Page 55 of Royal
“And would you look at that?” Ireland narrows her eyes on me, studying my legs. “She’s gone and messed up her knees again.” She shakes her head. “Don’t try to make excuses. If you’re going to whore yourself out, you should do it in your own bed. No need to run off into the woods like an animal.”
I swallow, hating how close she’s come to hitting the mark. “Is there a reason why you’re letting all your mean girl fucking bullshit out on me?” This is too much on top of everything else. My blood simmers as it streaks through my veins.
Savannah crosses her arms over her chest, her brow arching. Her lips twist into a cruel smile. Ignoring my question, she steps closer, getting right in my face as her venomous words spill out. “Unless that’s her kink.” She gives me a cheeky little grin. “Then by all means, you do you, baby. Or should I say… do whatever stud keeps putting you on your knees.”
My hand flies out so fast, I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried. It lands on Savannah’s cheek with a sharp crack. Stunned, she steps back, her mouth dropping wide open. Ireland’s dark eyes bug out, and she takes a step away from me as well. “You’ll pay for that.” She ushers Savannah into her room, flaming red cheek and all.
“Fucking sorority bitches,” I hiss under my breath, then force my muscles to move me down the hall. I let myself into my room, then, leaning against the closed door, I slide down to my ass and curl my arms around my legs.
A few minutes later when I finally stop feeling completely sorry for myself, I look up and notice there’s an envelope on my pillow. My brows pinch tightly together. That means someone has been in my room, despite me locking it. Trying not to panic, I take a few deep breaths. If something arrived for me while I was away, I do know Cassie has a master key that opens all the rooms in the house. Maybe she left it for me where she was sure I’d see it.
Stiffly, I rise to my feet and cross the room to my bed. Opening the envelope, I frown. It’s a photo. Of my parents. Asleep in their bed. And Mom is wearing her new anniversary ring. So that means—
A shudder runs straight down my spine. What kind of shit is this?
TWENTY-SEVEN
WILDER
I’m lyingon my bed reading a graphic novel when there’s a knock on the door, immediately followed by Beckham poking his head in. “I, uh, I think we have a problem. Well, it’s not really a problem. But it could be useful to us. To Royal.” He winces a bit, gripping the back of his neck with one hand and tugging. He’s not his usual self. He’s twitchy. “It’s… yeah.” Giving himself a shake, he comes fully into the room and shuts the door behind him.
I narrow my gaze on him as I slide a bookmark between the pages and set my reading material aside before sitting up. “Does this problem have to do with whatever-the-fuck chaos I heard outside an hour ago?”
“You could definitely say that. I got the lowdown from Grossman.” He nods, coming over to sit beside me. Usually, he’d flop himself down and wriggle his brows at me. That’s how I know something is up, and, for once, I’m not referring to his dick. “Seems like something must have happened between Royal and Echo tonight. Apparently, she came storming up to the front door, a complete fucking mess, with daggers shooting out her eyeballs.”
Our front door?“And she asked for Royal?”
“No. Never got the chance because Davis answered the door. But I would assume that’s who she wanted to speak to if she wasn’t looking for her brother.”
I let out a low whistle. “Shit.”
“Grossman said he’d come to the door right behind Davis, so he saw the whole thing. Her brother being on the other side of the door threw her off big-time. She stormed back down the steps and into the yard.” He clears his throat. “Said something about not wanting to deal with him.”
I groan. “Jesus. Can you imagine if you or I had been down there, and she’d seen us?”
“Yeah. Would’ve been bad. Real bad. We aren’t nearly ready to spring Beckham and Wilder on her.” Beck works his jaw back and forth, and I know our heads are in the same place—contemplating the fury that would have struck us down had she discovered our deceit.
I gesture to my key fob on the nightstand. “Royal was hell-bent on finding her earlier, and it sounds like he must have fuckin’ hunted her down. He borrowed my truck. I don’t claim to know what’s in his head, but he was agitated as fuck.” Shaking my head, I let out a sigh. “Anyway, he dropped the key off a little while ago. I don’t know where he went from there. His room, maybe?”
Beckham taps his finger over his lips as he gets a faraway look on his face. I wait for him to process whatever he’s thinking about. Finally, he sighs, shaking his head slowly before he murmurs, “To be honest, I think we should let him do his thing for the time being. I’m more concerned about her right now.” His soulful blue eyes connect with mine. “Wilder, whatever happened… I think she held most of her emotions in check until she got to her room. I, uh…” He looks down, taking my hand and pulling it onto his thigh, palm up. He traces his fingertips along the lines on my hand and, at first glance, he appears to be staring at what he’s doing, but I’ve come to realize it’s more like he’s concentrating. It’d weirded me out the first time he grabbed my hand to do it, but not so much anymore.
“You went to watch her again, didn’t you?”
He wrenches his gaze away from our hands to meet mine. “Well, I heard something going down, and I saw her take off for TZE. I checked in with Grossman to find out what the fuck, then fucking ran so I could have a look.” He inhales sharply. “I thought—” His eyes crash shut as he shakes his head.
I grasp his hand, stopping his manic movements. “I didn’t mean it was a bad thing for you to have looked. Tell me what you saw.”
“She’s a fucking mess. Physically and emotionally. It was hard to see her like that.” He takes a few breaths, then shifts, digging his phone out of his pocket. “Here, see for yourself.” He slaps his phone on my thigh, and I grab it, then hold it in front of his face to open it. I side-eye him, feeling like he needs a tiny bit of levity. “Royal didn’t manage to fuck your face up so badly that your phone won’t open.”
A small smile curves his lips, and I shoot him a wink before I thumb open his photos. Scanning through the ones he’s taken in the last hour, something reaches into my guts and twists them around. Echo looks so fragile, balled up on the floor right in front of her door. And what that burly bastard Herschel had mentioned to Beck had been exactly what I’m seeing. It makes my chest clench to see the dirt on her knees and shins, smudges all over her arms, and even some on her face. It doesn’t take much for me to imagine what happened when he caught her. But what’s worse than any of that is the look of despair and misery in her eyes in the few photos Beckham had captured after she’d pulled her hands away from her face.
“Shit. Okay.” I exhale carefully, then glance to the side. Beckham’s teeth have sunk so far into his lip, the surrounding skin has turned white—so white I can’t imagine it’s not painful. I reach over, grasping his chin. My brow furrows as I stare down at his mouth. When he finally releases his lip, I nod. “What do you want to do?”
His chest rises on a rather desperate inhale. “I was hoping you could text her. Since you went all protective on her and gave her your phone number. It wouldn’t be so strange for you to check in on her, would it?”
“I guess not.” I hand his phone back to him before leaning over and plucking mine from the charger. “Okay. Let’s see if she responds.” I pull up the text message thread between us and tap out a message. I show Beckham before I hit send.
Hey, girl.
