Shaking my head, I refocused on why I was inside his room. It was pretty basically furnished with a bed, desk, and lounging chair in the corner that had a shirt thrown over it. All the furnishings were black. Big surprise.
Rushing for the desk first, I rummaged through the drawers, searching for what, I didn’t know. He had his laptop on top of the desk, along with a picture of him and another girl. They bore a similar resemblance that made me think she might be a relative rather than a girlfriend. A sister, perhaps?
The old Micah would have used her for information any way I could have gotten it out of her. I wasn’t proud of the things I’d done in my past, but I also didn’t regret them—not all of them, anyway. I had a few things I would love to do over—one in particular.
As I flipped through a stack of papers and notebooks, my elbow hit a book on the side of the desk, sending it thumping to the carpet. I bent down to pick it up and noticed something had slipped out between the pages. It looked like a photo. How fucking unoriginal hiding shit in a book.
I plucked the book off the floor and tugged at the end of the photo, pulling it out completely. I sucked in a sharp breath. Surprise quickly turned to boiling fury as I stared down at a face I knew well.
“What the fuck is this?” My fingers pressed hard into the corner of the photo.
Why does this asshole have a picture of my girlfriend?
I took a moment to study Mads’s face and the background, trying to place when and where this had been taken. It was an older picture; I could tell by her hair color and style that it was at least two or three years ago. She smiled, but her face was angled away from the camera, and it made me wonder if she knew someone had taken her picture. It had been snapped in front of her house.
Had Sterling captured this moment? Was this the night he’d been talking about? How did he knowmyMads? And why the fuck did he have this picture stashed away like a secret piece of treasure?
It was time for Mads and me to have a little talk.
Many scenarios had played through my head when I decided to come here tonight, but this… this had not been one of them.
I still didn’t know what it meant, if anything, but my gut told me not to take this lightly or ignore Sterling.
It took all my self-control to not crumble the picture in my fist or take it with me. I ground my teeth to the point of pain as I tucked it back in between the pages of the book, wanting to leave no trace of someone having ransacked his room.
My jaw locked as I replaced the book on the corner of the desk and moved back toward the door. I’d seen enough for one night. And I honestly didn’t care what else the fraternity might be up to unless it had anything to do with Mads.
Then it was game on, bitches.
Brock kept his eyes down the hallway as he asked, “Did you find anything?”
I clicked the door softly shut behind me. “The bastard has a picture of Mads.”
That drew his attention, and his gaze swung to me, brows pinched together. “What kind of picture?”
“Not a nude or he’d be fucking dead already, but it’s from a few years ago. Maybe junior year.”
He handed me back my beer bottle. “Why would he have an old picture of Mads?”
“Exactly. I intend to find out.” I tossed back the bottle, draining it, but the alcohol did little to ease the burning inside me. I’d been itching for a fight before, but now I fucking craved it. I had to hit something or someone.
“Fucking hell,” Brock cursed under his breath, sensing the fury pounding inside me. If it had been a photo of Josie, he would have felt the same. He forked a hand through his dark hair. “So much for thinking college was going to be chill.”
“Tell me about it.” I wasn’t thrilled with the turn of events either. I had not been expecting this. My emotions were reeling.
He clasped a hand on my shoulder. “We need to get you out of here before you do real damage.”
“Probably a good idea.” I dropped my empty bottle on the floor in front of Sterling’s room. It was too much to hope he would step on it when he took his drunk ass to bed. God, I was in a fucking foul mood. Only two things could cure the turmoil within me—a fight or Mads. “You think the girls are still up?” I asked, shoving my way past the bathroom line, which had grown longer while I’d been inside Sterling’s room. It extended beyond the stairway now.
“Only one way to find out.”
“I like the way you think.” Jogging down the stairs, I thought Mads and some fresh air were the better options, and I was kind of damn proud of myself for controlling my impulses. The urge to do physical harm still radiated inside me, but the thought of Mads’s lips sparked a different fire in my gut.
Eagerness spurred me forward down the hallway. We passed the game room again, and I glanced in, dying to run into Sterling. I told myself if I made it through the house without seeing his mug, I’d save the fight for another day, despite my fists begging for confrontation. But if I saw his smug face right now, I’d beat the bloody shit out of him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Brock said, raising his voice so it carried over the music and drunk nonsense, “and you need to keep your cool. We need answers. Then we kick his ass.”
Brock was right. Of course he was right. He was good at thinking ahead, plotting and planning. I didn’t have as much discipline, not when my blood pounded in my ears, and especially when it came to Mads. My judgment became clouded. For as long as I could remember, she was the one person who could turn me inside out and not even try.