Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(107)

“Hey Showgirl, gotta say I’m disappointed. Came all this way to see you. What’re you doin’, Lola? Avoiding me?”

My hand clapped over my lips as I gagged. Get it together, Lola. Come on. Hang up and call Leo.

“Wanna see you again, Showgirl. Wanna feel you strangling my knot as I…” Indy chuckled, a poisonous sound. “See you soon, babe.”

The phone beeped and I dropped it to the floor, pressing my back to the wall and taking deep breaths, gulps of air to keep down the urge to be sick. Except with every breath came a little taste of Indy on the air, faint and clawing, a single fingernail scratching down the back of my throat. When had he been here? Friday? Or just last night?

“Fuck. Fuck. Come on, Lola,” I whispered. I grabbed my phone with shaking hands and tried Leo first. Straight to voicemail. “Noo,” I whined. “No, come on. Please.”

I puffed little breaths and swallowed the next whine. Call…the police. Or Baby. Or David. Or…

There was really only one person, more than all the others, I wanted to see at this moment. I couldn’t have explained it, only that I knew he would know what to do. That he would be here, with me, as fast as he could. I scrolled through my phone, praying I’d saved the number and then pressed to call right away.

“Please. Please, please, please.”

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”

I gasped at the sleep gravel in his voice and sobbed once before putting a stranglehold on my control again. “Wes? Indy was in my apartment. He’s in the city.”

Wes cursed and shuffled over the phone as I swallowed hard, staring into the dark of the bedroom.

“He’s not there now, right?” Wes asked, sleep cleared away to a sharp and efficient tone.

“I…I don’t know. I haven’t gotten farther than the hallway.”

“I’m on my way, sweetheart. You call the police yet?”

“No.”

“Okay. Okay, I want you to stay on the line with me. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” I squeezed out.

“Where’s Leo?” Wes’ pounding footsteps down the stairs matched the still rapid beat of my heart.

“He’s in a car on his way home, but his phone is off. He left a voicemail…he said he’s coming back.”

“Indy? Fu—did you delete it?”

“No.”

“Good girl. Is your door locked?”

I forced myself to stand and finished sliding the chain and bolts in place. “Yes.”

“Okay, you hang tight, and you stay on the—” There was a voice in the background, and Wes answered with my name, the voice rising. “—Stay on the line with me. You’re sure he’s not in there, right?”

“I…his scent is faint but I…don’t want to go into my room.”

“Do you have a weapon, sweetheart?”

I turned the phone onto speaker and let it rest near the charging port. Wes’ voice was doing wonders for me being able to move around, to breathe evenly. I opened my tiny coat closet and pulled the old baseball bat out from the corner.

“Yeah.”

“That’s my girl.”

My shoulders squared at that, and I peered into the kitchen. It looked relatively untouched, but I turned on the lights and found that Indy had helped himself to something, new dishes in the sink.

Fucking asshole.

“I think I’m alone,” I said as an engine roared on Wes’ end.

“I think you are too, but if you wanna wait by the door for me, we’ll both feel fine about it, okay?”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “Okay.”

“I’m on my way. I freaked Matthieu out on my way out, so the cavalry might be on the way too.”

My couch was what was carrying the heaviest layer of Indy’s scent and I avoided it completely, taking Wes’ advice to sit down by the door, on the floor with my phone in one hand and the baseball bat in the other.

“Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“Leo tried to get me to stay the night at the house, and I wish I had. I would’ve seen the voicemail first and—”

“And passed your phone to me so I could scour it and deal with this mess,” Wes growled softly.

I hummed, and my eyes drifted back to my bedroom. “He sang that stupid song,” I said. “And left feathers on my floor. They go to my bedroom.”

“Wait for me, Lola,” Wes said, more caution in his words, and then added, “It’s gonna be okay. I’m ten minutes away. Less if I get a little liberal with the stoplights, okay?”

The song was stuck in my head, or at least the part of it Indy knew.

…yellow feathers in her hair and her dress cut down to there…

I knew the rest of the song, the lyrics haunting me all through adolescence every time someone thought they were being clever singing it to me, just because it matched my name. There were better choices, but that was always the one they knew. It was those first few lines that haunted me now, in Indy’s almost tuneless hiss in my ear.

“Lola,” Wes said sharply.

“I’m here, I’m okay.” I was calmer now, but it was a kind of drugged calm, the adrenaline wearing off and creating a toxically dreamy effect in combination with the jetlag. I made myself ramble, more for Wes’ sake than my own, about cannoli and my laundry and the elderly Grechs of Malta.