Knot All That Glitters, Part 2 (FatedVerse #5)

Chapter 1

She Knows

We fucked up.

There’s no denying it.

Every step with Haven has been one massive screw up.

Not every step.

We did the right thing approaching her, getting to know her, pursuing her. I don’t regret that in the slightest. She’s a spot of sunshine in the darkness that has been my life for the last ten years. She’s the sugar in my coffee. The honey in my tea. She’s so fucking sweet.

I can’t imagine not having the sweetness in my life now.

But I might have to figure out really quick how to live without it.

She knows.

She knows we started this thing with her as a game. She found the spreadsheet that we were using to tally points, to see which of us would win the prize. She saw the videos and the pictures, saw how we approached her thinking she’d be nothing more to us than a pawn, a game piece to move around a board in a game she had no clue we were playing.

But she still doesn’t know the full truth, why we did this. Maybe to her is doesn’t matter, maybe this is the end of what could have been the most beautiful fucking thing in my life. Smothered before it had a chance to fully bloom.

I refuse to believe that. Though. If I do, I might not be able to do what needs to be done, to find her, to explain. Once we do that, she’ll understand. I have to believe that.

Haven might never know why we did what we did, if we can’t fucking find her.

If she doesn’t give us a chance to explain.

Fuck. I hope she gives us a chance to explain.

In a very short amount of time, Haven Bell became necessary to me. As necessary as air in my lungs and food in my belly. I need her to survive. Even if my body keeps going, keeps moving, I won’t really be living.

“Call Florence,” Hale demands of me, and I blink back to myself. To the situation right in front of me.

Our girl is gone. Slipped out into the night while we stood around like a bunch of assholes with our dicks in our hands. She left us. And it’s our fucking fault.

I pull out my phone, navigating to Haven’s best friend’s number and hitting dial. It rings and rings. Not surprising if Haven told her what we did. I doubt Ren pick up for any of us if she knows how we hurt her girl.

I shake my head and drop the cell to my side when she doesn’t pick up. “She’s not answering.”

Hale jabs a finger at me.

“Keep calling. Bug the shit out of her until she has no choice but to answer.”

It won’t do any good, but I have to do something, so I call her again. Creed’s already moving toward the door, hooking his coat off the back of a chair and heading toward the garage. Hale’s right on his heels. “Watch the security footage. Find out when she left. What direction she went in. Tell us if you find anything.”

Jude already has his laptop on the dining room table, scanning through the last thirty minutes of footage. His scent is bitter, sour, making my stomach turn nauseous, but I know mine isn’t much better, worry making it curdle like milk left out on a hot day.

I call Florence again. Lifting the cell to my ear as I head upstairs to Haven’s room. The shower is still running in her en suite and I need to turn it off. But as soon as I set foot in her room, I’m assaulted by her scent, pineapple and smoked chili. The more recent notes are bitter, with anxiety and stress. But under it, there’s her normal sweet scent, the one that makes my mouth water. But now it makes tears prick my eyes as longing wells up.

I want my fucking omega back. I want her here with me right now. I want to know she’s safe and taken care of. Even if she’s pissed off at us, angry as hell, I just need her to be where I can watch her, see her, verify that she’s actually okay.

Jaw tensing, I move into the steam-filled bathroom and flick off the shower. All of her products still line the counter, the shelves. I move back into her bedroom and into the closet, finding all of her clothes still hanging or neatly folded. On the foot of the bed is a duffle bag filled with her journals. She’d obviously planned on taking those with her but decided against it.

BunBun is gone. And resting in his place is her phone. The new one we bought her that her father doesn’t have the number to.

I swipe it up and carry it with me downstairs, dialing Ren again.

“Jesus, fucking Christ what ?”

I’m so startled at the sound of the disgruntled omega’s voice that I nearly drop my phone. It’s thick with sleep and I know immediately that Ren hasn’t heard from Haven. Not yet. My stomach drops, but I still ask the question I need to. “Hey, Ren.” Jude’s head shoots up from his laptop to pierce me. “Sorry to wake you. I was wondering if you’d heard from Haven?” It’s a wonder that I’m able to keep my voice so calm, so fucking level, when all I want to do is shout at her and demand she tell me where my omega is.

There’s a long, long pause on the other side of the line. I grit my teeth to keep from snapping at her to answer me. Finally she says slowly, her voice bordering on a growl, “Why would I have heard from Haven in the middle of the night, Tic? What the hell did you do to her?”

“Just tell me, if you’ve heard from her, please.”

Another long pause, one where I think maybe my first assessment was wrong. Hope takes root, only to be smashed in the next moment. “I haven’t heard from her, no. But then, if I had, I probably wouldn’t tell you. It’s clear from the fact that you’re calling me at twelve-fourteen in the morning, that you fucked up somehow. Did she run away from you, Tic? Is Haven out there right now, all alone?”

I swallow thickly and make myself answer her honestly without going into specifics. “She left the house without telling us. We’re trying to find her to make sure she’s safe.”

Florence curses on the other end of the one, and I can hear the rustling of fabric. “I swear to fuck. If she gets hurt because you guys fucked up, I will castrate every last one of you.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “If she gets hurt because we fucked up, we might just line up to let you.”

She hums on her side of the line. “Call me if you hear from her. If you find her, please.”

“Of course,” I agreed quickly, hoping she’ll extend us the same courtesy. I have a feeling she won’t, though. Not for a while, at least. She’ll probably keep us hanging for as long as Haven wants to make us suffer.

I can’t even blame her.

Like she can hear my thoughts, Ren says, “I’ll do whatever Haven wants me to do, Tic. But I think you already know that.”

I nod, even though she can’t see me. “I know.”

The line goes dead and I meet Jude’s eyes. “Anything?” He asks, sounding hopeless. Like he already knows what my answer will be.

I shake my head. “No. Ren hasn’t heard from her.” I slide the phone onto the table next to his laptop. “She left this behind.”

Jude scoops it up, and has it unlocked in a matter of moments, scrolling through it faster than I ever would have been able to.

He blows out a breath and shakes his head. “She ordered two ride shares. One to take her to Ren’s. One to a hotel downtown: The Falcon.”

I send a text to Hale and Creed letting them know, giving them a direction to go in, while Jude frowns at his laptop. “But I don’t think she actually took either of those.”

“What do you mean?”

Jerking his chin at the screen, he starts typing. “I mean, she took off on foot.”

I round the table and lean over his back, watching as our girl does, in fact, take off on foot at a steady jog, pacing herself like she knows she’s going to be running for a while. I vaguely remember her talking about a marathon she ran last year for charity, which means she can likely go like that for miles.

Jude swaps between camera angles to show her. And it damn near breaks my heart seeing the tears on her face as she runs away from us.

“What direction is she heading?”

Jude’s nose wrinkles. “Into the city. But… I don’t know for sure where. We have cameras in our neighborhood and in her father’s, but…”

But we never put up any in the actual city. Why would we have?

“Can you check CCTV cameras? Traffic cams? Anything?”

Jude nods. “Yeah, I can. But it’ll take a bit to crack them.”

“Do it,” I mutter, typing another text to Hale and Creed. Letting them know our girl might be on foot, alone in the city, smelling like an omega in distress. Anyone could find her. Any drunk ass alpha could bark at her, get her to comply with them, get her to go with them.

Jesus. We fucked up.

Jude tips his head back to look at me. “It looks like she’s heading toward her father’s.”

My already chilled blood runs cold. “No. No, she wouldn’t go there. Not even if she was pissed at us. She wouldn’t.”

But I see what he means. The few security cameras he’s hacked show Haven taking a steady path toward her old neighborhood.

“Maybe she’s banking on Hale’s command to keep her safe from him being able to control her.”

But we both know there are other ways to control a person. Physical ways. Ways that might hurt her so badly, we won’t be able to bring her back from it.

“Fuck.” I hiss, spinning on my heel and heading toward the garage. “I’ll go to Frederick Bell’s. You keep looking to see if she changes course, see if she pops up anywhere else.”

I hope like hell she’s smart enough to know going to her father would end badly for her. Very badly. “While you're at it, check with the omega help centers in the city and see if they’ve had any calls tonight.”

“On it. I’ll also set up alerts with the hospitals.”

The thought of that has my chest tightening and my stomach roiling. Haven might end up in the hospital because of us. Because we fucked up.

If she does, I’ll never forgive myself.

I drive every route between our house and the Bell estate that I can think of, praying that I’ll come across a lone figure trotting along the side of the road, ponytail swaying with each stride. But I don’t.

I pull to a stop in front of the closed gate to Haven’s old home and stare up at the house. There are no lights on inside. It’s still relatively early for club goers, and so it’s possible that Frederick is still where we left him before we came home and found Haven huddled in our backyard, soaked to the bone and shivering, lips blue, unresponsive, nearly catatonic.

We should have known then it was something more than an email from her father, should have known she discovered something about us.

Already knowing Haven won’t answer, I press the button to call the guard on duty. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll at least tell me if she’s there. But I doubt that too. It doesn’t make any sense for her to come here, not after what we learned about how Frederick Bell treats her. But I’m desperate enough to try.

The speaker on the box buzzes faintly and then a gruff voice comes over the line. “What are you doing here, Calloway?”

Surprised, I blink, momentarily caught off guard. I wasn’t aware Bell security knew who I was, who we are. I lick my lips and say with confidence, “I’m here to see Haven Bell.”

There’s a long pause on the other line, no answer, then the guard is back, sounding worried as hell. “What do you mean, you’re here to see her? Isn’t she living with you?”

Ah, so they know where she’s been all this time. Sure, we told Haven her father had shown up demanding to talk to her, but he never actually did. Smart of him, since we never would have let him speak to her. Ever.

It would be too great a risk and she doesn’t need to deal with her abuser. That’s what we’re for. To handle all the bullshit for her.

I don’t know what to say to the guard’s accusatory question, so I remain silent. He curses on the other side of the line. “Are you telling me you don’t know where she is?”

My jaw tenses and I sigh. “Look, man, can you just tell me if she’s here or not?”

“She’s not here. She hasn’t set foot in this house for over a month. We all thought she was safe with you.”

I blink at that, surprise catching me off guard, but in the next moment, I’m furious. The guards knew. They knew how shitty Frederick Bell was treating his daughter and did absolutely nothing to stop it, to help her.

“She’s safer with us than she is with him,” I grit out.

“Yeah, sure. Except you lost her.”

I don’t have time for this bullshit. It’s possible I shouldn’t trust this faceless voice on the other side of the security speaker, but he seems genuinely worried and pissed off at us for losing Haven. I feel the fucking same.

Already throwing my car in reverse, I spout off my phone number. “If you hear from her, please call us. Please. We want to keep her safe. IT’s the only thing we want.”

Before he can either agree or deny my request, I’m backing out of the driveway and hurtling down the road.

I drive for hours, up and down side streets and main roads, searching for any sign of a tiny omega with a swinging ponytail and tears on her face.

I check in with Jude to see if he’s found anything.

I chase sirens, hoping and dreading in equal measure that they’ll lead me to my girl.

But there’s just nothing.

She’s vanished like a whiff of smoke.

I’m about to give up, to turn my car around and head home when a group text comes through from Jude. Two lines, five words that make my heart stutter with fear.

Jude:

Our Lady Grace

Omega Ward.