Page 96 of Forget Me Not

I shouldn’t have left her, but I wanted to grab her a drink like a gentleman and I could see she needed to sit for a minute to collect her thoughts.

Finally, the lights come on and everyone hoots and hollers, but just when I think I’m going to feel relief and find her, I only panic more when I see her mask lying on the floor next to the broken glasses.

“Rhea!” I scream at the top of my lungs, frantically searching the room for her. My eyes land on Heather sitting on a stool at the bar, chatting it up with Tyler. I head straight for her, pushing bodies left and right as I keep my eyes locked on her.

My hand reaches out like a claw as I grab her by the back of the neck, lifting her off the stool as I spin her around. I take her by the arm, holding her in place with my forceful fingers that dig into her skin. “Where is she?” I shout, my face red hot. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”

She tries to push me away, while I’m being pulled back by a group of men behind me, but I don’t let up.

“Who?” Heather asks, eyes wide in confusion. But I see behind the facade.

“Rhea! Where the fuck is she!?”

Playing dumb, she lifts her shoulders. “I have no idea where Rhea is. Last time I saw—”

“Shut up!” I screech. “Shut the fuck up and quit lying.”

Tyler flies over the bar like Superman and tries to position himself between Heather and me. “Get the fuck off her!”

“You,” I emphasize, “better mind your own fucking business. This is between me and Chloe.” Heather, or Chloe rather, tenses up, eyes wide in fear. “Yeah,” I scoff, leaning in and whispering the gritted words into her ear, “that’s right. I know your real name. I know everything about you. So you better talk or I’ll go to the police and tell them everything.”

“Okay,” she says, no longer fighting me off. She looks at the guys behind me, then to Tyler. “It’s okay. It’s just a misunderstanding.”

Pulling her by the arm, we move around tables and people until I bring her to a stop in the hall by the bathrooms. With a jerk of her arm, I push her against the wall. “Talk. Now,” I demand in an authoritative tone.

“How…how do you know?” she chokes out when she realizes she’s under my thumb and her cover has been blown.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is Rhea. Tell me where he took her.”

Tyler approaches us and I roll my neck, cracking my tense muscles. “Back the fuck off,” I sneer at him, speaking each word as if it’s its own sentence. “You don’t want to fuck with me right now, Farm Boy.”

“Let her go!” Tyler shouts. “Now!”

Ignoring him, I return to Chloe. “You’ve got thirty seconds to tell me why the hell he sent you, and where the hell he took her, or so help me God. I will destroy you,” my voice rises to an ear-splitting scream, “and everyone else in this fucking place.”

Chloe looks at Tyler with a downturned mouth before her fearful gaze returns to mine. “All I had to do was watch her and report everything back to him.” Her voice is a low whisper as she realizes she’s lost all her power. “I’m not a bad person, Alaric. I swear. I had no other choice.”

“I don’t give a fuck about who you are or what you’ve done. Tell. Me. Where. She’s. At!”

“He’s staying at a cabin in the mountains about thirty minutes from here. I’ve only been there once…”

I don’t give her the opportunity to finish her sentence as I drag her out the back door like a rag doll.

Tyler barks a few demands, but I turn to him, knowing he will understand. “Chloe here sold Rhea out to some really bad people and now she’s missing. Want to keep yelling at me and slow down the process of me getting to her in time?”

Tyler looks from Chloe to me. When she drops her head, refusing to meet his gaze, his face hardens, and he nods. “Go find her. Call if you need help or backup.”

Now that’s a friend I don’t mind for Rhea. Although his offer of help is quite hilarious for a farm boy.

Chloe cries like a fucking baby as I pull her through the parking lot to my car. She stumbles and loses her footing as we reach the passenger side, but my hold on her is relentless as I pull open the door and throw her ass inside. Slamming the door closed, I waste no time getting to the other side. I jump behind the wheel, start the engine, and peel out of the parking lot.

Once we’re on Main Street, I begin my interrogation. “Look. I don’t give a damn about you. You’re nothing to me. So don’t give me a sob story about how good of a person you are and how you didn’t want to do this, because I don’t fucking care.”

“But it’s true. I—”

“Shut the fuck up! I told you I don’t care.” I hit the steering wheel in pure frustration. “All I care about is Rhea. Was it Ian who took her?”

She nods slowly. “Yes.”

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