A Silver Lining

Chapter Twenty Six: Love & Lost

Chapter 26: Love and Lost

A cough from somewhere behind caught me off guard, in the process, I pushed Ryan away as if he's on fire. Or maybe he had pushed me away, I couldn't tell. Turning around, I found my squad of brothers standing behind us with crossed arms.

Mason mouthed the brother talk.

I rolled my eyes. I couldn't tell when they got even the willpower for this in such a situation. Maybe that's what this family is. I noticed a small redhead among all the big guys.

"What're you doing here?" I asked Reed, who also had his arms crossed, glaring at Ryan.

"I'm your brother too so I have my right to question him." He replied.

"You realize it won't take me even one punch to take you down?" Ryan said to Reed.

"Is that a challenge?" Reed asked back.

Louis appeared from behind him, flashed a grin, and took him inside, pulling by the ears, despite his protests.

Ryan looked at me. His cocky grin joined him within a few seconds. "Is this what you keep telling everyone about us? That you and me-"

I put my palm over his mouth, before looking at my brothers, including my cousins, excluding Scott and now Louis.

"What's wrong with you people? Can't you hold your urge for just now?"

Cole shot up a hand. "To our defense, it is our duty to pro-"

"But he's not even my boyfriend. How many times do I have to tell before it gets through your fucking skull?" I screamed at those morons.

All of them seemed to be in search of words, looking at their oldest one, Zach, who seemed more lost than everyone else.

"Ryan! Stella! Come over here," my dad ordered. He's usually not like this, I meant about the ordering part, but we both knew what he was going through.

So we obeyed and followed him with others in his office room, which is in the same building where our master bed was. This is also where mom's office room, my both grandparents bedrooms, and also my uncle and aunts bedrooms are. From outside, it's the same as every other, but inside, the whole appearance holds an elegant look. We don't enter this building often as Len quoted it as the boring part of the house.

Dad closed the door behind us. I recognize most of the people from my previous encounter with them.

They were either merchants or their assistants. I didn't notice Noah till now, who was squeezed between his father and a bulky man. And I was glad that Ryan was standing with me. Or I would've been bored to death.

Finally Caleb came with an elderly man with him, who looked a lot like him. Or he was a lot like him. Anyway, it didn't need Sherlock to figure out it was his father.

Caleb noticed me and Ryan and came to stand by us. There were only five or six teenagers. I recognized a boy from our school. His name's Nicholas or Nick maybe.

"I thought you were in Canada," I whispered to Ryan.

"We were," he replied. "Then dad got this call and we traveled back. Mom and Phoebe are still there."

I felt bad for them. All of them. Their holidays were ruined just for us. "I'm sorry. Your whole holiday-"

"Keep quiet, will you? We're in the middle of something important." That shut me off.

Important? Huh! It was super extra boring, hearing adults giving useless speech. Now I know why Noah and Caleb got no interest in these meetings.

If it wasn't for Ryan I would've fallen asleep long ago. Caleb got caught twice. In the end, they came to a decision to try to track every car that got in and out of our neighborhood yesterday. The kidnappers didn't even call, which seemed weird. But that would've been easy to track them down.