He’d protected us at the lodge yesterday without a second thought, but this was different. He knew that. I knew that. And I couldn’t let him do it. I brought the phone to my forehead as if I was resting against him instead. “I won’t—”
“I’m sorry,” he cut me off, refusing to hear it. “But that man hit you, raped you, and endangered you and our son.” His rough, strangled voice deepened as he added, “And if I have to spend eternity in hell for taking his life, then so be it.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Audrey
I checked the time. T-minus ten minutes until Alejandro would be on a call with his evil ex, and he wanted to do it alone, so I’d have to sit here and wait. Wonder. Continue wallowing in sadness, replaying that call with Trevor. He’d ended the call before I could protest and beg him not to intervene and seek retribution. But when that man’s mind was made up, it was up. Alllll the way up.
“Do me a favor and distract me.” I gave Reed my best prayer hands, sitting on the couch in the living room in front of the fire.
“Me?” Reed looked up from his phone. “You wantmeto distract you?” He frowned. “I’ll go find Alex, how about that?”
No, I needed a distraction from him, too. “Ryder asked you to watch over me while the two of them prep for the call, so please, help me get my mind off all the heaviness.”
He sat upright, his spine going stiff, eyes lifting to the ceiling as if I’d just asked him to solve world hunger in sixty seconds.
“You could let me talk to Hollis.” I held open my hand, hoping he’d hand over the phone he’d been using to contact her.
He grimaced. “She’s become a pain in my ass.”
“I feel like that’s not hard to do.” I chewed on my lip, resisting a small smile at the little tease there. And look at that, he was already distracting me from the weight of the world pressing down on us.
“Fair enough.” He typed in his passcode, then handed me his phone. “Please tell her it’s you texting and not me.”
“Worried she’ll think you’re being nice?” I smirked, opening up his messages.
“Doubt she’d believe it anyway. She’s ...”
I lifted my brows, focusing on him, thankful he was temporarily lifting the stress about the call with Trevor and Alex’s soon-to-be call with Beth off my chest. “She’s what?”
“Nothing,” he grumbled, picking up his laptop from the coffee table.
“Fine.” I opened his messages, tempted to scroll through and invade their privacy and read their exchanges. Before I had a chance to do that, a new text popped up from her.
Hollis:I’m helping whether you want me to or not. She needs me. My mind is made up. I’ll pick you up in Colorado. We’ll take my plane and fly to NZ together.
“Wait, what?”And aren’t you in Bali, then heading somewhere new?I held the phone up, waiting for Reed to give me his attention. “What is she talking about?” I knew Hollis’s parents had money and a jet, and I’d always declined her offer to ride in it, given my disdain for the things, but ...
His forehead tightened. “How much do you know about your best friend?”
“How much doyouknow about my best friend?”
He set down his laptop and twisted around on the couch, swiping the back of his hand over his cheek twice as if lost in thought. “I had to look into her to ensure she wasn’t working behind your back with Mitch as some type of plant.”
“What secrets is she keeping from me?” I rushed out, my body tensing up in preparation for the hit of betrayal.
“I had no choice but to confront her, given some weird patterns and inconsistencies Gwen and I picked up on when we both checked into her.”
He took the phone from me and set it on the table, letting me know I wouldn’t be texting her. At least not yet.
“Ryder told me not to say anything yet, that you had enough on your plate.” He lifted his hand, patting the air. “And before you ask, Alex doesn’t know about this. Figured his plate’s full, too.”
I rewound everything he said and unscrambled it. “You’re not saying my friend has been working with Mitch, are you?”
“No. In fact, she seems to be beating herself up that she didn’t know Mitch was such a bastard.” He stood and faced me, locking his arms over his chest.
“Just tell me what you know; I can only handle so much.”
