Chapter 24
Istare down at the transmission lying on the ground as I have the phone pressed to my ear. It’s not about the fucking car. It’s about her. She tore it from the car. Who the fuck taught her how to remove a transmission?
I’ll fucking kill them.
“She did all that while you were asleep?” Emmett laughs from the other end of the phone.
“Get here now or send someone with a car,” I say, tone clipped, the anger seeping through every pore.
He continues to laugh, the sound grating on my last nerve.
I’ll go to any fucking length to get her back. She could tear out my transmission or my heart, and it won’t fucking stop me. I’d break every rule, every boundary, and every single fucking law for her.
Even my own.
“Relax, I’m already on my way.”
I hang up, crouching and brushing my fingers over the cold metal as a bitter laugh escapes my lips. “You think this will stop me, Little Nycto?”
She has no idea what she’s started.
I still don’t understand it—how she can pull me so far away from everything I thought I knew. The control she has, puppeteering my every move, consuming my mind, body and soul.
My phone rings in my hand, and I answer it.
“I’m taking a day off,” I say without hearing who it is on the other line.
When Ezra’s voice bleeds through the phone, for a moment, I think I stop breathing. “I’ve found your mystery woman.”
Everything stops. The world suspends as my knees hit the ground. Thirteen years after one thing. Every fucking moment I spent wondering is about to come to an end. After everything, I’m finally going to have her.
But do I still want her?
“Malik?”
“I’m here.”
“I’ll show you everything. Let’s meet at Veridis.”
My heart pounds as he hangs up, the beep distant as my phone clatters to the ground.
What do you do when you can’t tell which way is up?
What do you do when on one side is her, the girl I fell for when I was just a boy? The one I’ve carried with me for thirteen years, waiting to see her face again. Then on the other is Isla, the woman who has quickly become the only sun in my everlasting darkness?
I run my hand through my hair, breathing through the suffocating weight.
What the fuck am I meant to do?
I’m not the same man I was before I met Isla, but I’m not the man she needs me to be either.
In between my breaths and the silence, I know it’s not about choosing one or the other because I already know where my heart wants to be.
Either way, I don’t think I’ll survive the consequences of my decision.