My phone immediately rang again.
Both guest rooms were empty.
She wasn’t here.
Downstairs, her dress laid in a pile on the floor where we’d left it last night. Her heels were by the stairs where she’d kicked them off as I’d carried her to bed.
Fury and the thirst for vengeance boiled and bubbled within me, awakening demons I didn’t even know existed.
My phone kept ringing.
She was gone.
Red.
All I saw was red. The color of my rage and their blood surrounded my vision on all sides.
My fucking phone kept ringing.
“What the fuck did you not understand aboutI have to go?”
“Where is my goddamn sister?”
The demons seduced me. They circled around me, licking at my skin and running their hands all over my body until I reveled in their darkness, until I was consumed by their flames.
“They took her.”
***
Lincoln convinced me to let him come over. He said he had something important to show me. The first thing I did when I got off the phone with him was call Chandler.
It wasn’t my favorite plan, but here we were.
We all sat in the living room, waiting for a pin to drop. Chandler had his long legs stretched out and his feet propped up on the ottoman. I swirled the amber liquid around in my glass, contemplating just drinking straight from the bottle. Lincoln kept chewing on his toothpick and tapping his fingertips against his thumb as if he were counting or playing a melody only he could hear.
Finally, Lincoln pulled Tatum’s phone from his pocket. “She left this at the party last night. I grabbed it off the table right before one of the cleaning crew picked it up. There’s something I think you should see.”
My gaze shot over to him, and Chandler sat up straight.
Lincoln tapped the screen, bringing her phone to life. After another few taps, he flipped the device around, showing us a generic picture of a woman’s hand. On her fourth finger was a large pear-shaped diamond ring.
I took a drink. “What does that have to do with Tatum?”
Lincoln shoved the phone toward me. “Because that’s her Instagram, you fuck.”
My hand clenched the glass to keep from punching him in the throat. I squinted to read the caption.
T-Hunt Official
Just like that, I belong to him. Can’t wait to celebrate our engagement on the island.
#love #engaged #soulmates #sandybeaches #HuntingtonandDonahue
I read the caption over and over. It didn’t make any sense.
“At first, I thought, dude, that’s fucked up. She didn’t even tell me she was going somewhere.” Lincoln pulled the phone back and stared at the screen. “Then I saw when she’d posted it, and shit started getting weird.”
“When did she post it?” Chandler asked.