bangs ripped me out of oblivion.
There was something I was supposed to be doing...
Panic flooded my system, and I patted the bed next to me, looking for Aubrey. Isabella was the only one with me, and as soon as I saw her bandaged leg, reality slammed back into place. I rolled to my side and stared at the clock a few seconds until it came into focus.
Almost noon. I rubbed my burning nose.
Three more loud bangs shook the front wall of the house, so I dragged myself to my feet and out to the living room with the intent to maul whoever had interrupted my sleep. Remnants of my drug induced dreams bubbled to the surface. Fucking Aubrey. Or… maybe it was Katrin. Killing Devlin. Possibly all at the same time in some fucked up bloodbath I tried to shake from my memory.
As soon as I opened the door, one cold look from Jace said he knew exactly what I’d been up to.
His hair was a tousled mess, much like his wrinkled clothes. Between my plea for help and his shift at the hospital, he likely hadn’t slept a wink. “Aubrey’s still missing. One day you’re begging me to help find her. The next you’re high.”
“I was up all night. I’m just tired.” As if any bullshit answer would work on him.
Jace brushed by me and sat down on the couch next to Isabella, gingerly lifted her hurt paw. “Make whatever excuse you want. You’re high.”
So what if I was? Merc hadn’t given me much growing up, but at least he’d paved the road for my blissful escape. The least he could do for his bastard step-child—as if I was even that. He’d never married my Mom, but that hadn’t made a difference to me as a child. From the time I could remember, I struggled to understand why I wasn’t good enough for the man I called Dad. Why my brother was so much better, even though he was always the one in trouble.
I sighed. Thanks to sheer exhaustion—and the drugs—there wasn’t much fight left in me. “Maybe if I give Devlin what he wants, he’ll just release her.”
Jace glared up at me, his expression stony. “How long did it take you to come up with an excuse before you snorted away reality?”
I collapsed into the armchair and rubbed my palms over my face. There was no explanation. My devil was bound to win.
“I talked to Alex again—” Jace began, speaking slowly as if he didn’t think I could hear or understand him.
“Business or pleasure?” I snapped. I couldn’t pinpoint which part of his statement irked me the most. The reminder of someone else I’d lost—someone who remained so close. His condescending tone. The futility of the whole situation.
He scowled and sat forward, leaning his elbows against his thighs. “Do you want to find Aubrey or am I wasting my time?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “I want to find her.” And at the same time, I feared seeing the aftermath. Seeing exactly what Devlin was capable of.
I’d seen it already. Experienced it first-hand more times than I cared to remember. This was going to be different—far worse. I’d gotten myself into this mess. Pulled Aubrey farther in. What if he did something I couldn’t fix?
I despised feeling helpless.
I despised feeling.
I already needed another hit. I rubbed my forehead and tried to focus on Jace, but every time I blinked, I struggled to open my eyes again. Aubrey and the memories of Katrin melded together in my head. A paralyzing and disturbing amalgamation.
Apparently satisfied with Isabella’s condition, Jace sat back and stared at me. “Alex mentioned Devlin has been preoccupied with some other project. You getting any of this?”
Things weren’t so bad, I could still remember and follow a conversation. “You said last night he’s been gone. Any new ideas what it might be?”
“She overheard something about recruiting more girls, but she doesn’t think they’re for the strip club. Things have been exceptionally quiet there.”
I remembered the Retreat. What if those two bastards were right?
“That’s not suspicious,” I said sarcastically. “I talked to everyone I could trust last night. Didn’t take long—unfortunately. And then I talked to several dozen people I don’t trust, but none of them were squealing. I have no idea how to track her down.”
“So, you resorted to getting high and forgetting?”
“Yes, okay,” I jumped to my feet and stumbled before I got my balance. “No surprises there. Would you like to get in a few more jabs now? Or can we move on?”
Unmoved by my display, he gave me a flat look. “No one has seen Devlin or Tank in five days.”
“We could give them a reason to come back,” I suggested. A nice uproar in the club should get at least one of them back in the open.
“We?” Jace grunted, his eyes wide like I’d just hurled the biggest insult in his direction. “No suicide missions for me, thanks. If we knew what the hell he wanted—”
“This, Jace.” I threw up my hands. “This is exactly what he wants. Me high and out of the way.”
Jace crooked his neck but didn’t seem to have anything else to say.
Isabella followed my movements, hanging her front legs over the edge of the couch in preparation in case I stepped away, so I scratched between her ears and down her neck to appease her before returning to my chair. “I have a license plate number I need to run. Maybe that’ll get us somewhere.”
“Give it to me,” Jace said.
That was my opportunity to return his flat unamused look. “Don’t think I’m capable?”
“I think that, all evidence to the contrary, Aubrey kept you out of trouble.”
I groaned. She kept me busy, but I wouldn’t necessarily call that out of trouble. “I’m not keeping her.”
Jace’s mouth fell open, and he made a sound in his throat. “And she’s not a homeless dog looking to be adopted. What’s the damn tag number?”
Lacking the energy to continue the argument, I wrote the number down on a slip of paper and tossed it at him.
“What makes you think it’s connected?” he asked, grimacing as he reached to the floor to pick up the paper.
“Couple of guys. Nosing around this morning. They said Devlin’s looking to get into human trafficking since that ‘sex retreat’ up the interstate was brought down. They implied they worked for Wilson, but I have my suspicions about him, too. Maybe tipping off that landslide wasn’t such a good idea.”
Jace clicked his tongue. “You think?”
I closed my eyes to the bright light streaming through the front windows and shifted in my seat. “I thought it would give me an opening.”
“For what? What are you trying to prove that’s worth so many lives?”
“Devlin killed Katrin,” I mumbled.
“Everyone knows that,” Jace’s voice was low and even. He’d been the first to identify her when she’d been admitted to the hospital. And Devlin hadn’t exactly been discreet in regard to the subject. There hadn’t even been a hint of denial after she was left in a coma from a hot shot of heroin. Devlin and his smug face even had the audacity to show up at her funeral a week later.
He’d covered his ass with lies, made it look like I’d been the one to drive her to drugs.
Even I began to question it all.
I knew one thing though, if not for me, she wouldn’t have dug around in Ashville long enough to find my family. To discover the lies I’d used to protect her. To discover the real me—the screwed-up addict under my façade of student and mechanic.
Every way around it, I’d let her down. And Devlin had capitalized on the opportunity to prove that no matter where I went, no matter what I did, my family would catch up to me. My past would appear out of nowhere, and my fate would eat me alive.
Everyone. Everyone knew it, and that pissed me off even more because it showed that no one cared. “Merc killed Mom.”
Jace’s eyes narrowed even more. “You serious?”
“There’s only one thing either of them care about. I want them to know what the pain of losing that feels like.”
Jace shook his head and stared off to the side. “Can’t say I’d be opposed to seeing that happen, but I’m not entirely enthused to see you go down in the process. Or drag down another innocent girl.”
“Another?” My world exploded and with a sudden burst of energy, I lunged out of my seat. “So you agree that Katrin was my fault?”
“No, man. Calm the fuck down.” Jace put up his hands, palms facing me. “I’m not saying any of them were your fault. I’m just saying a lot of innocent girls have gotten wrapped up in this whole mess over the years.”
“I’m doing what fate doesn’t have the guts to do.”
Jace gave me a disgusted scowl. “And I’m hoping that’s the heroin talking.”
I snorted. “I can never leave.” I didn’t even have to mention how that desire had died right alongside Katrin. “Never walk away. Every time I try, they pull me back in just to shove me further down. If they won’t stop until they destroy me, I only have one other option.”
“You need to eat something,” Jace said, obviously choosing not to argue with my logic.
I shrugged and dropped back into my seat. Knowing I needed to focus—knowing I needed to get Aubrey back—just made my own escape more appealing.
Failure wasn’t an option.
But I couldn’t fail if I wasn’t conscious.
“Colt,” Jace’s voice jabbed at me. “How many times do I have to watch you fall apart?”
I stared down at the carpet. One more time.
I kept telling myself that one more would be the last.
One more hit.
One more chance at my vision of justice.
One more time.
Just one.
Not enough to claim me.
Not enough to free me.
When would I just let go?
I realized how hard I was still fighting not to feel. Anger at losing my mom and being left with Merc and Devlin. Jagged pain of watching Katrin fade away. The torture of seeing Isabella broken when she’d trusted me like no person ever could. Rage at losing Aubrey and my failure to find her.
“I don’t know how to get her back,” I repeated.
“Heroin isn’t going to help, I can tell you that. What do you intend to do once you do find her?”
“Finish what I started.”
Jace groaned and dropped his head forward. “I mean with Aubrey.”
I shrugged.
“Are you going to give up on her, too?”
The ball of rage I’d been containing erupted. “What the hell does that mean? I fought for—” Now I couldn’t even say her name.
But Jace took the opportunity to jump in at my stumble. “You didn’t fight for Lex.”
That was bullshit. “There wasn’t any use, she made her choice. She knew—”
“Just like you know every damn time you pick up a vial of fucking heroin,” Jace yelled, coming at me with his finger pointed in my direction like a furious parent. “You gave up on her, even though you were all she ever wanted.”
The knife in my gut twisted, and I shook my head. Denial was my only resting place and facing even more failures of my past wasn’t helping anything. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Like hell it wasn’t. You were too blind to see it. She feels like she failed you. You, Colt. You were the one she wanted.”
“She did fail me, the moment she became my brother’s pawn.”
“And you had no part in pushing her to it?” Jace refused to let up, just like the pounding in my head. “When Katrin died, you stopped seeing anything beyond your own damn nose. No woman could ever be Katrin, and yet every woman was. You gave up everything, even your own damn freedom.”
This was an argument that could never end, and my brain was already minced as a result. “I was never free. Devlin and Merc would have found another way to get to me, Katrin was only the beginning.”
“So you jumped right back into their world?”
“It’s the world I know.” I resigned with my pathetic excuse. “I accepted my fate.”
“Bull shit. We’ve been friends since Legos were our entire world. Your mom gave you what she knew she could never have. You gave up and turned to drugs, and Merc, to forget—”
“And Mom died for what she did,” my anger forged the strength to yell. “Or what Merc considered the ultimate betrayal. I will, too. I tried it her way, and Katrin paid that price. I’ll never have a life outside of this. The moment I leave, I just put more people in danger. That’ll never change as long as Devlin and Merc are living.”
Jace shook his head, still looking as skeptical as ever. He knew the game. He knew my family, and he’d seen the morbid consequences time after time. But he could never understand. “You know there’s a good chance Aubrey will be in bad shape when we find her.”
I nodded.
“Are you going to fight for her? Or bring her back just to use her as ammunition against your family?”
I rubbed my hand over my face, closing my eyes. “She deserves to have her life back.”
“And you know that after this, she never will.”