TheBlackRose: anything 4 a Swan
ThatCreepCotton: I’ll back u up
TheBlackRose: sounds good
ThatCreepCotton: drop the pin, A. We’ll take it from here.
BadApple: kk thx
I drop the pin and take a breath, trying to calm my racing heart. It’s terrifying to let someone else take over, especially when I’m giving up control of something that has to do with Royal. But even my crazy love can’t put me in five places at once, so if I can send someone else where he is, and they can keep him under control until I get there, that’s better than leaving him alone with himself.
“Does Colt know we’re okay?” Devlin asks.
I shake my head. “He thinks you’re dead, and he’ll probably be pissed, but not like Royal.”
“No one’s like Royal,” Baron says.
“Oh, also, his entire hand and arm are burned, and he’s missing a finger, thanks to your brothers,” I say to Crystal.
“Not hisentirearm,” Duke says.
Crystal looks like she might puke. She hasn’t even begun to realize the magnitude of what her leaving did to this family, and I’m not the person who’s going to sugarcoat it. I don’t hate her, but I’m not going to let her off the hook for everything she caused just because she fell in love. I understand the temptation, but I would never abandon my family to run off and live in blissful ignorance with Royal. And my family fucking sucks.
Not that hers doesn’t. Besides Royal, I could leave the whole lot of them. There’s a reason I didn’t want to join them for Thanksgiving. I try to imagine a future with Royal, sitting around the dinner table with him, his two brothers who raped me, his sister who broke him in ways he will never heal from, his cold-fish mafia brother, his mother who abandoned him, and his father who pimped him out to land business deals.
Yeah, that’s going to be pleasant.
Maybe we can invite my lovely mother along for extra fun.
“He’s not here,” King says as we pull up to an office building with an empty parking lot.
“He’s not at the Slaughterpen or the stretch where Lo says he drag races, either,” I say, checking my phone as texts start coming through. “I’m asking them if they have any other ideas.”
I send Colt and Lo messages and include the fact that Magnolia is tailing us, since I told Colt I’d let him know if I involved her in anything.
“Dad’s not here, either,” Duke points out, adjusting his beanie and looking over at King, who’s in the passenger seat.
The oldest Dolce boy rakes his hand through his hair. “We had a conversation in New York,” he says. “I bet you anything he’s with Dad.”
“Baron?” I ask. “You know your dad best. Where would he go?”
“He probably went home,” Baron says, taking out his phone and texting, his fingers flying across the screen.
I want to ask if he’d hurt Royal, but there’s no point. He’s been hurting Royal for years, and he doesn’t give a single fuck.
Another text comes through, and I flash the screen at them. “He’s not at school.”
We sit in silence for a few seconds.
Seeing Gideon’s name on the screen snaps something into place, though, and I’m suddenly sure I know where they went.
“The mall,” I say. “He’s at the mall.”
Duke spins the wheel and slams on the gas, and we skid into a turn on the damp pavement and then barrel out of the parking lot. I shoot a group message to the others to tell them what’s been cleared and where we’re going next.
“Why would he be at the mall?” Crystal asks.
“It’s not the mall anymore,” I say. “It went out of business.”