Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Alexei
The breakfast table was empty. I hadn’t thought we stayed up that late. The only ones that hadn’t stayed up late with us were Ace, Carina, Audrey, and her stupid fucking boyfriend.
Even my mother was missing which was highly unusual and suspicious. I grabbed a piece of toast from the cart beside the table and backtracked up the stairs. Brian’s door was slightly ajar. I kicked it open with the toe of my shoe and found it completely empty. I frowned. He thought he was above the rules and could stay with Audrey? Nope.
I banged on Audrey’s door with my closed fist and a shit-eating grin plastered on my face. Not a sound. I took a step back. I wouldn’t barge into the room and interrupt their peace, but I would bang on the door again. Which I did, over and over until the door swung open and I was met face-to-face with Audrey. Except, she wasn’t really Audrey. It was like a ghost had taken her place. I’d expected her to open the door ready to swing at my face. I wanted nothing more than to fight with her this morning. But one look at her told me that I would not get that.
The dried tear track marks on her swollen cheeks were enough to put me in my place. She backed into the shadows of her room as I tried to get a closer look at her face. Was that a bruise on her cheek?
“Is Brian hiding in there with you?” I knew better than to ask. I knew he wasn’t but I couldn’t help myself. There was this annoying driving voice in the back of my head.
“No,” Her voice sounded even more broken than her face looked.
“Are you okay?” I whispered even though I knew the answer already. Something happened and I desperately needed to know what it was.
“No.” She closed the door softly and as much as I wanted to fight her and push the door back open, I didn’t. I stumbled away from her room and stared at nothing.
“What do you mean ‘he’s gone’?” Carina’s voice came from the stairs and I strained my ears to listen. Ace didn’t say anything as he came into view. His face was stoic but his eyes were murderous. Something had happened.
“What’s going on?” My voice boomed across the space between us.
Ace locked down the emotions shining in his eyes and Carina gaped at me before she snapped her mouth closed. “Nothing.”
“It’s something,” I stormed across the hall and stopped before my brother. “What happened?”
There was this bad, sick feeling filling up my stomach. I didn’t want to know but I desperately did. I needed to know. Ace stopped his fiancé by putting his hands on both of her shoulders. He leaned forward to plant a peck on her cheek and steered her to Audrey’s room. “Your friend needs you right now. If she doesn’t fill you in, I will later.” She tucked her chin but I could see the defiance swirling in her blue eyes. This wasn’t over.
Silence wrapped around us as my brother led me down the hall and up another pair of stairs. I knew where we were going and I didn’t like it. “Where’s Brian?”
“Brian is on a flight back home,” Ace said through clenched teeth as if he wanted anything but.
“Why?”
“He got a little handsy with Audrey last night.”
Rage filled my vision. “Excuse me?”
Ace pushed the door to the security room open and swept his hand out for me to enter first. There was a wall full of TVs showing real time footage around the estate. My mother had this place locked down tighter than most high-profile places. Father once laughed that she had more surveillance than the White House. The only places she didn’t have cameras hidden were in our bedrooms.
The camera showing our hallway was not in real-time. It was paused on a scene from the night before, right before we came up to change into our suits to go swimming. Audrey was hidden in the shadows of Brian’s doorway. I leaned closer to the monitor to barely see his fingers pinching her cheeks.
“What is this and how did you know to find it?” My brother was one-of-a-kind in many aspects, it was why he was the heir to all of this. It was why our father trusted him with the family business and literally everything else. He knew what to look for and handled it efficiently. My blood roared in my ears as I considered pressing play. I was afraid to. Not because I was afraid of what I would see. No, I was afraid of what I would do.
I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth and turned away from all the monitors. I could watch it later.
“When we were coming up last night, I noticed her standing in the doorway crying. She practically ran to her room.”
I remembered through my drunken haze of memories. Ace told me to leave her alone and let her get some rest. I didn’t think anything of it besides the fact that she and Carina spent the whole day by the pool and it made sense for her to be tired.
“I came up here,” He waved his hand toward all the glowing screens. “To play it back to make sure he hadn’t hurt her. Her face looked really red and honestly, I’ve never seen Audrey cry. She gets angry. She gets even but I have never seen her as upset as she was last night.”
“What did you see?” My body vibrated with an intensity I’d never felt before. He sat down in the wing-backed chair that our mother often frequented and went to press play. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He raised his brows at me and stopped. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll have to kill the fucker.”
“It took everything in me to get him on a safe flight home.”
“Play it.”
When it was over fury like no other coursed through my veins. I saw red. I could hardly stand. He hit her. He fucking hit her. I didn’t know what I wanted to do more, march up to Audrey’s room and worship her in a way she’d never had before, or chase after the son of a bitch and kill him.
When I was finally able to speak, my words came out a lot calmer than I felt. “He’s hit her before.” That pussy ass bitch. He was going to pay for this.
“No,” Ace leaned back in our mother’s chair and shook his head. “He hasn’t.”
“How can you be so sure?” I raged. I needed to get out of this little room. I needed to do something. Anything . I needed blood and retribution. He was going to pay with every finger that touched her. He was going to know fear and pain. I was going to inflict it. I wasn’t usually one to get my hands dirty, but this time I was going to revel in it.
“He told me after he pissed himself when I barged into his room to pack all of his belongings this morning while he was half asleep.”
“That’s why he’s still alive?” I managed to get out between my clenched teeth.
“That and I didn’t think it was appropriate to dirty my hands while all the wedding festivities were happening. Carina doesn’t deserve that.”
“And Audrey doesn’t deserve justice?”
Ace’s eyes turned icy as he stared at me. “Since when do you care?”
For a second, I came out of my rage haze. Since when did she start to matter like this? Why should I care?
I didn’t have answers for any of these things, but I knew for certain that Audrey deserved so much more. But was that it? Was that the driving force behind all of this? I had so many questions now that I knew he put his hands on her.
“Does Audrey know Brian left?” I eyed the screens before my brother.
He shook his head. “I didn’t let him tell her. I packed his bag, hauled him out of bed, and kicked him right into the SUV to take him straight to the airport.”
“Did he say anything?” I wanted to know every last detail.
“He wanted to know how he was supposed to change his flight last-minute.”
“That’s it?”
Ace shrugged. “I told him if he ever lays another hand on Audrey in any way she doesn’t ask for, I’ll kill him. I’ll rip every fingernail off first and then I’ll make sure he suffers the worst death imaginable.” His eyes flashed with promise. “He pissed himself again. He’s gonna be pretty stinky for that flight home.”
“Pussy ass bitch.”