Chapter 14 – Rook
ROOK
I flipped a coin over my knuckles, sighing as Ava Jade and Becca chatted in the living room while music played in the background from a Bluetooth speaker. I leaned against the black marble countertop, sipping the bourbon spiked coffee Becca made for me, glancing at my phone every few seconds.
It was getting late, but neither of them seemed ready to call it a night, happy to chat the night away and pretend I wasn’t here at all.
Ava Jade had hardly spoken to me since Corvus dropped me at her door hours ago. She’d opened it, taken one look at me, and walked away, leaving the door open for me.
I was guessing it didn’t go well between her and Corv. Judging by the light bruise on his cheek, she’d actually hit him. And somehow, he hadn’t retaliated. Corvus was a monument to self-control, but you didn’t touch him. You touched him and you died.
He let her hit him, and he did absolutely nothing.
I didn’t know what to make of that.
But whatever he did had nothing to do with me. We’d had fun the other night, hadn’t we? I knew I did.
My jaw clenched as I remembered the strain of touching her. The tremble in my fingers I hoped she hadn’t noticed.
The aching need to choke her a little longer, to cut a little deeper, to fuck her raw…
Being unable to do it.
The idea of scaring her away from me?—
Of going too far and?—
I tapped my phone impatiently for the third time in as many minutes, distracting myself as the screen illuminated to show no new messages or missed calls. Grey offered to come and stay with Ghost tonight, but we needed those messages cracked yesterday .
We all wanted to think we were overreacting, but I think each of us knew that wasn’t the case. I had a bad feeling. A hollow, ugly pit that’d been yawning open ever since that day she accused Corvus.
Something was very wrong, and we needed to know what it was.
If someone was threatening her…
I clutched the coin in my hand, a tremor racing down my spine, making my back heat.
They wouldn’t be a someone when I was through with them. They’d be a nothing. A pile of ash at my feet.
Becca and Ava Jade turned to me, and I realized I’d begun tapping my foot, and stopped, polishing off my coffee and bourbon instead before swiping the back of my palm over my lips and refilling my mug from the flask in my back pocket.
“There’s cola in the fridge,” Becca offered. “If you want to mix that.”
I shook my head. “Too sweet.”
“Suit yourself.”
They went back to talking about some event they were going to soon.
Becca was asking Ava Jade if they’d have to bring one of her shadows with them because they only had two tickets.
My Ghost said fuck no , but she was wrong if she thought Corvus was going to let her go anywhere, least of all out of fucking town to Lodi, without one of us with her.
It was cute that she thought she could get away with it, really.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Becca asked in a hushed tone I wasn’t meant to hear, her dark brown eyes slipping in my direction before falling back on her friend as she leaned in. “They haven’t left you alone for weeks.”
Ava Jade shrank back from her friend, the discomfort evident in the tightness around her eyes as she struggled with what to say. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked, replying to her friend’s question with one of her own meant to divert the conversation back to safer waters.
I knew the tactic. Grey was a fan of that one.
“You’ve been here a lot lately,” Ava Jade prodded. “You’ve only gone out, what, once or twice in the last week to see your…” she shimmied her shoulders. “ Friend. ”
“He’s just...been busy.” Becca frowned, pushing her pin straight hair behind her ear. “Seriously though, Aves, why are they here? You know you can talk to me, right?” She lowered her voice, and I caught her brown eyes shifting to me in my periphery. “Maybe I can help you.”
Shit . If she were dead set on staying here, Ghost really needed to come clean with her bestie. Before things got real fucking messy.
I busied myself on my phone, trying to give them a modicum of privacy to chat. Besides, I was wholly uninterested in anything Becca Hart naively thought she could do to help Ava Jade out of this inescapable situation or her sexual escapades with her booty call boyfriend for that matter.
Once upon a time I’d tried to get her into bed, but she didn’t hold a candle to Ava Jade. No one did. She turned me down, anyway. Smart girl. The things I’d have done to that tight little body…
She never would have recovered.
I flicked over to the group chat with the guys and thumbed out a quick message.
ROOK
What the fuck is taking so long?
His reply came after a minute.
GREY
I have them.
My teeth locked.
GREY
On the phone with Corv. One sec.
The fuck?
ROOK
Three way me in.
My phone rang a second later and I picked it up, the mug in my hand clattering as I set it down harder than I meant to. I felt Ava Jade’s and Becca’s eyes follow me all the way into her bedroom.
“You there?” Grey asked.
“Yeah. Go.”
I closed myself into the bathroom.
“It’s worse than we thought.”
“Fuck,” Corvus hissed.
“Read them,” I ordered. “Read them all.”
Grey’s voice wavered between a growl and a rasping whisper as he read out a slew of text messages from Ava Jade’s stalker.
That was exactly what this motherfucker was.
With each message he read aloud to us, the tension on the line grew, coiling just as tightly as the knot of wrath forming in my gut. My skin prickled with the urge to kill kill kill, but I had no outlet here. Nothing to crush or break or burn or bury.
I gripped the ledge of the counter, bending my head as I breathed hard in through my nose.
“What is he talking about? The train tracks? What does that mean?” Corvus roared down the line.
I had an idea, but it was Ghost’s story to tell. Her choice who she told it to.
“And the dark one ,” Grey added. “That was sent on fight night. Whoever this is, they’re talking about Rook.”
“This ends now. Can we trace this guy?” Corvus asked.
I cared little about the threat to my life, but I knew my brothers wouldn’t be taking it lightly.
What I was more concerned with was the threat to Ghost.
I’ll have to punish you, this piece of shit said.
For being with us. For letting us touch her. Like she belonged to this...this coward who hid behind a set of electronic keys and the mask of being unknown .
“He sent most of them from different numbers. All burners. I can’t get a trace on anything. That’s why it took so long to get them decrypted in the first place.”
“We need to talk to Ava Jade,” I grunted down the line, that dark urge still souring in the pit of my stomach. Scratching at the back of my skull.
I twisted off the cap of my flask and drank deeply until the burn of the alcohol seared away some of the darkness, numbing the places where it used to be.
“We need to lure this bastard out,” I added as I set the flask down.
A pause before either of my brothers replied. A muscle beneath my eye twitched.
“He’s right,” Grey said. “She should’ve told us. Especially after whoever this is threatened Rook.”
I could almost hear Corvus nodding on his end of the phone as he came up with a plan. “Tomorrow,” he said. “Take her to the chapel instead of homeroom. We’ll meet you there.”
I wasn’t able to hold back a growl. I wanted this handled now. I wanted blood now .
“Be cool.” Grey spoke calmly, letting out a shaky sigh. “This guy, whoever he is, is clearly a coward. He’s just talking. Threatening her. Trying to scare her. He hasn’t actually done anything.”
“You think he’s all talk?” Corvus asked.
“Maybe.”
What did it fucking matter? My vision darkened.
I heaved, my breaths coming heavier, making my voice come out a husky rasp. “I don’t give a fuck! No one threatens our girl.”
“No one threatens our girl,” Grey agreed.
Corvus grunted his assent. “Grey, how soon can you finish up with that shit Diesel sent you to handle?”
“A few hours maybe. What about you? Didn’t he need you to settle a dispute upstairs at Sanctum?”
“That’s where I am now.”
“And?”
“It’s going to be a minute. Some fucker stiffed one of our girls and made off with an iPad. I’m tracking it down now, and then Tiny and I have to go handle it.”
“Rook, can you make it until morning without saying anything? If you confront her about it, she’s going to lose her shit.”
“What’s the difference if she loses it here or in the chapel tomorrow?”
“Grey,” Corvus supplied. “Grey is the difference.”
It was clear it pained him to admit it, but he continued anyway. “She trusts him. You see how she is around him. Less on edge. Relaxed. He might be the only one of us that she won’t stab first and ask questions later.”
She would listen to me.
I didn’t say it, because even though I thought it was true, I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak calmly if she tried to deny the messages or continued trying to hide them or downplay them.
Grey could though.
“I can wait.”
“Good,” Corvus replied. “And Rook?”
“What?”
“I overheard Dies planning another trial for her earlier tonight when I was down at the pub.”
“When?” Grey asked. “Which one?”
Corvus sighed. “Don’t know. He stopped talking when he saw me. He seems determined to keep us out of it now that he has the time to administer the rest himself. Thought you should know in case it happens while you’re with her.”
“Don’t kill anyone, man.” Grey warned me. “It’s not worth it.”
“I know.”
“Dies will shit a brick if you do, and she can handle herself.”
“I said I fucking know .”
“Sorry,” Grey muttered.
“In the morning, then?” Corvus confirmed.
“Yeah,” I said, and hung up, tossing my phone on the counter before I ran my palm down my face, trying to smooth away the angry lines I could still feel tight like pulled strings across my forehead and at the edges of my eyes.
Two soft knocks came at the door.
“Rook?” Ghost asked softly. “Everything okay?”
My chest ached.