Tristan
Fuck! Snow drifted down outside, and I had no fucking idea where Eva was, and neither did anyone else.
The door slammed open downstairs, and heavy footsteps stomped by my door. Cole.
He slammed his bedroom door behind him, but not before I saw the brown paper bag in his hand.
One chance. I’d give him one chance to pull his head out of his ass and help me find her.
After that, he could drink himself to death for all I cared.
I shouldn’t have to clean up this mess again.
Not when he was the one who dragged me into blackmailing her.
Not when he was the one who should’ve been focused on bringing the team back together instead of selfishly drowning his cares in drink.
“What?” he snapped when I knocked on the door. The bottle was already open, although I could see he’d found time to swap out the bedding during the day.
“I can’t get ahold of Eva,” I said.
Worry flashed across his face before he schooled his expression into indifference. “So?”
I shoved him back into his room. “What the fuck do you mean, so? She quit, and then she disappeared, and now nobody can fucking get ahold of her! We have to find her! What is wrong with you?”
Cole cocked his head at me, raised the bottle to his mouth and took a long swig, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you? She betrayed us.”
“Because she didn’t have a choice.”
Cole’s expression made it clear he thought I was a fucking idiot. “She didn’t have a choice about the spying. She could have confessed it was for my father at any moment, including when she was fucking me before the semester started. She could have told us she was fucking Alek.”
“She wasn’t,” I murmured. “I think the hotel was the first time.”
“She was naked in his room,” Cole exploded. “If they weren’t fucking, then what the hell were they doing?”
“She said he forced her,” I tried, “to get the job.”
Misery cracked across Cole’s face like ice breaking on a pond. Fuck. Coach had saved him, had pulled Cole back from the edge when his father’s money and threats weren’t enough, had given him hockey, purpose, a reason to stay sober. And now—
“No wonder you’re fucked up about this,” I breathed, understanding hitting me like a freight train. “It’s not just Eva. It’s him, too.”
Cole’s hands shook as he raised the bottle again. “My hero,” he said with a bitter smile. “Turns out, he’s just another predator who likes to hurt pretty girls.”
Like us.
“Come on,” I said, trying gently to tug the bottle out of his hands. “We gotta make sure she’s okay.”
“You can make sure she’s okay,” he muttered, once again raising the bottle to his lips. “She could be lying in a ditch somewhere for all I give a fuck.”
My heart stuttered to a stop. No. She couldn’t be. My horror must have shown on my face, because Cole softened for a second. “I’m sure she’s fine, Tris.”
“Then why didn’t she go to any of her classes today? She never misses class. Ever.”
“Because she’s holed up and licking her wounds,” he snapped. “Sound familiar?”
“I’m going to check on her.”
Cole saluted me with the bottle. “Have fun with that.” And then he slammed his door in my face.
Fuck.
A minute later, the door opened again, as I was pulling on my winter clothes to drive to Eva’s in my unheated Jeep.
“You can’t drive that piece of shit in the winter.” Cole’s voice was slurred but determined. He stumbled past me, pulling on his coat with the care of the very drunk trying to appear sober.
His keys jangled as he fumbled for them, the sound grating against my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. Without thinking, I snatched them from his fingers.
“Get in the fucking car.”
Thirty minutes later, we were outside Eva’s door, shivering as snow fell around us.
Nobody answered when we knocked.
Cole peered in the windows, trying to see beyond the drawn curtains. “Fuck this weather, and fuck sobriety,” he groaned. “Where the fuck is she?”
I tried to call again. No answer.
“Let’s wait,” I said finally, and we retreated to his sports car, snow blowing around us. “At a minimum, her father should know how to get ahold of her when he gets back.”
As midnight came and went, worry shot through me.
She could be anywhere.
She could be hurt.
She could be dead, and it would be our fault.
“Something isn’t right,” Cole muttered. “Fuck!” He climbed out of the car. “I’ll be back.”
He leaned against the trunk of his sports car, running his fingers through his blond hair, stressed out of his fucking mind. He might not have forgiven Eva, but he sure as fuck was worried about her.
Despite everything—the betrayal, the drinking, the cruel words—Cole was out here in a blizzard because the thought of Eva being hurt was killing him. Hope flickered in my chest, fragile as a candle flame.
Maybe we could fix this. Maybe we could—
Cole knocked on my window, startling me from thoughts I had no right to think. I rolled it down, snow immediately stinging my face.
“The hotel said she checked out yesterday morning. I couldn’t find a direct bus route online. So how the fuck did she get home?” He was already scrolling on his phone. “She definitely didn’t take a rideshare. That’s hundreds of dollars. Maybe she took a cab to New York, and a train from there?”
He climbed back into the car and slumped into his seat as his fingers flew over the touchscreen.
He slammed his palm into the frame of the car, frustration tensing every hard line of his body. “Where the fuck is she?”
“Do you think your father already discovered she quit?”
Cole’s eyes snapped to mine, fear darkening them.
“No, she’s too smart to have told him already. And the team wants her back.”
“Unless Coach…?” I ventured.
“No,” Cole said firmly. “Coach has been holding the line against my father’s corruption since the day he was hired. He hates my father. That’s why he’s so pissed at Eva.”
“That, and whatever he said about Eva’s dad.”
“Coach’s career ended when some asshole took out his knee in a dark alley sixteen years ago. Sounds like he thinks that was Eva’s dad.”
I scrubbed my face. “Don’t you have some sort of billionaire investigation type people you can call to find out where she is?”
Cole laughed, and the sound was bright and unexpected. “I’d call the Irish mob before I called any of my father’s contacts.”
I glared at him, and his smile slowly faded like the sun hiding behind clouds.
“She’s a lying bitch. You know that, right?”
“For good reason,” I murmured. “I’d have lied too. And so would you. You did,” I reminded him. “How long were you fucking her before you invited me to blackmail her too?”
Cole clenched his jaw. “She betrayed me to my father.”
You betrayed her too. I didn’t need to say it out loud. Cole already knew.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I’m gonna start calling hospitals.”
He went completely still. “You think—?”
“It’s that, or your father got to her.”
“No,” he shook his head. “He’d be gloating to me if he had.”
Relief poured through me so quickly, I slumped in my seat. To my surprise, Cole took my hand and rubbed it gently with his thumb. “Eva’s smart, and she’s really fucking capable. I’m sure she’s fine, and that she’s cursing our names right now.”
I twined my fingers in his, grateful that whatever might be happening with Eva, our friendship wasn’t over.
“Can you call your friend in the Irish mob?” I asked.
Cole squeezed my fingers then dug out his phone with his other hand.
“Declan? You’re on speaker.”
“Cole! It’s been too long.”
“I’m calling on business.”
“Let’s do business, then. You should come down to the club on Friday.”
I frowned, not understanding.
Later, Cole mouthed at me.
“I need your help finding someone—a student. She disappeared from Syracuse yesterday morning and seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth.”
“Send me her information,” Declan said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Declan,” he said. “She’s—” He cut himself off. “This is important.”
“Text me what you can, and I’ll get to work on it.”
After Cole hung up, he untangled his fingers from mine. “Let’s go home and wait for him to call me back.”
“You don’t want to wait here?” I didn’t want to leave, in case Eva came home.
Cole’s answering look was pitying. “If she hasn’t made it home yet tonight, she’s not going to. Snow’s building up, and I want to sleep somewhere warm.”