Page 29 of My Unexpected Mate

“Good. I will see you tomorrow. Bye, Annie,” he said, opening the front door and walking to his car.

“He is not mad at you, Aria,” Nick said quietly, placing his hands on my shoulder.

His touch sent pleasant shivers to my belly.

“He just isn’t good with handling his emotions. He really cares about you.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Nick. I will see you tomorrow,” I smiled slightly.

“Be careful. And call us if you need anything, okay? You too, Annie,” he said, letting go of my shoulders and walking to Gabriel’s car.

“Bye, guys,” Annie yelled after them and closed the doors.

I sighed and placed my head in my hands. What the hell was that?

CHAPTER NINE - The Floorboards

Gabriel’s POV

I was angry as fuck. The thought of her being around someone I didn’t know made my blood boil. What if something happened to her? I will kill everyone.

I could see Nick was also angry. He was frowning and staring through the passenger seat window. We both hadn’t said a word since we left the girls.

Suddenly, I had a craving for Louis’s cheap shit he calls wine. I needed to go to his bar soon and drink until I didn’t care anymore.

“Keep your phone on and close,” Nick finally spoke as we were pulling up my driveway.

“Of course!” I grunted and left the car.

We entered my house, and I went straight to the fridge. I pulled out two beers and handed one to Nick.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Gabe,” Nick said, smirking.

I sighed unhappily. “I know. Me too. But what can we do? They barely know us. And we barely know them. I get it’s weird for us to care this much already, and I don’t want to freak Aria out. Or Annie. I don’t want them to shut us out.”

“I know, man,” Nick said, sipping his beer. “I really hope we find something in your house that will explain all of this.”

“Where should we start?” I asked.

There were tiles in the kitchen and in the bathrooms, but all the other rooms had floorboards, and it would be easy to hide something underneath.

“Maybe we should start with your grandma’s study and her old room.”

“Yeah. I will go to her room, and you will start at the study. Try and see if any of the floorboards feel loose,” I said, drinking the rest of my beer and putting the bottle away.

“Let me know when Aria texts, okay?” Nick said and got off the chair.

I nodded and went upstairs to my grandma’s old room.

My house was big. There were four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a small library on the top floor. Downstairs there was a big kitchen, a living room, a guest bathroom, my grandma’s old study and a dining room we never use. I used to ask my grandma why there were just the two of us in a house this big, but she said it reminded her of my parents and she refused to move out.

It will take us a while to check everything.

I was right. We stumbled upon a couple of loose floorboards in my grandma’s old bedroom and in two bedrooms that are now empty. It took us a while to loosen them and look underneath only to find nothing. They were just loose. It was frustrating. We still had to check my bedroom, library, dining room and living room.

It was around 9 pm when I got a text from Aria saying they are leaving Annie’s house. About 5 minutes later she texted they were at Mike’s. I was just finishing checking my bedroom and I found nothing. The top floor was clear.

I went downstairs to check on Nick.

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