Savage Little Lies (Court Legacy 2)

I stayed steady. I checked myself. I had to because if I did anything else in that moment, my voice wouldn’t have been the only thing to fucking crack.

“I couldn’t help it,” he rasped. My hands were braced over his shoulders, and he grabbed them. “She was in my thoughts. My only thoughts most days.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing her, and the drawings became the only way I could see her.” He raised a hand. “You said I couldn’t trust her, and I didn’t know if I could trust her.” He swallowed. “The drawings were all I had. Even if I couldn’t trust her, I at least had those. I just found her, bro, and I had to have a way to see her.”

Found her?

Ares was breaking down at this point, his hands gripping mine to fucking hell. He dropped to his knees, and I went with him.

“Ares.” I made him look at me. “What do you mean found her?”

The color had bled from him, like he truly was on the brink of a crash. He faced me, his nostrils flaring. “I have to tell you something impossible, and once I do, you have to help me find her. We can’t lose her, man. I can’t lose her. Not again.”

I had no words, my buddy squeezing my shoulders.

“It’s her,” he said, nodding. “It’s her, and I don’t know how. I don’t, but it is her. I swear to God it is. I even have proof. DNA.”

I gripped his hands. “Who?”

And then he said a name, one I hadn’t heard in years. The name had been buried, gone, and it had to be because too much hurt surrounded it.

My buddy and I had too many losses in our lives, too much heartache. The loss of Charlie and my grandparents before that had placed me in anguish, but at least, I’d gotten to know them. Ares’s hurt was one of the unknown. His was a what-if. He’d never gotten to know the person he lost.

He’d never even been graced with a memory.

Chapter Forty

Sloane

“This is ridiculous,” my brother proclaimed. Sitting up on the bed, he picked up his phone. “I’m calling Callum.”

Well, if he found him, he needed to let me know.

I’d been trying for the last two hours.

I wanted to know if he’d actually purchased the home he’d talked about, and if so, if the place were in any type of condition we could crash at. I couldn’t go back home.

I’d given Ares the codes.

I didn’t think Ares would hurt me, but he did have a problem, and I didn’t feel comfortable going to a place he had access to. He’d basically been blowing up my phone since I’d left his house, saying I needed to call him and shit. His texts all said the same thing. He needed to talk to me and explain, but there was no fucking way he could explain stalker shit. He was fucking crazy, so being at my house tonight wasn’t an option.

Contacting Callum would be easier. I didn’t currently know where he was on the globe, but he wasn’t in town, so if he had a house, my brother and I could chill out there.

However, this plan went belly up when I couldn’t get a hold of him and Plan B had been this—a motel. I found Bru and me the quickest one I could find and used the credit card Callum had given me for food, general necessities, and emergencies. If this wasn’t an emergency, I didn’t know what was.

My brother tapped on his phone, and by the grace of God, he hadn’t fought me much on coming here. I’d told him Ares and I had an argument, and I wasn’t going back to the house for him to roll up and get in my face about it. Once Bru heard that, he hadn’t been happy and immediately wanted to drive back to Ares’s place. He had no choice but to go with me since I’d been behind the wheel at the time, though.

Bru’s counter from there was to call Dorian. He wanted to tell him to check his friend, and though I agreed with that, I refused that option too. Dorian himself had called and texted me many times, but I couldn’t talk to him. Not about this. This was…

I forced out a breath, watching as my brother’s call to Callum must have gone to voicemail. He huffed. “No answer.”

Just like me. I scrubbed into my hair. “Well, we’re staying here, then.”

“Okay, well, what about tomorrow?”

I shrugged, and he groaned.

He gripped the bed. “This is stupid. You and Wolf need to figure this shit out.” He tossed a pillow. “I’m not trying to sleep in this roach motel.”

He was completely overexaggerating. The place wasn’t a roach motel, but it wasn’t a five-star hotel either.