Page 75 of Songbird: Black Kite
“Lewis!” I shouted, my heart racing out of control. I was a wreck. A goddamn fucking disaster, but I couldn’t help it. The thought of Victoria having Wren’s letters had me in a fuckin’ tailspin. What had she said? Why had she taken them? How had Tori even found them in the first place? “Focus, man. Where have you seen letters like that before?”
“At my house, Hawk,” he said, watching me carefully. “Tori has, like, a stack of them. All covered with feathers and shit like those ones were. She keeps them all locked up in the safe. But I ain’t ever read them or anything. If they’re addressed to you, I didn’t know.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to calm my breathing. It wasn’t his fault; Lewis had no idea what the letters were, or how much they meant to me.
Neither did Tori, for that matter. She’d never been involved in that aspect of the business. Her father had placed her more as the face of the company, using her looks to draw attention where he wanted, when he wanted it.
So why the fuck would she have any fan mail in her possession, never mindthoseparticular letters?
I was missing something. Something huge, I knew it. I could sense the answers hovering, just out of sight, waiting for me to discover them. It was like I was standing on stage, staring out at a darkened stadium. The lights were shining down so bright, I couldn’t see past the edge of the stage, couldn’t see what was out there.
But I could feel it.
“Lewis,” I said, staring him down. “I’m gonna need those fuckin’ letters.”
Chapter forty-three
Hawk
Present
“Dude,willyousitdown already?”
It was the third time Alex had made the request, and I wasn’t any more likely to agree than I had been the first two times he’d griped at me.
Lewis had been gone for over an hour. His house wasn’t that far away; even in the worst L.A. traffic, he should have been there and back in thirty minutes, tops.
So it was safe to say I was losing my shit. So far, I’d pictured him having died in a fiery car crash, having been abducted by aliens, and even stopping on the side of the road to help someone recover their lost dog.
The intrusive thought that was sticking out the most, however, was the one where he and Tori were sitting in their Bel Air mansion, drinking their martinis and laughing their faces off at me.
That one was the fuckin’ worst.
As soon as Lewis had left, I’d headed to the basement studio to find Alex. He’d taken one look at my face and called in reinforcements. Gavin and Charlie had arrived in record time—way faster than whatever the fuck it was Lewis was doing, that was for sure—and I had reluctantly filled them in on the most pertinent details.
I’d found the letters. I’d grown attached to the letters. I wanted all the letters.
That was it. They didn’t need to know that I’d tried my hand at cyberstalking and I was almost certain that it was Wren’s eyes I’d been seeing in my dreams for over a decade. They didn’t need to know that I felt closer to her through this scant amount of one-way communication that I had from her than I had felt for any woman I’d ever known.
And they sure as fuck didn’t need to know that I was worried that I was starting to believe that Victoria may have had a hand inmorethan just blackmailing me into a marriage that I absolutely didn’t want.
“He should be back by now,” I grumbled, my worried steps taking me to the doors overlooking the pool. The wide glass doors were open, the afternoon breeze filling the house with the soft smell of the sagebrush from the canyon, the spicy scent briefly chasing away the skunky smell of the pot I’d smoked earlier. It was the first thing Alex had done after he’d called in the guys; pass me a blunt.
Turning around again, I caught sight of Charlie and Gavin watching me from their places on the couch. Neither of them had said much since I’d told them about Wren and her letters, both appearing lost in thought as they digested the information.
Alex, on the other hand, never stopped to think about anything, keeping up a steady stream of inane chatter and unhelpful advice the entire time I’d been stressing.
“I’m sure he’s on his way, man. So just chill. You’re gonna put a hole in Harry’s tile floor, and then she’ll kick both our asses.”
I opened my mouth, prepared to tell him that I’d pace wherever the fuck I wanted to pace in my own home, thank you very much, but before I could get a word out, the notification for the gate went off on my phone.
“Yeah?” I barked into the app.
“It’s me,” came Lewis’s hesitant voice.
“’Bout fuckin’ time,” I growled, hitting the button to open the gate and making my way to the front door.
I watched as Lewis parked, climbing out of his ridiculous hypercar—seriously, the thing had once belonged to a Saudi Prince, and he bought it at auction for an astronomical price—and making his way to the house.
