Page 35 of Then and Now (The Edge of Retaliation 3)
“I got sent a finger, and a note. I think … it’s Chase’s finger.”
Ethan goes silent, then hisses, “Fuck me.”
“I wouldn’t have bothered you otherwise, but I’m … I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t have,” he mutters under his breath, then says. “Give me a few hours to work out what to do. In case you’re wondering, Chase has been through hell and back since you left. The least you could have done was stand by him and his ownership of what happened, instead of running off after you insisted on going and getting him. He deserved at least that much. It hasn’t been easy for him.”
My heart twists. When I Ieft, I didn’t consider Chase, and I feel selfish for that. So fucking selfish. Ethan is right, I went and found him, brought him back to admit what he had done, and then ran. Things wouldn’t be easy for him there, because people will blame him, and I’m sure that hasn’t been easy.
“I never meant to cause anyone any pain. For what it’s worth, I actually thought I was doing you all a favor. I was making everything so much more complicated. If you had seen how Mrs. Yates cried that night, the things she said, it was truly heartbreaking. Me being there wasn’t making anything easier.”
“And you think leaving did? It doesn’t matter now, we’ve all fucking moved on. You broke Tanner, fuckin’ cut him to the core. He’s found someone better, someone who fuckin’ appreciates what he is. So have I. I’ll contact him, see what to do about this, and before you tell me not to, you don’t get a say in all of this. Chase has been missing for two days, we are tryin’ to get him back, but it appears they want us all instead of just one. I’ll call back.”
I open my mouth to say something, but he hangs up on me.
Ethan.
My friend.
The man who got me through the worst time in my life.
Hung up on me.
And I deserved it.
I fucking deserved it.
What have I done?
13
JOANNE
“What?” I whisper, eyes wide, staring at Callie and whatever the hell she has in that bag, because if it’s what she says she has, I want no part in it.
A finger.
A fucking finger.
“Yeah,” she goes on. “They’ve found us, too. I had to call Ethan and …”
“Wait,” I put a hand up, still in shock at her story about the finger and the note she got left today. Now she’s going on to tell me she spoke to Ethan. Ethan! “You called them?”
“I had to call someone, Jo.”
“Yeah,” I cry, “the police!”
“That won’t end well for anyone. You know that. Look where it got us last time. He’s obviously out of prison and Ethan told me he’s taken Chase. They’re all worried. It’s not just about us anymore.”
I shake my head, my mind spinning. “They’ve got Chase?”
She nods.
“What did Ethan say?”
“After he abused me, he told me he would speak to Tanner and Tatum and call us back.”
Tatum.
Hearing that name is like a knife to the chest. The guilt I still feel for leaving him when I did makes me sick to my stomach. I sent him a message, which Callie doesn’t know about, not that she’d judge me, and I explained why I was leaving and how grateful I was to him. He never replied, but I saw he read it. Then I changed my number.
I know I broke something we had built up. I know I ruined what could have possibly been the love of my life, but I needed to start new, just like Callie did. I had Patrick’s family calling me non-stop, my own family abusing me, and that was after I’d already left. If I had stayed, I never would have found any peace.
But leaving meant giving up the best thing to have ever happened to me.
I had to sacrifice.
He was my sacrifice.
But my heart still aches when I hear his name, and I know Callie feels the same about Tanner, even though she’s sort of dating someone else now and has been for a few months. He’s a good guy, but I know where her feelings lie.
With the men we left behind.
“Tatum is still there?” I whisper, crossing my arms so she doesn’t see my hands trembling.
“Yeah, he’s still there. They all are. Ethan said … He said they’d moved on. I don’t know what that meant, but it doesn’t matter. We just need to figure out what to do here and then we can all go back to our lives.”
Our lives.
How can we go back to our lives if we have to see them again? After this long?
“There was nothing in my apartment,” I say, taking the subject away from the men. “Do you think they know I’m here, too?”
