Page 139 of Reluctantly You

I miss you.

He doesn’t respond.

It takes two days of silence for it to sink in. For the true horror of what’s happened to settle in my bones. For me to realize the truth I’ve been trying so hard to ignore.

I finally realize that I may have irrevocably broken what I slowly pieced together. That perhaps Mitchell won’t be coming back.

That maybe I’m not worth the fight.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Matt asks as he opens Mitchell’s front door. Mitch has been gone for three agonizing days. A moment of sheer panic had me planning to, once again, try breaking in, but Shiloh stopped me. A well-placed call to his brothers did the trick. One of them had a key.

“He’s gone,” I reply and step inside, taking in the house. It doesn’t look as if he abandoned it, but the missing cat and litter box are all I need to know. My heart skips a beat and I feel my heart sink.

He left. He fucking left me. Just like my dad.

No, he didn’t leave me. I pushed him away.

“He didn’t take his car,” Matt says, and I stare at him.

“Maybe he took a bus.”

“Or bought a new one,” Max replies as he peers into the fridge. “It’s empty. Probably threw shit out, which means he’s gonna be gone a while.”

I scrub a hand over my face, my chest clenching.

“Can you call Magnus and see if they’ve been in contact?”

“Why would he have contacted him and not us?”

“Because even though you’ve done better recently, you abandoned him,” I nearly shout, feeling only slightly bad at the admission. “You left him when he needed you the most. The only one who didn’t was Magnus.”

“Shit,” Max says and then punches something into his phone.

A moment later, Magnus’s voice sounds over the phone. “Hey, Max, what’s up?”

“You know where Mitch went?”

“Maybe, although I promised not to tell.”

“Shit,” I murmur and then sink back slightly when he says, “Gideon did a terrible thing and Mitch needs some time apart.”

Max and Matt turn their gazes toward me, and I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“He used him,” Magnus counters, and Max’s jaw clenches.

“I didn’t use him. He thought I did. He has nothing to do with my takeover of the company.”

Both Max and Matt seem to grow in size.

“I did offer to send Sem over to beat him up, but Mitch just wanted to go off quietly. Tell Gideon that he can go fuck himself. I’m not telling him where he went.”

Fuck, the psychologist told me the same thing.

“I can’t tell you where he is, Gideon. You know this.”

I’m losing my fucking mind.

“But he’s okay?” Matt asks, and I hear Magnus mutter that he is. He’s safe and happy, far away from me.

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