Chapter 32 Flynn
FLYNN
Four days.
Four days of pouring over every snippet of video and recording from my carefully placed men around the Antov’s estate.
Four days of staring at my phone, praying that somehow Kaia will call.
Four days of watching Angie retreat back into herself a little because she misses Kaia.
Four days of missing her myself.
The house is quieter.
I miss her laugh.
I miss us all eating together, miss the warmth her presence brings.
I stare at my couch and ache to be back at that night, fucking her as if I could fuck her hard enough to prevent her from leaving.
I should have found another way.
No matter how much I know that this was my only chance, I wish I’d found another way.
The glass in my hand tips back and forth as I debate drinking the last drop or just going to bed as Kaia’s face drifts through my mind. She could be dead for all I know.
One more day is all she has before we launch our assault on the house and kill everyone and anyone that stands between my daughter and me.
And if Eva’s dead?
If Antov has done the unthinkable, then I will make sure he never knows a day of peace for the rest of his pathetic, long life.
And Kaia?
“Flynn!” Frank crashes through the door, breathless and gasping with a bead of sweat glimmering on his temple. “We have her!”
My heart plummets to my gut. “Who?”
The glass slips from my fingers as one name slips from Frank’s breathless lips.
“Eva.”
The race to one of my nightclubs is the slowest drive of my fucking life.
I placed my estate on high alert, woke up every guard to protect Angie and brace for retaliation from Antov, and fled with Frank into New York City where Eva is, at least according to the claim of one of my managers, who’s placing his very life on the line telling me such things without proof.
Frank drives like he’s never driven before, weaving expertly through traffic and racking up more driving fines than I care to count with the amount of red lights and stop signs he simply ignores in favor of speed.
It’s a wonder we get there in one piece and I fly out of the car before it’s even fully stopped.
I can’t think.
I’ve scarcely dared to breathe since leaving my estate and now, as I charge through the empty nightclub searching for anyone to talk to, I don’t allow myself to think or feel anything until I know the truth.
“Where is she?” I demand, finally locating the bartender as they come out from behind the bar.
“Who?”
Grabbing them by the shoulders, their face twists in pain as I drag them closer to me. “Where the fuck is my daughter?”
“Flynn!” Alex, my manager, calls for me just as the bartender whimpers, and I release them with a snarl, spinning on the spot to face Alex on the other side of the dance floor.
“Alex, where—.”
“In here,” he replies before I can even ask the question burning on the back of my tongue.
Running across the dance floor, my shoes skid on the floor and I half-stumble through the door and into Alex’s office.
Eva’s here.
She’s actually right here.
The second I spot her, my legs give way and I crash down to my knees just as Eva throws herself out of the big spinning chair she was seated in.
“Daddy!”
“Eva!”
Her small arms latch around my neck and she throws herself into my waiting arms.
The second she’s against me and in my arms, the dam breaks, and I burst into tears that mirror the sobs that rip out of Eva.
Her small hands clutch at my back, she stands on my knees and my thighs as she tries to get closer to me and she buries her face into my neck and shoulder as she sobs.
I hold her tightly, tears leaking down my cheeks as my breath catches in my chest.
It’s like a dream, and I’m scared to breathe, scared to move or speak in case she’ll melt away, and I’ll wake back up in my bed with nothing but grief for company.
My breath remains trapped for a few long seconds as Eva weeps in my arms, and then I’m forced to gasp and breathe.
She doesn’t vanish.
She doesn’t melt away.
I don’t wake up.
She’s really, really here.
My embrace tightens around her and I gasp through my tears, breathing her in and falling back onto my ankles as I pull her back.
“Oh god, Eva. I’m here. I’m right here. You’re safe. You’re home. You’re safe. Oh god. Oh god.”
“D-Daddy,” Eva sobs, her entire body trembling with the force of her hiccups and tears. “I-I’m sorry!”
“Oh baby, you have nothing to be sorry for! Not a thing! Not a damn thing!”
She’s smaller.
Thinner.
I’ve hugged them both enough to know that something’s different, but I’m too caught up in the sheer relief that she’s alive and back in my arms to care about anything else.
I kiss her temple, her forehead and her cheek then hug her again, uncaring about how it looks for me to be sobbing on the ground.
Eva’s alive.
She’s here.
She’s home.
“How did you find her?” comes Frank’s voice from behind me.
“I didn’t,” Alex replies. “A taxi driver spotted her running down a road not far from here and picked her up. He took her to the police station and one of the cops on your payroll recognized her and they called me because they didn’t know who else to call or how to get in touch with you or Flynn.
I had him bring her here and called you at the same time. ”
“Shit,” Frank sighs deeply. “You did good. You did real fucking good.”
Eva coughs and coughs, but when I try to ease her away from me to look at her she refuses to let go.
Unwilling to pry her away, I keep my arms tight around her and slowly climb to my feet.
“The cop, he’s outside if you want to talk to him. He told me she needs to see a doctor because he thinks she’s broken her wrist. I didn’t want to do anything until you got here,” Alex says. “But if you need anything…”
Eva wraps her legs around me and continues to cling like a little koala, even as her sobs ease in force.
I keep kissing the top of her head, unable to believe that she’s really here and back in my arms. I’m never letting her out of my sight ever again.
Not even for a second.
As the initial shock and relief pass, my brain kicks back into gear, and a thousand thoughts tumble back into existence, but amongst the chaos of unanswered questions and worries, only one sticks out to me.
“And Kaia?” I ask, sniffling deeply as tears still roll slowly down my cheeks. “Where is she?”
“Kaia?” Alex glances between Frank and me. “Sorry, I don’t know who that is?”
My heart seizes in my chest. “Kaia should have been with her. What the hell?”
“I’m sorry.” Alex shakes his head. “There was only Eva. No one else. She was alone.”
Alone?
I cradle the back of Eva’s head, and my gaze snaps to Frank, who shares the same look of concern that’s blooming in my own heart.
Where the hell is Kaia?