“Declan,” he said. “She’s—” He cut himself off. “This is important.”
“Text me what you can, and I’ll get to work on it.”
After Cole hung up, he untangled his fingers from mine. “Let’s go home and wait for him to call me back.”
“You don’t want to wait here?” I didn’t want to leave, in case Eva came home.
Cole’s answering look was pitying. “If she hasn’t made it home yet tonight, she’s not going to. Snow’s building up, and I want to sleep somewhere warm.”
9
COLE
The bottle sittingon my bedside table beckoned me, but I knew if I gave in, that’d be it for the night. I wanted it, though, almost more than life itself. Almost more than Eva.
Almost.I pulled on my hair, letting out a silent scream at her betrayal, then crawled out of bed to pace, waiting for Declan to call me back. When he finally did, I answered. “Wait.”
I knocked on Tristan’s door, surprised when he answered right away. Guess he hadn’t been sleeping either.
“This information comes with a price,” Declan said quietly.
Tristan’s eyes widened, the gold practically glowing in the moonlight, but I slashed my finger across my throat, telling him to remain silent.
“I want you back at Friday Night Fights,” he said. “Three nights.”
“It’s the middle of the hockey season,” I said. “If I get hurt…”
“Do you want to know where your girlfriend is or not?”
Tristan’s pleading expression did me in. Fuck. Fuck!That goddamned bitch had left me with only bad choices, and I hated her for it.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“There was a pile-up on I-95 yesterday with multiple injuries. A red-haired woman in her early twenties was pulled from a rental car. They took her to Mount Sinai Regional, just outside of New York City. My contact there thinks it’s her, but I don’t have anyone who can actually look at the files and confirm her name.”
The world tilted sideways. Eva was in an accident. Hurt. Maybe dying.
My heart stopped, then exploded back to life, hammering so hard, I thought it might burst. Blood roared in my ears, drowning out everything except the image of Eva broken and bleeding in some hospital bed.
No.I didn’t fucking care. She was a lying, manipulative bitch who’d gotten exactly what she deserved for betraying me.
Tristan was already pulling on a sweatshirt and looking for his sneakers. “Let’s go.”
“The fuck I will,” I snarled at him. “We have practice in,” I checked the time on my phone, “less than five hours.”Like training matters when Eva might be dying.
Tristan looked at me with such profound pity, I wanted to disappear, to crawl into the bottle and never come out. That look—gentle and heartbroken and utterly disgusted—told me everything I needed to know about the man I’d become.
“You think practice is more important than making sure Eva’s okay?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“Eva walked out on us. After betraying me, you, and the whole fucking team to my father. Yeah, I do fucking thinkpractice is more important than making sure Eva’s okay.”He slid a hat on over the durag he wore to protect his cornrows and nodded sharply. “I’d like to borrow your car then.”
I swallowed. Shit. Was this the end of our friendship? “Keys are by the door. And for the record? I think you’re a fucking fool.”
Tristan sighed, his shoulders slumped with the weight of his disappointment in me. “Yeah, I know.” He looked up at me, golden eyes piercing straight into my blackened, shriveled soul. “That’s what everyone said when I stuck with you too.”
He brushed by me and jogged down the stairs before I could think of an equally cutting retort.