“Piercing your skin is off the table, Teal,” I tell her in my stern voice.
They still suffer trauma from sharp objects, Teal more than Knox. She puts on a brave façade, but I won’t let her go on with that idea.
“Screw you, Knox.” She glares at him and he merely lifts a shoulder.
“Where’s Elsa?” I ask her. “We need to tell her about your decision.”
“Ah, she went out yesterday evening.” Knox offers.
“Went out?” I thought she was in her room all this time. That’s why I didn’t want to disturb her.
“Aiden King took her away in his car.” Knox waggles his brows. “I saw them when I was flirting with the neighbour. Eh, I mean greeting the neighbour.”
Aiden King took her.
My muscles tense. Where could he have taken her for the entire night?
I call her. No answer.
Fuck.
“Do you have his friends’ numbers?” I ask Knox.
“One second.” He takes out his phone and types something in it then puts it to his ear. “Hey Ro, have you seen Aiden?”
Silence.
“I see, I see. Hide well. Talk to you later, mate.” He hangs up and faces me. “None of them have seen him. He’s not picking up either. Ronan said he’s hiding in his home because Aiden will come for his head any second now.”
This is bad.
If Aiden is not picking up either, this could mean two things.
They ran away.
Or they were taken.
I scratch my chin, thinking about the possibilities. Despite the fact that Aiden’s character is too infuriatingly similar to Jonathan’s, he wouldn’t hurt Elsa. Not with the amount of care and possessiveness I’ve seen in his eyes in my office.
And Elsa wouldn’t leave without informing me first.
This leaves one option: something happened to them. With or without consent.
Bloody hell.
I scroll through my phone and find the one name I didn’t want to contact until the day I die.
Our friendship morphed into a rivalry for a reason. Both of us hate losing and do everything in our power to become number one.
But fate has a fu
nny way of messing with our lives.
I hit his number. He answers after two rings, “Are you ready to admit defeat?”
“We have a problem, Jonathan.”
35