Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
KINCAID
Ezra runs up the stairs rather than taking the lift, exploding onto the main floor with an enormous grin on his face. “Guess who’s going to the six-week try-outs later this month?”
I look up from my barely touched dinner. “Jared?”
“That alkie. The only place he’s destined for is rehab.” Ezra tosses his bag, and it skids across the floor, spilling his dirty gear onto the clean tiles. “Not likely. Try again.”
Tyson pads downstairs, presumably drawn by the noise, and takes the chair beside me. “Zeke?”
“Zeke’s not even at high school.”
“Ferdinand?”
“Ferdi-what now?” Tyson snorts at my suggestion. “That’s his name?”
“Nickname. He’s built like a bull.” I trawl through my memory banks while Ezra dances from foot to foot, humming with excitement. “Real name’s Glen.”
“Fuck, that’s even worse.” He turns back to Ezra. “Is it Ferdinand?”
My cousin makes a disgusted noise and grabs a beer from the fridge, spinning off the cap and tossing it towards the sink, missing by a mile. “I don’t know why I bother to tell you guys anything.”
“Because you want to boast about an achievement and you don’t have anyone else?”
The black look he sends my way makes it clear if he weren’t celebrating, we’d be in a wrestling match for supremacy. A fight that he won’t win but might cause some damage. Aidan’s influence might have been bad overall, but it made Ezra rethink his training regimen, taking it far more seriously.
“Just tell us,” Onyx says from the corner, startling all of us.
“Dude!” Tyson exclaims. “Make some noise when you’re skulking about, would you? I had no idea you were there.”
Ezra scowls, slumping into a seat opposite me, taking a handful of walnuts from the centre bowl and cracking them open with the base of the bottle.
“It’s great news,” I say, relenting. After our talk at Zeke’s party, we’ve been on better terms. Never friendly, but I don’t feel the need to score points off him twenty-four seven. “When does it start?”
“In a month. Once we’ve completed the preliminary camp, the clubs will make their picks and if I get selected there, I could be competing at the start of next season.”
I get up, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you, man. Will you sign a rugby ball for me before you get too famous?”
He cackles with laughter, answering the questions the other two have about the process. I rinse off my plate and put it into the dishwasher, closing the door with my hip when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
An incoming video call from one of the guards assigned to track Francesca. I press the answer button, frowning at the screen. With the amount I pay, they better not have lost her.
“Hey,” the guard says, looking decidedly uneasy. “There’s someone here wants to talk to you.”
He switches the camera and Francesca appears onscreen.
My heart jumps and I take a seat before I can fall, hungrily staring at her tiny image, hitting record so I don’t miss anything. “Freckles. It’s good to see you.”
“I can’t believe you sent your goons to follow me.”
“Hey!” the man offscreen says, sounding hurt.
Her eyes focus on him, “No offence,” then she stares back into the phone camera. “Since when have you outsourced your stalking? Call them off.”
Before I can reply, she terminates the call. I immediately find the recording and play it back, pausing mid word to make the image bigger, eagerly noting the small changes in her appearance. My heart fills and my throat tightens. I rub my thumb across the screen like it’s caressing her face.
“Was that your girl calling?”
I glance up at Tyson, and reality crashes into me.
A week after she left, I gave in and activated the tracking beacon in her bracelet, sending bodyguards to her location before the battery died.
They’ve been tailing her ever since, with the strict instruction to ensure her safety while staying undercover.
But now their cover’s blown and if she moves again, it’ll be that much harder to find her.
Anxiety overwhelms me until I cover my face, inhaling deeply through my nose. When I look at Tyson again, expecting teasing, there’s nothing but sympathy in his eyes.
“Do you wanna know what that sounded like to me? An invitation.”
“An invitation to ditch the only contact I have left with her.”
The misery invades my soul. She doesn’t want me. Looking back at everything, I realise she was following instructions. Giving me a girlfriend experience just like I asked, biding her time until she had the chance to leave.
I should never have gotten rid of the body, not before developing another plan to hold her in place. And even with the risks at home, I should have kept her in my room.
A text arrives from the guards and Tyson steals my phone, dancing out of reach while he reads through the message with increasing glee. “Get this. She jumped in front of a train and when he lifted her off the tracks to save her, she handcuffed herself to him and threatened to swallow the key if he didn’t make the call.”
He reads it through again before passing the device back to me.
“I like her. She has spunk, ingenuity, and handcuffs. It’s a rare woman who provides her own.” His eyes catch mine, face more serious than his words. “You should go get her and stop this tiresome moping.”
The others nod and I can’t believe them. Did they escape here from some bizarre alternate timeline? Because there’s no way they got any of that from her call.
“Are you insane?” I play the recording again, each second like a new knife in my back. The scar on my arm starts to throb as I throw the phone on the table with disgust. “Now I can’t even have her followed.”
Tyson frowns like I’m the one who’s crazy. “Are you kidding me?” He picks up my phone and waves it in the air. “A girl just threw herself in front of a train—a train —to send you a message. Did that go completely over your head?”
“Because she doesn’t want me to follow her anymore. She still hates me.”
Tyson rolls his eyes. “Didn’t your expensive-arse school ever teach you subtext? What she said was that you shouldn’t outsource your stalking. Obviously, she wants you to do it yourself. And even if she doesn’t”—he puts his hands together in prayer—“please just go and get her. You’ve become a more tiresome drag than Ezra when you used to be the fun one.”
“You poked fun at me, you mean.”
“Exactly.” Tyson stands and grips my shoulder, shaking me. “You get it. Now stop wallowing and go do something about it, you miserable sod.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Hands up who thinks Francesca wants King to stop having her followed?” Tyson glances around at the others, smirking like crazy as their hands stay lowered. “And who thinks this is a desperate bid for attention from a woman who’s crazy in love.”
They all raise their hands.
They’re all mental.
“What’re you scared of?” Ezra asks. “Being happy?”
“I’m not scared. I just think harassing a girl who wants nothing to do with me is a waste of time.”
Onyx snorts. “Didn’t stop you before.”
“Oh, so you are scared,” Ezra adds, throwing pieces of walnut shell at me. “Dare you to go and find out for sure.”
“This isn’t primary school. You can’t dare me into doing something stupid.”
“If you don’t want her,” Onyx says in a thoughtful tone. “I might fetch her for myself. Never had a true redhead before.”
Unlike Tyson, he’s not joking. The idea of another man, one more careless with women than even I used to be, makes me crazy. And if it’s not Onyx… there are a thousand like him or worse.
“Touch one hair on her head and I will slice you into pieces and throw you to the seagulls.”
“Thought so.” Ezra taps on his phone, turning the screen towards me a moment later. “Dad says the plane’s free.”
The idea of seeing her is such a temptation, I let the daydream spin out in my mind. Touching her. Holding her. Kissing her.
“Oh,” Ezra adds, reading the screen again. “He also says to stop being an utter dickhead. You don’t need permission. This is not how men in our organisation behave.”
“Wow, dude.” Tyson’s smirk grows impossibly wide. “Sounds like if you don’t go visit her, you’re out of a job.”
“Isn’t the winter ball tonight?” Ezra asks. “Girls love that shit. Even if she runs away again tomorrow, you’d probably get lucky if you brought her back just for one night.”
He clicks on his phone, sending more messages. “Sibil says the tux and the ball dress you ordered are hanging in the spare wardrobe on the third floor.” He checks the message again and chuckles. “And she says you should have gone and got her a month ago.”
“She hadn’t even left a month ago.”
“Really?” Onyx asks. “Because it seems like ten times that with you moping around all the time.”
“Shut up.”
I get up from the table, storming up the stairs, then taking the extra staircase to the level above mine. Just to check the clothing’s there like Sibil said.
It is.
The dress is a beautiful shade of blue, individual beads hand sewn across the front and back to catch the light, changing colour as the wearer moves.
My phone buzzes again with an incoming call.
“Boss? Sorry about blowing our cover. We have replacements on their way to take over if you still want to follow her.”
“Good. I should be landing at the airport in the next hour. Keep me posted on her movements until I get there.”
I take the two hangers down to my room, collecting the jewellery my uncle ordered on Francesca’s behalf after she didn’t look at the array on the cruise. A decision I suspect is more to do with the salesgirl and her commission.
But now I wonder.
Perhaps they’ve all been pushing at me to act, and I’ve been too lost in misery to see it.
I order a car, not trusting myself to drive in my current state, then jump in the shower before getting dressed in the custom fitted tuxedo.
With one last glance in the full-length mirror, I carry everything down to the waiting town car.
Time to go fetch my girl.