35
Living In Tragedy
Gabriel
“Sir?”
I glance up from the blank page in front of me to see Vanessa in the doorway, cringing.
“Yes?” My tone is empty.
“Tera Evans and Shade are here to see you? I don’t know how they got up here on the elevator.”
I blink and then sigh roughly. I was expecting Jake to finally return. Cade refused to call him and let him know what was going on. It seems like Jake is more invested in Amanda than I realized. Cade was positive that he would not take the news well. He hasn’t called to check in yet, which isn’t unusual, but I’m not feeling good about it.
“Let them in.”
“Gabe,” Mikael mutters softly. “Not today.”
“Why not?” I ask him bitterly.
He sighs and glances at Ace.
He’s been leaning against the wall without saying anything for hours now. The only time he opens his mouth, he asks to get Amanda out and bring her home. The last time I shut him down has kept him quiet. Cade is sitting on the couch, staring at the blank TV as if he’s watching his life play out over the dark screen.
It’s been like this all night. None of us are willing to go home.
We’re waiting for her to come back as if nothing happened. It was all a bad dream, and we’ll wake up as soon as she opens her foul mouth and greets us.
Every time Ace’s question interrupts the silence, I’m reminded that she’s waiting on us .
I freeze up because it makes me think about how vulnerable I’ve been with her. I told her things I’d never shared with anyone, opening myself up to her in good faith. Only to have it thrown back in my face. It brings the icy wall back up, making it easy to deny Ace again and again despite my promise that I’d bring her home with us. I can’t act like I’m unaffected by her betrayal well enough to face her yet.
“Hi,” a sweet voice calls hesitantly from the door, and fingernails tap on the door.
I’m suddenly waiting for Amanda to come in with her haughty grin. The thought that it will never happen again hits me one more damn time. And then I curse because it was never real to begin with.
How the hell am I going to change that when I lock her up at the house? Imprisoning her isn’t going to make things better, but I can’t let her go.
Tera peeks through the cracked doorway and gives me a tiny smile. Then she enters, and I take in her rounded stomach. Shade is right beside her like a guard dog with a blank stare.
“Shade. Hello, Tera,” I stand up and clear my throat, trying to throttle back my obsessive thoughts. “Would you like to sit here? This chair is more comfortable.”
I only know that because of Amanda. Fuck me, I can’t get her out of my head.
Shade raises a brow at the offer, and I have to stifle the urge to flip him off. Amanda’s influence is everywhere in me now. Even with her out of sight, she’s left a mark.
“That’s so sweet, Gabe. But I’m good with standing for a bit.” The smile she gives me is timid. I try to return it, but it feels forced and wrong on my face. I got used to smiling around Amanda and-
Stop. Just stop .
I clear my throat again and focus on Shade, “Wedding planning?”
A brief flash of pity crosses his eyes before he looks around the room to the desk we have set up for Amanda. I refuse to look, and my shoulders tense as I wait for him to ask where she is. I don’t want to tell him anything. I’ll say she’s sick.
I can still feel her arms around me, her breath on my neck as she comforted me without reserve. She was snarky with it but I could tell it was genuine. Amanda didn’t want me hurting. I know that. And the sex. I’ve never felt that kind of connection before. When she ran, I thought it might have scared her as much as it scared me.
Now I’m wondering if she took the act too far and started feeling guilty.
Tera clears her throat gently, bringing my wandering mind back to her.
“I want to give you a big hug, but I’m mad at you right now,” she confesses with a wince.
Shade rolls his eyes and walks to the desk, gathering up the spread-out files.
My brows snap down, and I bark out, “ Don’t touch her things .”
Shade pauses and turns back to me with narrowed eyes. “Just helping clean up the rest of the trash you threw out.”
“Shade!” Tera squeals with wide eyes. “Amanda is not trash, you jerk!”
“Not to us,” he says pointedly. “ They’re a different story.”
I want to roar at him and have an outlet for this anger. I can’t. The way Ace cringes without a single sign of rage at his words cuts through me.
I’m destroying us all.
No. I’m getting her back. My hand is already reaching for the phone to have the cops get her ready for release. I pause, taking them both in again.
How does Shade know she’s gone? He should be thinking she’s late or ill. Her seat being empty should mean nothing to him. Did Amanda call him for help? The thought of it has my teeth grinding in rage.
“We have something to show you,” Tera desperately interrupts. She holds up a laptop and gently sets it on a corner of the desk. It’s covered in stickers with glitter and funny pictures.
“A laptop?” Cade teases weakly. His charm has deserted him. As soon as he saw that text it fell away, and he hasn’t gotten it back.
Tera clears her throat with a blush while Shade gives him a flat stare. Cade gets quiet quickly. We all know what Shade is capable of, and, brother or not, he’ll finish whatever he starts. I have the same instinct without the bloodshed.
“South saw Amanda get arrested yesterday morning,” she starts hesitantly. “She asked me to look into it.”
A tearing feeling goes through my chest at the reminder. It’s been twenty-four hours since I saw her. She was crying and quiet for the first time since I met her. All of this is wrong. She closed herself away from us as if we had attacked her unprovoked.
“You could have called and asked me,” I scowl, dropping into my chair, trying to refocus.
“I wanted fresh eyes. No emotion or judgment. South says it’s the best way to investigate, and she’s always good with that stuff.” Tera cringes as she explains.
“I don’t doubt it,” I loosen my tie. I forgot that South had basically adopted Amanda. I wonder what she thinks of her now. Obviously well enough to have Tera look into it and send her here with the findings. I don’t think South is the type to get fooled easily.
That cursed hope begins to build, and I try my best to choke it out.
“She’s innocent. All of your accusations against her are BS.”
I stare at her blankly even as that hope begins to struggle underneath the concrete I’m trying to bury it in. She has all of our undivided attention even though Ace doesn’t look up. His body has tensed as if he’s readying himself for another blow.
“That’s not possible, Tera,” I protest roughly. “We had people looking at this all weekend to make absolutely sure before we did anything.”
We all wanted it to be a lie so badly.
I can’t get the look on her face out of my head when she said she trusted me. The tremble of her lips and the way her voice broke. Her response had startled me before I realized it was probably another damn trick. I’m circling from depression to anger so quickly I can’t keep up.
“Ace took a look around her place and found the bank statements confirming the deposit. The bus tickets to get out of town,” Cade adds in a deadened tone. He sounds defeated.
“You did break in then,” Tera says as her gaze narrows on Ace. He doesn’t look up to see her anger, but it startles me. Her voice has taken a sterner tone when she speaks again. “Someone planted that. Amanda Blake doesn’t have an account with that bank.”
“She does. We investigated it,” I point out softly. I can’t get any volume to my voice, the ice deserting me when I need it most.
“Everything Amanda has done since she left her ex’s house has been under Jefferson, not Blake. She fudged her paperwork for the real account. She’s fanatical about it.”
“Maybe. But she filled out her paperwork here with her old address, just like the statements,” Cade points out.
“Well, yeah,” Tera rolls her eyes. “A fancy place like this? If someone saw my old address on a resume, it would get thrown in the trash. She hedged her bets to get hired, so what?”
“She’s been lying from the start,” I mutter darkly. I can’t glare at innocent Tera, but my desk is another story.
“Let me show you, Gabe,” she begs quietly. “Please? She’s in big trouble. Someone is out to get her.”
I frown as I look at her. Out to get her? She called all weekend with increasing frequency. We took Ace’s phone from him so he wouldn’t answer. Cade’s ribs are bruised black from the fight. We assumed she was panicking over the lack of contact and the fact that the money had been returned to me by then. One whispered conversation with Mikael seemed to drain all the fight out of Ace after that.
What if she wasn’t paranoid about the money? What if she needed us? What if she took the money because she was being threatened and without it…
She was filthy. Hurt. She had something to tell us, but we wouldn’t let her distract us. We had to shut her down before she could spin more lies to have us falling at her feet.
Dread is starting to build in my stomach. What if it wasn’t an act? And her concern about Jake’s absence. Did she think something happened to him as well?
“Show them,” Ace says in a rough voice, speaking up for the first time.
“I will ,” Tera tells Ace pointedly with a dark look.
She boots the laptop up and spins the screen to face me.
“See here?” She points to some sort of code I couldn’t understand with a manual.
“Yes?” I ask warily. Shade smirks at me as he finishes gathering up the folders, enjoying my obvious confusion. The urge to flip him off rises again, and this time, I give into it. He blinks and looks away. For a second, pity flashes across his face again, and then it’s gone.
“It’s a backdoor. It leads from your personal account to a ghost account. There was never an account under Amanda Blake’s name. It was a loop. Data disappeared, not money. The alert showed missing money that never left and showed back up when they said it was returned. The backdoor closed, but it left tracks. I have your bank statements printed out if you need to verify it. They didn’t think to infect the bank’s database, too.”
The new information makes my head spin. “Are you saying that nothing happened? It was a false alarm?”
“Nothing happened, but it wasn’t a false alarm,” she starts getting excited and bounces on her toes. “Someone wrote a code that showed the money draining out and a specific destination. The alarm goes off. Investigation starts. Guilt is assigned. Money reappears. Target is acquired and arrested. A cycle with nothing happening except for Amanda getting framed.”
“The paperwork,” Ace’s voice gets rougher over the words. He leans weakly on the desk.
“Ace couldn’t have fucked up that bad, Gabe.” Cade points out but doesn’t sound like he believes himself.
“Maybe he was too busy to really pay attention,” Tera says with a huff of indignation. “Did the paperwork have this watermark in the corner?”
She digs through a giant purse and brings out my bank statements. It’s a whole stack of them that raises my eyebrows. When she points out the mark at the bottom, we all look closer. “This makes it an official copy from the account instead of something anyone can make up. They had a scam go through two years ago and implemented this to minimize risk.”
“Ace?” I ask quietly as my stomach starts to sink further down.
He pulls his phone out and looks up the pictures he took.
His hands start to shake. He hands the phone to Tera and braces his palms on the desk, his eyes shut tight as he shakes his head.
“That’s a no,” Tera winces and scrolls through. She frowns for a second and shakes her head. “This was on the counter? When was this?”
“Saturday,” Mikael says and rubs a hand over his mouth. If he feels anything like me he’s nauseous at the implications.
“When?” She asks with surprised eyes.
“When Amanda was at the gym. She was meeting South that day,” Mikael says grimly.
“Then Ace didn’t do it?” Tera turns to Shade with confusion and tosses him the phone. He catches it easily and scrolls farther back and forth through the pictures. Ace doesn’t say a word about it.
Cade comes around the couch to join us with a frown. “He tore up the bus tickets, so what?”
“Someone trashed her place. The counters are clean in these,” Shade informs us without fanfare. I’m shell-shocked by it.
“No,” Ace protests in confusion and starts shaking his head.
“South has pictures if you want them,” Shade continues in that bland tone and closes the phone. “All the photos of Blake are gone. I found the sliced-up crotches of every pair of panties she owned interesting. A sexual threat as well as the assurance that she isn’t safe there.”
“ What? ” Ace says in building rage. “You think I would fuckin’ do that to my girl?”
“You have a bad temper, Ace,” Shade reminds him coldly. “You made it very clear that you wanted her. She betrayed you. You knew she was going to get arrested for it, and there wasn’t much time to get some revenge of your own. Why not scare the shit out of her first?”
“You know me better than that, Daniels,” Ace grits out, his fist clenched tightly.
“I do,” Shade agrees. “ Amanda doesn’t. All the games you’ve been playing broke that trust.”
“I wouldn’t fuckin’ hurt her! I’ll kill any motherfucker that does!” Ace roars and starts marching around the desk to reach him. Tera skips out of his way with wide eyes filled with fear, her hands dropping protectively to her stomach.
“ Stop! ” I stand and slam my hands on the desk, panting with fear and rage.
Everyone freezes in place. Ace is in front of me, blocking my view of Tera. Cade is at my desk. Mikael has his hand wrapped around the back of my chair, hard enough to crush it.
“Amanda said you confessed to it, Ace. South said that she’s pretty sure it was you that pushed her down the stairs, too.” Tera sounds sad that she has to tell him.
Ace can’t answer her. He looks like he just got kneed in the balls.
I feel the same. A flash of her terrified face comes to my mind. The devastation that hit her when Ace said he found the proof.
She begged us to listen.
“You told her you broke in,” Cade’s face is pale as he speaks. “She assumed you did this because you admitted it. That means they hit it after Saturday. You wouldn’t leave a mess, no matter how pissed you were. And there’s no way you could ever hurt her.”
Shade’s head tilts at the speech.
My eyes slide over to the desk with the files piled into the box. The lonely, cracked highlighter is the only thing left. She broke it, trying to control her anger at the things I’ve suffered. The feeling that something vital to my existence has been taken from me crashes into my chest. The pain from before is nothing in comparison to this.
Instead of her breaking our trust, we broke hers.
“I also took the liberty of checking out some of the stuff she told South.”
My eyes dart to Tera while a trembling frown forms.
“Like what?” Cade asks in confusion, dazed at all the things we’ve been missing in this puzzle.
“I looked into the lawyer stuff for the divorce,” Tera says with a weak smile. “I have Amanda’s phone records right here. From both numbers. All the calls she made and which lawyer’s offices. She never gave up.”
She tosses two thin stacks of papers onto my desk, her purse seeming endless in supply of them.
“Congrats on the complex purchase,” Shade says. He makes his way to Tera and hands her a red slip of paper. She unfolds it and gently lays it on top of the phone records.
It’s an eviction notice with Matthias LLC’s logo and a forgery of my signature. Amanda’s name and apartment number are at the top.
“What the fuck?” Cade snatches it up, his breathing going unsteady. “ I bought that complex, not Gabe.”
“Amanda got that taped to her door at some point, too,” Shade shrugs. “I guess they didn’t bother tracking down the real owner.”
My eyes slowly roll up to take Shade’s mocking face in. My expression is locked down tight to try and hold in the panic that’s taking the anger’s place.
“Whoever this is wanted her away from us specifically,” Cade says weakly. His eyes meet mine, filled with horror. “I fell for it without looking deeper.”
“I’m calling Jake,” Mikael mutters in a shaky voice. “He has to be back by now. She’ll be more comfortable seeing him than us.”
The knowledge of it is a gut punch. My eyes slide to the couch, and I lose my air.
“They couldn’t get to her as easy with us sniffin’ around,” Ace says through clenched teeth.
“Nothing we’ve found is worth this level of harassment,” I say coldly, my voice submerging to keep everything hidden deep inside.
“Which is why we’re borrowing your files,” Tera cringes, looking hopeful. “Please?”
“We’re taking them,” Shade assures me flatly.
“Blake,” I can’t help but say his name. “It has to be him. I need to get her out of there. Ace, go pick her up. Now! ”
I helped them by separating her from everyone. She’s alone and vulnerable. We don’t have enough cops on our payroll to keep her safe there. I didn’t think it was a serious concern before. If she’s hurt…
“She’s been out since yesterday night,” Shade interrupts with a smirk and hefts the box up. Ace stops moving to give him a dark scowl. “I wonder if they figured out where their computer files went. Tera ?”
Ace steps back fast enough that I see her startle and flush bright red.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in a rush and gathers her laptop with hunched shoulders.
“I fucking knew it,” Shade snaps with a scowl. “It was you bumping me out of the system!”
“She’s South’s friend! And a hero! ” Tera protests anxiously. “I couldn’t leave her hanging. I’m a sidekick! And I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it was you with the new IP address. I thought you might be a bad guy.”
“Enjoy your virus.”
“You better not,” she snaps, suddenly enraged. She hugs the computer to her chest like something precious as she seethes. “If I find out you put something on my computer baby with your dirty diary-reading paws, it’s war this time.”
“Ok, drama queen,” Shade grins maliciously.
“Where is she?” Mikael demands angrily, interrupting the feud. He still has the phone to his ear, but it looks like Jake isn’t answering.
“She’s safe,” Tera assures him, but she doesn’t say it pleasantly. It’s more of a mocking tone that can’t be overlooked.
“You have her?” I look between the two of them.
“She’ll be safer with us ,” Ace says in a deadly tone.
“We offered to bring her here. She said she’d rather walk into oncoming traffic,” Shade shrugs. “She thinks you’re in this with Blake and ready to force-feed her a fuckin’ bullet. I wonder where she came up with that phrase, don’t you, Ace ?”
Ace’s anger drops, leaving him with agony in its place. His hand goes to his chest and digs his fingers in. As if he wants to rip his heart out to escape the pain.
“What do you mean?” I ask in a voice tense with strain. All of this raining down on me at once has fried me. Hope peaked and left behind regret and the feeling of cutting my own arm off. The wound throbs, but nothing is there. Like she isn’t here. They have her somewhere, and I’m going to find her. Not even Shade is going to stop me.
“I mean, people are trying to kill her,” Shade says flatly, freezing us all in place again. “South was there for one of the attacks. Staged vehicular hit and run that missed. Sloppy work, but I’m getting closer to finding him. Since we now know it wasn’t Ace who pushed her down the stairs, I can start looking into that, too.”
Ace staggers back, shaking his head. “Not my girl. No. They can’t have her.”
“ Why? ” Cade barks out in rage.
I can’t utter a word.
Shade glances between us and smirks. “Ask Amanda.”
“Give her to us,” Mikael’s voice is desperate this time.
“Sorry, can’t do that,” Shade narrows his eyes when Mikael takes a stomping step toward him. “She’s looking into this herself. Maybe you should catch up and try helping her. If that’s possible.”
“I will find her, Evan,” I straighten, my expression falling back into the frigid mask.
“Good luck,” he smiles slyly. “Did you know that she was a baton twirler all through school? It’s very impressive.”
My brows furrow as Tera begins to giggle. She clears her throat and moves to Shade’s side.
“I’m taking the files,” she tells him in a prim tone.
“No, you’re not,” he replies flatly as they make their way to the doors.
“I’m the sidekick,” she argues with flushed cheeks.
“I’m the henchman,” Shade replies with a smirk. “I’ve got more than optimism and hope on my side.”
“I have skills you don’t!” She yells as he opens the door.
“And boyfriends that I’d have to kill if I let you get any more involved.”
“You wouldn’t tell them,” she snaps. “You said this was our secret.”
“I lied.”
The doors close behind them as they argue like siblings, and I fall back into my chair. Everything else fades into the background as my focus goes where it belongs.
On Amanda.
“Cade, can you reach Jake? He isn’t answering any of the phones he has.” Mikael snaps angrily.
Cade shakes his head, and his fingers pause over his phone.
“He’s already home. He came back last night and called me.”
“You didn’t say anythin’? Why?” Ace asks in disbelief.
“Because he’s obsessed with Amanda. Way beyond anything I’ve ever seen. I told him what happened, and he was pissed at us. Even with me telling him we were bringing her home regardless. I haven’t heard from him since. We’re lucky he hasn’t come in here to kill us.”
“Try him,” Mikael grits out so low it’s a bass rumble.
“Shit. Pick up, Jake,” he mutters and dials. He puts it on speaker as it starts ringing.
“Good morning, Cadey ,” Jake’s voice is furious. It sounds like he’s in a vehicle.
“Where the fuck are you?” Ace barks out as he paces. “We need you here.”
“I’m not interested in your unique interpretation of my imp,” His tone turns silky with menace.
“We need to find Amanda. She’s out, and she’s in trouble,” I tell him as calmly as I can manage.
“Oh? What clued you in?” His dry question makes my teeth grind.
“Shade and Tera,” Cade admits, sounding ashamed. We all are.
“Of course. Next steps meine Seele . Which way did you go? Oh, yes,” Jake mutters, then calls out in his normal chipper voice, “Hey, we’re going the wrong way. Sorry, man. My plans have changed.”
Someone answers as Cade scowls.
“Where are you?” Ace scowls impatiently.
“Hunting for my imp. She’s rather resourceful when she plays hide and seek.”
“You’ve been on this track longer than we have,” Mikael braces his hands on the desk, squeezing his eyes shut. “Tell me you have a lead on her.”
“If things would stop breaking around her, I would have her by now. She closed her bank account this morning, so that’s a dead end. She won’t go back to her place after that verdammter Drecksack left it a mess.”
“How did you know about that?” Cade asks warily. “We just found out.”
His voice is overridden by Ace. “Fuck. Fuck! ”
“I’m not a second-rate stalker,” Jake sounds smug while I’m falling apart.
“She’s leaving,” I choke out weakly. She can’t. Not without us.
“Wrong,” Jake says blandly at the same time as Mikael barks, “ No! ”
“She’s a fighter,” Ace mutters weakly. “My girl’s a fighter. She ain’t rollin’ over for anyone.”
“And she’s wanted one thing since she met us,” Jake prompts silkily.
“Blake,” Ace snaps and turns on his heel to run for the stairs.
“So nice of you guys to join the party. I can’t wait to see you all again,” Jake says darkly and the call disconnects.
We hurry to the elevator. Mikael chooses the stairs when it takes longer than he likes.
“We fucked up,” Cade whispers, his face still chalk white.
“We can beg for forgiveness,” I try to keep my voice calm, but it shakes horribly.
The ride feels like it takes an eternity. Mikael is coming out of the stairwell, barely out of breath as we step out. Cade and I start running after him, ignoring someone calling out my name. I recognize the woman as the screamer Amanda has been taunting for weeks. I thought I fired her.
The absent thought comes to a screeching halt, much like my feet when I take in the complete wreckage of the vehicles.
Ace is staring at his truck with his mouth gaping.
“Amanda,” Mikael says softly and runs his fingertips over the hood of the SUV.
“ Amanda did this?” Cade’s disbelief matches mine.
“Take a look,” Mikael backs away, shaking his head and calls for a ride to pick us up.
I step closer, my shoes crunching over broken glass and metal. There’s a message on the hood that’s scratched in with enough force that the sheet of metal is bent. The words are broken apart with dents and holes all around them.
“Have I hit three million yet?” My voice chokes over the question as I read it.
“Yeah, I see begging for forgiveness going really well,” Cade glares at me.
“We find her, we keep her,” Ace snaps. “Nothin’ else matters.”
I don’t think it will be that easy anymore. The thought is terrifying.