Ida refuses to leave and after a pause, her elbow is taken and she’s forcefully removed from Cruz’s home, leaving me in the long hallway with my heart racing.
What the fuck is going on tonight? What ever happened to the easy life? I should be chilling on a beach somewhere with a goddamn margarita in my hand, not trying to determine the difference between someone who kills for fun and someone who kills just to be a heartless, power-hungry asshole.
Fuck me in the ass sideways. I can’t take this world anymore.
My head spins with everything that’s just gone down over the past twenty minutes and something inside my brain reminds me that I should be racing upstairs to tell the boys what I know.
I put one foot in front of the other, my heart racing so fast that I struggle to concentrate on just one thing. I pass by Cruz’s mom who says something about champagne but I fly straight past her without a single glance, needing to free my mind from this mental torture.
Did that bitch really just tell me that she’ll kill her own flesh and blood just to keep me quiet? No. I must have heard that wrong because the very thing she said before that was about protecting him from me. What the ever-loving fuck? I don’t understand what just happened. Though one thing is clear, having her son’s child would be the end of her world as she knows it.
I break into the party and instantly start searching the room. My eyes flick from one corner to the next in a complete panic, searching for the guys, but my head is too messed up to even see straight.
“Winter?” King rushes out, appearing right in front of me. “Where the fuck have you been? What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, searching his eyes as I grip onto his arms with everything that I have. King holds me tightly and the way he looks at me is as though he’s staring at a wild animal. Knowing that I can trust him completely, I attempt to string a sentence together but it all comes out in a jumbled mess of mixed-up words. “I… she said … and then he … I—”
“Fuck,” King grunts, sliding his hands down my arms and gripping my hand. “Come on.”
He pulls me along and as he does, he glances across the room. I follow his gaze, watching as he looks to Grayson, then Cruz, and finally Carver.
He doesn’t nod or murmur a damn word, but just like that, the boys start moving, cutting across the room and following us out of the party.
King drags me through Cruz’s home until he steps into the family’s private living area and closes the door behind us. I instantly start pacing. “What the fuck is going on?” King demands, starting his interrogation before the others get here.
I shake my head. “The cellar … I was picking wine, or champagne, or whatever. Why don’t I know the difference between this shit?”
“Stay on track,” King tells me. “What happened?”
“Cruz’s dad,” I say, my head spinning and making me feel dizzy. “Ida … Carver’s mom … I told her I was pregnant with his kid and I—”
King’s mouth drops as a booming “The fuck?” sounds through the room. Carver barges through the door with Cruz and Grayson on his heels, his stare focused heavily on mine and somehow helping me to see straight. “You’re pregnant?”
“What?” I grunt. “No. I was just fucking with her.”
“With my mom?” Carver clarifies.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I stare at him blankly, wondering why the hell can’t he just read my mind and figure it all out for himself. “Because she’s a stuck-up bitch who demanded that I don’t see you anymore,” I explain. “She was trying to lock me in the cellar, but I beat her to it.”
Cruz moves across the room, his eyes narrowed. “You were in the cellar?”
I groan, feeling like I’ve already been over this part, but maybe I haven’t. I don’t know anymore. “Yes,” I grumble. “I was in the cellar and Ida was trying to lock me in, but I got out just before she could. Then she was all like ‘you owe me a conversation’ so I let her have it, but she started talking shit about how I’m trash, and how she’s going to kill mine and Carver’s unborn baby.”
“The fuck are you talking about?” Carver demands. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Just shut up and listen,” I snap, sick of being interrupted. I let out a big breath and take a second to try and focus. “She said that she stands by what Royston did and that she intends to follow through on their plan.”
I look back at Carver, feeling myself finally beginning to think straight, the more of the story that comes out. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “But when I threatened that I was going to tell you this, she said that she’d slit your throat and make me watch just like your father did to my parents.”