Page 20 of Submit (Two Wheeled Psychos #3)

Cold. I hate the cold even more now, and as we ride in the town car back to my house on Cobble Hill, I curse the winter and all the fresh snow on the ground, even with how fresh and pretty it looks. A few days in the tropical warmth has spoiled me, and I already want to go back.

Millie sits next to me, shrouded in the red winter coat with faux fur on the hood that I picked up at the airport. It’s gaudy and cheap, but at least it’ll keep her warm and snuggly until I can get her something better.

I had been planning on a huge shopping trip for her now that we’re home, but there’s a feeling still niggling in my guts that she’s hiding something from me.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend a ton of money on her until I know for sure.

I hate to feel that way, but I can’t help it.

I haven’t made myself the man I am now without trusting my gut on more than one occasion.

Mabel cries in her carrier on my lap, and I distract myself from the thoughts rolling around in my head by opening the travel box and scratching her fluffy head behind her ears.

At least I have one girl who will never lie to me or sneak around.

The streets are bustling with cars and taxis, all carrying people and their packages, getting ready for Christmas that’s coming in three days.

The regular Friday rush hour traffic has increased about ten times and the trip from the airport to the house is taking way longer than it should, even for the city.

Around Rockefeller Center the pace slows even more, with the area full of visitors and tourists here to get a glimpse of the massive Christmas tree covered in tens of thousands of lights.

It really is spectacular, with the large holiday icon overlooking the ice-skating rinks across the way, where hundreds of people play and skate while drinking hot cocoa and coffee.

It picks up my spirits just a little bit, and I find myself losing time as I watch the sights of out the windows while the car sits.

The people thin out, and the cars are less and less as we move out of the city and into the burbs, heading up the hill to my exclusive and well-hidden neighborhood.

I love it up on the hill, the peace and quiet, the old architecture, and the feeling of being in a small town while only a short ride to everything New York City has to offer.

The roads become narrower, and the shiny fresh blacktop turns grey from age as we near the house, but the holiday decorations become fancier, to the point where the street lights are barely needed.

Every holiday, each house, even mine, are lit up with classic white lights, greenery, and red bows.

Flickering candles adorn the windows of most of the homes, a classic New England tradition for the holiday.

The sky is black with night as we pull onto my street, with a fairly heavy cloud cover. The only thing I can see in the sky is the North Star, and I chuckle to myself about the coming holiday and the tale of how the three wise men found the baby Jesus by following the exact same star.

Red and blue flashing lights greet us as we come around the bend, illuminating the block, and shining directly on the front of my house, the only house where the lights are off, and the front door is hanging open. It looks otherwise untouched, but something isn’t right.

“What the fuck?” I say, looking out the windshield past the driver, watching policemen lean against their cars in the cold, apparently waiting for me.

“Adrian?” Mille says, sitting up, putting her hand on my arm and for the first time since I’ve met her, the feeling of her touching me doesn’t bring me pleasure, but instead a detached coldness. “Adrian?”

“Shhh, something is going on and I need to focus.” I tell her, brushing her hand from my bicep. “Stay in the car until I come back for you.”

The car isn’t even fully stopped when I open up the back door and hop out, jogging directly over to the middle-aged man in jeans and a tweed sport coat that seems to be running the show. He’s barking out orders like something is on fire, but I don’t see any smoke coming from inside.

“Excuse me. This is my house.” I call out, waving to the guy, who must be a detective, to get his attention as I make my way up the driveway, being careful not to slip on the snow and ice.

“Mister Lambert I take it?” He says, meeting me at the back bumper of a patrol car, with the lights flashing off his grey hair and grim face that has probably seen way too much in his possible forty years. He holds out his hand and I take it in a clipped shake and short greeting of “Hello”.

“Yeah. I’m just getting back from a trip. What’s going on?” I say as I briskly walk past him and he joins me at my side, heading up to the front walk of the house.

“I’m detective Ross, and It appears you’ve had a break in, Sir. Right now my boys are clearing the house to make sure no one is still in there, but I’m going to need you to take a walk through with me now that you’re here.”

“Okay. Fuck. Let’s go.” I say, stepping up on the front porch and touching the shoulder height fir tree decorated with lights that are not on, even though everything was set on timers before I left to turn on at dusk.

“Let my guys make sure all is safe, and the power company gets you turned back on, okay.”

“What’d they do, break the box?”

“Cut the main line coming in, your house went dark a few hours ago. The neighbors called after they were off for a while, and you weren’t here.”

“Well thank God for nosey neighbors.” I sigh, running my hands through my hair, then down my face, trying to scrub away the tension that’s squeezing me from the inside out.

“Yeah really. I wish mine were like that sometimes, but ya know the richer the neighborhood…” He trails off, looking in the open front door of my home, scrunching up his nose. “There’s a decent amount of damage in there, Sir, just so you’re prepared for what we walk into.”

“Fucking fantastic.”

It seems like an eternity standing on the front porch, waiting to be allowed to go into my own home, and I’m getting angrier with each minute that ticks by.

Checking my watch for the third time, I sigh and cross my arms over my chest and roll back on my heels, fidgeting just to keep myself occupied before I just go storming in there.

“Almost.” Ross tells me, watching me closely, as if I’m the criminal that did this, whatever this is. I haven’t even seen the damage yet.

“I can help look through, it is my house, and I know it better than anyone else.”

“It’s policy Sir, no one in until it’s been cleared.”

Another ten agonizingly long minutes we wait on the front stoop, with me getting more pissed off as we stand there.

I can see Millie still sitting in the car with the driver, and at least she listened to me.

Why wouldn’t she? Something isn’t right though.

She seemed worried about my reaction, but not the fact that there were police sitting outside my house.

You’re paranoid Adrian. Ever since her cell rang in the Italian restaurant in Miami, you’ve been imagining things.

“All clear.” A uniformed officer says as a team of them file out of my front door, and I can’t get past them fast enough to get into the house.

At the same time as I step in, the lights flicker once, then come on, and my heart sinks into my feet as I look around the front den and all the destruction.

My antique furniture is overturned, and the linen throw pillows are scattered on the floor. The coffee table is shattered into small splinters of wood, like it’s been attacked with an axe, and the wallpaper is ripped in large chunks, showing massive holes in the plaster walls.

Red paint is thrown on the parts of the walls that are intact, and something is scrawled in it.

“She’s mine.” Is repeated over and over again in squiggly lines like it was a finger-painting project by a kid.

“Motherfucker.” I curse loudly, grabbing my hair in my hand and pulling on it, my stomach turning with acidic bile at the utter mess of my home.

The floor is covered in dirt from the overturned potted plants and as I walk through the hallway towards the kitchen the ruin just gets worse.

My knob wood kitchen floor has been destroyed, and the cabinets are torn apart, with their doors hanging off or laying on the floor. My marble countertop has been shattered into large chunks, and the sink is still running and overflowing.

I can’t decide where to look next. Do I go out to the garage and see what’s been done to my cars? Or do I go further into the house and continue the tour of destruction?

“It just keeps getting worse.” I shout as I go around the corner and stomp up the steps, my shoes slamming hard on the carpet that’s covered in the same red paint that’s on my den walls.

My bedroom is an absolute disaster, with my bed shredded, the linens torn into tiny scraps and the doors and windows cracked and busted out. Cold air blows in through the window where I stood just a couple weeks ago waiting for Millie to reappear while I fucked Ashley against the glass.

My library is thankfully the least affected. The books are all knocked from the shelves, but nothing is ruined. And in my anger I kick a stack of them out of the way on my way out and back downstairs.

“My cars?” I ask Detective Ross, who stands at the door to the garage, his back to me and his head bowed. “Are they there? Are they totaled?”

“I’m sorry.” It’s all he says before he steps into the garage and out of my view.

I want to follow him in there, to see what has happened to them, but at the same time, I can’t.

The Porsche 911 is the first car I ever bought with my earned wealth, and she holds a very special place in my heart.

To see her broken and tainted by the hands of Tyler will kill me, if it doesn’t make me homicidal.

Who am I kidding though, the more I look around, the more I see, and the more I total up the damage in my head, the more pissed I’m becoming.

I can feel the anger rising in me more, my face heating, my hands trembling at my sides as I stand in the middle of my kitchen, turning in circles, not even knowing where to begin with anything.

“Tyler.” I seethe. “Tyler Richmond.”

Just the sound of his name on my lips has me seeing red, and not just the red paint he’s graffitied my house’s interior with.

I know it was him. The message was loud and clear. “She’s mine”.

“Who?” Ross asks, popping his head back in the room.

“Fucking Tyler Richmond.” I growl, looking at his confused face.

“So you know who did this? Good we can go pick him up.” He says, coming in the kitchen, wiping his feet on the mat just inside the door, even though it’s a moot point with everything in my home already ruined.

“I took his girl. This is payback.”

“For a piece of ass? All this?”

“Yeah, and I have a feeling she’s involved.”

“Not good.”

“Yeah I know.” I sigh, puffing out my cheeks with a big, dramatic breath. “I can’t be sure though.”

“She the one out in the car?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep a good eye on her then.”

“Will do man. What’d you need from me, I just wanna get some sleep and deal with this all in the morning.”

“Tell ya what. You get a hotel for the night, let us dust for prints and deal with the red tape and we’ll go over inventory tomorrow.” He offers, and for once, I’m appreciative of a police officer, instead of dodging him.

“Thanks. I’ll be at the Plaza. I’ve gotta get out of here.”

With a shake of my head, I trudge out the front door, not bothering to close it behind me. I don’t even care right now what happens. A family of raccoons could take up residence in my tub and I really wouldn’t be any madder than I am already.

I know Millie had something to do with this as I walk to the town car and see her sitting up front with the driver, and it makes me sad on top of the anger.

I’ve rescued her, given her everything, and she’s done this to me.

I’ve given her as much of my heart as I have.

I just know it was something she’s involved in.

Find out.

The door to the black car flies open with a hearty yank on the smooth handle, making her jump in surprise in the passenger seat. Without saying anything, I angrily grab her purse from her lap, and slam the door shut again, almost catching her hand when she reaches for the bag.

“Adrian? What are you doing?” She asks frantically, popping the door open and climbing out, reaching for me and her purse, trying to take it from me.

I back away with a big step and dump it out on the ground, making everything scatter around my feet with a loud clattering, then bend over and pick up her phone from the driveway.

With a swipe of my finger on the touch screen to unlock it and wipe away the snow, my eyebrows lower and my blood pressure goes through the roof when I see the notification at the top.

“You fucking bitch.”