He snatched it out of the air. “A black and white party to go with the glamour party, to top the Hollywood party. Everyone is copying each other at this point.”
“Better than the Queen of Hearts party knock-offs,” Carter said. “A Snow White and a Peter Pan theme before they accepted they couldn’t pass them off as anything other than a children’s birthday party on our budget. Queen of Hearts did it right.”
“Belle and her team killed it,” I agreed.
Just like that, we were talking about Belle.
Talking about Belle. Thinking about Belle. Sleeping with Belle. Running my fingers through Belle’s sudsy hair while she jacked me off in the shower. It blew my mind how the girl I ran into one day at the museum suddenly became the fixed point my world revolved around.
“I finally understand why my mom makes us do this,” I said. “So we appreciate the time, money, and effort that goes into coordinating fifty events a year, and stop complaining and sneaking off five minutes in.”
“She teaches us in so many ways,” said Nathan.
We chuckled.
“Guys,” Carter began. “About earlier on the beach. Did you mean that stuff or were you saying it for Belle?”
“I meant it.”
“Me too,” Nathan echoed.
“It comes down to if you want her,” I said. “She’s making it pretty clear that she wants to be with you.”
Carter looked away. “That’s not what it comes down to.”
“Then what does it?” asked Nathan.
“Mal.”
The name dropped the temperature in the room twenty degrees.
“Think about it,” Carter said. “Even if there was no Delilah or Colonel or any of the other stuff in our way, Belle would still leave us because of him. She’s terrified he’d hurt us or worse, and”—Carter touched his scar—“I can say without a doubt that he would. I was fucking twelve and the man nearly killed me.”
Nathan vaulted off the bed. “What the fuck are you saying? We just let her go?”
“I’m saying she won’t give us a choice!” He jumped up too. “I wouldn’t change what happened that day. I’d run at that bastard a thousand fucking times to save her. And Belle knows that. She knows it of all of us. The summer is all she’s promising us for a reason. At the end of it, she’s cutting us out of her life to protect us, but you know what? I’m not losing her again.
“This is what it comes down to.” Carter grabbed our shoulders, meeting our gaze with a look I’d never seen on his face, but knew well. “If we want to be with her, we fucking get rid of Malcolm Byrne.”
Nathan and I shared a look. “What are we waiting for?” I asked. “I was willing to take him out the second I realized who her friend truly was.”
“What do you have in mind?” Nathan echoed.
Like it was a surprise that we agreed with Carter one hundred percent. There were endless obstacles in our future with Belle—Malcolm Byrne would not be one of them.
“She and her parents have tried cops, restraining orders, bodyguards, and cross-country moves. The fight has to be brought to him and he needs to be put down,” Carter said. “Permanently.”
“We don’t disagree with anything you’re saying,” Nathan replied. “But we still come back to how. How do we find him? Belle’s folks have more money and experience with the guy and they can’t track him down.”
“We don’t have to,” I said, recalling something I told Belle. “Don’t need to know where he is when we know where he’ll be. And that’s wherever Belle is. You don’t search for a shark in the ocean. You throw a bucket of chum in the water and let it come to you.”
“The chum in this case being Belle?” Nathan’s voice was laced with disbelief. “Are you saying we use her as bait?”
“Yes.”
“No!” They shouted me down.
I put my hands up. “Listen to me. We don’t actually put her in any danger. Belle won’t be anywhere near this trap.”
“Explain,” Carter said.
“He doesn’t know where she is right now. He’s assuming she went away for the summer. Likely in England with the extended relatives. We let him think that,” I said. “Splash about on social media that she just got home from a great trip with her new fiancé in tow.” I inclined my head at Carter. “The two of you are crazy in love and excited about living together in your apartment while you plan your Christmas wedding.
“Mal is going to see that. The twisted fuck won’t be