42. Levi #2
Lock her away in the cabin until this ends? Keep her prisoner in my bed so she can never see the light of day?
Fuck, I wish this shit were easy. I wish I could fucking find him, but there’s been no leads.
Even the shipments have stopped, though I know there’s just something I’m missing.
If I could, I’d give it all up. Just to know she’s safe.
If love means you’re willing to sacrifice the best parts of yourself to save even the darkest parts of them, then yeah, I guess I love her. Do I understand it? Fuck no. Does it matter? Not anymore.
We’re racing down the backroads, Christian driving my car while my mind works overtime with a plan.
What the fuck am I supposed to say?
Sorry, I fucking suck. Please don’t go?
I’ve gone toe to toe with some of the world’s most dangerous criminals.
Why the hell is it a little five-foot-three brunette that scares the fucking piss out of me?
When he pulls down the drive to Ava’s cottage, the place looks empty. If it weren’t for her car out front, I’d think it was completely abandoned.
Christian pulls to a stop beside the SUV, but I’m too busy staring at the slight crack in the door to notice when he shoves the car into park.
“What the fuck?” Christian murmurs under his breath while I climb out of the car.
I march up to the front door, hesitant at first, before I reach out and knock.
The door swings open.
“Ava!” I call out to the emptiness of the house. The scent of mothballs greets my nose. None of the familiar citrus I’ve been salivating for in the last week.
Behind me, Christian gets out of the car, hanging back, but I can see the look in his eyes, and I don’t fucking like it.
Something isn’t right.
I step inside, my boots creaking against the worn hardwood floor. The place is cold—too cold. A chill seeps in through the open door, but it’s more than that. It feels... wrong. Hollow. Like all the life has been sucked out of it.
“Ava!” I shout again, this time with more edge.
Still nothing.
The living room is a mess. Not in the way it would be were no one living here for years—no, this is different. A chair was knocked over. A shattered glass on the floor, tiny fragments glittering like a threat. Her coat is still hanging by the door, her sneakers neatly lined up beneath it.
She didn’t leave willingly.
Christian moves in behind me, slow and cautious, his hand drifting toward the gun in the back of his waistband.
“There was a struggle,” he mutters, eyes scanning the room. “That’s blood.”
My head whips toward where he’s looking—just past the kitchen threshold. A dark smear on the edge of the counter. Small, but fresh. My pulse kicks up, hammering in my ears as I cross the room in two long strides.
I reach out and touch it.
Still tacky.
“Ava . . .” I whisper, this time like a prayer.
Christian’s voice is low, urgent. “Levi.”
I turn.
He’s crouched by the coffee table, holding something up. A phone. Her phone. But it’s the picture still frozen on the cracked screen that fills me with lead.
As if on cue, my phone rings, echoing in the silence of the house.
I stare at it for a moment, rage bubbling through my veins like poison.
Lifting it to my ear, I almost snap it in half.
“Where is she?”
I can practically hear his sinister grin through the phone.
“Hello, golden boy.”
Iciness slips through my veins, my hand shaking with the effort to contain the blistering rage sliding through me.
She’s gone.
She’s. Fucking. Gone.
“If you hurt even a single fucking hair on her head, I promise I’ll be the last thing you see before God.”
He chuckles menacingly. “God doesn’t want me, Cross. It’s the devil I’ll see, and when I do, I’m taking your pretty little whore with me.”
This is all my fucking fault.
I fucking failed her.
Visions of what he could do to her flash through my mind like a fucked-up zoetrope. My entire body stiffens, my mind screaming in agony until it drowns out the heavy beat of my heart.
“You know I’m going to hunt you down,” I growl, a calm clarity settling over me. “And when I find you, I’ll feed your balls to you like hors d’oeuvres while you bleed out in whatever cesspool you’re hiding out in.”
“Relax, your little pet is alive for now. See?”
A soft sniffle comes through the line, and my chest tightens painfully.
“Levi?” Ava’s voice filters through the phone, and I nearly drop to my knees.
“Baby, I’m coming for you.”
“Levi . . . I’m scared,” she breathes, and I can hear his laugh in the background.
“I know, baby. Just hold on. I’ll explain everything to you later, just don’t—”
“Time’s up. Sorry, I’m a very busy man,” he muses. “You have one hour to get me Marks. If you fail, I’m slicing her throat.”
Click.
Rage bubbles through me—a quiet storm brewing on the horizon.
My girl.
“There’s something else,” Christian says quietly, holding up his phone for me to see.
It’s an email from an encrypted number. One of his old contacts with the FBI.
It’s what’s in the email that fills my chest with lead.
My blood runs ice cold.
Christian sees it too. “A body just washed up on the south shore . . . It was Palmer’s.”
I blow out a breath through my teeth. Scrub a hand through my hair. Suck in a shallow breath through the rage bubbling through me.
I lift my head—slow, deliberate. Eyes cold.
I chamber a round with a snap. The sound echoes through the cottage like a promise. Then I shoulder past Christian without a word.
“Mendez just signed his fucking death warrant.”