Page 104 of Love Me

“So you won’t help me?”

Bailey flinches. “You know where she is. She’s one of us. Even with you wearing her on your heart, she couldn’t be more part of this family than she already is.”

“So you won’t tell me.”

“No.”

I pin her with a sharp gaze, and she holds it, not at all intimidated. “Look, you love her. She loves you. But you don’t trust each other, so…”

She’s pointing out the obvious.

Everything is getting out of control. I ball my fists at my sides and storm outside. I get in my car, and after I drive mindlessly for a while, I reach her father’s place. Celine has to be here. Setting myself up for a confrontation, I am half inclined to look Sebastian in the eyes and tell him I might kill him if he won’t let me see her.

Either way, I am not leaving without her.

This time, the guards let me in. Sebastian and Cillian wait for me at the entrance.

“You have a habit of arriving unannounced.”

I open my mouth to ask him where Celine is when he says, “Any idea why Celine said she will be away for a few days?”

Fuck. She’s not here. Where the fuck is she? And then it hits me. Bailey covertly told me where she is.

I approach him, and when we’re eye to eye, I say, “Show me everything. Let’s take these motherfuckers down.”

I do this for Celine: creating one family from two.

Our love will prevail. Our bond is unbreakable.

Cillian looks at him and says, “Are you sure?”

“He has even more to lose,” Sebastian responds.

I don’t fear losing the bullshit family my name is attached to, status or money, but the people I love and swore to protect.

“Celine’s mother is alive. My wife is being kept somewhere in what we think is this building.”

I shoot from my chair and approach the board, where a map stretches with a red circle around a place not far away from the Family’s compound.

“I don’t know anything about this.”

“From what we’ve gathered, it’s under Caleb’s command. The only one we caught coming and going are your father and Caleb.”

Caleb, Blake’s father,is my father’s best friend, and the head of the Family’s pharmaceutical company.

Shouldn’t Blake have found out about this?

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Caleb is the mad scientist, and your father is the evil manipulator. Those two are the perfect match.”

“But the old––I mean Grandmother.”

They stifle smiles and Sebastian says, “It’s hard to understand how a mother could keep her daughter prisoner, but there is also another version.”

“My father is planning to take control,” I say.

“He’s smart,” Cillian says, his voice ringing with incredulity.

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