by Mae Doyle
“Okay.” All of our glasses were almost empty, but I picked mine up anyway. The boys followed and I held mine up for a toast. “To Brett. To us. To getting rid of Amelia.”
“To Brett,” Jackie said, lightly tapping his glass against mine.
“To being back together again.” Kaleb tapped our glasses and swallowed his juice before putting his glass back down on the tray. “Now, let us tell you the few things that we’ve found out.”
As it turns out, finding out information on someone who is supposed to be dead is just as hard as it sounds. I was glad that I’d asked the rogues to work on that for me, since they had access to their families and friends outside Taylor Prep. I simply didn’t have the wide group of people to turn to for help like they did.
“There’s a rumor going around that Brett has been moved to an old house not that far from here. He’s living there with his mom and they have a slew of servants coming in and out of the house, so it’s almost impossible to get a glimpse of him.” Kaleb paused for a moment and I interrupted.
“Then how do we even know that he’s there? Do we trust the person who told you this information or do you think that it may be bogus?” As much as I wanted to believe that they had found something out about where Brett may be, I also didn’t want to get my hopes up. The thought of having them crushed if we found out that he wasn’t actually there made me feel sick.
“Well, we don’t, not for sure. That’s the crappy part, but I really trust the person who told me this.” Kaleb nodded at Jackie. “Jackie may have found out some things that back this theory up.”
I turned to Jackie, who cleared his throat and nodded. “When Kaleb told me about the possibility of Brett being kept out of his house in another house with servants, I reached out to my old driver.”
“Your driver?” I interrupted.
“Yeah, he drove me until I came here. Great guy. Really trustworthy, and we kinda became friends. So, when I called him, I asked him if he’d heard of any movement at old empty houses around here and of any new clients needing full staff. It’s pretty rare for anyone to hire a full staff all at once.”
“Usually they just replace one or two for problems,” Kaleb interjected. “Hiring a butler, cook, chef, driver, cleaning crew, gardener…you don’t do that all at once. It’s a clear sign that someone just moved to the area or some real shit went down at their old house.”
Normally, I would want to know what kind of shit would have to go down for a family to hire an all-new staff, but now was not the time. Instead of dwelling on that, no matter how interesting it was, I forged forward.
“So your driver said that someone just hired an all-new staff for a home? Did they say who it was or where the home is located?” Even though I knew that it was a bit of a long shot, I couldn’t help but get excited. If we had any idea where he was then we could find him.
Jackie grinned at me and first the first time all morning, I felt my spirits lift. “It’s close, Rosita. Really close. The house is just half an hour from here. We could get there, no problem.”
“But we don’t know that it’s him.” Kaleb reached out and touched my shoulder to get my attention. I turned him, only then realizing that I’d been staring at Jackie with my mouth slightly open. “It’s good to hope, Rose, but we don’t want to get our hopes up and get hurt. It may be Brett, but it – ”
“It may not.” I finished his sentence for him and sighed. “But what if it is, you guys? What if he’s that close to us and we just have to go find him? How do we do it?”
None of us spoke for a moment. We were all thinking through the logistics of not only hiring a driver, but also getting close enough to the house to see if it were Brett.
“We have to try.” I grabbed both of their hands and gave them each a big squeeze. “You guys know it as well as I do. If there’s even a slim chance that Brett is there, then we have to try.”
“We’ll try, Rosita,” Jackie promised me. “Let us figure out the logistics. You just be ready.”
Chapter 9
It took two weeks for them to figure out the logistics. During that time, I kept my head down, walked with them everywhere, and did my best to avoid Amelia.
It wasn’t easy. As much as I knew that I should avoid her to stay safe, part of me wanted to lash out at her.
I should have been lashing out at the council, but seeing as I couldn’t find them yet, Amelia was easier. That, and she was a complete and utter bitch.
“Got big plans for the weekend, Rose? Maybe gonna sleep around like the little whore that you are?” Amelia sidled up next to me in the dining hall. The boys were already sitting with Maggie and Harper and waiting on me, but I’d gotten caught up in line waiting for some fresh baked sweet potatoes to be put out.
That’s how she got me.
Even though I could have easily reached out and touched her, I turned my body as far away from her as possible. My ears still ached from our last interaction out in the quad, and while I didn’t think that she’d be so stupid as to attack me in front of everyone in the dining hall, I didn’t put anything past her.
She was crazy.
“I asked you a question, whore.” She jagged her finger into my ribs to get my attention, but I just gritted my teeth and ignored her. It was hard, but I couldn’t play into her hands.
When the sweet potatoes were set out, I grabbed one, but Amelia yanked the tongs away from me before I could put them back. She clamped them down on my wrist and leaned forward, her face just inches from me. I could feel her breath on my cheek and I shivered, but I refused to pull away.
I wasn’t going to let her know that I was scared of her.
“Listen, you fucking murderous whore. I know that you’re doing everything you can to keep your little boy toys with you all the time, but if I ever catch you on your own…it’s over. The council wants you gone and they just can’t understand why you won’t leave.”
My blood stilled and my breathing slowed. I had no idea that Amelia knew the council well enough for them to be passing information on to her. It gave me chills, but it also gave me an idea.
“You know the council? You a part of it, or are you too stupid for them to let you on?” She had the tongs clamped so tightly on my wrist that I couldn’t pull it away from her, but that didn’t mean I had to stand there and take it from her.
“I’m not stupid, Rose. You’re the one who’s too damn stupid to do the right thing for everyone around her. Remember: if it weren’t for you – ”
“Brett would still be alive, yeah, I know. You’ve told me that a thousand times.” It didn’t even make me sad to say it, though, which was refreshing, but that was because I knew the truth and she didn’t.
Even if she were a part of the council, which I wasn’t convinced of, I didn’t think that she was privy to all of their information. It would be hard for anyone, even a psycho like Amelia, to walk around pretending that Brett was dead when she really knew that he was still alive.
Right?
Honestly, I didn’t know who I could trust anymore. Just my boys. I had to trust them if I was going to make it out of here in one piece and find the other man I loved.
She finally let go of my wrist and I walked away from her without looking back. My eyes were on my boys. Jackie had told me earlier when walking me to class that he and Kaleb had come up with something, and I couldn’t wait to hear what it was.
“Rogues. You have something for me?” I put my tray down on the table and scooted close to Kaleb. His thigh was pressing into mine and he snaked his arm around my waist to pull me closer. Just touching one of them made me feel so much safer than when I was by myself.
“We do.” He leaned down and nuzzled my neck, careful to avoid my earlobes. “We’re getting out of here tomorrow and going for a little drive. All three of us.”
I was so excited that I could scream, but I knew that I needed to play it cool or I’d attract a lot of unwanted attention. The last thing that I needed to have happen was t
o make everyone in the dining hall pay look at us or try to listen to what we were talking about.
So, instead of jumping for joy and shouting, which is what I wanted to do, I swallowed hard and gripped his thigh while locking eyes with Jackie across the table.
“Tell me everything.”
Jackie grinned and leaned forward. “You know my old driver? Well, from the sound of it, he’s pretty tired of working for some shitty families, and he wants to throw me a bone. He’ll be picking us up early tomorrow morning and taking us out for the day.”
“And Taylor’s okay with this?” I knew that the headmaster could be a bit of a dick, especially when it came to students leaving campus. He firmly believed that everyone should be on campus as much as possible to ensure that they were getting the most from their studies. He was probably right, but still.
It sucked.
Kaleb sucked in a breath. “Taylor’s not thrilled. But my mom called in a bit of a favor.”
“A favor?” From time to time, the boys would mention something that made me realize how little I knew about their world. They’d grown up rich, with drivers and more money than they really knew how to handle, and it still blew my mind. “What kind of favor would make Taylor okay with the three of us all leaving campus at the same time?”
Instead of answering, Kaleb ducked his head and sighed, so Jackie piped up. “There’s going to be a new dorm built over the summer. It’s Moore Hall.”
I gasped. “They’re naming a dorm after your family? How in the world did you make that happen?”
“It wasn’t me,” he answered, shaking his head firmly. “I had nothing to do with it. Well, I mean, I asked my mom for some help and she transferred some money around, but it’s not my money, so don’t make it out to be my thing.”
I stroked his cheek. “Don’t be embarrassed. Thank you for doing that.” One thing that I’d noticed about my boys is that they both hated it when everyone knew how much money they had. Neither one of them liked to flaunt it, which was so unlike the harpies that I sometimes forgot just how much money they really had.
“It’s done,” he said, turning to look at me. “I don’t care how much money it was. I’m just glad that it was enough to buy us a day away from Taylor Prep. If we can find Brett then that will be even better, but just getting you away from here for the day so that we can keep you safe…that’s worth all of the money in my account.”
I bit my lip. Even though I was tempted to ask how much money he had in his account, just because I was curious, I didn’t want to push.
I loved him, not his money.
“Tomorrow, then.” I picked up my glass and raised it in a toast. It felt just like the toast we’d had back in the dorm a few weeks ago. But now we didn’t just have a plan that we had to work on and try to figure out how we’d bring it to fruition.
We were taking steps.
I honestly believed, deep in my heart, that tomorrow we’d find Brett.
We’d bring him back.
We’d all be together again.
Everything was going to be fine.
Chapter 10
When Kaleb had said yesterday that we needed to be ready early for Jackie’s driver to pick us up, I didn’t realize that he meant that the driver would be at the front gates of Taylor Prep before breakfast.
It was a surprisingly chilly morning, and when Kaleb noticed me shivering, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me back against his chest. The warmth from his body quickly melted away my chill while we waited on Jackie.
“I’m here!” He was running across the quad towards the two of us, carrying a bag in his hand. “Don’t you dare leave me, you two!” When he ran up to us, he planted a kiss on my lips, instantly igniting a fire in my core.
It still amazed me that my boys could make me want them so quickly. A touch, a word, a kiss…any of those things were enough to make me need them and crave their touch.
“You’re late,” Kaleb said, frowning at Jackie as he took my hand to pull me to the waiting car. “I don’t want to ruin this day, so let’s go.”
“Don’t be grumpy.” Jackie reached out and squeezed Kaleb’s arm, looking deep into his eyes. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of how they were looking at each other. “I brought breakfast. Don’t you know how grumpy Rosita here gets when she’s hungry?”
I laughed and took the bag from him as we walked to the car. “I think that the proper term is hangry, Jackie, but yes. Bringing breakfast was a smart move. What time do we have to be back?”
“5. We have to be back for dinner, so let’s get a move on,” Kaleb said, motioning me into the backseat of the car.
I slipped in, followed by Jackie, and then Kaleb, who leaned up between the front seats to speak to the driver. While he did that, I ripped open the bag, pulling out three large zucchini chocolate chip muffins.
“Chocolate. You know me so well,” I said to Jackie, resting my head on his shoulder for a moment. He grinned and passed a muffin to Kaleb before taking a bite.
“Eat up, Rosita. Today’s about to get very exciting. If all goes well then we’ll be coming back in a few hours with Brett.” Jackie grinned at me and wiped a crumb from my chin.
If all goes well…
I couldn’t bring myself to think about what would happen if things didn’t go well.
It didn’t seem like it takes very long before the drive pulled to the side of the road in front of an old Victorian house. It was much smaller than Brett’s actual home, but if my boys were right, this is was a place to hide him until everything blew over.
His mom wouldn’t have wanted to live there forever. It was a hideout, but what she didn’t realize is that we were coming for her son.
“That’s it,” the driver said, gesturing at the house. It’s the first words that he’d spoken since talking to Kaleb in front of Taylor Prep. “You tell me where you want me to wait or how I can help.”
This was the part of the plan that made me nervous. As many times as we had all talked about what we would do when we finally found the house, actually putting our plan into action was much scarier than I thought it was going to be.
“So, remind me again, what’s the worst that could happen?” I asked, gripping the handle of my door. I couldn’t tear my face away from the window, not even to look back at Jackie and Kaleb.
“The worst is that he’s not there,” Jackie said, soothingly rubbing my back.
“Or that we can’t get to him,” Kaleb countered. “That’s the worst possible outcome for me. If he’s in there and we can’t get to him then…I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“But at least then we’d know for sure that he’s alive,” I whispered, more to myself than to my boys. Jackie must have heard me, because he squeezed my shoulder.
We all sat in silence for a moment and the driver turned off the car. There wasn’t any reason to be idling outside his house as it would just attract unwanted attention. We needed to get up to the house and find out if he was there as quickly as possible.
“Okay. I’m going.” Kaleb took a deep breath and opened his door.
I think that I whispered good luck to him, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the house. Would Brett’s room be on the second floor? Was it possible that he would be looking out of his window and see us sitting out front?
Could this really work?
Kaleb shut the door quietly and walked across the street, through the gate to the house, and up the path to the front door. I’d argued that I should have been the one allowed to go, but the boys agreed that since his mom knew me, it wouldn’t ever work.
I’d set her off. It had to be Kaleb or Jackie since she didn’t know them as well as she knew me.
My heart pounded and I realized that I was holding my breath when Kaleb walked up to the front door. He paused for a moment like he was listening, and then pounded on the door so loudly that we could hear the sound of his knocking from inside the car.
Nothing moved.
&n
bsp; Kaleb shifted his weight while he waited, and just before it looked like he was going to turn around and come back to the car, the door opened.
It didn’t swing open invitingly, but opened just a crack. Just enough for someone to lean out and talk to him, but that was all that we needed.
It wasn’t his mom.
The butler scowled at Kaleb, twisting his face as he talked.
This, we couldn’t hear.
“Come on, Kaleb,” Jackie whispered, reaching for my hand. I gripped it, squeezing tightly so that our fingers crushed each other. He and I both needed the pressure. We needed to be grounded and the only way that we could stay sane was by holding onto each other.
“He’s got to be there,” I whispered back. “Please, please, please, let him be there.”
Kaleb was gesturing and I watched in surprise as the butler’s scowl slipped off of his face. He smiled a little and then even laughed.
What was he saying to him to break down his walls like that?
“Do you think this is going to work?” I asked Jackie, barely able to believe that we were this close. If Brett was really in that house then he was just a few yards away from me right now. I closed my eyes, wanting to reach out to him, but that was ridiculous.
As much as I loved him, I couldn’t make him know that we were here. Not until he looked out the window and saw one of his best friends on the front porch, that is.
The butler stepped outside of the house, closing the door behind him and pointing down the street. Kaleb shook his head and mimed making a call.
He was trying to get in to use the phone.
For a moment, the butler hesitated. I could see the indecision written all over his face as he obviously considered what he should do. Finally, he nodded.
It was almost like the excitement coming off of Kaleb was palpable. He didn’t turn around to look at us – doing so would have surely given him away and made the butler suspicious. Instead, he followed him into the house.