Page 100 of Make Us Yours
Chapter twenty-two
Gabriel
Pizza, beer, and surprises.
I’m not sure what’s in that box, but with the look on the girls’ faces and the way Noah whips his head my way, I’m not sure I want to know.
“We have a problem,” he says with a hard yet worried expression.
I gulp. “What kind of problem?”
He takes a step toward me, angling the box for me to peer in. My insides instantly tighten, bile rising to my throat as I look at the images of the girls in the box. Each one of them individually taken at random moments during the day. There’s even one with Cecilia and Dante standing outside their home.
Fuck. This guy isn’t a joke.
I’m not sure what we’re dealing with, but if the contents in this box and what Ronnie said to me a week ago are anything to go by, it’s nothing good. Victor is much more dangerous than we initially thought. And now he’s coming after our women.
“I did this. This is all my fault.” Ronnie begins to cry in my arms. “I should have stayed away. I should have kept moving around like I planned on doing,” she sobs. “He’s going to go after them. He’s going to hurt them.”
“No, we won’t let that happen,” Noah tries to reassure her, but there’s no use. She’s stuck in her head right now.
She pushes against me and rushes to her room. We quickly follow her and find her pulling out a huge bag, throwing clothes into it haphazardly, which is very unlike Ronnie. She always keeps everything tidy. Even at the resort, she took all our clothes out of our suitcases and folded them into the dressers.
“Kitten, what are you doing?” Noah asks, stepping cautiously toward her.
“If… if I leave, he’ll follow me. He won’t come after you all. He’ll leave you alone. You’ll be safe if I’m gone.” Her voice cracks as she whimpers.
“No, baby, this isn’t the way.”Fuck being cautious. She needs to know we’re here and that we aren’t going anywhere.I stride over to her and grab hold of her hands,stopping her from filling the bag. “You leaving isn’t going to solve anything. You’ll just have to keep running forever. That’s not a life, Vixen.”
She looks into my eyes, tears tracking down her face. “I don’t know what else to do, Gabriel. I can’t let him hurt them.”
I release her hands and cup her cheeks, using my thumbs to wipe away her tears. “He won’t. I promise you, Ronnie. We won’t let him. What did we talk about last week? Don’t live in fear of him, don’t let him control you. We’ll figure it out.”
“How?”
“We’ll have to tell the others, at least the guys. It might be best if the girls don’t know, so as to not cause more panic. We’ll hire security for the time being until we can catch this guy,” Noah tells her, coming in to stroke her hair.
“And how are we supposed to catch him? He’s everywhere, and yet we don’t ever see him! And what security would accept watching people without them knowing?”
“We might have to go to the cops with this. Do you still have that detective’s number or name? He might be able to help.” She nods in response. I don’t always agree that getting the authorities involved is a good thing, but I really don’t know what else to do.
“We could ask Julian,” Aubrey says quietly, still standing by the door.
Noah and I furrow our brows as we turn to her.Who the hell is Julian?
“Who?” Noah asks.
“Julian Storm,” she clarifies. “His brother lives in front of Morgan’s. They own one of the best security services in the world. I’m sure he would know what to do in a case like this one.” She blushes slightly.
“Oh shit, I forgot about those guys,” I say, dropping my hands from Ronnie when it finally clicks who Aubrey’s talking about. The three billionaire brothers. I’m not exactly sure what they do security wise, but Morgan and Clay swear by their company.
“That’s actually a really good idea. We’ll talk to him before going to the cops with anything. See what he suggests. We’ll just have to find a time to get to him as well as tell the guys, without Morgan, Cecilia, and Emma noticing.” Noah nods as a plan forms in his head.
Veronica lets out a sigh as she sits on the corner of her bed. She looks exhausted with this whole situation. “We could try to distract them, maybe give you boys a reason to leave the house all together.”
I nod this time. “That could work. We’ll inform the guys, then sneak over to the neighbor’s house and explain the situation. Hoping he’s there.”
“Or we could just ask Shane.” Brey instantly turns red. “I mean Coach Jefferson.He’s good friends with Julian. He could probably get you in touch.”
