Chapter 76 Chapter Seventy Six
Jace’s POV
I found Mom in her office, nursing a glass of wine while being deep in thought.
She didn't look up when I walked in; instead, she kept staring at whatever spreadsheet was on her laptop screen like it held the secrets to the fucking universe.
"Mom, about Lena—"
"I don't want to hear it, Jace. Please leave, I’m sure you can find a nice football to throw around somewhere.”
"Just fucking listen for a second…" I stepped closer. "What I said earlier, all that shit about Lena being desperate and clingy, it wasn't true. None of it was true okay?"
Her fingers stilled on the keyboard and she stopped typing.
"It was a misunderstanding. And honestly?" I spat, too furious to stop myself. "It's kind of your fault for barging in like that anyway. I only said it because I panicked."
Even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were wrong. I was doing it again; deflecting, blaming someone else, doing anything possible to avoid actually taking responsibility for the fucking nuclear bomb I'd detonated in Lena's life.
Mom's head lifted slowly, and the look she gave me could have frozen hell itself.
"Excuse me?"
I clenched my hands into tight fists. "I mean—look, if you hadn't knocked when you did—"
"So this is my fault." Her voice was soft and deadly. "You lied to my face, nearly destroyed that girl's livelihood, put her entire family at risk, and somehow I'm the problem here?"
"I fucking told you I didn’t want to talk about her, yet you kept asking all those questions, putting me on the spot. Of course, I said whatever the fuck would get you to leave! What the hell else did you fucking expect?”
"What kind of excuse is that? You made me almost throw her out for absolutely nothing!" She yelled. She stood abruptly to face me, and I never saw it coming.
She was always the peacemaker, always begging and pleading for me to be reasonable while I was the one doing the screaming… but it looked like that wasn’t how it was going to play out this time.
She had this lost, disappointed look in her eyes, like she didn't recognise me. As if somehow, she was wondering where she'd gone wrong.
"What mistakes did I make raising you?" Her voice cracked slightly as she whispered. "Every day I ask myself, what could I possibly have done to make you turn out this way?”
Her words felt like a punch to the gut, whatever retort or insult I was going to respond with died in my throat.
"Mom, I—"
“That girl Lena is far too good for this family, practically irreplaceable. I should’ve realized that.”
She turned her back to me to stare out the window, her reflection ghostly in the darkening glass. " Thankfully, Noah and Martin both talked some sense into me before I made a decision I would’ve regretted.”
Noah. Of course fucking Noah had swooped in to save the day. Jesus fucking Christ, that bastard had to go!
"I'm going to do something special to make it up to her." Her voice turned cold and steely as she shook her head at me. "I suggest you do the same."
"Just listen to me…”
Her phone suddenly rang, cutting me off. She held up one finger at me then answered.
"Hello, sweetheart?" Her entire attitude changed, becoming warm and loving as she spoke.
That was the same way she used to sound when she talked to me… before I became whatever ‘disappointment’ I was now. "How's Singapore? The kids and I miss you terribly." She sighed.
I groaned impatiently. Apparently, she was blowing me off to talk to the old man.
She made a shooing gesture toward the door without even looking at me, and just like that I’d been dismissed.
I stood there like an idiot for another few seconds, waiting for... what? For her to change her mind? To tell me it would be okay?
She didn't, and so I left.
The house felt massive and empty as I searched for Lena. Every room I checked just confirmed what I already knew; she was gone, and it was my fault.
"Lena?" My voice echoed off the high ceilings. "Lena, please, I need to talk to you!"
Nothing. No response.
I tried Martin's room, knocking harder than I meant to. “Hey bud, open up? I need to ask you something.”
"What?" His voice sounded muffled through the door; clearly, he was also mad at me because he made no attempt to let me in.
Was there anyone on my side at all? I wondered.
"Have you seen Lena anywhere?"
He didn’t say anything back. The silence stretched on long enough that I knew he was deciding whether to even answer me.
"No," he said finally with an accusing tone in his voice. "Last time I saw her, Mom was kicking her out. So she probably went home. Like you wanted."
"Martin—"
"Go away, Jace. I don't want to talk to you."
My own little brother, the kid who basically worshipped me. Who used to follow me around asking to throw the football, who’d learned my whole game schedule by heart.
Now he didn't want to talk to me. Fuck. Could this day possibly get any worse?!
I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and dialled Lena's number.
It rang twice before she declined it.
I tried again and this time it didn’t even ring, she’d blocked my number.
"Fuck!"
I was spiralling. I could feel it, that familiar tightness in my chest, the way my thoughts started racing faster than I could process them, the need to move, to do something, to fix this before it fucking killed me.
I searched every room again even though I knew it was pointless. Kitchen, study, living room, guest room…
I was just about to walk past the gym room when a soft, moaning sound coming from inside stopped me in my tracks.
It sounded low and muffled. Was that... voices?
I grabbed the handle and shook it, only to realise it was locked.
"Lena?" I called through the door. "Princess, are you in there?"
There were definitely two voices coming from inside there, I heard it clear as day… right?
My heart started pounding frantically, what the fuck would she be doing in there?
"Lena, open the door!"
I rattled the handle hard enough that it should have broken. The gym was never locked, we never fucking locked it.
So why the fuck was it locked now?
I looked around frantically for the spare key. We kept one somewhere. But where? On the shelf? In the drawer?
"Lena!" I pounded on the door with my fist. "If you're in there, please…”
Out of nowhere, the voices stopped.
There was sudden, complete silence as I pressed my ear to the door, holding my breath so I could listen better.
My mind was going to dark places. Could Lena really be behind that door somehow… and with who? My mom? Martin? Or…
No. No, that was insane. Noah had barely been here two days, and it was a big house, he couldn’t possibly know where the gym was.
And Lena was probably halfway home by now, not locked in my family's gym doing... whatever my fucked-up brain was trying to imagine.
I waited another thirty seconds, listening as hard as I could.
Still nothing.
"Fuck this."
I needed to get out. Away from this house, away from my own thoughts. One more second in here and I would lose my fucking mind!
I was doing ninety before I even realized I'd left the driveway.
The roads blurred together in the darkness as night fell. I gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was being reckless, stupid, and dangerous, all the things everyone constantly accused me of being.
But I couldn't slow down. If I slowed down, I'd have to think. And if I thought, I'd have to face what I'd done.
You're nothing without me.
Had I really said that? Had those words actually come out of my mouth?
I had to talk to someone, anyone at all to set me straight and tell me if I was really in the wrong here. Someone to tell me how the hell I was supposed to get her back, how to convince her to somehow trust me again.
I had dozens, if not hundreds of fans and worshippers and supporters, but when it came down to it, I had barely any real friends… except for Marcus.
I called his number, typing the digits in as I drove and waited for him to answer. He didn’t; instead, the call went straight to voicemail.
"Hey man, I'm almost at your house. I really need to talk to you, man." I groaned, cursing under my breath, “I fucked up. I fucked up real bad."
I looked up from my phone and suddenly a turn appeared out of nowhere.
I yanked the wheel, but it was too late. The bend in the road was way too sharp, and I was going too fucking fast to stop.
In a flash, the car lost its balance on the road, the tires screaming as I grabbed the wheel and takes it to the left, frantically swerving for dear life.
In mere moments I had overcorrected the car, then it was fishtailing off the pavement, then for a sickening second the car just stopped responding to the wheel.
Crash!
The noise of the front end of the car slamming into something was deafening as metal shrieked and glass exploded around me.
I sat there with my ears ringing, my hands still locked tight on the wheel as I panted from the shock and effort of steering myself out of death's grip.
I felt a sharp pain in my knee, but I ignored it. It didn't hurt nearly as much as seeing the condition my car was in after the accident.
My new Bentley, the third one my father had given me for my birthday which was worth more than most people made in a year was wrapped around a fire hydrant, crushed up like a beer can.
Water sprayed everywhere, catching the streetlights on the road.
"Fuck." I slammed my fist into the steering wheel. "Fuck, fuck, FUCK!"
At least I was close to Marcus's, it was only a two-minute walk from where I’d crashed the car.
I climbed out on shaking legs and started walking.