My breath hitches and I search his features. He drops his gaze, but his hands squeeze me just a little tighter as the words settle around us. He’s serious.
“I…wewon’t let anything get to you. Or Desmond. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
KANE
Kane:We need to talk.
I type the message, sending it to the group chat I have with Alex and Mountain.
Spinning on my heel, I face Sam. She’s pacing, still staring at her phone as if she’ll see something different on it. Every inch of her frame is rigid. Seeing her like this, afraid and lost, rocks me to my core.
I was so busy taking out my pain on her, she only trusted Alex and Mountain enough to share what had happened to her. Sure, she shared about the photo of our moms and how she found it. But she left a hell of a lot of things out. And I have to live with that.
“You should sit,” I suggest as my phone vibrates in my grasp. I glance back to Sam and wave a hand toward the bed before clicking on the text alert.
Alex:Where’d you go?
Mountain:Have you seen Sam?
Alex:Coach is pissed.
Kane:Tell him I had an emergency.
Kane:Sam’s with me, meet us at the crib after practice.
Mountain:Is she okay?
I glance at her and release a sigh. Regret swells in my chest; the resentment for my father is heavier now than it’s ever been. This is his doing, I know it. And that call I walked in on was the moment he ordered all of this to start.
Kane:I don’t think so.
I shove my phone into my pocket and quickly gather the papers to stuff them back into the folder. Sam stops moving, turning to me with confusion written all over her face. At least the pacing stopped—that means she’s present again. And if she’s present, then she’s not losing it, and we can fix this.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Get your keys. We’re going to the lake house.”
“Why?”
I hold the pages at my side. “The guys are going to meet us there after practice. We should probably talk about all of this.” I hold up the folder with the pages sloppily shoved inside it. “Away from here. They threatened you because your looking is digging up something they obviously want to stay buried. Which means staying here isn’t an option.”
“I can’t just—”
“Pack a bag. Enough for a couple of days until we figure this out. Where’s Gracie?”
“She works out every morning before class.”
I nod. “Tell her to meet us at my place.”
“Okay… but—”
“Pack. Now,” I blurt out louder than I intend to.
Sam flinches at my tone, but she doesn’t fight back. She rushes to her closet for a beat-up book bag and then rushes over to her dresser and stuffs as much of her essentials as she can inside it.
When she’s done, she stands in the middle of the floor, nervously waiting for my next instruction. I snatch up the backpack and drape it over my shoulder as I walk toward her.
