Page 38 of Your Fault

I dialed again.

“Nicholas, I’m at the airport and you’re not here. What’s going on?”

After leaving the message, I slipped my phone back into my jeans pocket. I turned to look at my mother, who couldn’t keep her hands off William, and then walked alongside Steve as we left the airport and headed for the car. Steve always knew where Nick was—he always knew where everyone was—that was his job as head of security for the Leister family.

“Do you know what’s up, Steve?” I asked, staring straight at him. I knew Nicholas trusted him. Anytime something happened, Nick called him, and he’d even sent Steve before when he couldn’t pick me up or he wanted to make sure I got home safe from somewhere.

Steve looked away, and I knew then that something had happened that no one wanted to tell me about. I grabbed his arm and forced him to look at me.

“What the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t get upset, Noah. Nicholas is okay. He’ll be in touch once you get home.”

I hadn’t even been back a half hour, and I wanted to strangle him. What was he playing at?

The trip home seemed eternal, especially because what I wanted most was to go to Nick’s apartment. I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it one bit. I knew why Steve didn’t want to tell me anything. It was getting late, and I was sure Nicholas wanted to me to stay at home that night… All sorts of images flashed through my head. Most of them bad.

It was dark by the time we got home. I wished I could see him there, imagined him there waiting for me, as if all this were just some sick joke. He hadn’t answered my calls. It was starting to worry me…or maybe piss me off; I still wasn’t sure.

“Noah, please, try to look happy. You’re coming back from a European vacation, not from an insane asylum.”

I was sure my mother was happy about all this. A part of her wanted to see how many times Nicholas could disappoint me because she wanted me to leave him. She had this idea that there was something that would be the last straw. She was wrong.

I went up to my room without answering. It wasn’t just Nicholas who hadn’t picked up. I’d tried Lion and Jenna as well. Finally, Nick picked up after letting it ring five times.

“Noah,” he said dryly.

“Where are you?”

I listened closely, but all I could hear was his breathing, deep breaths, as if he weren’t sure what to tell me. My heart was full of fear…an irrational fear, driven by the fact I had no idea what was going on.

“It’s okay, I apologize, it’s just that something came up, and I couldn’t leave.” His voice sounded sad—sad but also steely.

“Is everyone okay? Are you okay? Lion and Jenna wouldn’t pick up either,” I said, sitting down on the bed. The sound of his voice had calmed me slightly.

“I’m great.” I didn’t believe that. Something had happened, and he didn’t want to tell me what.

“I’m going to your apartment,” I said, getting up with determination.

“No.”

His voice was so cutting that I froze with my hand on the doorknob.

“Nicholas Leister, you will tell me right now what’s happening, or I swear to God I’ll pull out every hair on your head one by one.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood for this,” he said, taking a long time to reply. I didn’t care for that tone. “Stay home, and wait for me to call you.”

He hung up.

I looked at the phone as if it were the thing that had mistreated me. I dialed him again, hitting the screen so hard, I almost cracked it. Straight to voice mail.

Was he talking to someone? Who the hell could it be? Was he not picking up on purpose?

I reached into my nightstand, where I kept the keys to the Audi. But they were gone.

Was this some kind of joke?

I left my room and headed straight for the kitchen, opening the drawer where we kept the spares. None were there. My mother and William were nowhere in sight, and I didn’t even want to think about what they might be doing.

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