Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lucian
The calls come in and go out like a fast-paced game of ping-pong. I gather information, request favors, and make threats. I’ve made it clear to the Morettis—leave Cass and Ryan out of this. Their war is with us.
I post a guard outside their door anyway. Tell Cass to lie low. I offer assistance. She declines, saying, ‘I’m just fine on my own, thank you very much.’
So I have a friend check up on her and the kid and hire someone to help her with anything she needs.
I land in England with one thing in my veins: rage.
It coils tightly around my ribs like a vice that won't loosen. Not until I see her. Not until I bring her back to safety and lock out the damn world.
And even then, I might not let go, never let her back out of my arms.
The customs agent tries to slow me down with a clipboard and questions, but I flash my black card with the gold Bachman symbol—the kind that opens more than bank accounts—and keep walking.
I’ve barely slept and barely breathed.
Erin is somewhere out there, alone.
And she’s hunting a monster.
She walked away from everything—me, Ryan, the safety I gave her. She took my protection and discarded it like it didn’t mean a fucking thing.
Except she wore the coat.
She packed the scarf.
She took the goddamn boots.
I know because, on the plane, I received a photo of her from CCTV footage of High Street in a town.
She didn’t bring my gun or my name or my men, but she took the parts of me that warmed her.
I’ll burn this entire country down to get her back.
The car I hired waits at the curb outside Heathrow. I climb in, jaw set.
“Where to, sir?” the driver asks.
I give the coordinates. Rural. Desolate.
“The moors,” he says. “A ripe place for serial killers.”
His words make my hackles rise.
Erin had mentioned that Cass has an addiction to true crime, and now it’s clear to me why, coming from a place like this.
It’s dark when I reach the location. The road is a snarl of gravel and moorland, the wind howling like a chorus of ghosts.
The driver wasn’t wrong. This place looks like a graveyard.
The headlights slice through the fog, revealing a shape in the distance. A small primitive cabin, its windows dark. No vehicles in sight.
She’s been here.
I can fucking feel it.
The second the car stops, I’m out.
I don’t knock, I kick the goddamn door in.
The wood splinters under my boot, slamming against the wall with a deafening crash.
She’s not inside.
The cabin is empty.
But a fire crackles brightly in the fireplace. She’s gone, but not far.
Lighting the battery torch I’ve brought, I move through the space like a predator, eyes sweeping everything.
The boots I bought her—gone.
Her coat—gone.
A forgotten breakfast on the kitchen table.
She left in a hurry.
There’s a knife on the small table by the front door.
The rage detonates in my chest.
She plans to kill him. With a knife?
Like I thought, she thinks she’s hunting.
I leave the front door partly open so she can see it’s me here if she returns, not him.
I sink into the chair by the fire, gripping the arms so tightly that my knuckles turn white. The absence of her surrounds me, haunting and maddening.
My men lost sight of her somewhere on a train platform. If she doesn't show up soon, I’ll check every inch from here to the last place they saw her.
I stare at the crackling fire, teeth clenched, blood pressure climbing.
I hear her before I see her.
The front door creaks further open behind me.
She’s on the porch, wearing her coat, a backpack, and a shocked expression.
“Lucian…”
God. The first thing I hear is the heat in her voice saying my name, and it lays me bare. I back away as if I’ve been burned.
My fists clench. My blood boils.
I stand, crossing the room to face her, letting her see the beast she awakened when she ran away from me.