Page 13 of Theo (Stone Brothers #6)

ELEVEN

THEO

I 'd tossed and turned all night, thinking about Lacey and how much I missed her. I'd finally fallen into a deep sleep just as daylight started creeping past my broken blinds. Even in a heavy sleep, the text notification yanked me awake. I grabbed the phone and knew I had to call her.

I showered, got dressed and headed downstairs. Surprisingly, Crusoe was already up eating a bowl of cereal. Cormac had moved in a month ago. He came in behind me.

"Shit, it's Saturday and no pancakes," Cormac grumbled. "Miss Mom's pancakes."

Crusoe looked up at him. "What the hell are you? Six? Eat a fucking bowl of Cap'n Crunch like a real man." Crusoe slid the box toward him.

"Guys up for a road trip?" I asked as I grabbed a bowl down for both Cormac and me.

"Where to?" Crusoe asked.

"Just two hours north to Santa Loma."

Cormac rubbed his naked chest. There was a cheese puff stuck in his thick dark hair. Crusoe pointed it out, and Cormac yanked it free. "If you even think about eating that thing," Crusoe said.

Cormac grinned and shoved it into his mouth.

"You're a fucking pig," Crusoe said. "Why are you going to Santa Loma? Isn't that a Richy Mc Snobbville?"

"It is. I'm going up there to get Lacey."

Both their faces snapped my direction.

"Lacey?" Cormac asked. " Your Lacey?"

I nodded in agreement at his assessment. "Damn right. Going up there to get my Lacey."

Crusoe tilted his head at me. "Isn't she getting married?"

"Not if I can help it. She's at some fancy estate, and the place is going to be crawling with Richy Mc Snobs. You guys in?"

Cormac threw his leg over the back of the chair and sat at the table. "Fuck yeah, I'm going."

We both looked at Crusoe. He was tipping his bowl up to drink the cereal milk.

He was wearing a milk mustache when he lowered the bowl.

A satisfied sigh hissed from his mouth. "Nothin' like Cap'n Crunch flavored milk.

And, hell yeah, I'm going. Rescuing the beautiful princess from the evil rich people's lair. Sounds like my kind of road trip."

My enthusiastic road trip buddies moved like slugs once it came time to get moving.

I'd texted Jules because my brilliant cousin was always a wealth of information, especially trivial details like the time of a wedding.

According to Jules, I had four hours before Lacey walked down the aisle.

Crusoe had packed himself a ridiculous amount of food for the trip, and he and Cormac were halfway through a bag of nacho chips before I even reached the freeway.

Crusoe handed the bag to Cormac in the back seat. "Keep those suckers back there. Nacho cheese dust does not sit well with cereal." He pressed his hand against his stomach.

"If you fucking puke up nacho chips in this car, then I'm leaving you on the side of the road," I said.

Crusoe made a point of looking around at the interior of the car.

The dashboard was split in three places, and the lining was hanging down from the ceiling.

"Right, wouldn't want to mess up this beauty.

Isn't it time to get a new car, especially now that you're a rich boy with all those big sponsors? "

"Sponsors who drop you the second you lose a race," I reminded him. "But I'm saving up. Going to buy a truck this time."

"Hey, Theo," Cormac said from the back. I could hardly hear him over the crackle of the chip bag he was digging into. "What if Lacey tells you to fuck off? I mean, does she know you're coming? I don't want my brother to look like a fucking chump, especially in front of rich fucks."

That possibility had been poking at me all morning, but I had to try.

Lacey was texting me for a reason. Talking to her these last few days, I realized we still had that instinctual connection, that bond between us that was so strong when we were dating that we both knew, without even saying it, that we were meant for each other.

And that bond hadn't faded. I knew she was hurting. She needed someone. She needed me.

"Wouldn't be the first time we looked like chumps," I said.

"Speak for yourself," Cormac said. "I don't do chump. I'm a Stone."

Crusoe twisted back to look at him. "Uh fuckface, we're all Stones."

"That's right, and we don't do chump," Cormac stated emphatically and plowed his hand into the bag again.

"Will we get to—I don't know—how should I word it?

Will we get to kick some rich snob ass cuz that's my favorite kind of ass to kick.

" Trayton was a small town with humble houses but Oceanside, the town next to us, was bursting with wealthy assholes.

And we'd had more than one fight with those same wealthy assholes.

"I'm hoping to avoid a fight because—you know—the whole jail thing.

Rich folk have security and cops and lawyers on speed dial in case someone scratches their Mercedes or looks at them the wrong way.

We'll just go in, find Lacey and leave." I said it so plainly as if this was going to be easy, but the truth was, I had no idea how to find Lacey, or if she'd even leave with me.

And I had no doubt the estate had plenty of security.

We might not even get past the front gates.

"At least it's a beautiful day for a wedding," Crusoe said with a smug grin.

"Should have left you at home."

"What? I'm just being practical, buddy. Lacey is supposed to marry some big-shot doctor, and from what Jules said, the guy's family is uberwealthy, the kind of people who have their name on museums and college buildings.

And last I looked, Theo Stone was renting a tear-down house and driving a car that no longer had a ceiling.

" He waved some of the frayed fabric away from his face.

"It has a ceiling," I protested.

"It has a roof. But the ceiling is literally hanging in threads all over the car." He looked up. "Reminds me of those long, drippy things in caves. What are those called?"

"Staligtights," Cormac mumbled around a mouthful of chips.

"Nah, that doesn't sound right." Crusoe pulled out his phone and typed something.

Cormac tossed the empty bag on the floor and picked up a bottle of blue sports drink. "Well, did you look it up?"

"Nah, just asked Jules. I'm too lazy to look it up." His phone pinged. He read it. "Stalagmite and stalactites, ignoramus."

I laughed. "Uh, I think the last part was for you."

"Nah, really?" He looked at his phone. "Yep, I see the comma. Jules and her perfect grammar."

The rest of the trip was filled with conversation at the same level of stupidity until Cormac had to get out at a road stop to puke up all the shit he was devouring in the back seat.

We reached the turnoff for Santa Loma. Dry, brushy chaparral grass was replaced with green rolling hills and massive stone and brick houses.

"Well shit, no drought in this part of the state," Crusoe said. "Guess stuff like droughts and natural disasters don't affect rich people."

I glanced at my phone. We were two minutes away.

My stomach had knotted as if someone had thrown a fist at it.

Not because I was nervous facing down the people at the mansion but because Lacey might just tell me to fuck off.

If that happened, I wouldn't just feel like a chump. I'd feel like a brokenhearted chump.

We reached a pair of massive ornate black gates that were held in place by two brick pillars. The gates were open because a catering truck had just rolled out, and there were two more trucks behind it. I pushed the pedal and slipped in between the trucks.

"Well, that was easy," Cormac said. "And here I was ready to scale a fifteen-foot barrier wall, all in the name of love. What if Lacey is in some high up tower, and you have to climb a trellis or vine or some sort of shit like that?"

Crusoe looked back at him. "Shut up, Mac."

"Yep."

Cormac was my brother, but Crusoe was much better at reading me. He knew I was tense. Might have been the fact that my knuckles were white as I held the steering wheel.

"Hey, bro, we've got this, and if nothing else, I plan to grab as many of those expensive party foods as I can on the way out. That cereal is no longer holding me."

The wedding was set to start in two hours, and there were already plenty of shiny six-figure cars parked in the vast parking area out front of the mansion. It was one of those brick monstrosities that had multiple wings and a grand front entrance with white columns.

"Your car won't exactly be camouflaged between all the shiny Rolls and Porsches," Cormac noted.

He had a point. I didn't want to get towed. It wasn't exactly a cool scenario to rescue the girl and then run out to find that the only mode of escape was gone. I parked on the side with all the service vehicles.

We got out of the car in our faded jeans and T-shirts.

Our clothes weren't going to be great camouflage either but whatever.

While everyone else on the service car side of the lot was walking along a path to the side of the house, the three of us marched confidently up the front steps and right between the white columns.

Crusoe knocked on one of them and winced.

"Was just checking if they were Styrofoam. "

We walked in right behind a couple who were wearing so much perfume and cologne, Cormac sneezed three times and waved his hand to clear the air in front of him. While the couple stopped to tell the guy with the clipboard their names, the three of us just marched through.

The entryway was bigger than a two-bedroom apartment. Crusoe stopped to check his hair in the reflection on a silver vase. "Hmm, yep, I'm looking good."

The party crashing had gone smoothly, but I knew obstacles were just around the corner. A group of well-dressed guests looked up from their conversations when we emerged from a hallway. Drinks were already flowing. Crusoe winked at a pretty server and grabbed a cocktail off her tray.

One of the men in the group was wearing a white flower in his pocket, so it seemed he had something to do with the wedding but he wasn't the groom. I'd seen the fucker's picture. The guy with the flower peeled away from the group and stretched up tall to look bigger.

"The service entrance is on the east side of the building. Follow the brick path."

"We're guests on the bride's side," I said and walked past him.

We walked through the people gathered in a room that had twelve-foot ceilings and shiny chandeliers. Shocked looks turned our way from every direction.

"Is it me or are we attracting a bit of attention?" Cormac asked.

"Of course we're attracting attention. We're Stones," Crusoe said. He stopped at a table that was covered with a white cloth and silver trays of tiny foods. He grabbed a few and stuffed one in his mouth. "Fuck, that's awful."

Everyone looked our way with wide eyes and open mouths.

I looked at Crusoe. "Seriously?"

"Really, you want to try it?" He lifted the cracker toward me.

"Hey, I think that's caviar. Fish eggs," Cormac explained.

"I know what fucking caviar is, and now I know that it's gross." Crusoe glanced around, but there was no place to toss the cracker, so he just set it back down on the table.

I looked up and saw fuckface, the doctor, walking importantly across an outdoor patio. There were a few big security dudes with him.

"Uh-oh, trouble," Cormac said. He was trying a caviar cracker and seemed to like it.

Crusoe looked at me. "What's the plan now, Bob? You know the bride isn't going to be down here mingling cuz she'll be upstairs getting all gussied up for the wedding."

"Good point." We'd gotten everyone's attention, including a small group of servers, all women dressed in short black skirts and white blouses.

They'd gathered and were giggling and whispering behind their filled trays.

I walked over to them. "Hey, nice job on the drink serving.

Any of you happen to know where I can find the bride? "

A server with curly red hair stepped forward. "I think they're getting ready in the first room to the left at the top of the stairs."

"Thanks." I winked.

"Excuse me." Doc had arrived with his crew. "You need to leave. This is a private party. Invite only. We don't want any trouble."

"No?" I stopped in front of him. "Then why'd you bring your bodyguards?" I turned and walked toward the stairs. They followed close at my heels. Cormac had decided to try some more of the foods, and Crusoe ended up with the giggly group of servers. My cousin was the king of gathering phone numbers.

I walked halfway up the stairs. "Lacey! Lacey, c'mon. Let's blow this mausoleum!"

"What the hell is going on here!" a woman shouted from the top of the stairs. Something told me I was looking at the mother-in-law. She looked venomous as she stared down at me.

"I'm here for Lacey."