Page 96 of Pretty Pink Poison

“I want her location. Right. Fucking now.”

“In two days we’ll be home, and so will most of the people who matter. Old friends and colleagues. We’re inviting everyone today. We’ll have you at the estate too. Let’s not involve everyone though. I don’t need her friends here when they won’t really matter.”

All that mattered to Pink were her friends. What the fuck did he know anyway?

I was going to kill him. And then kill her for hiding away from me to pull this.

“Give her the phone. I want to talk to her.”

He tsked and said I was being ridiculous.

“If you don’t tell me where you both are, I’ll utilize every damn resource I have to find you now.”

He relayed what I’d said to Pink who must have been near him and then I heard her say, “Well, hang up on him then. That reminds me, I have to call Olive to apologize for not being there. We’re not having them at the wedding, right? Make sure Bane knows not to tell them. I just want this out of the way, and I’ll be able to talk to them after.”

My brother just agreed like it was fine her best friends wouldn’t be there.

“See you soon, brother.”

And then he hung up.

I felt the pieces of my world falling apart rapidly and realized as they were that I had no real control over them.

Why? Because Pinkwasmy world and I couldn’t change that.

I went to stand in the doorway of Olive’s just to hear her voice as my reality sank in. She sounded so close and still so fuckingfar away. “Well I just… Right now, I don’t fit anywhere near that man who’s visiting your house.”

Kee sighed with her baby in her arms. “Pink, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Bane, but come stay with me. We can figure it out together.”

“I’m not coming home,” she said, her voice almost muffled now like she was moving. She felt far away, disconnected because she’d embraced the facade I knew she hated. “Tell him to quit looking for me.”

I’d done a damn good job for a month of not looking, but now all bets were off. She wasn’t going to marry my brother without standing in front of me and at least hashing our shit out.

“No.” My voice cut through the room, soft but sharp enough to slice through steel. Everyone turned, but my eyes were only on the phone, on her. “I’m not going to stop until I find you, Bianca.”

There was a beat of silence, then her reply, ragged and frayed. “I chose this.”

“Did you though?” My chest ached, fury and need coiling so tightly it felt like I might snap. “And don’t you know by now? Whether you chose it or not, I’ll always save you—even if it’s from yourself.”

For a second, I swore I heard her break. That shaky breath. That crack in her armor. And then—“It’s better this way.”

Then the line went dead.

The weight of silence pressed on me enough to suffocate me. My jaw locked so hard it ached, my hands curled into fists. I turned, holding out my hand for the phone. “Give it to me. I’ll trace the call.”

But no one would budge. Bianca had built her own family, and they were willing to stand their ground for her.

I hated but respected it enough that I backed out of the house before I could level the place to the ground. My vision tunneledwith one thought and one vow that burned through me like gasoline:

I’d find her.

I always would.

I left and pulled up her Oracle App and listened to every entry she’d added since the night she left.

I listened the way I should have so many nights before.

And I broke apart at what I’d heard. She’d been raped. She’d thought it was my brother until she hadn’t.