The Story of Me (Carnage #2)(119)

He ends his call and looks at me. “Apparently, it happened back in December.” I swear my heart stops beating for a few seconds. For f*ck’s sake. She’s going to kill me. I’m dead. If she don’t string me up by my balls, her ol’ man will and f*ck knows what them psycho sister-in-laws of hers will do to me. Oh, f*ck, we’ve got the pregnancy tests on Monday.

Fuck!

Shit!

Bollocks!

“Eli’s all over it and trying to stop the paper from…” Benny stops talking and just stares at me. “For f*ck’s sake, boss. You f*cking idiot. What the f*ck is wrong with you?”

I move my tongue around my mouth, trying to unstick my lips from my teeth. I swallow a couple of times, despite my mouth and throat being bone dry.

“We weren’t together. Nothing had been sorted.” I know it’s a piss poor excuse, but it’s all I’ve got right now. “Where’s Georgia? I need to speak to her and explain.” I feel like my head and my chest are about to explode. Fucking newspapers. Fucking vindictive women selling their sex stories to newspapers. I let out a long breath. I need to find Georgia. I can’t think beyond that right now.

“She don’t wanna see ya, boss. She told me to tell ya, ask ya, to stay away.”

“Yeah, like f*ck that’s gonna happen. Where is she, Ben? At her mother’s?” Fuck, I’m going to have to face all the f*cking Laytons now.

“I dropped her at an old warehouse conversion in Docklands. I don’t know who lives there, but that’s where I left her.”

I start to feel even sicker. She’s gone to him. That’s his place. It’s where he lived with Marley before she and him got back together. She’s told me about it, but I’ve never been there. She’s not been there since he died either, or so she told me, but now she’s gone to where she’ll feel close to him and that hurts. It really f*cking hurts, and what makes it worse is, it’s all my own fault. I should’ve told her. I know we weren’t together, but we’d talked. She’d told me how she felt just the night before, in that hotel room in Sydney. We were happy. For a few hours, we were happy and making plans, and then her spiteful cousin had turned up and spoilt it all.

I’d found out while I was in Australia that it had been Jodie who had gone to the press and told them that Georgia had spent the night in a hotel room with me on the anniversary of Sean’s death. Lovely girl. Who the f*ck does that to their own cousin?

Jackson had come to see me and told me. I have no idea how he knew I was in town, but he had come to the club and found me. He’s actually a really nice bloke and I could just tell from talking to him that he loves Georgia. He was telling me about the practice Georgia had funded and the counselling work he was doing. She’s never said a word to me. Never once had she mentioned that she’d helped set him up.

I get a lump in my throat thinking about her. She’s going to be devastated. I’ve let her down in the worst possible way and it serves me f*cking right if I lose her, not that I’m gonna let that happen, no f*cking way, but what’s hurting me right now, is that she’s gone somewhere that makes her feel close to him. I f*cking hate being jealous of a dead bloke. I’ve never been jealous of anyone in my life, except him. Dead or alive, I’ve always been jealous of him.

I lean back in my seat and close my eyes. I need to see her, nothing else matters. I just need to see her.

“Give Mark directions, Ben. I need to see her.”

“Won’t get in, Cam. Security at that place is tighter than a duck’s arse, and if she’s told them not to let you in, then you ain’t getting in.” Yeah, we’ll f*cking see about that.

“Watch me,” I tell him. He just shakes his head. “You gotta piece on ya?” I ask Ben

“What the f*ck ya gonna do, Cam, shoot the f*cking doorman?”

“If I have to, Ben, yes.”

My phone rings before any more can be said and Bailey’s name appears on my screen.

“Great, a bollocking from Bailey. Just what I f*cking need right now.”

“No sympathy, mate. You brought this one on yourself.” I flip my middle finger up at Ben and answer the call.

“If you don’t tell me she’s with you, I swear to God, King, I’ll pull you limb from f*cking limb and feed you to yourself through your own arsehole.”

“She’s not with me. I’ve just got off a plane. Benny said he dropped her at Marley’s old place, ya know, the warehouse conversion?”

“She’s not there; Marley and Lennon went over there earlier. They spoke to Benny. He told them that’s where he dropped her so they went straight there. Security said she came in but left in a black cab about ten minutes later.”

I get a burning sensation rush up from my toes. My entire body feels too hot but I break out in goose bumps and my scalp prickles. It’s fear. What I’m feeling is pure fear. I struggle to catch my breath.

“Cam, no one’s seen or heard from her since she got in that cab. Now, to say that I’m beyond pissed off with you right now, goes without saying, but my priority is to find my sister and make sure she’s safe and not done anything stupid. Cam, I f*cking swear, I will gladly do time if she’s hurt herself because of you.”

I struggle to breathe and talk past the lump I have in my throat at the same time. “Bailey, if she’s done anything stupid, you won’t need to look far for me, coz I’ll be wherever she is.” There’s a few seconds of silence. “How’s your mum and the ol’ man doing?” I ask.