Chapter Forty-Nine
RHYLAND
I landed back on New York soil, with Tate greeting me on the tarmac. He was surrounded by two bodyguards, a standby PA who wasn’t the girl he was obsessed with, and three tan men in sharp Italian suits who reeked of hostility. The general vibe was that someone was going to get murdered. Preferably me.
Tate turned to one of the men, saying something in Latin. The man responded with a brief shake of his head. From the way their heads eyed my movement, I knew they were talking about me.
“I heard you made a scene and confiscated my employee’s phone,” Tate drawled.
I halted a few feet away from him.
“Didn’t peg you for a gossip.” I reached out to smooth the collar of his dress shirt, just to piss him off.
He snapped my hand away, ripping his shades from his face. “Don’t fuck with me, Coltridge.”
“Don’t threaten me, Blackthorn,” I retorted. “I broke my own phone and a goddamn vase—which, by the way, who the hell keeps a vase on a plane?” Every minute I wasn’t in a taxi on my way to Cosmos was a minute wasted. “And yes, I asked your employee for her phone to reach Dylan. Don’t make it what it’s not. Now, tell me why you’re here, because it can’t be because you’ve missed me, and I have a woman to go grovel to.”
Tate snapped his fingers, and his Gia replacement—an unremarkable blond woman who looked like an extra in a porno—unzipped a leather folder bag and retrieved a large stack of papers. She gingerly handed it over to me, along with a pen that probably cost more than her entire goddamn outfit.
The asshole had drafted and printed out an entire contract to reflect the twenty-five percent ownership deal in a couple hours. Who did something like that?
“I’m in a hurry.” I cut my gaze to Tate, ignoring the outstretched contract and pen. I sidestepped him. “Email this to me, and I’ll get my lawyer—”
Tate stepped forward, blocking my path toward the waiting cab. “That makes both of us. I have business to conduct in the Dominican Republic and will be out of the state for the next two weeks. Sign the papers, Coltridge.”
A lick of danger pebbled my skin when our gazes clashed, and though I was unperturbed, I knew with unyielding clarity that Tate Blackthorn could very well kill me if I didn’t sign the contract.
“Anastasia.” He motioned the woman with his finger.
“It’s Rebecca.” The blond woman shifted beside him.
He waved a dismissive hand. “Show our guests into the plane, and run an inventory of everything that’s been damaged.”
“Yes, sir.”
She handed him the contract and the pen before ushering his companions onto the plane, conversing with them in perfect Italian.
“You know, Rhyland.” Tate buttoned his suit slowly, eyes never wavering from mine. “You should always judge a man by the quality of his enemies.”
“I don’t wish to make you an enemy,” I said calmly. His macho bullshit didn’t impress me. I just wanted to get this show on the road and be on my way to Dylan.
“Oh, you won’t. You’re not worthy of the title.” Tate handed me the contract and the pen. “Sign the papers, and you can go get the girl. No papers, no girl.”
His flight attendant’s phone started ringing in my pocket. I glanced at it. It was Dylan’s number.
I wasn’t going to have this conversation in front of this bastard.
“I’m not going to sign a contract before I read it.” Every muscle in my body burned to flee and be with her. “And I need to get to her.”
“Time is a currency you presently do not possess.” He uncapped the blue pen, handing it to me. “Oh, I forgot to mention. I sent your cab back home. The taxi behind us? It’s my driver. Your only way to Dylan—or anyone else you care about, for that matter—is signing the contract.”
Fury splattered inside me like a detonated body. The level of hatred I felt for this man scared me. Yet I knew he’d somehow avoid the consequences of his actions. He always did. He’d managed to worm his way into Ambrose’s closest circle after fucking him over in business. Tate had always had this talent for keeping the people he’d hurt around.
I grabbed the pen and scribbled on the dotted line with a savage growl.
“Now your initials on every page,” Tate lamented with boredom. “On the bottom right corner, kindly.”
“Your driver better floor it to the stadium,” I rustled behind clenched teeth, hating that I had to ask him for more favors.
“Iven is quite good at keeping me punctual,” Tate said charitably. “Oh, and my assistant will send you the bill in the mail.”
The motherfucker.
“I hate you.” I slammed the signed contract into his chest.
“I’m flattered.” A ghost of a smirk hovered over his face, never truly making an appearance.
With that, he brushed past me onto his private jet.
Dylan: Call Cal.
I stared at the message in the back seat of Tate’s seashell crème Bentley. She hadn’t picked up when I’d tried to call her back.
Why the fuck?
It was purely by chance that I remembered Row’s wife’s number. It happened to be the same as Row’s, with the last digit changed from three to seven. Cal picked up on the first call, sounding out of breath.
“Yes? Who is it?” She sounded hysterical, even more so than her usual jumbled self.
“Rhyland. Dyl asked me to call you. What’s up?” I was on my way to the stadium to try to catch Cosmos, but the rusty knot of dread twisting in my gut told me she wasn’t there anymore.
“Tucker kidnapped Gravity.”
“What?”
The word boomed so loudly it filled the car, the neighborhood, the fucking universe. Tate’s private driver flinched, the car veering sharply to the side before righting itself back on the road.
I sank my fingers into my thigh to stop myself from screaming, bile hitting the back of my throat. That visceral reaction was partly due to the fact that I knew Dylan was now in bad shape and partly, I realized to my horror, because I’d grown to care deeply about the little stinker.
“What do you mean, kidnapped?” I rumbled.
“He, he, he, he…” Cal stuttered, hyperventilating, her breaths shallow and fast and out of rhythm, wheezing each time she tried to suck in oxygen. “He just showed up. I-I-I thought it was you. I thought you came back and knew you had a key.”
The background noise was unmistakably a busy Manhattan street. People conversing, laughing, drinking, and cars honking. She was walking around aimlessly. Not a good sign.
“He barged in. I tried to fight him. I tried to push him. I swear, Rhyland, I tried everything. I nicked his cheek, but it only made him angrier. He rattled off about no one being willing to help him. About Dylan being a frigid bitch and Row always looking down on him, even when they were together. Just…nonsense. Insane stuff. And then he took her. And when I tried to stop him, he…”
Silence.
All my blood rushed to my head, making me dizzy.
“He what?” I demanded.
Silence.
“He what?” I barked louder.
“I think he broke my arm,” Cal finished, brittle.
I closed my eyes. “Do you know where he went?”
“No.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes. And Row too. Dylan knows. She’s on her way back. I’m just walking aimlessly, looking for him… He couldn’t have gone far, could he?”
“You need to get medical attention.”
“No. I won’t. I can’t.” Her voice was high-pitched, emotions flooding it again. She burst into a sob. “This all happened because of me. I need to fix this. Oh my God, poor Grav. What is he doing to her? And Dylan. She must be hysterical.”
Dylan, Dylan, Dylan.
What was she thinking right now?
What was she going through?
How the hell did I fix this?
And then I knew. All of a sudden, I remembered.
Because I was a possessive piece of shit.
Because I craved control.
Because I was naturally suspicious and cunning and—well, yes, a bit of a bad guy, really.
I did something I shouldn’t have. But it just might pay off.
“Cal?”
“Yes?”
“Go to the hospital. I got it.”