Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Then Dav when I tagged him in.
Even bloodied and bruised, he kept angling his head back, inviting more abuse, his green eyes indifferent.
“Who—“ I started, then got distracted by my phone ringing.
I reached for it, seeing Elian’s name, then turning it to silent, before tucking it away again.
It vibrated once, then Dav had tagged me back in, his knuckles broken open already because that man never pulled a punch in his life. When he let himself uncage that other part of himself, he was ruthless as fuck.
It wasn’t until the door flew open, and Rico was standing there, that I realized something was wrong.
“What is it?” I asked, tensing.
“It’s Elian,” Rico said, his phone to his ear.
Elian.
Who’d called me first. Several times.
Elian didn’t call for no reason.
Not when he knew I was busy.
I moved across the floor, grabbing the phone from Rico, and putting it to my ear.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Lore isn’t home,” he said, making my stomach tense.
“I know,” I said, memory flashing back to her on the street with that big smile. Like she was fucking happy to see me. All excited to tell me something. Then fading when I’d used my work voice on her. “I saw her a while ago.”
“She was getting coffee for us. Said she’d be gone twenty minutes.” There was a barely controlled tension in his voice.
Lore had been holding coffees—two frozen ones with whipped cream and chocolate—when I’d seen her.
“How long ago was that?” I asked, having no sense of time while interrogating the stubborn-ass kid.
I moved outside, not wanting him to overhear this conversation, walking down the street toward the corner, glancing around.
“Almost two hours,” Elian said, making my heart stutter.
Not just because of the time lost, but because there was no way she would have just carelessly taken a walk or something with two steadily melting frozen coffees in her hands.
“I called her. Over and over,” he said, and it suddenly occurred to me that he had my wife’s phone number… and I still didn’t. “She’s not answering.”
My gaze scanned the streets again, trying not to panic.
But when I looked down, I saw the two frozen coffees, completely full, in the trash can.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“What is it?” Rico asked.
“Lore is missing. These are the coffees she had when she came down the street to talk to me.”
“She was here?” Rico asked, glancing back toward the building where the kid and Dav were still situated.
“Yeah. She was probably just passing by and saw me. Wanted to talk to me about something, but you guys were struggling with that kid,” I said. “Did you see her when you came to the car?”
“No,” he said. “And I scanned the street.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
“You don’t think that…” Rico started.
“Think what?” I asked when he trailed off.
“Think that whoever is after your crown saw her and took her. Maybe to lure you out.”
I hadn’t been thinking that, no.
But, fuck, now I was.
And the way my gut twisted was nothing to the way my fucking heart did.
The idea of sweet, innocent, tiny Lore in the hands of the man who wanted to tear down my organization, who wanted to hurt me? No. Fuck. That was unbearable.
“What do you want to do here, boss?” Rico asked, bruised ribs forgotten, ready to spring into action.
“Elian, call in Cage to watch the apartment. I want you on the streets.”
“Got it,” he said, hanging up.
“Call Cinna,” I demanded, handing Rico his phone as I rushed back toward the building.
One look at me had Dav stiffening.
“Put him on ice,” I said, nodding toward the small back room. Made of concrete with a fucking industrial door that was impossible to open from the inside. We knew. We’d used it many times over the years. “Call in your most trusted soldier,” I told Dav after he dragged the chair into the room and locked the kid in. “I need you on the streets. Lore is missing.”
With that, we all sprang into action, trying to wipe most of the gore off of us before going to the local businesses, asking them if they’d seen Lore.
But aside from the coffee shop, it didn’t seem like she’d stopped anywhere else.
Panic, a tightening sensation in my gut and around my throat, grew with each passing moment as I pictured Lore being hit, punched, kicked… worse. And crying out for me.
“Fuck,” I growled, turning and slamming my fist into the wall, making Dav’s brows raise.
“That’s constructive,” he remarked as I just barely managed to keep myself from hitting it again, the pain helping me think past the increasingly dark, horrific visions in my head.
“Boss!” Cinna’s voice called, making me turn to find her striding across the street toward me. “I got him to let me look at his cameras,” she said, waving toward a sleazy-ass looking guy, leaning against his storefront, rubbing his stomach as he wiggled a toothpick between his lips.