15. Shaw
Shaw
Stomping through a house I’d never been to, I had to curb the urge to grab something and throw it against the wall.
I didn’t live there. None of this shit was mine.
If I had to take a guess, this place belonged to Lyric’s wife’s twin.
Sweet chick. A little prissy, but not in a bad way—mostly.
I preferred Mila, but they were two sides of the same coin.
It was a challenge, but I didn’t break her expensive and slightly ostentatious stuff.
My best friend was in pain, and I didn’t have a clue how to help her. Her own mind was causing trouble. Again. Turning on her. Again. Making her think stupid shit that was so far from the truth, it would have been hilarious if it weren’t so damn scary.
I, more than anyone, knew how dark Violet could get. From the haunted look in her purple eyes, I could sense that she would go back there all too easily.
But no one had known she’d been suffering. Not Luca or me or Jagger. She had hidden this from all of us, and I was pissed at her. But also at myself. And Luca. We should have seen it, fixed it before it got this bad.
Fuck!
It was so bad, she was considering altering her body with plastic surgery.
A little nip here, a tuck there, and what—good as new?
Somewhere in the last few weeks, she’d lost sight of the fact that she was perfect exactly as she was.
Her body, her heart, her goddamn soul. She was mine.
Ours, I had to amend. Luca’s, Jagger’s, and mine.
Whatever. She wasn’t going to change a fucking inch of what was ours.
Vi and I had been close since she was born. She was my best friend. We were connected. More than if we were sisters. It went beyond that. Sisters didn’t love each other the way we did. She was one-third of my soul. I couldn’t live without her any more than I could without Jagger.
He knew it. He understood it. He even felt it. The pull that had always been there. If she was hurting or scared or lonely, she knew we would always be there for her. Just as she was always there for us.
I’d make the pencil-dicked imbeciles who’d messed with my girl pay for trashing her self-esteem.
Curbing my anger, I lifted my phone, making a single call.
My mother-in-law was out with my mom and godmother, having a girls’ day with all the granddaughters.
But they would pause for a moment to take care of this.
An evil grin tilted my lips after talking to Emmie. I didn’t go into detail about Violet’s mental health. Unless we couldn’t get her sorted this weekend, they didn’t need to know about anything else, other than that our precious Vi was not handling things well.
“I’ll take care of this. You take care of Vi,” Emmie said coolly before our call ended.
Did those sports talk show hosts know what was coming for them? All those influencers who had been generating a firestorm that had gotten into my Vi’s head, were they aware how different their world was going to be tomorrow?
I would savor the demise of their careers, their very existence, later. For now, I had far more important things to do.
“Jagger!” I shouted. “Luca!”
Both of them came out of a room deeper into the house.
“Dimples?” My husband took one look at my face before his own turned to stone. He jogged to me then cupped my face in his hands. “What is it?”
Luca was right behind him, glancing over my shoulder to look for Violet. “Did you talk to her? Has she said anything about why she’s acting so off?”
Grabbing both of them by an elbow, I found an empty room and shut the door. Once we were alone, I told them everything I knew.
“What the fuck!” Luca snarled. He took two steps toward the door, but I stepped in his path, shaking my head. “Get out of my way.”
“That’s not what she wants, Luca. She’s struggling, and she’s embarrassed. We need to take a moment and think about this.”
“I need to find her and fix this,” he raged, but he couldn’t hide the helplessness swirling around in his eyes. “She’s a goddess. But I made her think…”
The tortured look on his face only matched what I was feeling, and I hugged him. “You didn’t,” I reassured him. “She’s caught in her own head. This isn’t about you and how you make her feel, Luca. She loves you. She wants you. But they got in her head, and now she’s trapped there.”
“How do I get her out?” he whispered, hugging me back, his fingers digging into me, desperate for answers that would help him help her.
The one all three of us loved more than life.
She was our glue. Our safe place. Just as we were normally hers.
Fuck, why hadn’t we done a better job taking care of her?
“I’m supposed to protect her, but obviously, I did a shit job of that.” His voice broke.
Tears choking me, I pressed my face to his chest, offering comfort. Begging for some in return. “I don’t know yet. B-but we have to figure it out. Now. This weekend. If we leave here with her still suffering…”
Jagger made a pained noise before he hugged me from behind. Between them, I felt stronger, braver. But Vi was usually right there with me. Suddenly, I’d never been more terrified in my life.
“We will, dimples,” my husband vowed. “We love her. And now that we know what she’s struggling with, we can fix it.”