“She’s seventeen. About this tall.” I hold my hand beneath my chin as I describe Ella to the ticket clerk. “Blonde hair. Blue eyes.” Eyes like the Atlantic. Stormy gray, cool blue, fathoms deep. I got lost in that gaze more than once. “She left her phone behind.” I hold up my cell. “We need to get it to her.”
The ticket clerk clicks her tongue. “Oh sure. She was in such a hurry to get away. She bought a ticket to Gainesville. Her grandmother died, you know.”
Both East and I nod. “What time did the bus leave?”
“Oh, hours ago. She’d be there by now.” The ticket lady shakes her head in dismay. “She was crying like her heart had been broken. You don’t see that anymore—kids caring about old folks like that. It was sweet. Felt terrible for her.”
East clenches his fists beside me. Anger radiates off of him in waves. If we were alone, one of those fists would be in my face.
“Thanks, ma’am.”
“No problem, dear.” She dismisses us with a nod.
We exit the building and stop at Ella’s car. I hold out my hand and Easton slaps her spare keys into my palm.
Inside, I find her key fob in the middle console, along with her poetry book and what looks like the title of the car stuck between the pages. In the glove compartment, she’d stashed her phone, which still shows all my unread text messages.
She left everything behind. Everything associated with the Royals.
“We gotta get to Gainesville,” Easton says flatly.
“I know.”
“Are we telling Dad?”
Informing Callum Royal means we could take his plane. We’d be there in an hour. Otherwise it’s a six-and-a-half-hour drive.
“I don’t know.” The urgency to find her has lessened. I know where she is now. I can get to her. I just need to figure out what angle I should take.
“What’d you do?” my brother demands again.
I’m not ready for the wave of hatred he’s going to send my way, so I stay quiet.
“Reed.”
“She caught me with Brooke,” I say hoarsely.
His jaw falls open. “Brooke? Dad’s Brooke?”
“Yes.” I force myself to face him.
“What the hell? How often have you been with Brooke?”
“A couple times,” I admit. “Not recently, though. And definitely not last night. I didn’t touch her, East.”
His jaw clenches. He’s dying to take a swing at me, but he won’t. Not in public. He’d heard the same things from Mom. Keep the Royal name clean, boys. It’s easy to tear it down, so much harder to build it up.
“You should be strung up by your nuts and hung out to dry.” He spits at my feet. “If you don’t find Ella and bring her back, I’ll be first in line to see it done.”
“That’s fair.” I try to stay calm. No point in getting upset. No point in tipping this car over. No point in roaring even though I’m dying to open my mouth and release all of my anger and self-loathing into the air.
“Fair?” He snorts with disgust. “So you don’t give a shit that Ella’s in some college town getting groped by drunks?”
“She’s a survivor. I’m sure she’s safe.” The words sound so ridiculous I practically gag as they come out. Ella’s a gorgeous girl, and she’s all by herself. There’s no telling what could happen to her. “You want to drive her car back home before we head to Gainesville?”
Easton gapes at me.
“Well?” I ask impatiently.
“Sure. Why not?” He rips the key fob from my hand. “I mean, who cares that she’s a hot seventeen-year-old by herself, carrying almost two grand in cash?” My fingers curl into fists. “It’s not like some junkie high on meth is gonna look at her and think, ‘there’s an easy mark. That five-foot-something chick who weighs less than my leg isn’t gonna beat me off’”—it’s becoming hard to breathe—“and I’m sure every dude she runs into has good intentions. None of them will drag her down a dark alley and run train on her until she’s—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I roar.
“Finally.” East throws up his hands.
“What do you mean?” I’m practically panting with rage. The pictures Easton painted with his words make me wish I could Hulk out and run to Gainesville, destroying everything in my path until I find her.
“You’ve been walking around like she’s nothing to you. Maybe you’re made of stone, but I like Ella. She…she was good for us.” His grief is almost tangible.
“I know.” The words are wrenched out of me. “I know, goddammit.” My throat tightens to the point of pain. “But…we weren’t good for her.”
Gideon, our older brother, tried to tell me that from the beginning. Stay the hell away from her. She doesn’t need our kind of drama. Don’t ruin her like I ruined—