“James?”
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m going to like it too.”
I kissed the top of his head.
“James?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t wait too long, okay?”
“Okay, Aleks, I won’t.”
“Good,” Aleks said on a sigh.
“James?”
“Yeah,” I said, unable to stop the smile that spread across my mouth. My name on his lips was heaven.
“You’ll always come for me, won’t you, James?”
I hugged him tighter. “Always,” I assured him.
“Okay.”
We were both silent for a long time and I was sure he was out until he suddenly whispered, “I’m sorry, James.”
“For what?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. I assumed he was apologizing yet again for cutting my arm with the knife, but it wasn’t until I woke up a few hours later to a very cold, very empty bed that I knew what he was really sorry for.
Because lying on the pillow where his head should have been was a note with just nine neatly written words on it.
Nine words that sent pure terror ripping through my system all at once and had me screaming Aleks’s name in denial.
It was my choice to go with him, James.
Chapter 14
Aleks
“He’ll be here soon, Aleks. Everything will be all right,” Con said from where he was sitting on an armchair that looked like it cost more than my brother’s car. I was sitting on a couch made of the same fabric, so I was afraid to move for fear that dirt would transfer from my clothes to the fine material.
I wanted to ask Con how he was so sure he was coming, but I was too afraid to open my mouth.
Because then I might ask the three men staring at me like I was some bizarre-looking animal at the zoo to take me home… or back to that little house in the middle of nowhere so I could get rid of that note and just crawl back into Vaughn’s arms.
What the hell had I done?
“No,” I whispered so the men around me wouldn’t hear. “I did the right thing.”
“Did you say something?”
I jumped when the man named King spoke.
“Um, no, sir… sorry,” I croaked.
I chanced a glance at him and saw that he was watching me with a mix of pity and understanding. He was a really big guy… bigger than both Con and Luca. He wasn’t classically handsome and had lighter features, but he scared me the most. A dark green T-shirt was pulled across his broad chest. His arm muscles were stretching the thin material to the brink and I could see a tattoo on his bicep, another on his lower arm and even on his hand.
I told myself just to take deep breaths. Vaughn would come. He had to.
Unless I’d angered him so much that he wanted nothing more to do with me. He’d said he’d always come, but maybe always didn’t really mean the same thing when you defied someone.
“Can I get you anything to eat or drink, Aleks?” Con asked. If I hadn’t been so nervous I would have smiled at how the man always seemed to be wanting to feed me.
I shook my head. “No, thank you.”
No way was I going to throw up in front of these men, and that was exactly what would happen if I tried to put anything in my belly at this point.
Where was Vaughn?
Luca and Con had said he’d probably be right behind us… that it would be only a couple of hours at the most until he arrived. But it had already been three hours since we’d arrived at the too-big house. The drive to Vegas had taken a couple of hours and the flight had taken almost five, so it was nearing the twelve-hour mark since I’d last seen Vaughn.
“He never picked up the ticket,” Luca said as he hung up his phone, his face pulled into a mask of irritation.
“Ticket?” I asked.
Luca sat down in the other armchair. To say I’d shocked the man when I’d found him early this morning and told him I’d help him find his son was an understatement. The man continued to look at me like he couldn’t believe I was there.
I couldn’t believe it either.
“I left a ticket for him at the airport. It was an open ticket so he could grab the next available flight to New York as soon as he realized we were gone. I had Con text him the information when we left Vegas.”
I nodded. I’d finally discovered we were in Nevada when Luca, Con, and I had left the house in the early morning hours. We’d flown out of the city on a private jet, but I hadn’t thought to ask where we were going or how Vaughn would get there. Admittedly, I’d been too numb to do much but sit there and stare out the window. It had taken every ounce of control I’d had not to lose myself to a blackout.