Chapter Twenty-Eight
KENZI
It was the door knock that snapped me out of my brain, which was a wholly unpleasant place to be right then. Or literally at any point during the day for the entire past week.
A week.
I had woken up the night after Cassie went missing with about one blissful moment where reality had yet to set in.
I even had that one moment to focus on another, happier thought.
Tig.
Because if the way I had tossed and turned and woke up feeling completely and overwhelmingly turned on was anything to go by, I had seemed to do a complete one-eighty with regard to how I felt about him.
I didn’t even think about the Tims and the lack of style and the fact that he wasn’t some go-getter entrepreneur like I usually went for.
All I knew was he was cool under pressure; he knew his way around tools; he knew how to use his hands, and there was an attraction that I didn’t understand but was strong enough to make me initiate first contact even in the midst of a completely horrible situation.
Let’s just say I’d been kissed plenty in my life.
I had had the fumbling, bumbling, too-wet kisses, the trying-to-choke-you-with-their-tongue kisses, the deep and slow and passionate ones, the hard and rough and sloppy but still sexy ones, the ones that set your panties on fire.
You get it—a lot of kissing.
But I had never had a kiss that, from the second of impact, created a pressure at the base of my spine that exploded outward throughout my entire body.
It overtook me. That was the only way to describe it.
It was something that enshrouded me entirely, blocking out the whole world outside.
Hell, it blocked out the world inside as well, everything except the feelings being dragged out of me—the comfort, the needy, borderline desperate need for fulfillment, the way his hands never moved from my ass but I could already imagine them everywhere else.
It was the kiss of a lifetime.
Which was cheesy, completely unlike me to allow myself to even think that for a second. But it was true. There was no denying it.
The dry-humping, well, what could be said about that? The clawing need for release was all I could focus on when my hips dropped and felt his cock—hard, straining against the jeans that did nothing to hide the fact that Tig was, well, packing.
Like I said, though, I only got the minute. That one beautifully blank moment before reality set in, before I remembered why Tig was even in my apartment at all.
Cassie.
Even the thought of her name was a stabbing, burning, searing, tearing sensation through my stomach, then up into my chest.
I stumbled out of my bed, tripping over a discarded shoe beside my bed in my desperate attempt to get out into my living room to get answers.
I found Paine and Tig there, both looking exhausted and both giving me the same defeated look.
I didn’t need to ask to know there was nothing to go on yet.
It was the same look I got the next morning when I woke up to find Brock in my living room—Tig off on a lead, Paine needing to get some work in.
The next morning was Paine.
Then Sawyer.
Brock again.
Never Tig.
A full week of no answers, and for reasons that were never explained to me, even when I demanded it, no Tig.
As for me, I did something wholly unlike me; I retreated into myself.
I didn’t go to work. I didn’t go out. I didn’t even give a shit what clothes I had on my body.
Because every single waking (and sometimes unconscious) thought was soaked in blood and misery. Every thought that crossed my mind was of the horrors that Cassie was likely going through while I sat safe and sound in my apartment, guarded by a revolving door of badass men.
There was no escaping it.
My brain was a horror movie. And not the old-school kind. Mine was the new-school D-rated gore-fests that spared no line of sensitivity. Because, quite frankly, the psycho that had her left very little of his intentions to the imagination.
I felt sick every moment of the day, any kind of food turning my stomach. The times I forced it down, there was a fifty-fifty chance of it coming back up.
Paine, Brock, and Sawyer, all men who really had too much experience with awful situations and therefore a better tolerance for them, begged, lectured, and practically yelled at me to try to snap me out of it.
Reese, being non-confrontational, watched me sideways, made me blander food, and tried small encouragement.
I should have known, though, that it wouldn’t be any of them who would flip the switch back on inside for me.
Oh, no.
That was a job for my mother.
My mother, Gina, was a lot of things—smart, determined, steadfast, unshakable, fashionable, beautiful, funny. She was also a human battle-ax.
So when Reese shuffled past me, hands reaching up to tie her hair back, both of us being alone for one blissful hour because Paine had to cut out early and the boys at the PI office were busy, and she opened the door to reveal my mother, I knew I was in for it.
There was a similarity among all of us. Our mom had green eyes too, but darker. We had a similar bone structure, feminine without being too delicate. But where Reese and I were long-limbed, tall for women, big-footed, and medium-skinned, our mother was short, slight, and extremely pale.
She had her dark hair loose, cut and styled in perfect beach waves, highlighted flawlessly around her face to soften it. Obviously on her way to work, she was dressed in black slacks, moderate heels that wouldn’t kill her after an hour, and a simple white button-up blouse.
“Mom, we weren’t expecting you,” Reese said, giving her a warm smile.
“Oh, I have a book for you,” she said, touching my sister’s cheek. “I will drop it the next time I come over. I know it’s not your cuppa, but you can add it to the library.”
Reese liked a whole heap of books, but she generally stayed clear of the dark, dirty, adrenaline-filled types my mother preferred.
“Now,” she said, slamming the door and moving in a few feet, chin angled up.
She lifted a perfectly groomed brow at me.
“Enough, Kenzi.” At my drawn-together brows, she put her purse down and moved into the kitchen, efficiently getting to work making a pot of coffee before turning back to me.
“I get it, honey. Believe me, I get it. I spent every single day of my life for ten years worried so sick to my stomach about your brother ending up with a bullet in his head or a knife to the heart. That was a daily likelihood when he was running things. And then, to no less extent, when he was out, I had to worry about Enzo too. I know this is different because she didn’t ask for this, and I know it’s worse because she’s a woman.
Don’t think I haven’t made myself sick about that fact myself. But my point is, it is similar.”
“Mom, it’s…”
“Horrible. It’s disgusting. It is terrifying.
And it is the most hopeless feeling in the world.
I understand wanting to throw a blanket over your head and never climb back out again.
I also understand how it feels bone-deep wrong for the world to keep revolving, for people to keep living their lives when something like this is going on, baby.
I totally understand that. But sitting here and not eating and barely sleeping and losing weight and doing nothing but thinking awful thoughts is not helping the situation either. ”
“What do you expect me to do, Ma? What if this was me? What if he had me? Would you be able to eat or sleep or go on with your life? It could have been me. If I hadn’t gone to get lunch that day…”
“Guilt isn’t going to change anything either.
I know you love Cass. I know you are sick to your stomach thinking about this.
And I am not even here to say you shouldn’t feel that way.
If you didn’t, I would genuinely start to worry about the kind of woman I raised.
But what I am saying is, you can’t live like this.
You need to get up, get a shower, get some clothes on, and get back to work. ”
“It’s…”
“I’m not here to hear excuses. Get your ass up, get some caffeine in your system, get some food in your stomach, and get to goddamn work.
Letting your entire life that you have worked so hard for fall apart will not fix this situation.
It won’t bring Cassie back. If, when you get home from work, you need to fall into bed and cry—do it.
Set an alarm on your phone. Let yourself have a wallowing hour. Then get up again and keep moving.”
She wasn’t wrong.
That was maybe the worst part.
There was a large percentage of me that genuinely felt like I needed to be in ratty clothes with greasy hair and a growling stomach. Because Cassie was likely worse off. Because it felt wrong not to be suffering with her.
But there were no leads. No traces. No tips. No nothing.
If a week went by with nothing, there likely never would be anything.
Was I supposed to be sick forever? Was I supposed to never be able to eat again and have the food stay down? To lose my business? To make everyone think I was falling into a deep depression?
I knew it wasn’t the answer.
So, wrong as it was going to feel at first and maybe for a long time, I needed to do exactly what she said.
So while she went for mugs of coffee, I uncurled from the couch and took a shower.
I couldn’t quite bring myself to put any effort into much more than that, knowing it was going to feel like faking it for a long time and being wholly okay with that as I forewent makeup, let my hair air dry with some product in it to keep it tame, and slipped into simple slacks, tame heels, and a plain long-sleeve tee.
I drank coffee.
I ate half a bagel.
Then I had my mother drive me to work.
Where I found Tig waiting out front for me.