Page 59 of Trust In Me

“Go to sleep and stop being a cocky asshole,” she jokes, and we both say our goodbyes. It doesn’t take long for sleep to draw me under when I’m comfortably tucked up in bed, not having to worry about a baby waking me.

I wake up naturally, which feels weird to me, and when I realise that nobody has woken me up, I actually start to panic a little, sitting up in bed quicker than I should. Looking around, I catch sight of the clock telling me I’ve slept for close to three hours, which is very unusual. Mia must have decided I needed the sleep instead of waking me. I would much rather have woken up with her in my arms, but I think that will always be the case.

Pulling on my sweatpants, I adjust my half-mast cock that has sprung up at the mere thought of Mia. I don’t want to be pitching a tent when I go downstairs. I also pull a black t-shirt over my head. Normally I wouldn’t bother, much preferring to walk around without my shirt on, but our visitors complain, and then Liam whacks me round the head. So, I’m saving myself from a traumatic brain injury today.

Walking into the living room where everyone is gathered, my first instinct is to look for Hallie, and she’s playing in the ball pool I bought her for Christmas. Ryleigh and Shane are sitting on the floor playing with her, which basically involves my little monster throwing balls at them, while they run around picking the balls up and filling the pool back up. Once I know she’s okay, I look around for Mia. I’m shocked she isn’t with everyone else. Sitting next to Liam on the sofa, I pull the phone from my pocket. I check to see there's no messages or calls when Liam begins talking.

“Nice to see you, Sleeping Beauty. Did you catch up on your sleep?” Liam jokes.

With a deep chuckle and a sarcastic grin, I reply. “Just you wait until you are in this position. Babies hate sleep. When you get the chance to sleep, you will grab it with open fucking arms, trust me. I was actually freaked out when I woke up by myself. I can’t remember the last time I woke up naturally. How fucking terrifying is that? And pretty soon, that will be you too, bro.” Liam doesn’t look quite so cocky anymore.

“I’m choosing to pretend my baby is going to be a little angel, and will be sleeping through the night from day one.” I can tell he doesn’t quite believe what he’s saying.

“You are fucking delusional. Where’s Mia, by the way?” I ask, trying to drop her into conversation, making it sound like my enquiry is casual. Liam’s eyes narrow; he sees straight through my bullshit. I think he’s secretly amazed I lasted this long without asking about her whereabouts.

“Is she not with you? We got back about an hour after she left to go shopping, but we haven’t seen her since. Honestly, we assumed she was with you. I don’t think Bree’s heard from her, but I can ask.” He turns his attention to his wife, who is sitting on the seat opposite, talking to Kian, no doubt about work. “Princess, have you heard from Mia?”

Bree’s eyes narrow as she quickly takes out her phone, her brow furrows as she looks. “No. I thought she was with Kel.” She can obviously tell by the look on my face that isn’t the case. She begins dialling and holds the phone up to her ear. Shaking her head, she tells me that it’s gone to voicemail. I don’t know why, but I have a sinking feeling in my stomach. Something doesn’t feel right and my heart is racing as panic begins to set it. I know Bree has just tried, but I have to try myself. I pull the phone out of my pocket and start to dial Mia’s number. It goes to voicemail without even ringing. Could her phone be turned off?

“I’ve just put a call into the main gate, they are checking security footage to find out if she came home at any time,” Kian states, and by this time the room has descended into silence as they all listen to what is happening.

“Fuck, she’s missing, isn’t she?” I snap, standing up and beginning to pace around the room.

“Kellan, bro. Calm the fuck down. We don’t know that she’s missing. She could still be out shopping, for all you know. Just keep trying her while we check she hasn’t come home,” Liam says, trying to calm me down.

Shane jumps up from his position on the floor. “I will go and check the house, just to make sure she isn’t here somewhere,” he says, as he starts sprinting towards the staircase. I’m grateful for him wanting to help, and it’s not a bad suggestion, but I already know she isn’t here. I can feel it.

Pulling up the software I need on my phone, I start entering the computer code that I need, and the program works perfectly, just like I designed it to. I’m basically running a trace to find her phone. I created an app that’ll let me do it from my phone. The only way I won’t be able to locate someone is if their phone is turned off or damaged. Then all I can see is the last location they were at before their phone lost connection, for whatever reason.

It only takes a few seconds for the data to flash up on my screen, and it doesn’t help the impending fear of doom I feel in my chest. “Her phone is off. It was last connected two hours ago down by the high street,” I explain to nobody in particular.

“So her phone could just be dead?” asks Freya, and fuck do I want to believe that is true. Yet everyone is wearing the same sombre expression that tells me they don’t believe that either.

My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest, and my palms are sweating as that impending fear of doom spreads through my stomach, making me feel sick. A very out of breath Shane quickly returns, letting us know that she isn’t in the house, and Kian confirms that security hasn’t seen her since she left the property. Bree continues to call her, despite me telling her that her phone is off. We are all starting to panic. I can feel the tension in the room, but nobody says anything.

I can’t take the silence any longer. I have to voice how I feel, and we have to deal with this. “Fuck, she’s missing, isn’t she? What are we going to do?” I don’t mean for the last question to come out sounding like a plea, but I look to Liam because I desperately need him to step up now and tell me exactly what to do. We need a plan, otherwise I’m going to lose my shit.

“We don’t know that she is missing for sure, so that’s the first thing we need to look into. We can go to her last known location, ask around and see if anyone has seen her? Meanwhile, you can check her phone's history to see if there’s any information in there, anything she may have been hiding that could give us answers,” Liam instructs, and Bree nods in agreement, before adding more demands.

“Kian and I will get in touch with Whitlock. If she is missing, there’s a good chance he will know something about it.” Fuck, I hadn’t even thought of her dad. Now that I think about it, that’s probably the most obvious reason for her being missing, but there’s also a part of me that thinks she has left me. Women always leave me; I just thought Mia would have been the one to break that cycle.

“Honestly, there’s a lot of routes we could go down. Why don’t Kellan and I go and do the deep dive now? That will give us all some areas to focus on. Keep trying her phone. We will come back down as soon as we can and we will have an action plan,” instructs Liam, and I don’t blame him for wanting to come up with a plan before we all spring to action. The truth is, there’s a million different reasons for why Mia might be missing, and so we need information so we can focus our efforts more.

“Can you look after Hallie, please?” I ask Bree, but everyone in the room replies. Kneeling down in front of my daughter, who is still happily playing in the ball pool, oblivious to the scare going on around her. I lean down to give her a kiss, and I tell her I will bring Mia back to her very soon. The only reply I get is a ball thrown in my face, but I will take it. At the moment she is unaware Mia is even missing, I don’t want her to have to suffer the loss of another female in her life. It’s hard enough for me to live through the heartbreak, I don’t want her to have to suffer too.

Liam and I waste no time, running up the stairs towards my office. Shuffling the mouse, all my computer screens spring to life. I make myself comfy in my chair and try to focus my thoughts. I need to keep a clear head. I will find her, if it’s the last thing I do.

Using software I created, I manage to hack into her phone, grabbing coordinates for her last known address. I then go deeper, trying to grab as much information as I can. Mia doesn’t use her phone much. Other than texts to the people here in the house, there’s only a couple of other numbers that I don’t recognise. As soon as I open the latest one that was sent just a few days ago, my blood begins to run cold. I recognise the number, and now everything is starting to make an awful lot of sense.

Turning to Liam, all the colour drained from my face, I show him what I’ve found. “This is the reason Mia ended our relationship. Fucking Shayla. She made contact with Mia and threatened to give the judge enough evidence to have her take Hallie from me. The only way to stop me from losing custody of Hallie was if Mia agreed to stop seeing me. So she did. But Shayla tells her she is always watching, and if she attempts to start a relationship again, at any time, or she doesn’t leave once she has finished her university degree, then she would regret it. Shayla fucking threatened Mia. I’m going to kill her,” I scream, pushing myself up from my office chair so quickly that it flies into the wall.

Liam grabs hold of my arm. “Whoa, calm down, Kel. This does look damning, and we do definitely need to sort it, but Shayla is in Limerick with the Reapers. There’s no way she is over here stalking Mia. I have no idea why she felt the need to interfere with your relationship, but we also can’t ignore the other texts on her phone. Her father there makes it very clear she belongs to him, and that she has to marry Kyle when she graduates. All of this is a lot for one person to deal with. We will explore every option, but I think we do need to keep in mind the possibility that this all became too much for Mia, and she just left.” I start to protest, because I know for fucking certain that she wouldn’t just leave, not without saying goodbye to Hallie.

“She wouldn’t,” is all I manage to croak out, and I feel my body beginning to deflate. Liam throws my arm around his shoulders and takes my weight for me. I think he is the only reason I haven’t collapsed into a heap on the floor.

“I know. Let me call Evan to find out what he knows, since he’s in Ireland. I promise we will look into this. But if Shayla is in England, or she has taken Mia back to Ireland, there will be a trail. So you have something to look for. If it comes to it, I will storm the Reaper compound with you. But before we start a war, we need proof. Can you keep working? You can’t just focus on the Reapers, you have to investigate Whitlock too.” I nod in agreement, and he pulls his phone out. He calls Evan who went back to Ireland a couple of days ago. I think he had planned to come back here tomorrow to celebrate the new year with us, but he had some business he needed to attend to these last couple of days. Which works out in my favour because everyone else is here in London.

I’m surprised when Liam next calls his father, but if anyone can find out what Whitlock is up to, to find out if he’s involved, it’s Desmond. It’s a fucking massive thing for Liam to contact his father. I’m not sure if times have really become that desperate, or if they really have started mending some of the broken fences between them. Desmond is only too happy to help. He hates Whitlock almost as much as I do.

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