Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,6

beautiful aquamarine eyes as her naked, bruised body lies there on full display, is like someone took a tire iron and pummeled it straight into my chest.

“Say something, J,” Cole murmurs beside me.

“What the hell kind of joke is this?” At Liam’s hesitant, unsure question, I snap like that’s the trigger.

“She’s been fucking taken!” I roar.

Mia has been fucking taken by that disgusting vile sonofabitch, and I’m going to kill him.

Cole’s right there beside me. “Just breathe, man,” he mutters lowly, a firm hand on my shoulder. “Breathe.”

I shake his hand off. I’m way past reasoning with at this point. I’m past common sense, humanity or understanding. I can feel the anger igniting in my veins, licking through them like acid down my back.

“You don’t want to snap in public like this.”

Fuck me with a fucking drill if I care.

We’re still in the courtyard right outside the front steps of the courthouse where I was supposed to be tried and sent to prison, in short order for my supposed crimes of kidnapping, raping and threatening to kill the girl that stole my heart when I was a fucking mess years ago.

While Mia went ahead and saved my fucking life, my future—and my fucking sanity for a temporary feel-good moment before it all got shot to hell with one fucking text—proving she never lied to me, I’ve been hating her, cursing her name and the way I still wanted to kiss her.

And now, she’s been fucking taken! And God only knows what—

“Fuck!” I roar, turning heads and startling babies in my rage.

“Shit, fucking shit,” Cole mutters, looking around. “We don’t need attention right now. Not with what I assume is about to happen.”

He’s probably right but at this point, it’s useless to try and tame the blazing inferno of pain, anguish and torture I’ve been thrust in.

Mia…

“Okay, hold the fuck up,” Liam says quickly. “Before we lose our fucking heads over this... this disgusting picture, let’s focus and talk this out.”

“Liam—” Cole mutters, but I cut him off.

“There’s nothing to fucking talk about here!” I growl and just as quickly, my gaze falls back on the image on my phone.

I can feel my stomach flipping in my chest, every muscle in my body tightening to a point of pain as my vision hazes with a tint of red, but still in all that, I can’t look away.

“What the fuck, man?” Liam bites out again. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

“Liam, I fucking told you before,” Cole starts, his voice low and pained. I can feel his gaze settling on me even as he speaks to my brother. “This isn’t a joke.”

“You’re damn right this isn’t a joke!” Liam explodes. “If they think we’ll let this slide like that trashy picture they had floating on the internet of Mia’s dead mother-aunt whoever the fuck she was to Mia, then they have another thing coming!”

“What fucking picture now?” Cole seethes.

“The one they had with Mia’s old house in the background, talking about sucking dock for two fucking dollars!”

“Ah, Liam—” Cole starts but it’s too late. I turn to my brother.

“If you so much as say something like that shit again in my presence or to anyone else for that fucking matter, brother or not, I’ll wring your fucking neck.”

“J—”

“I fucking mean it.”

He clamps his jaw shut and jerks his head in resigned surrender, silently and angrily conceding.

“Yeah, I get it, but let’s not pretend like we have all the facts right now,” he bites out. “Because of this is real—” he trails off, a shudder going through his body as his face clouds with anger.

“I don’t need fucking facts for this or some kind of fucking confirmation,” I say. “They took what’s mine. They took her.”

I know the Matthews inbred bastards and I also know this is not some fucking threat. This is fucking real.

“Yes, I understand the urgency of this fuck fest but Liam’s right,” Cole mutters. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Not with this. We need all the facts before we…”

“Before we fucking what? Charge in and fuck it all up?” I seethe, stepping away from him. “This is a call for me and I’ll fucking answer it!”

“Keep your damn voice down, people are staring.”

Ah, fuck this. Gripping the phone with a white knuckled grip, I turn on the heel of my fucking dress shoes that I apparently now have reserved for things like Aiden’s funeral, a court case made up against me and now, ripping the fucking Matthews assholes