie and her—I’m praying—ex-boyfriend’s apartment.
The code to get access to the parking garage was easy to memorize considering it was playing on a loop in my mind while driving here.
4247.
Plus, it was the only thing pulling me back from a cliff of rage when my thoughts veered into the territory of how Caleb said she was hysterical.
In between saying the four-digit code to calm me down, my imagination switched between conjuring up images of Evie in a puddle of tears and all the ways I want to hurt the bastard who caused her pain.
Breaking his nose.
Cutting off his balls—that one made me gag a little.
Taking a bat to said balls—this one made the corner of my lips twitch.
Maybe I could also take the photos of him and the coworker and email them anonymously to his boss. I researched the financial company he works for; they have a strict no-fraternization rule. At the idea, a rare smile begins to form on my lips.
I’m about to savor the warmth and anticipation of getting him fired but that quickly vanishes as the parking garage gate finally opens and I drive my car underground to find Evie, mascara running down her cheeks, hair and clothes in disarray.
She walks with purpose, her strides clipped, a baseball bat dangling from her hand.
My car comes to a screeching halt, my jaw practically unhinging as I watch her lift the bat, a scream of pure fury leaving her as she brings the baseball bat down on what used to be a very nice, luxurious, black BMW.