XXVI
Royal
After doing everything in my power to avoid these kinds of events over the last few years, I’ve forgotten how boring they are.
Gemini’s mother forced him to attend one the year he turned eighteen, and he’d begged me and Syn to come along with him—and then we collectively agreed that until our future wives dragged us to one of these, or that there was a business requirement, our attendance was optional.
Just seeing Tori and how incredible she looked in the dress she was wearing makes this evening a little more bearable.
The last twenty-four hours or so feel like the longest I’ve gone without seeing her, and I didn’t expect it to be as much of a hellish experience as it was.
Apparently, I like her more than I realized.
This whole situation is a fucking mess.
The only glimmer of light in this situation is that whatever happened that night, Syn also believes her brother didn’t kill JP. The guilt I was feeling at being attracted to the sister of JP’s murderer is gone, and even though he’s not mentioned it since, I don’t think Syn is upset with me about that anymore.
But if it felt like there was a gap between me and Tori before, it now feels like we’re on opposite sides of a wide, deep chasm.
If Salaway was sent by Preston to kill Tori, and if that was because he wanted revenge for his friend, and if we can clear up that misunderstanding, we should be able to make things safe for Tori again... But I don’t know what that’s going to do for us—for me.
I’ve missed her.
I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours worrying about her being with Syn. Not because I think he’s going to make a move on her, but because I know Syn, and he’s more likely to say or do something that’s going to make that chasm wider.
I want Tori in my life.
Every woman here tonight is wearing a dress that’s black, white, or a combination of both. Tori’s one of them, but somehow, it’s always her that I’m drawn to. She stands out, drawing my attention to her like a beacon.
While there’s been no formal announcement about the auction starting, people are beginning to drift towards the dancefloor, their focus on the stage rather than dancing. If Tori doesn’t return soon, I'm not sure I’ll get the chance to dance with her tonight.
Frowning, I glance over towards the bathrooms. Tori’s been gone a while...
Surely, she’s not hiding in there to avoid dancing with me.
With more people on the dancefloor, I move over to wait for her by the bathrooms. As I do, the music finally comes to an end, and Elena Remington walks onto the stage to announce the auction will be starting shortly.
Gemini still hasn’t messaged to say that du Pont is here, but with everyone focused on the stage, now’s the best time for me and Tori to head to the meeting point we chose.
I’m tapping my foot when a woman comes out of the bathroom, and I'm able to glance past her. I don’t see Tori.
“Excuse me,” I say, before the woman walks away. “Was there anyone else in there? A woman with blue hair?”
She arches her eyebrow and shakes her head. “Not that I saw.”
The first thing that runs through my mind is that something’s wrong with Tori. She was pretty badly hurt only a few days ago, and while there was nothing that hinted to any serious internal injury, we could have missed something.
Without a second thought, I walk into the bathroom. There aren’t many stalls in here, and all the doors are open. “Tori?”
There's no answer.
Did I miss her come out?
I turn around and walk back into the main room, stopping at the back of the room to scan the crowd. As I do, Syn hurries over to me, frowning.
“Where’s Victoria?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What the fuck do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“I mean, I don’t know where she is.” I snap back at him. “She went to the bathroom, and I never saw her come back out. Maybe she went to the meeting point?”
Syn’s still frowning as his gaze sweeps the room. Then he grabs my arm, pulling me out of the hall. By the time we’re standing in the exhibition area, he’s already on the phone. “Has he arrived...? What about Victoria? Is she there with you?” Syn’s jaw hardens as he looks at me. “No, get back to us, now.”
“Syn?”
“Who did you pay to notify us of du Pont’s arrival?” he asks.
Knowing that Syn doesn’t care who the guy is, so much as if he’s done his job, I don’t answer. Instead, I lead us back to the main entrance and wave one of the security guards over. “That guy I asked you to keep an eye out for—has he arrived yet?”
The security guard shakes his head. “Not yet.”
“Are you sure?” Syn demands. “What about a smoke break?”
“Sir, I’ve not left my post all evening,” the guard says.
Before things escalate, I pull Syn back. “What about a girl with blue hair? Did you see her leave?”
Syn pulls up a photograph. It's a closeup of Tori that he had to have taken when she was dancing with Gemini. “Her.”
The guard shakes his head. “No. And I would have noticed that pretty lady if she’d walked past me again.”
There’s nothing sleezy about the compliment he gives Tori, but it bothers me more than Syn having a candid photo of her on his phone. I tug Syn’s arm, leading him back towards the exhibition room where Gemini’s already waiting for us.
“What’s going on? Where’s our Vixen?” He folds his arms and gives Syn a pointed look. “What the fuck did you do this time?”
“Fuck you, Gemini,” Syn snaps at him. “The last person to speak to her was Royal, and even if he did something to upset her, given the stubborn tenacity she’s displayed over the last few months, do you really think there’s anything that could be said or done to make her quit and leave now ?”
He’s right. Which means she has to be here somewhere. “Maybe she tried to go to the meeting point alone...?” I run my hand through my hair. “This place is huge. We need to hurry and find her before du Pont arrives.”
“If he was coming, he’d be here by now,” Syn tells me. He looks at Gemini. “Check the tracker.”
“She didn’t have a purse, Syn. Where do you think she’s putting that phone?” I ask as Gemini opens up an app on his phone.
“It’s not her phone.” Syn presses his lips together and keeps his attention locked on Gemini.
“You put a tracking device on her?” My eyes go wide. “You thought something was going to happen tonight?”
Syn shakes his head. “No.”
No...? Which means he put a tracker on her to know where she is at all times? After what happened with Salaway, and how we’d nearly found her too late, I replayed things a million times and flippantly wished we’d had a tracking device on her. So, I’m far from mad that Syn went ahead and did just that.
But I am surprised.
“She’s heading north,” Gemini says, breaking the silence. “Judging by the speed, she’s in a vehicle, but it doesn’t look like she has much of a head start.”
“My car is out front,” I say, already running towards the entrance.
My parents had the driver bring them, but I’d driven myself. The way I figured it, once tonight was over, Tori would want to go back to her own home, so I brought my own car so I could offer to drive her...
And to try to convince her to be with me.
Instead of using the valet service, I parked across the street. There’s a ticket on the windshield, but I pull it off and toss it on the floor before I get in. As I pull away, tires squealing, Syn kills the music that started blasting out.
“Get on the West Side Highway, and head north.”
There’s not a great deal of traffic as I speed down the street, ignoring the speed limits. “North means she’s not going home.”
Even though I know Syn is right, and there’s no way Tori would have just given up, I’ve been hoping we were wrong, and that she’s in a cab back to her place in Jersey.
“Where is she?” Gemini leans forward from the back seat and looks over Syn’s shoulder.
“Coming up on the George Washington Bridge,” Syn tells us.
“Does Bergmann live that way?” I glance over my shoulder at Gemini. If anyone is going to know that it’s him.
“Astoria. If that’s where she’s heading, the cab is taking the scenic route.”
“She’s not in a cab,” Syn mutters.
I finally merge onto the highway and put my foot down, hoping there are no bored cops lurking. The G-Class isn’t the kind of high-performance car that a cop knows he has no chance of catching. I don’t care about a ticket, but we don’t have time to be stopped.
Much as I want to hope that this is all her doing, the gas pedal is on the floor, because I know something isn’t right.
“You think this is Preston? He found out she was going to be there tonight, and he took her?” I glance over at Syn.
Syn doesn’t take his eyes off the phone screen.
“What did your father say to you?” I ask him.
“He told me I couldn’t marry her,” Syn responds, shortly.
“Papa Keyingham is in on this?” Gemini asks.
Instead of denying it, Syn frowns. “I spoke to him last night. He wasn’t happy I came home with a fiancée, but he didn’t give the slightest indication he knew who she was.”
I swerve to undertake a car, then spare another glance at Syn. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s never really relaxed when he sits.
When we were seven, he let slip that his mother made his nanny hit him with a cane if she ever caught him slouching. That must have happened enough times to have good posture at all times—even when he’s alone with us.
Tonight, he seemed to be walking with his back straighter than normal, and I’d assumed it was because we were out in public, in the same room as his parents. Since getting in the car, he’s been leaning forward, leaving a gap between the seat and his back. I’ve thought nothing of it, because if I was in his place, I’d probably do the same.
But even though Syn rarely speaks of it anymore, I know his parents.
“You okay?” I ask him.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he says, shortly.
Gemini drops a hand on his shoulder but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.
“What about tonight?” I don’t want to press, but… I know his parents. “He’s had a whole day to get the background check carried out.”
“He knows who she is. Figured I let myself get whipped by her pussy—”
“Facts.” Gemini holds his hand up, waiting for a high five. When Syn doesn’t move, he drops his hand. “I don’t know why you’re bothering to deny it, because none of us believes you.”
After shooting him a look, Syn returns his attention to his phone. “He told me it was time to stop whatever the game is he thinks I’m playing, and to make sure I end the relationship tonight. He knows who she is, but if he knew du Pont was up to something, he would have told me to let her disappear and not try to find her.”
I’m not sure if that’s what I want to hear or not. “Has she gotten off the highway yet?”
Syn shakes his head. “You’re catching up. She’s nearing Riverdale.”
“Where the fuck is she going? Back to JMU?” I frown. It’s the right direction, but it’s not the best route. At this time of night especially, it would be much easier and quicker to get there from the interstate.
Unless she doesn’t have the tracker on her anymore…
“We could be chasing a ghost,” I say. “She could have found the tracker, got unbelievably pissed off at you, and dumped it in a truck to send us on a wild goose chase.”
“The tracker is in her watch. There’s no way she found it,” Syn tells me, dryly.
I roll my eyes. “Because it’s not possible for someone to have stolen it.”
“You want to go back?” Syn whips his head around to glare at me. “I’d love nothing more than for that to be another thing for her to be pissed at me about, but we both know she wasn’t in that fucking museum when we ran out of it.”
From behind us, Gemini starts laughing.
“You find this funny?” I glare at him through the rearview mirror.
“Are you kidding?” Gemini gives me a shit eating grin.
He’s lucky we’re driving so fast, or I’d turn around and punch him.
Still grinning, Gemini leans forward, resting an elbow on each of the front seats. “We might not have as much training and experience as most of the XI—much less the resources at their disposal—but the fact that you two have completely come apart and are acting like two horny, pubescent teenagers fighting over a girl? That’s funny. And the fact that neither of you can see this is fucking hilarious.” With no warning, he smacks us both on the back of our heads.
“Fucking hell, Gemini!” I bellow, barely keeping control of the car. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”
“No more than you are.” The smile drops from his face. “Our Vixen is alone with him. If he knows what we do, he knows how to kill her and make it look like an accident. The fact that our Vixen got out of that museum with no one seeing her—or him—means he’s either not working alone, or he’s got someone else to help him. Either way, he’s dangerous, and if you need me to tell you two to stop dicking around and get your heads in the game, then you might as well pull over and let me go by myself, because we’re all screwed.”
Neither me nor Syn have anything to say, because he’s fucking right.
“She got off the highway.” Syn’s attention is back on the phone, his game face on. “Yonkers.”
That’s the next exit.
We’re close.