Page 108 of Owen

“Is this where you’ve been for the last five days?” Lincoln looks at me like I’ve become a crazy person. He’s not wrong. I’ve had no sleep for days and I’m living off coffee. I feel manic.

“Yeah.” I push my fingertips into my eyes. “I need more caffeine.”

“You need sleep. You look terrible.” Jacob casts his gaze around the room. “And it smells like ass in here.”

“That would be me. I haven’t showered in days. I’ve been here since Jade left.” My eyes sting with tiredness, but I won’t rest until I find what I need.

Lincoln’s voice rises in surprise. “Is it something important you’re looking for?”

I nod, my head throbbing.

“We thought you just didn’t need help boxing everything up, but when we didn’t hear from you again this morning to arrange for your stuff to go into storage at Jacob’s, and your phone went straight to voicemail, we started to get worried,” Lincoln explains.

I scramble about the floor, searching for my phone. “Shit, I didn’t call Jade last night.” I urgently need to charge it and call her. I’m annoyed at myself for forgetting to call her like I promised. I missed wishing Poppy a good night, too.

“I’ve been a little distracted.” My shoulders sag with worry as I locate my phone. Pointing to the plug, I pass my phone to Jacob, silently asking him to charge it for me.

I never forget about Jade. That’s not who I am with her.

This money hunt is driving me insane to the point I’ve forgotten about my girls, and I’ve got nothing to show for the lost hours of my life I’ve spent on this searching mission.

Mission fucking impossible.

The private investigator came up short. My trust fund is lost in the abyss, along with my father’s billions.

“We took a drive up here and saw your car out front. You hate this house.”

I read between the lines of Jacob’s words. He wants to know what I’m doing in the building I spent most of my childhood trying to avoid.

“I need to keep looking.” I drop my head and go back to scanning the files.

“Can we help to find this importantthingyou’re looking for?” Lincoln asks curiously.

“Yeah. See those?” I point at the two stacked high columns of files on the floor. I haven’t been through them yet. “Take a pile each.”

“What specifically do we need to find?” Jacob asks.

“Money,” I say before I resume my search. “My father owed Richard and Gideon Sanderson a lot of money. He told me his debt now falls on my head.”

“What the fuck?” Lincoln gasps.

Head bowed, I keep talking. “He took this place and their life insurance. But it wasn’t enough to clear the debt. He wants another ten million. He’s given me ten days to find it.” My clenched jaw becomes tighter as the enormity of the situation hits me yet again. “I have five days left.”

“He can’t do that.” Jacob jumps in immediately.

“He has,” I reply, my anger so strong it burns like the fires of hell. I’m so mad, I feel like I could transform into the Hulk. “If I don’t have that money, then…” I trail off, unable to tell them the reality of my situation.

Jacob pushes me to keep going. “Then?”

I lift my head and stare at them, the knot in my stomach tightening. “He threatened Jade and Poppy.”

They immediately take a pile each and join me on the floor. “Tell us everything while we search,” Lincoln insists.

When I’m finished, they are both speechless. After a long pause, Jacob finally says, “Between Lincoln and me, we can get our hands on all of the money but it will take a month to clear. And the money I have in the bank is spoken for because the renovations on the castle are already three times over our budget.”

I tap an appreciative small punch on his shoulder. “Thanks, man, but it’s not your problem.”

I will never forgive my father for this, and I still cannot process Gideon’s words.He killed himself, and your mother.

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