“Good question… He vanished… Once again.” I say, trying to hide the pang in my chest.
“Look, Oliver knew we were coming today. He would never miss time with Aito. So I give you twenty-four hours before calling my guy. He might only be a PR asshole in your eyes, but he does know what he’s doing and can deal with any situation. I tell you something isn’t right. Oliver would never ditch Na and Aito. Ever.” That’s true. He would do anything for his son. Even if Oliver doesn’t want me the way I want him or if he regrets what happened between us, I won’t let him drown by himself. He might be more shaken up than I thought for him to miss his son visiting.
“Okay,” Mark says, “but let me at least check with Elaine’s parents. “Tessa, are you coming?”
“Of course. Lars, who’s the guy you’re talking about?” I ask, praying it’s the one I need to talk to.
“Dex Crawford. Have you heard of him?”
I glance at Mark, who gives me one of his mischievous smiles.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
OLIVER
There are two women in front of me.
One is sad, depicted, looking at me with all the sorrow in her eyes, begging me not to die, to continue to live, to fight, and go on. I haven’t seen those sad eyes since the first time I’ve met her. And even then, I don’t think she was sad per se. More dejected about life than anything. She used to be so beautiful, so alive. Smiling into the camera. Loving me, her hair flying in the wind.
“Oliver. Fight…” She’s screaming, but it comes as a whisper.
I turn my head to the other woman. The blue has vanished. She’s laughing at me. Laughing at the fact, I realized I had feelings for her a little too late. She’s dancing in a puddle of blood as Gene Kelly sings in the rain. Her laugh is chilling my spine.
“Don’t let them win.” Sweet Elaine. I wish listening to her would be that simple.
“What are you waiting for? Kill him already.”
Tessa.
Tessa wants me to die.
I feel a prickle in my arm. Another one. She’s drugging me some more. I failed at escaping, so I got stung.
I killed the goons, at least I think so… I haven’t heard their voices in a while.
Tessa has me under her spell. She doesn’t want to save me.
Elaine wants to, but there is nothing she can do about it.
Dead people save living ones only in Patrick Swayze movies.
“Ol… Wake the fuck up. What are you waiting for.” Anna is there too. I think the women of my life are having a party on my grave. I can’t wait to see Naomi. Sweet Naomi. Behind her tattoo and sad eyes is a badass. When she finally appears, she slaps me behind the head.
“Wake up, dickhead!” I dart my eyes open and groan, but I’m not fast enough to avoid the bucket of icy water being thrown at me. It’s the way the new goons have to clean my wounds.
Mrs. VanHorn does have quite a lot of people working for her. “You can’t die on our watch, or she won’t be happy.”
One guy touches my wound, and I wince. “I know it hurts, just stay alive, and once she gets what she wants from you, it won’t hurt anymore… That’s the good thing about death. You don’t hurt any longer.” He bandages me up and slaps my shoulder. Compared to the two first guys, these ones don’t have any foreign accent — American purebred assholes.
“What does she want?” I mumble through my dry lips, but he ignores me.
He’s as old as Tessa’s mother.
Maybe older.
The other guy could be his son. But there is something familiar about him. I try to remember where I would have seen him, but nothing comes up. My thoughts have been foggy since I got shot, not helping me work through the mountain of complications being kidnapped by the mother of the girl I’m seeing. The fact that she wants to kill me is a bonus.
“Okay, boy,” the older man says, “tell us where it is.” I chuckle at the stupidity of his words. Telling them where my computer is a sure way to die. I need to buy some time for Mark to realize I didn’t bail on life, for him to know they have to find me and save me. Hopefully, they’ll understand soon enough. I disappeared quite suddenly from Tessa’s apartment and not because I have commitment issues, but because I’m a moron who thought he was safe.
It’s also a matter of time before they understand Andre VanHorn has no secret to hide except the ones of his wife.
“I want to talk to Mrs. VanHorn.”
“Well, she’s at a charity event at the moment, so you have my boy and me here,” he points to who I believe was his son.
“I’m Oliver,” I tell him.
“Dereck,” he nods. The infamous Dereck. The one in Fitzpatrick’s life.
“And that’s…” I study his son for a while, still trying to figure it all out.
The guy scoffs, and that’s when I see it. He scoffs like Tessa. “Tessa’s brother?” How the heck don’t we know Mrs. VanHorn had another child?
“Cousin… You’re smart, Spencer. I didn’t think you had figured it out, but maybe I was wrong.” No, he’s not, but I’m piecing back together every section of the puzzle. Between what Tessa’s mother told me and what I had figured out, I’m fairly sure it’s a little more complicated than what I can think of.
“So you do her dirty work because she’s a mother figure to your boy?” Dereck rolls his eyes and sits facing me. The boy in question is maybe ten years older than Tessa and looks a lot like Dereck except some mimics and expressions he certainly got from his mother.
“Do you know what love is, Oliver? Do you know how it is to love
