Page 28 of Killian's Vengeance

“I’m not jealous,” he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t get jealous.”

“Andrew Larkin is a twenty-year-old sophomore at UIC, majoring in economics. He’s from Peoria and has two younger brothers, Jacob and Kyle. His father is a dentist, and his mother is a high school science teacher. Based on his online presence, you were right, Kill. He seems to be interested in Willa. He’s liked an awful lot of her stuff on Instagram, even her older pictures,” Ian cut in, still looking at his computer screen. He looked up to find us all staring at him and shrugged. “I checked out all the guys who’d texted you. I thought it was Lily’s phone.”

I frowned at Ian in aggravation while Killian frowned at me, his eyes glittering with validation. “I told you. What the hell does this guy want from you?”

“He’s just a guy from one of my classes.” Andy was totally harmless, but I was getting a kick out of Killian snorting like a mad bull over him.

“Who gives a fuck, unless he can tell us where Lily is?” Cullen barked out in annoyance.

I jumped at Cullen’s booming, irritated voice. I could tell that even though I wasn’t Lily, it didn’t make him like me any better. I periodically found him staring at me, a scornful expression on his admittedly attractive face. I’d had enough psych classes to understand that he was probably just using me as a substitute for Lily, that this anger and disdain was most likely meant for her, but it was unsettling all the same. I suppose it was possible that this was just Cullen’s personality, but I preferred to lean into the interpretation that his surly attitude was just a phase until we found Lily.

It was annoying to find yet another man so attractive in spite of their shitty treatment of me. Cullen had short, medium brown hair and dark blue eyes set in a face that would have been almost beautiful if it weren’t for the small imperfections, like the scar slicing through the edge of his left eyebrow and the slight misalignment of his nose. He had another scar cutting through his bottom lip on the left side. The perpetual scowl sadly did little to undermine his attractiveness, in spite of how much I disliked it focused on me.

“Okay, Ian, have you picked up anything since we realized that Willa is not Lily?” Although Killian directed the question to Ian, I couldn’t help but think he stated it that way as a warning to Cullen to lighten the hell up because I wasn’t Lily.

“So, I did a sweep of the area when you were at Lily’s apartment…uh, picking up Willa,” Ian said awkwardly. Right, referencing a kidnapping with both parties there was awkward. “Lily was outside the building watching from across the street. I caught her on a bank camera.” He tapped a few keys and pulled up the video of Lily standing across the street from her apartment building.

I felt a stabbing in my chest as I stared at the screen, the time stamp corroborating that she had been there when I’d been grabbed by Killian. The camera lingered long enough to reveal a smirk of satisfaction on her duplicitous, hateful face as she watched. Tears welled up in my eyes and I didn’t even know why. I knew Lily had duped me, why was I feeling so torn apart when shown the evidence?

But I was torn apart, sickened and sad that my sister had not only set me up for god knows what fate, but she had delighted in her deception.

I felt a hand slowly rubbing my back and shot a surprised look at Killian who was watching me carefully. I shot him a grateful, watery smile.

“Could you follow where she went after?” Cullen asked as he leaned forward.

“No, she disappeared into the L. I looked up her credit cards and they’re all inactive. I checked out her previous addresses and known associates but got nothing.”

“Fuck!” Cullen yelled and then turned to me. “Okay, little sister, you’re up. Where the fuck is she?”

I stared at him in stupefied shock, then darted a quick, worried look at Killian. “Uh, I’m not sure. I’m not that close with Lily. Obviously,” I said, gesturing to the screen that showed her watching my kidnapping.

“Then why the fuck are you here?”

“Jesus Christ, Cullen, calm the fuck down. We’ve only been here for thirty minutes. How is she supposed to remember anything with you screaming in her face?” Killian said, pinning Cullen with a stern, chastising look.

Cullen took a deep breath and ran his hand restlessly through his hair. I guess that was his version of calming down.

Killian turned to me and put his hands on my shoulders, giving me a reassuring squeeze. “Willa, take a deep breath. Can you think of anything—anything—that might help us find Lily. Any place where she feels safe or goes out of habit to get away. Any person she trusts or would run to if she needed to hide.”

I stared into his intense green eyes and wracked my brain for any information I could give them to find Lily. We’d been estranged for so long, she felt like a stranger. It was like the longer he stared at me expectantly, the more the gears of my brain ground to a halt.

Thankfully, someone’s phone chirped and called attention away from my failure to produce even one clue about where Lily might be. I was even more thankful it was Cullen’s phone, as his stare felt like it was trying to penetrate my skull and pluck the information out.

“It’s one of my contacts from O’Hare. He thinks he saw Lily boarding a plane to fucking Brazil. He’s going to get me the flight information so I can track it. Ian, I’ll send it all to you so you can follow up.”

“Got it,” Ian replied, his face already buried in the screen and his tattooed fingers clanking away.

I heaved a sigh of relief that someone had come through. My phone buzzed and I looked down to find another in probably a long line of texts from Vanessa.

Vanessa: We have called everyone! It’s been days and we’re about to go to the police bc we think you’re dead! CALL ME!

“Shit, I have to call my friend. She’s freaking out. What am I going to tell her?”

Killian looked only half interested in helping me create an excuse good enough to get me out of the doghouse with Vanessa. He just shrugged and said, “Just tell her you were getting laid.”

I looked at him like he was crazy. “Is that what you’d say to your friends if you’d disappeared for two days?”

He gave me a wolfish smile and reached around to pinch my behind. “They wouldn’t even ask, they’d know.”

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