Chapter Thirty-Five
Jace
? “icantbelieveiletyougetaway” - aldn ?
I stand behind Noah at Rowan’s house, staring at the laptop. “What do you fucking mean you can’t see her?!” Somehow, the little dot on the screen that was tracking Lily disappeared, stopping in the middle of New York somewhere.
“I don’t know man, it just stopped,” Noah says as he continues to type on his computer.
I can hear the stress in his voice, but that doesn’t stop my blood from running cold.
I turn around, grabbing a vase, and throw it at the wall just so I don’t knock Noah to the ground instead.
The glass shatters, exploding everywhere.
“Hey!” Rowan comes flying down the stairs, grabbing me by my shoulders and pushing me against the wall. “The fuck is the matter with you? Keep it down,” he hisses between his teeth.
“We lost Lily,” I growl.
“What do you mean you lost Lily?” Celeste questions as she comes wobbling down the stairs, her belly slightly protruding from her shirt.
I clench my hands, fucking ready to put myself six feet in the dirt for waking her up. The pregnancy has been hard on both Rowan and Celeste, with her complications making her bedridden.
Rowan turns to me with flames dancing in his eyes, I can assume for waking Celeste up and for slipping up in front of her since she still knows nothing about what is going on.
“I better have an answer before I hit the last step. I don’t want to be walking down these stairs for no reason.”
Rowan lets me go, running to Celeste. I turn around, my hands pounding against my head. Noah is leaning back on the couch, his hands pulling at his hair as he continues to stare at the computer.
“Heaven, baby, go back to bed,” Rowan orders as he continues to try and guide her back up the stairs.
“No. What is going on? I want to know right now,” Celeste demands when she hits the last step, looking at all three of us.
“Lily got married to Mateo to help us try and find out where Mateo is selling women, and we made this whole plan and installed a GPS in Lily, but now the GPS is gone, and we have no idea where she is,” Noah spits out all the details like someone is holding a gun to his head.
“Feckin’ bollocks,” I whisper, turning around and pacing at the front door, ready to dash before Rowan grabs a gun.
“I’m going to kill you,” Rowan points to Noah, and stomps to the couch where he sits. Noah stands, and they both start acting like athletes, trying to see who can get around the other first.
“She needed to know!” Noah yells.
“She is carrying my fucking baby! She doesn’t need this stress!” Rowan yells as they both run around the couch.
I stop pacing around the door and turn toward Celeste as she looks at me with tears in her eyes.
“I promised I would find her,” I whisper. Only Celeste can hear me as Rowan and Noah continue to yell at each other.
“Stop,” Celeste says, but Rowan finally has gotten ahold of Noah, grabbing him and putting him in a chokehold. “I said stop!” she screams.
Everything in the house freezes. Rowan and Noah don’t move. The AC stops blowing, the ceiling fan slowing down, yet the air gets colder by the second.
“Now—” Celeste starts, walking toward the couch. Rowan throws Noah off him, jumping up to grab ahold of Celeste. “Don’t you fucking dare touch me,” she seethes, pointing her finger in Rowan’s face. I can see the life fall from his eyes as he stares at her and backs away.
“Now, we are going to stop acting like little children and figure out how to find my best friend. Everyone sit the fuck down and hand me the laptop.”
Noah rushes to sit next to Celeste and I take her other side as Rowan steadily sits on the chair next to the couch.
“I swear to god, if anything happens to her, all of your heads will be put into a box for decorations."
Four hours later, we finally have a plan.
Celeste helped us get our heads out of our arses and settle down to think about what happened.
We have Lily’s last pinned location, and we know what kind of car she left in after the wedding.
We were able to look at street cameras and follow the car’s location to the airport.
There was only one private plane that left the airstrip around 5:45 p.m., and it was scheduled to land in Dubois, Wyoming.
“Do you really think they are in Wyoming?” Rowan asks as he packs a suitcase filled with medical supplies for Celeste—because of course she is coming and there was no way he was able to plead her out of it.
I think, in the back of his mind, he is glad she is coming, because if something were to happen to her while he was not home, his world would crash into a million pieces.
Noah is downstairs, packing other supplies, and I can’t gather myself enough to drive through New York to pack for myself. We have a six-hour flight from New York to Wyoming and I’d rather not waste another second.
I sit on the bed, staring at my hands. “It’s better than us sitting here not knowing.”
Noah enters the room, dropping three duffle bags. “I’ve got everything. The rifles, the subs, the pumps—” Noah shuts his mouth when Celeste enters the room, towel drying her hair.
“No need to stop now. It’s not like I don’t know my boyfriend and his friends like to murder people.”
Rowan walks over to her, kissing her on the temple. My chest constricts as I watch my best friend not only fall in love, but start his family—something I’ve only dreamed about, and if I don’t find Lily, I may never watch that dream come true.
We all pack into Rowan’s new half-a-million-dollar SUV. He says it’s his “dad car,” but I can’t wait for the little kid to pop out and throw their juice boxes all over these white leath seats.
Seven hours later, we land on an empty runway. I jump out of Rowan’s private jet first, noticing the wooden sign that says, Welcome to Dubois, Wyoming—nothing but mountains covered in snow.
I walk to the triangle-shaped building and burst through the door. I’m met with an empty front desk and a sign that says, Ring Bell. I slam my hand on it once.
Twice.
Three times, before some old man finally cuts around the corner. “Can I help you?”
Rowan, Celeste, and Noah all come inside. The old man walks with a cane and has a head full of grey hair. He stares at us like we are from another planet.
“I need information about a plane that landed last night.” My hands grab his desk as I look between him and his computer.
“No can do, kiddo. No information leaves these buildings unless it’s your own info, my boy.” The man waddles behind his desk, throwing his cane on top of it.
My fingers crack from my forceful grip on the old
oak.
“Listen, sir,” Celeste comes wobbling up, holding her
stomach. Her hand lands on my back, trying to ease the tension pulsing through me. She peeks at the nametag placed on top of his desk. “Mr. Buford, we really need some information, it’s an emergency.”
The old man grabs his cane, pointing it in Celeste’s face. “Like I said, lady, no info leaves this premises.”
Rowan comes up behind Celeste, using his finger to slowly remove the cane from her face. “Don’t do that.”
“I don’t know who you hooligans are, or where you come from. Or even how you landed on my runway, but y'all better leave before I call the cops.”
I can hear Noah in the back mumble, “fucking idiot,” before he heads outside and comes back in a second later, dropping all three duffle bags on the floor. Rowan and I turn our heads toward each other, ready to get the job done how we usually do it.
That’s until Celeste grabs both of our arms as we are turning away.
She takes one long breath and gives the man a wide smile.
“Mr. Buford, I don’t know how you guys do it here in Wyoming, but we are from New York, and we like to get shit done.
So, you will either tell me about this fucking plane!
Or my boyfriend and his friends are going to open those bags behind us, and I promise you’re not going to like what you see. ” Celeste’s voice ends in a whisper.
We all stare at her shocked, as we have never seen her so sweaty and frustrated.
Mr. Buford stands from his chair, eyeing Celeste up and down. “You pregnant? Who let her fly in her condition? Y’all should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Rowan pulls his arm out of Celeste’s grip, heading straight for Noah, who is already bent down, opening the bags.
“You do not get to tell me what I can and cannot do in my fucking condition! You old fucking dickwad! I swear to god, if you do not tell me who the fuck came out of that plane last night, I will put a bullet through your head, dig the bullet out of your skull, then save it for my baby as a gift for when they are born! I am losing my patience, it’s hot as fuck in this building, and my bladder feels like it’s lodged in my ribs.
So I swear, Mr. Buford, you have ten seconds to start talking! ”
My mouth curls up as I watch Celeste hold her fingers up, counting down from ten. She is going to be a great mom.
Rowan comes to stand beside her, cocking the gun near his leg, behind the desk. The old man’s eyes dart between all four of us standing in front of him. By the time Celeste hits eight, Rowan holds up the shotgun, pointing.
“Okay, okay, my god. I’ll pull up video footage.”
Rowan and I go to stand behind him, watching him pull up footage of last night. Three men get out of a plane, one holding Lily over his shoulder.
“Give me your fucking keys.” I hold out my hand to Buford.
“W-What but I—”
“Give me your fucking keys!”
His hand trembles as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a set of keys. As soon as they hit my hand, I dash for the front door. Noah is already heading in the opposite direction after Rowan called him over to get a copy of the footage.
I push open the door, hitting the lock button on the keys to hear an old minivan alarm go off.
As soon as I reach the car, I rip off the license plate.
“Fuck!” The license plate flies out of my hand, somewhere off in the distance.
Opening the front door, I bend down, pulling out my pocketknife, and start scratching at the VIN number.
“I was able to get the car information from the video footage.”
I turn around to see Noah behind me, holding his laptop.
“Last seen location was at the port of South Beach.” “South Beach what?” I grit through my teeth, my palm squeezing at the blade in my hand.
“South Beach... Oregon.”
I stand to my full height, turning away from Noah, and chuck the car keys into the crystal snow.