Chapter 2
Two
My heart jackhammers as I stare at the image on my phone.
It’s her.
Over the years, there have been too many false alarms, so when my new private investigator, referred to me by Mr. Smith, texted me saying that he’d found Rapsody, I didn’t hold out a lot of hope. Figured it was another false identification.
But there’s no denying this is her. The long blond hair and emerald eyes that live in my nightmares. She still has the same innocent, almost childlike expression, as though everything in the world is shiny and new.
I run my thumb along the screen over her face. It’s been a long three years of searching. It took a year for me to cave and try to track her down to seek my revenge. A year where I fell further and further into the depths of my depravity. Hunting her gave me something to do, somewhere to put my pent-up energy to appease the part of me bent on making her pay.
Once I’ve recovered from my shock, I glance across the dining room table at my brother Sid. He’d sit beside me if my three brothers were here, but Nero and his fiancée, Maude, are still in bed. My eldest brother, Asher, and Anabelle aren’t returning from their honeymoon until tonight, so it’d be weird to sit next to Sid when it’s just the two of us.
I punch out a message back.
Give me an address where she’s living.
The response comes back immediately.Seattle.
What else?
She’s going by the name Lillian Harris now.
I scowl.
“Did it personally offend you?” Sid asks from the other side of the table.
My head whips up, and I meet his gaze. “It’s nothing.” I set the phone face-down on the table and resume eating breakfast.
But Sid is no fool. “You going to tell me what was in that message, or do I have to fight you for that phone?”
“I’d like to see you try.” I shove a piece of fruit in my mouth, narrowing my eyes.
We both know that with my special ops training, I’d have him on the floor and underneath me in seconds. But I’d be stupid to underestimate Sid. He might be the most charming of us Voss brothers, but there’s more to him than the veneer he shows the world. He might be the most dangerous brother of all because he’s so good at hiding his true self. The wolf tattoo peeking above the collar of his perfectly white pressed dress shirt is the only indication that there’s more than meets the eye to the put-together-attorney persona he adopts.
He shrugs. “Didn’t say I’d be successful. But I’d be a shit brother if I didn’t try.”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” I take a sip of my coffee, keeping my expression blank.
“I think you’re lying. I haven’t seen you with that look in your eye since?—”
When he stops speaking, I look at him.
His nearly black eyes are wide. “Holy fuck, really?”
I have no interest in talking to him about Rapsody. The chair falls back toward the floor when I push away from the table, but I steady it with my hand and stalk from the room.
“You found her?” Sid calls.
Sid’s footsteps echo in the wide hallway as I head from the communal part of the house toward the north wing, my private area.
“Where is she?”
“Leave it alone.” I don’t ease my pace or bother to look over my shoulder.
“Kol.” He grips my elbow to try to pull me to a stop.
In seconds, I have him pressed up against the wall with my arm pushed against his neck. If he wasn’t my brother, I’d be squeezing the life out of him. “I said leave it alone.”
He glowers, eyes narrow, assessing. “At least tell me your plans.”
“I don’t know.” I’m telling him the truth. I’m still processing that I found her.
Part of me wants to run off half-cocked, but my military training taught me not to act on emotion without a plan.
Sid studies me for a beat then nods, I guess believing me. “Do you need my help?”
I let my forearm drop, and he takes a couple deep breaths. “No.”
“If you do, you’ll tell me?” He meets my stare, and I nod.
Growing up, Sid was the closest to me out of my three brothers. Asher was the oldest and always trying to protect the rest of us from the wrath of our father—before attending boarding school in his teen years. I don’t blame him for leaving. I did the same thing when I joined the military at eighteen, although my father had been dead for two years at that point.
And Nero was always the baby of the family, which left Sid and me to bond, stuck in the middle between the oldest and the youngest.
“Good luck.” Without another word, Sid makes his way back to the dining room.
I stalk through the dim mansion to go to my wing to pack a bag, texting the pilot of my private jet that I want wheels up within the hour. I’ll figure out my plan in the air.
When I land in Seattle,I purchase a run-of-the-mill minivan for cash from some guy in the outskirts of the city. A vehicle that blends in and screams suburban soccer dad of four, not billionaire ready to seek revenge.
Mr. Smith’s guy sent me all the information he could find on Lillian Harris and her mother, Virginia Harris, whose name is on the lease of the crappy two-bedroom apartment they’re renting.
Even without seeing Virginia, I know it’s Rapsody’s mother and not some aunt, cousin, or sister. My quick background check on Rapsody after we first met four years ago didn’t bring up any other living relatives, and Rapsody told me it was just her and her mother.
I’m parked outside the apartment and seeing her again knocks the wind out of me as if I’ve been punched in the gut. It irritates me to admit that she’s as beautiful as ever. Her long blonde hair hangs to her waist. It’s styled in waves and swishes side to side as she walks toward a vehicle parked on the curb.
I clocked the guy when he pulled up—light-brown hair, neatly trimmed, mid to late twenties. As soon as he had his sedan in park, he picked up his phone off the console. He didn’t garner much interest at first, but now that Rapsody is walking toward him, he has my full attention.
I type his license plate into my notes app. She smiles when she sees him and opens the passenger door. What kind of man doesn’t get out of the car and go up to a woman’s door, or at the very least get his ass out of the car and open the door for her?
Rapsody is dressed in a pair of baggy black dress pants and a light purple button-up blouse with no sleeves. Though nothing about her outfit is revealing, my cock jerks, noticing the swell of her breasts under the thin fabric. My hand tightens around my phone, annoyance with myself swelling along with my cock.
When she leans across the console and gives him a chaste kiss, my hand goes to the door handle to get out of this shitty vehicle and drag him out and introduce him to the heel of my boot.
Instead, I let them drive away and follow at a distance that won’t raise suspicion. When they pull into the parking lot of a church, I bypass the entrance and circle back a few minutes later as they walk inside.
What the hell is she doing at a church?
I park in the far corner of the lot, away from their car, and wait a couple minutes to be sure they won’t come back out right away. When there’s no sign of them, I put on the baseball cap from the passenger seat, slide on my sunglasses, and exit the minivan.
I walk into the church, closing the doors behind me so they don’t make noise. A few people are scattered through the pews, but none of them are Rapsody or the mystery guy. I figure the next logical place for them to be is meeting with someone or a group. Quiet enough not to draw attention to myself, I leave the nave of the church to seek them out.
I turn to my left first, but there are only a few locked doors and some bathrooms, so I head back in the other direction. A door behind me creaks, and I duck into a narrow hallway that leads to a storage closet. I slide into the shadows, careful not to make any noise as the sound of clicking heels grows closer and closer.
Rapsody passes the hallway not bothering to glance my way. She adjusts the waistband of her pants and presses her lips together as though she’s nervous.
Once the clicking of her shoes has almost faded, I peek around the corner and see her walk into another doorway near the end of the hall. The door doesn’t close fully behind her, so I cautiously make my way in that direction.
Voices murmur between two males and Rapsody. The heavy wood door restricts me from hearing, even through the crack. The odd word makes its way to me—all set, ceremony, excited.
A lull in the conversation occurs, and I hurry back to the hallway I hid in before. A couple of minutes later, Rapsody and the mystery man pass by, along with a man I assume is the pastor. I wait five minutes to be sure, then walk back to the room they were in.
The door swings open. After a quick glance around, I step inside. It’s the pastor’s office, filled with old tomes on the bookshelves that line each wall, and a pair of chairs sit dutifully across from the desk.
I thought I’d have to crack into the computer system. But the absence of a computer tells me either this guy is against modern technology or someone else in the church handles those affairs. Stepping over to the desk while not letting myself get too distracted to listen for footsteps, I see it all on the desk—the reason Rapsody is here with the mystery man. A marriage license.
The oxygen leaves my lungs, and I wheeze, trying to draw in more air. My eyes narrow, and my hands fist at my sides. Rage boils in my belly like a cauldron.
My gaze flicks to the leather date book on the corner of the desk. I reach for it, sure that Rapsody’s big day will be in here given that there’s no computer on his desk and the calendar is marked full of appointments.
There it is. The woman who disappeared on our wedding day without explanation is marrying another man.
Two weeks from today.
A Saturday.
Get ready, Rapsody, it’s time you pay for your sins.