Bound by Rapture (23 page)

I heard voices behind me, Cole’s voice was one of them, but I ignored it and focused on Elaine. 

“I’m smiling because it’s fucking ridiculous. You know who did it. It was that stupid, hick ex-boyfriend of yours.”

“Kevin is dead.”

“What?” Chris asked, sounding shocked.

“Yes.” I didn’t even look at him, keeping my glare on Elaine. “He died over a month ago, hours before Mandi did.”

“You have to be kidding…” Chris said. I glanced at him. He had his long hair pulled back in a ponytail as he ran his hand over his face. “They found his body? Where?”

“He was in some field somewhere between here and Sunder.”

“Fuck…that’s terrible. Are you okay?” His green eyes showed concern.

“I’m fine,” I muttered. 

“Well, I didn’t do any of this shit,” Elaine added.

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to Cole and I knew he would probably be here, shoved up your ass like always. Plus, I wanted to show him what he’s been missing, and believe me—” She winked. “I know he’s been missing it.”

Before I realized what was happening, I had Elaine pinned to the ground and was swinging my fist at her face. “He’s mine, you stupid bitch!” I got one hit in before she gripped my wrist with one of her hands. I swung at her with my other one, but she twisted away at the last second. “And now you’re gonna pay for everything you’ve done.” I managed to twist one of my wrists out of her grasp, but before I could swing at her again, she raked her long, red nails down my chest, slicing my skin open. I cried out in pain, just as someone’s arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me off her.

Then I noticed the commotion behind me. Cole and Vic were faced off and Vic’s lip was bleeding. 

“You think you can just do whatever you want with what’s mine?” he asked. “You think you can fuck around with my girl on
my
fucking stage?”

“She’s not yours!” Vic hissed. 

“No, stop!” Chris ran forward and got between the two men. “You’re drunk, Vic. You don’t want to get your ass kicked.”

“I’m not drunk, you dick.” He tried to shove Chris out of the way but stumbled to the side instead. 

“Yes, you are.” Chris stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Vic, but again, Vic shoved him away and stumbled toward their bedroom. 

“Fuck all of you.” He slammed the door behind him. 

Chris sighed and followed after him.

“Well, I’m getting out of here. You guys are so fucking dramatic,” Elaine huffed, pushing her matted hair out of her face.

“You’re not going anywhere.” I stepped between her and the door. 

“She’s right.” Cole stepped up beside me. “Why did you come here in the first place?”

She tossed me a glare filled with malice and rubbed the cheek I’d punched. “I’ve been calling you and you haven’t answered. And I got this.” She stepped over to the couch, snatched up a black clutch, and pulled out a piece of paper.

“I thought you came here to see if Cole missed you.” I sneered. “Or maybe you came here to finish the job? That’s what it was, right? You wanted to kill me off so you could have him.” The idea made sense. It bounced around my head until I wanted to fucking punch her lights out. 

“Where did you get this?” 

I jerked my gaze away and glanced at the paper. 

I can’t make him love me. But you can make him love you. Do it before it gets him killed.

“What the hell?” I all but shrieked. “What the fuck does that mean? Who is sending this shit?” Panic bubbled up inside me. I sucked in a deep breath, but it didn’t help. “Y-you made this up. You wrote that note.” I pointed my finger at Elaine.

She shook her head. “I didn’t. I don’t need a fucking fake death threat to get my man back.”

“He’s not your man!” I shouted.

“Baby, it’s okay. Relax.”

I shook my head back and forth frantically. “I can’t. I can’t calm down, Cole. If she’s telling the truth, what does that mean? That it’s your mom?” I sat down on the couch, feeling sick to my stomach. I was completely out of control. I was lost. My life and everything in it was spinning further and further into the haunted unknown. Just when I thought I knew what the fuck was going on, I found myself even more lost than before. 

“Look, I know you both hate me, but I’m not making this up. It’s why I came, to show you the letter when you wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“Whatever,
what-fucking-ever
, that’s why you wore that skimpy ass dress then, huh?”

“Think what you want, Julia. I don’t give a fuck. But that was left at the house.”

“My house?” Cole asked.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes. I’ve been staying there.”

“I told you to get out of there.”

“Yeah, since when do I listen?”

“Wait, where did they leave it?” he hissed.

“It was taped to the front door.”

“We’ve got him.”

I glanced up at Cole as if he’d grown two heads. “What do you mean?”

He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I have that place hardwired with cameras. Haven’t had any men there since I haven’t been home, but the surveillance system is always on, and there’s a camera pointed at the front door.”

He started flipping through his phone when it started ringing in his hand. “Yeah?” he answered. The color drained from his face.

“What’s wrong?” I jumped up off the couch. 

He held out his hand to silence me and cocked his head as if he was listening really hard to what the person was saying on the other end. I glanced at Elaine and she looked as bewildered as me. 

“That can’t be right,” he said harshly. “You’re wrong, Leon!”

I frowned. Leon was his closest bodyguard outside of Randy, and he’d worked the front desk here at the apartments while Cole stalked me. He’d been with us in New York for about two weeks before Cole sent him to guard his mom and keep an eye on her in case she did anything weird. “Fuck! I’m coming.” He shoved his phone in his pocket.

“What is it? What’s going on?”

Cole looked down at me, his face paler than I’d ever seen it. “Someone’s hurt my mom.”

“What?” 

“Oh my God!” Elaine screeched. “Is she okay? Where is she?”

He didn’t say anything, but turned on his heel.

“I’m coming with you.” I followed right behind him. 

“No.”

“What do you mean no?” 

He stopped when he got to the door and spun on his heel. “You’re staying here with Randy where I know you’ll be safe. I can’t lose you, too.”

“Lose me?” I stared at the collar of his shirt. “Is she—”

“I don’t know, Julia. I don’t fucking know.” He looked like he was going to be sick. All I wanted to do was pull him against me. “Just stay here with Randy. Please.” 

I would have forced his hand and made him take me, but the pleading in his dark blue eyes stopped me. “Okay.” The word sounded like it came from someone else, a foreigner thousands of miles away from my body. 

And then he was gone, and Elaine was right on his heels chasing after him. I wanted to run after them, demand she stay, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead I collapsed on the floor by the door.

Someone hurt his mother. Mandi’s dead. Kevin’s dead. Elaine’s been here all night. There wasn’t anyone else. There weren’t any other options. If Elaine didn’t do it and it wasn’t his mom…then who did it?

TWENTY

Julia.

“You okay?”

I glanced up to see Vic crouching over me. “What?”

“You were sleeping sitting up against the door, are you okay?”

“I was?” I blinked hard and rubbed my face. “What time is it?”

Vic glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. “Just a little after seven in the morning.”

“Oh.” I pushed to my feet, staggering, and Vic grabbed my arm. 

“Are you okay?”

“I-I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Has Cole called you?” 

“No.”

Over the last month I’d never gotten my phone back, I’d just used Cole’s phone when I needed it. Now I had no way to contact him, no way to know if everything was okay. 

Is his mom dead?

That very thought gave me chills. What if she was? What would Cole do? I knew he hated his mother, but he also loved her. Their love-hate relationship definitely went both ways.  

“Something bad is going on, Vic. Worse than I thought.” I glanced up at him and noticed his eyes were red, his usually perfect hair a disheveled mess. Dried blood was caked at the corner of his lips where Cole had punched him. “Are
you
okay?”

He snorted and moved toward the kitchen. “Do I look like I’m okay?” He pulled a glass out of the pantry and filled it with water. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and the muscles in his back rippled as he moved. His chest was smooth and flawless, leaner than Cole’s.

“You look like you have the hangover from hell.”

He tipped his glass at me. “Always the honest friend.” 

I tried to muster up some sort of smile, but my lips refused. “I’m scared, Vic.”

He set the empty glass down on the counter with a thud. “You shouldn’t have left with him.”

I sighed and sat down on the couch. “Just give it up. I’m not scared of Cole.”

“You should be. You saw the things he’s done.”

“I said to give it up. I don’t want to talk about Cole. He isn’t the problem here.”

“Isn’t he?” Vic sat down beside me. “Your life was great until he came into it.” He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to flatten it.

“He’s not. Someone is out to get me…and I don’t know why.”

“No one was out to get you before you met him.”

“Just stop.” I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.

“Do you remember that first time we fucked at Rapture X?”

I glanced over at him with narrowed eyes. “What? Why?”

“You were wearing that blue sequin Betty LaRue gown. It was plastered on your body like a fucking glove, it fit so perfectly.”

I snorted. “I like how you remember this shit. I was so nervous I couldn’t even tell you anything about that night.” 

“You looked amazing.”

“Thanks…” I was perplexed as to where this was going.

Silence stretched out between us as Weasley jumped up on the couch next to me. I had never been so happy to see my kitty. He rubbed his orange head against my hand, demanding attention, and a true smile sprung to my lips. 

“I took care of Weasley while you were with
him
.”

“Thank you.”

“And you know how I feel about cats.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Oh, stop. I know you love Weasley. Remember that time I came home and you were both laying on the couch together watching TV?” Weasley had been right in the middle of Vic’s chest snoozing while he flipped through channels with one hand and petted his head with the other. 

“That was a one-time thing, and it was only because we were both celebrating the fact that I had thrown out that ugly sweatshirt you always wore.”

“Which I promptly dug out of the trash and wore for two days with egg shells stuck to it, to prove a point!” He had been completely disgusted at the sight of me and chose to stay in his room both days.

“Those were good times,” he said quietly. “I want that back.”

I hated how much I wanted that, too. Things had been simple. I got up, I went to work on the weekends, I came home and slept all week. Vic and I would go out for coffee, or just watch TV. There were moments when I thought life was boring, but now boring sounded more appealing than anything. 

I rubbed my hands back and forth on the tops of my thighs that were covered in black yoga pants. “Yeah, things were easy.” But even with that simplicity, I didn’t have Cole, not really. He was there, I just hadn’t known it yet.

“We can have that back.” He scooted closer to me on the couch and I laid my head on his shoulder, my body practically sagging from the weight of everything pressing down on me.

“No, we can’t. But that’s okay. You’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

“No, I mean it, Jewel. We can have it back. All of it.”

I lifted my head up and frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

“We can go somewhere, anywhere, we can start over, just the two of us.”

“The two of us?” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would we leave? What about Chris…and Cole?”

He stared at me intently. “What about them?”

“What do you…what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want what we had back. I want our friendship, the flawless moments we shared. When we were together we could do anything.”

“Anything,” I repeated. 

“Yes, just think about it.” He covered my hand with his. “We had such good chemistry that people paid thousands of dollars to come and watch us fuck. Think of how significant that is!”

“Chemistry.”

“Yes, Jewel. You know we have it.”

I stared at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was joking, but the intensity in his green eyes showed he wasn’t. “What?” I said dumbly.

“Jewel.” He turned toward me, grabbing my other hand. “The things that went on between us, that’s once in a lifetime kind of shit.”