Call You Mine (Servite Academy)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

DAMON

D riving up to the monstrosity of a home, I asked myself for the hundredth time why the fuck I was coming here. Why was I choosing this as the place to decompress? Instead of talking things out with Wynter, I came to the one place I know I won’t be getting the whole truth. Yet it felt like the only place I could find the answers I so desperately needed.

There I go fucking self-sabotaging once again when things get too hard to fucking deal with. I did it time and time again with Clarissa—when I needed to forget, to run from shit when life got too messy and too loud—I went to her, lost myself in the high our fucked-up arrangement brought me. I was addicted not to one person, but to the way it all made me feel. Powerful and authoritative, but most of all, in control.

Though it was all an illusion.

Now, I’m here because I’m trying to understand the reason my woman found it so easy to betray me. I s this my way of trying to fix the broken girl by coming to the root of the problem? Am I falling down the rabbit hole of mommy issues we both have now that she has thoroughly fucked up my life?

Finding myself looking up at the heavy wooden doors of the mansion, waiting for the bitch to open up, I decide that this is my punishment, not my decompression. To come face to face with the woman who fucked up an angel—my angel. To experience firsthand the venom she spews and hopefully shed some light on why Wynter would hurt me the way she just had.

I don't realize I’m holding my breath until the door slowly creeps open, the hinges of the old Victorian home creaking as it moves. A sharp chill rushes up my spine and the cool breeze behind me has nothing to do with it.

This is it. This is the moment I’ll finally snap. Years of unresolved trauma, of demons I pushed so far back, I’d fooled myself into believing they’d disappeared. I’ve always tried my hardest to ignore the way my childhood screwed me up. I knew it had in so many ways—ruined my trust in people, my reluctance to ever truly open up in any sort of relationship. My friends knew what I told them, they saw what I allowed them to see, though none of them knew the truth about me. The dark, wicked truth I kept buried so deep inside me I’d nearly forgotten it was there.

I was broken beyond repair. That was the hard fucking truth. I was so fucked up I didn’t even understand what it meant to be whole, to not have these demons lurking in my shadow, to feel anything other than rage and despair.

When I met Wynter, the first time my eyes fell on her, there was this surge of energy that struck me. The first time I had her in my hands, her body beneath mine, there was a rush of power unlike anything I’d ever felt. It was a high, a dangerous and desperate need to ensure I always had her close. It’s the reason I allowed myself to create the friendship I had with her—an outsider was suddenly part of my inner circle and she hadn’t even tried to weasel her way in. No, I let her in without thinking about the repercussions. But soon enough, those fears overwhelmed me and I had no idea how else to respond. I kept the lines between us clear. The moment they’d blur, I’d set them back up to ensure we both understood why they were there to start with.

When she left, it became easier. Our conversations varied and far between, allowing us to keep everything platonic. However, as soon as she came back, everything I’d thought I’d gotten over rushed back to the surface, and I realized I’d fallen so deep. When I agreed to her request of pretending to be in a relationship, I knew the risk—the risk of having her so close to me, in my home, make-believing we were together—it was threatening to blur everything and confuse me into believing it was real. I’d spent so much time dreaming about her, about what things would have been like if we’d given into the temptations. The contract, the strict set of rules I set. To not touch her—was created because I couldn’t risk losing her. I knew the moment I’d lose her—because it would inevitably happen—I’d lose myself.

Yet here, right now, I’ll finally be able to unleash my inner demons on someone who came between me and my future. My friends have always called me Dragon because of the untamable flame within me, but the demons inside me begging to be let out burn just as hot.

From the inside, I can hear her heels clicking on the way to the door, my heart pounding in anticipation yet my entire being fills with equal amounts of dread. Rage builds up inside me once more, my fury too potent for me to ignore. For so long, I believed I had controlled it—suppressed it and kept it below the surface. I realize it was just a smoke screen, when for the hundredth time in just a few months, it once again threatens to bubble inside me and rise aching to erupt.

Before me, the door opens at such a slow pace, or maybe it just feels that way because I want to throw it open to see the woman I’ve spent the last hour obsessing over destroying. But it’s not Willa I find. From behind the door, a woman dressed liked she’s headed to a fucking gala at four o’clock in the morning.

“Hello, Draco,” she purrs, her voice like venom as it seeps from her Botox infused lips and my heart nearly jumps out of my chest.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand, utterly stunned to see her here, of all places.

“That’s no way to address my dearest friend, now is it?” Willa coos, as she appears behind the door, pulling it open wider. There’s a devilish smirk on her face, a triumphant gleam in her eyes, and for a second I’m taken aback by how much Wynter resembles her. Yet this woman is rotten to the core and my girl is the purest form of innocence—at least I believed her to be before her betrayal. But maybe the apple, in fact, doesn’t fall far from the tree. “Not when you are the guest. It’s obvious no one ever taught you manners, boy.”

I enter the house without a word, nearly knocking them down as I push my way through. “You crazy bitch, what the fuck are you to up to?” I push Willa up against the wall, a sharp cackle leaving her with a groan as my hand wraps around her neck, holding her still. The house is eerily vacant except for a large white sofa in the middle of the living area to the right of us. The large winding staircase at the center of the room looks like some never-ending labyrinth leading up to the second floor.

It’s dark, nothing but candelabras lining up the foyer, giving the room a glum glow.

Clarissa and Willa are both dressed in long, sleek black dresses that would look great on any other woman, but the way they wear them makes me sick to my stomach. Fury blinds me. The reason I’ve come here now is pushed to the back of my mind as I try to figure out why the hell these two are together.

I remember something Wynter told me about how she knew about my role at Kingsman. Clarissa was a friend of her mother’s. At least they ran in the same circles before Willa was outcast. Wynter had heard about me, and what I was a part of, and that’s where she got the idea to solicit me for my services. At the time, I found it hilarious that she felt the need to “hire” me instead of just asking me to help her. I would have done it for her, helped her in whatever she needed to fool her mother, but I went along with her scheme, the need to pretend I was doing it for money like I would with any other client.

It worked out for me too. Looking at this as another job to fulfill allowed me to keep control of the situation and what I allowed myself to do. Soon enough, that control slipped until our roles reversed and Wynter was the one who held all the power.

And she’d used her power to end me.

Clarissa’s eyes roam over me, in the same lucrative way they always have. It used to thrill me that such a powerful, influential and frankly beautiful woman saw something in me she craved. But as I watch Willa, staring at me with the same look of desire in her eyes, it makes me fucking sick to my stomach.

I push off Willa, my fists handing at my sides to stop me from further choking the bitch. “My darling Draco,” Clarissa chimes, walking over to me and trailing her hand around my chest. My breath hitches as I move out of her reach, trying my hardest to restrain myself from throwing her off me.

A shadow in the next room catches my attention, and I find a tall figure seated in the middle of the large sofa. A man with shaggy dark hair and hooded green eyes with a dark shadow around them stares straight at me, a look of anger in his eyes as he watches me approach him. More than anger, it’s a sort of envious glint in his eyes as he sizes me up. When he stands from the couch and steps under the dim light above him, I notice he's dressed in a sleek emerald green suit, the lapels of his jacket stained with something I can’t quite make out, but what catches my eye are the black and purple bruises marking the skin of his face. They’re fresh, one under his right eye still open and coated in semi-dry blood. Actually, the entire right side of his face looks like it was pounded relentlessly, dried blood still staining the skin of his cheek, eye and along his forehead.

In the darkness, I can’t quite make out if I know him. He looks familiar, yet I know I’d be able to place him since I’d had seen him before.

Willa’s heels click against the marble floor as she makes her way to him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she lowers her lips to his, pulling him in for a long and desperate kiss. It’s sickening the way she tugs his bottom lip in between her teeth. My stomach recoils at the sight of her kissing a man who looks not much older than me, but what really pushes me over the edge is when Clarissa saunters over to me and tries to do the same thing.

Her long arms wrap around my neck, her fingers toying with the collar of my shirt as she presses her lips against my neck. I don’t move, horrified by what she’s trying to do, but more intrigued by the asshole in front of me. Is this him, the man my Wynter has been running from?

The moment Willa releases her hold of him, I reach up to grab Clarissa’s wrist currently wrapped around my neck, and push her off me, nearly knocking her to the floor from the sheer force.

“Hmm,” Clarissa moans, my body vibrating frantically from the disgust I feel at the sight of her. She stands, smoothing her dress with the back of her hands as she pretends she’s not affected by what I’ve just done to her. “I’d almost forgotten how rough you like it.”

I’m unable to respond before Willa demands my attention. “Damon Drake,” Willa says, her tone full of spite as she holds the man beside her like he’s the most precious thing to her. “Please meet Luke Prescott. You may have met his little sister Carrington as you both went to school together. Luke here is a dear friend of my little girl, an ex-lover, if I’m not mistaken.”

Luke fucking Prescott. This is the asshole Carrington was looking for today. The man Wynter swore she hadn’t seen since she left New York. Which means she’d been in contact with him recently. Could she have fucked him too?

However, Luke’s not the man in the videos, not the one who had her draped on his arm in every shot I saw, but he had something to do with why she was running—that I was certain of.

Anger nearly blinds me at Willa’s insinuation that my Wynter and this fucking asshole were ever anything. No, my girl would have never been with some pathetic pirate wannabe like this fucker. I push the ridiculous thoughts out of my mind. There’s no fucking way Wynter would ever set her eyes on a man like this. He looks like a fucking douche, some frat boy who thinks he has what it takes to get his hands dirty in a world like the one these women are a part of. No, he’s nothing but a pawn of theirs.

Luke dares take a step forward, but the moment I let out a sharp growl he stops, choosing his next move wisely. “Yes, Wynnie may have told you about our time together in New York.”

The fucking bastard has some nerve trying to make me jealous and believe she was with him while she was away from me. There’s no way Wynter had anything to do with him, and if she did, then he was part of the reason she was running. Which means he was part of the reason we were currently at odds.

“Why the fuck did you all summon her here?”

Willa laughs, sitting down on the couch and pulling Luke down with her. Clarissa walks over to join them, sitting to Luke’s left and setting her hand down against his leg, rubbing him a little too eagerly. The two women stare directly at me as they rub their palms back and forth along his leg like they’re part of some fucked up threesome I’ve just stumbled upon. That explains the dimly lit room, the eerie ambiance, the reason they’re dressed like they're attending some elusive event at four o’clock in the morning. What the fuck did I walk in on?

“I asked you a fucking question, Willa? Why the fuck are you sending Wynter these packages, the messages, the threats? Is it because she didn’t get you what you wanted? Because she didn’t marry some old fucker you wanted?”

Willa lets out another sharp cackle that makes my ears nearly bleed. How can this woman have any part to do with my beautiful angel ? “Sit down, Damon. Make yourself comfortable. It’s going to be a long night.”

Pulling up to my house, my head is ringing with so much noise I just want to shut it off completely. My temples are aching, my mind refusing to believe anything Willa and Luke told me, yet my instincts are telling me I’d be a fool to ignore it. It has to be a lie—every story they concocted has to have been made up in order to turn me against her. I know there’s no reason for them to have shared any truth with me, but I’m stuck not knowing what to believe. Wynter refused to tell me anything, so whether it’s the truth, it’s the only truth I know.

Yet everything inside me is begging for me to refuse to believe it.

Pulling out my keys, I unlock the front door and toss them onto the table by the entrance, not caring to pick them up when they miss it completely and fall to the floor with a clatter. My feet are killing me, so I kick off my shoes, tugging on the tie that feels too fucking tight around my neck, leaving it loosely slung around my neck. This suit I’m wearing feels too tight and smells of that torrid place and the two women who stared at me with a sick hunger in their eyes. All I want is to get out of it and in the shower to wash away the memories of tonight.

The way Clarissa’s hands roamed over me, her fingers tracing along my shoulders before I tore her hands off me. Her touch used to bring me solace, but now all it does is sicken me. More so the thought of ever allowing her to touch me at all. I undress, tearing at my clothes as I ascend the staircase up to my bedroom, but stop dead in my tracks when I hear someone behind me.

“Where the fuck have you been?” my sister shouts as she makes her way up the stairs behind me. Realizing it’s only her, I keep walking, ignoring her, and cursing the fact I never collected her key after she moved out, shortly after I’d bought the home. I’m way too fucking exhausted to deal with her inquisition right now. I’m on no sleep and it’s nearly six am. All I want is to shower, sleep and hopefully never wake up again—or wake up and realize this was a horrible nightmare. “I’m fucking talking to you, asshole.”

I drop the tie to the floor, my shirt next, and move to unbutton my pants, hoping that will make her leave, but she doesn’t. Instead, Ruby rushes behind me, pushing me against the wall once we reach the top. I falter slightly, too tired to steady myself and give my sister the upper hand. Her face is devoid of any makeup, something I rarely ever see, and her dark hair is up in a loose, messy bun. She’s wearing black leggings and a simple white tank top, probably something she threw on after waking up and coming here since it’s six in the morning.

But it’s her green eyes, so fierce and demanding—snake eyes is what I used to call her whenever she was furious with me and looked at me oddly similar to the way she’s glaring at me now—that terrifies me. She’s so serious, but there’s something about the way she’s glaring at me with every ounce of protection stripped off her face and body—the makeup and risky clothes were always her go to tool to disguise her true self and give the illusion of someone who has their shit together.

“I don’t have time or energy to deal with whatever the fuck you're about to throw at me, Ruby,” I say, but as she reaches for me, her scowl suddenly shifts into a strangely worried expression. She rubs her fingers along my neck, roughly swiping them over my skin like there’s something on it. Her expression turns rabid as she reaches for the shirt I discarded on the floor. Staring at the collar, her green eyes go wide when a semi faded stain of red lipstick comes into view.

Son of a bitch.

I should have seen it coming. The fury in my sister’s eyes should have been a clear warning that what she’s about to do was definitely going to inflict pain on me.

“How fucking could you?” she shrieks, her fists slamming into my chest as she pushes me back against the wall. “I knew you were a fucking asshole, Damon, but what the fuck?” Something in her demeanor shifts, her expression falling from anger to disappointment and my chest painfully constructs as I grab her wrists, but keep them flat against me. Like I deserve to feel the pain she’s inflicting on me. Like it’s not enough to punish me. “Cheating? How could you do that?”

“I…” My words fail me. There’s nothing I could say at this moment to justify what she thinks I’ve done. Nor should I have to. Wynter is the one who’s married. She’s the one who betrayed me. Yet it’s my sister, my blood, who’s here pissed off at me when the woman she loathes is the one at fault.

“You what? Are you going to come at me with some pathetic ass excuse, too? Come one Damon, we both know you’re much smarter than that.” Too? I catch the insinuation that she knows what being cheated on feels like, but she’s right, I’m smart enough to know that’s not something I should bring up at this moment. Not when the look on my sister's face is fucking terrifying.

“Look, Ruby, I don’t have to explain anything to you. Why the fuck are you even here?”

“Why am I here? Why am I at my brother’s side when I find out, by his ex-girlfriend, by the way, that his current girlfriend or whatever the fuck you two are, is pregnant with his kid, oh and apparently married to another?” Well, she’s well informed and apparently I have Scarlett to thank for that.

“Look, I don’t know what you and Scarlett talked about and I frankly don’t give a fuck. This shit is between Wynter and I, and right now I’m in no fucking mood nor do I have any intention of seeing her again. So do us both a favor and leave me the fuck alone. I appreciate you checking in on me, if you could even call all this nagging at me that, but you and I both know we’ve never needed that shit from anyone.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Go sulk in your bedroom. Keep all that bullshit inside. It's done you so well so far.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’re both so fucked beyond comprehension because of the way we were raised. Because the two people who were supposed to love us unconditionally failed us. One disappeared, and the other preferred to ruin herself than have to deal with us. And here you are, finally found someone who is that unconditional for you and you fuck it all up before even allowing yourself to discover the truth.”

“I know the truth.” Ruby’s eyes go wide at my sharp tone. “They told me everything. About her husband, his death. How they blackmailed her and made her believe it was him back from the dead. They tried to lure her out after she ignored them and that’s when they sent her the photo of that guy, Luke. Last night, Carrington came to confront her, claiming that Wynter knew where her brother was. Wynter tried to deny it, feigning she'd had no contact with Luke but he showed me her missed calls, the messages she sent, the voicemails she left him, begging him to come to her. I tried to ignore it, to make sense of the lies they were telling me, but I can't see it any other way. I heard her voice, begging him to answer her, to come help her.”

“Then it’s time you hear the whole truth from her lips.” Stunned, I turn and find Scarlett standing at the doorway of my bedroom, her blue eyes brimming with tears as she waddles inside and toward where I stand with Ruby.

Within minutes, before I even have the chance to question how the fuck she’s in here, Wynter’s voice echoes in the room. The melancholic tone coming from Scarlett’s phone she’s put on speaker makes my heart ache. My chest constricts in agony as I hear the pain in her voice as she recounts our history. The way she was all alone, even though she was surrounded by so many. The way she found solace in my friendship after our one drunken night of passion. The unlikely bond we created no one was aware of.

I go still when she continues to reveal the true reason she left for New York. The man who showed up at her doorstep demanding she pay for the sins of her father’s and the monsters who tested fate never once thinking about the consequences of their corruption. How this man, Enzo, forced her to be his bride, kept her locked up in his home only to let her out when he needed something from her. When he needed to parade her around and show off the prize he’d won from those who crossed him. He used her as a warning, a sign to his enemies that he was not to be betrayed.

Wynter was utterly alone and felt no one cared if she was gone, but I did. It broke me when she left, but instead of going after her and asking her why she’d just up and left, I resented her for it.

It was at that moment that our relationship changed and I tried my hardest to pull away and not allow myself to lower my guard around her. She had her own life, a life I believed she was enjoying, but all along she was completely and utterly miserable with that monster.

Anger burns within me, an inextinguishable, rampant blaze as I hear her break down and let out every single one of her secrets—the pain she’s held inside her for three years, far beyond that, the pain she kept as a young girl growing up in a world she came to resent. It only gets darker from there as she recounts the night she left me after our argument, the same night I was attacked and left for dead.

It was him, her husband, who had me almost killed because he’d found out where she’d come. I was not angry at her for it, but it made so much sense. Why, even with my uncle Nico’s connections, we could never connect the crime to anyone. We’d chalked it up to a mugging gone wrong, though they took nothing from me. But now it all makes sense.

Beside me I hear Ruby gasp as Wynter’s voice continues to flow through the room, the agony in her tone now so audible you can feel the sorrow she felt like she was in the room with us. The way she lived in horror for three years until the night she escaped. The night he almost took advantage of her, and she attacked him in self-defense.

My body and mind go numb when I hear her mention Luke and how he helped her escape, only to end up back at my doorstep. She told them about our ploy to fool her mother with our fake relationship in order to save her from another horrendous arrangement. How the whole time she plotted to make me believe what we had between us could be real, only to be rejected countless times by me.

She confessed to being tormented by who she believed to be Enzo—her supposed to be dead husband. The text messages, the packages, the way she felt like she had to always be looking over her shoulder. If only she knew her mother and Luke, who was supposed to be the man who helped her escape, were in reality the ones behind her torment.

The moment she says my name, recounting last night and how I reacted when she’d told me she was pregnant, I yank the phone out of Scarlett’s hand and end the recording. Falling to my knees, my chest heaves as my vision blurs, threatening to black out completely.

“Damon,” Ruby cries out, falling to her knees beside me. She throws her arms over my neck and cradles me into her, but I don’t hug her back. I can’t move. My beautiful Wynter’s voice breaking as she admitted she was scared shitless about the whole thing, about telling me she was pregnant. How I became furious and blamed her for planning it all along and doing it on purpose. How I continuously reminded her we were nothing but a contract, a fake relationship we’d both agreed to.

I see now for what it all was—lies I tried to make myself believe. But I couldn’t. Not once did I truly believe what Wynter, and I had wasn’t real. I couldn’t get myself to admit it to her then, but I see it now, regardless of the version Willa and Luke gave me. I believe the truth I hear coming from Wynter’s lips even if she didn’t admit it to me.

Being with Wynter was the only thing that had ever felt real. It was like a part of me, a part that was always there, just lay dormant until she awakened it, was suddenly the only thing I could feel. I might have tattooed the words mine on her upper thigh, but she carved her name into my heart, branded herself into the depths of my soul. And now, she had a piece of me, a piece of us, growing inside her.

How could I be so blind, be so cruel to her when all she’d done was to be by my side and tried to make things work between us?

“Damon, please say something.” I hear my sister plead as my body shakes vigorously in her grasp. I became another monster for her to fear, the cruelest of them all because I made her hopeful, made her trust me willingly. Made her feel like she’d found something real, someone to love, who loved her back, and then I went and told her it was all fake.

I’d hurt her physically, but worse, I’d broken the already broken girl who felt alone all her life. I proved to her that her fears were real.

Just then, another voice enters the room as Kai comes barging in through the door of my bedroom and sees me down on the floor, succumbing to the agony I’m currently fighting. “Ruby, Scar, can I have a moment alone with my brother,” he tells them, and although Ruby’s not so sure about leaving me in this broken-down state, Scar leads her out leaving me alone with my brother—my best friend.

Kai doesn’t ask me to get up nor does he try to force it, no my brother joins me on the floor and allows me to fall apart before him. Minutes go by, the two of us succumbing to the silence, him giving me the time I need, while I’m too lost in my thoughts to even fathom a word to say to him.

Finally, he speaks first. “Do you remember what you told me when I was in denial about being in love with Stella?” he asks, but my mind can’t think past the torture Wynter lived through these past three years while I resented her for moving on and living her life. “You said you saw the way I looked at her, the raging jealousy when someone else was near her.”

I don’t respond, his words cutting deep into me because I know it's the truth. “You told me I didn't have to throw my life away because I thought I didn’t deserve to be happy, Damon.” Memories of that night come back to me. I’d taken Kai out to a bar on the outskirts of Providence, a rundown town a few hours away I’d visited when the trail of my mother, which I’d followed, led me there. He was in denial about his feelings for her. Kai grew up in a situation similar to mine in that neither one of us had caring adults to look after, care and guide us. He’d pushed Stella away, repeatedly, with the excuse of her being too good, too pure for him. He knew he’d taint her, ruin her in the worst way, though all of us knew she was exactly what he needed to heal. I’d even gone as far as faking interest in her to get him to see how he truly felt about her. I guess Wynter wasn’t the first time I faked a relationship, though with Stella it never meant more than a ploy to get my brother to open his eyes to what was in front of him.

Much like I think he’s trying to do with me now.

“I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t the same thing,” he says, knowing exactly what I would have said if my mind was doing anything other than obsessing about how I ruined everything between us. “But it is. Damon, you are the most loyal, protective, and loving friend I’ve ever known. You may not always show it, or say it, but it’s in everything you do. You’ve spent you’re whole life protecting Ruby, then took on the burden of dealing with our demons on top of your own, and now, now you’re going to let everything fall apart, all of your deserved happiness because you think you’ve fucked things up further than you have.”

From my peripheral vision, I catch him running his hand through his shaggy hair. “I’m sorry, man, sorry for not being there for you through all of this. Everything with Stella and the baby. I was so preoccupied in trying to keep them alive and safe…”

“Don’t fucking apologize for that, ever, Kai.” I get a few words out when I see my brother beating himself up for being there for his family like he should have been.

“I know, man. But fuck, how did I miss so much?” Kai pauses, his warm eyes meeting mine as his expression softens. “I had those thoughts too. How the fuck was I going to be a dad when I never had one to look up to, at least for me, one that wasn’t a complete and utter monster. Thoughts of how I’d already fucked this child up so much and it hadn’t even been born yet. I blamed myself for the complications we suffered. Stella was bedridden for weeks, my sweet Ember born early with a heart condition they’ve luckily now cleared her of, but I blamed myself for it. Because I wasn’t fit to be a father, that was my punishment.”

“Kai…” I say, but he shakes his head and doesn’t let me finish.

“I know, I know. That was nothing but me being selfish to think that I mattered that much to the big guy upstairs. It was life, a shit part that I’m lucky to be in the clear of now, but I had those same fears and doubts running through your mind. The demons, those wicked voices we have up their living for the thrill of making us doubt everything good in our lives. They don’t make it easy. But Stella, she drowned them out for me, much like I know Wynter does for you. Look man, I don’t know everything that happened between the two of you, but I know this…That woman was the best thing that has ever happened to you. Whatever it is she’s done, she deserves the chance to make it up to you, because if we’re utterly screwed, that poor girl is fucked beyond repair. We had the blessing of not growing up with our parents, who would have hated us our entire lives, but she grew up with them poisoning her for her entire life.”

Just as I’m about to speak, accepting that all Kai’s just said is the truth and I’m only hurting myself by not at least hearing her out, we’re interrupted when Scarlett frantically rushes into the room out of breath with Ruby on her tail.

“Damon,” she shouts, her face growing pale as she stares down at her phone.

I snap out of my daze and stand, rushing forward and yanking her phone from her grasp.

“It’s Wynter, she’s gone,” Ruby says, when Scarlett is too stunned to speak. “Ace said she left a note, said she was going to put an end to all of it and leave once and for all, the way she should have since the start.”

“Where is she, Scarlett?” I shout, fear crippling me as I stare into her eyes.

“I don’t know, but I think she’s in danger.”

“Fuck,” I curse out loud, aching to throw something or punch my fist into someone. I know exactly where she’s gone, and if I’m right, I hope I’m not too late. I turn to Kai, and he silently nods, letting me know he’s got my back in whatever I need from him. Looking back at a panicking Scarlett, I hand her back her phone. “Call Ace. Tell him to take backup to this address.” I pull the small card Willa sent Wynter and hand it to Scarlett. “If she’s gone here, we better hurry.”

“Backup? What kind of backup?” Ruby asks, looking just as worried as Scar.

“The devil’s whole fucking army.”