Chapter 3
PARKER
FIVE DAYS WITHOUT SABLE
Pulling up in front of the Rook mansion, I wave at the security camera, knowing the security team will recognize me and let me in.
Their driveway splits: one side leads to the horses and shit their mother is so fond of, and the other leads to the main house.
From here, I can already see Orion in the distance, waiting in front of the house.
I’m glad he’s ready, but the manic energy is making me nervous.
“Let’s go,” I say to Orion as I pull up.
I actively remind myself that he is not his brother.
The tattoos are proof enough, but still, the sight of his face turns my gut with rage.
My eyes flit past him to the house behind him, and I wonder if the asshole is inside.
Maybe I can take some of this frustration out on him right now.
Orion shakes his head like he understands what I’m thinking.
Soren isn’t here. Orion climbs in quickly and shuts the door behind himself.
We’ve all been looking for Sable since the moment she left, and no one has heard a peep or seen a flash of her.
Our original concern is growing, morphing into something else.
What if she got lost in the woods and never found her way out?
What if someone picked her up with the intention of hurting her, and we just don’t know?
The possibilities weigh on me and beat me to nothing.
I didn’t necessarily want to waste the time of bringing him with me, but he’s been going insane these past few days and has made sure to make that my problem too.
I considered blocking him, but I do actually give a fuck about him at this point.
Plus, if Sable decides to reach out to him instead of anyone else, I don’t want to have blocked the fucker.
If Sable is fine and able to come back on her own, which is what I hope, the clock is ticking.
We can’t wait for Sable to have a change of heart and realize only Soren had wronged her any longer.
Too many dangerous pieces are up in the air.
Her absence is like a missing limb, and I can’t wait any longer without knowing at least she’s safe.
Fuck, who am I kidding? I’m ready to burn this town down and drag her back. There’s no gentleman in me.
From the moment I saw Sable Briarwick, she owned me.
My eyes followed her wherever she went. Like a magnet, it wasn’t me following her.
It was my heart making the decision. At times, it felt like I could only breathe when I watched her take a breath.
I need to find her, or I may never breathe fully again.
My melodramatic thoughts give as I smell the air and realize he’s wearing too much cologne.
My eyes slide to him, finding him looking too slick. Like a kid getting ready for his band concert with a button-down shirt and gelled hair. “You look good.” I raise my eyebrows.
“We’re going to find her, and when we do, I want her to know I’m the well-dressed brother with style.” He fixes his lapel with his nose in the air. “Not the piece of shit who cheated on her.”
“Right.” And again, I’m forced to feel sympathy for him. “I wouldn’t want to share a face with that motherfucker either.”
“He doesn’t fuck mother’s,” Orion disagrees. “He fucks a bitch who tried to kill the woman we love.”
How did we even get here? Orion by my side all dressed up like he’s not a sociopath, and Soren, who had become a dear friend to me, my number-one enemy, even over Arabella?
“Buckle your seat belt,” I say as I hit the gas and peel out of his driveway.
We leave the rich neighborhood behind. The roads are too tight and twisty to reach the speed I really want. Finally, we hit the edge of town, and the road straightens. My foot touches the gas, and the needle dips right away.
“Thank God,” Orion mumbles as our backs hit the seat, and we leave the town behind us. We have a long drive to Sable’s childhood home.
My knuckles turn white from my grip on the wheel.
Any conversation we attempt falls off into contemplative silence.
Neither of us has the strength to keep the conversation alive.
Orion’s convinced himself we’re going to find her today, but I know that’s not true.
A girl who disappeared into thin air is not just at her childhood home, waiting to be found.
Plus, if she were there, there would be services to the house.
Electricity, water, the internet—it’s all been disconnected.
I don’t crush Orion’s hopes, though. While I don’t think Sable is there, I know we can find something that leads to her.
We have to.
The scenery changes from forest to beaches as we move south, and we eventually pull down the infamous street where Sable’s father killed her mother before driving her off that bridge.
The way is intimately familiar to me, having followed her here plenty of times, but this is different.
There’s no teeming excitement, and my cock doesn’t harden at the knowledge that I’ll be near her soon.
It’s like walking through the ghost of another life, a happier one.
I never imagined moving from the shadows into the light of Sable’s life would result in so many bad things.
The heavy gate sits closed as we pull up to their estate.
The security camera up in the corner shows no signs of life, and it only takes me a minute to open it when the locks have been sawn into uselessness.
Guilt is heavy on my chest as I read the posted notices on the gate telling people to keep away.
How much will the woman I love have to endure?
Climbing back behind the driver’s seat, Orion is already unbuckled.
We pull past the gate, and I park the car behind her house on the opposite side of the street.
I’m out of the car in an instant with Orion on my heels.
There’s this desperate hope in him that breaks my heart.
My eyes move to the window that used to belong to her, to an overgrown bush I’m a little too intimately familiar with.
Goddamn, I miss her. It’s evident to me, even now, that no one is here, and they haven’t been for a very long time.
Orion rushes up the back steps, trying the door.
Obviously, it’s locked. The whole place has been locked down for months, ever since the police were paid to end their investigation.
Lines of yellow tape cover the entrances and the windows.
“Do not cross”, but how many lines have I crossed already?
The Briarwicks held many people’s secrets, and they stand to lose a lot if those secrets are exposed.
“It’s locked,” he says to me, like this wasn’t something I already accounted for. “I can break the window.”
“You need to stop breaking shit,” I say as my shoes hit the steps.
Orion steps out of the way, sarcastically waving for me to go ahead.
Unlike him, I’m prepared. The lock pick is one I’m already familiar with, and I quickly turn the tumblers inside.
When I find the sweet spot, it clicks open.
The first time I did this, I had never been so excited in my whole damn life.
The contrast between that moment and this one feels like cosmic punishment.
Orion shoulders me out of the way, grabbing the knob and heading inside first like she’s really waiting for us here.
It smells different, that’s for sure. Not only is the air stale and stuffy after months of disuse but Sable’s mom also demanded that the house be kept meticulously clean.
She employed more house cleaners than anyone I know, and everything always smelled like cleaning supplies. This is like entering a mausoleum.
“She’s not fucking here,” Orion says, as his hopes disappear into nothing.
“I know. That’s not why we’re here,” I remind him, starting to form a plan of action.
He turns on me, face reddening. “That’s why I was here!”
The words echo around us, and before I have a chance to explain, he storms away.
“Come on, Orion. Did you actually think it was going to be this easy?” I ask, wishing he were more like Soren right at the moment. That wish burns too. I hate the man who had become my best friend, and I don’t fucking miss him.
“Then why are we here?” He turns back, narrowing his eyes.
“Because we need a new lead.” I sigh, scanning the room around me, looking for something that might be a clue.
“How do we find one?” He slaps his hands against his thigh, so very close to a meltdown.
“We look at everything and hope the founding families and the cops left something behind that might point us in the right direction. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”
A large crash comes instead of a response, and my eyes move to a pile of glass that used to be a vase. My frustration must be written on my face because he shrugs as if I questioned him out loud.
“She’s not here. Her parents are dead.”
“But we are looking for a clue.” I regret bringing the bull to the china shop. “We can’t find anything if you trash the place.”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Sure, clue.”
Silence surrounds us for a few minutes while I comb through the first room, but I should know that Orion can’t keep his mouth shut.
“You should have told me when you saw me like this.”
“All dressed up?” I chuckle but don’t look in his direction. “It’s good that you’re trying to undo the damage your brother did.”
He shifts in place, uncomfortable. It’s obvious that he holds himself responsible for forcing this relationship on Soren.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the thing he wanted most bit us all in the ass.
In the end, if Orion had just left him out of it and accepted the balance we struck, we all could have still been with her.
I’m not sure if he’s right. I know Sable well, and I thought I knew Soren, and none of this was something I could have predicted.
The reality is that Sable wanted Soren. Even if Orion hadn’t forced her on Soren, I would have. I give my girl whatever she wants, even if it’s my best friend. If it weren’t Orion bringing Soren in, it would have been me.