51. Christian
CHRISTIAN
Y ou put a tracker on your wife?”
Correction.
I put two.
“You try sleeping in a car for six months.”
“Touché,” He muses, jerking the car to a stop outside the lighthouse beside Mila’s car. The front door is open, greeting us like an old friend while the waves crash against the rocks below.
I try not to think about the two months I spent with Mila here, but the moment I see it, all the memories come flooding back.
I was able to follow the tracker on both her wedding ring and her car once we got back to town. We came straight here, but the sinking feeling in my gut tells me we’re already too late.
I keep my gun drawn, motioning for Levi to follow me and he nods, circling around to the other side of the closed front door.
The place is a fucking wreck. I’ve had cameras out here, but I haven’t checked them in the last few days with everything going on. Inside, silence looms from the darkness as if it’s taunting me. Reminding me that my deranged and murderous brother managed to kidnap both my sister and my wife and now I’m on the verge of losing my fucking mind.
“One . . . Two . . . Three . . .’
Stepping forward, Levi kicks the door open, and I storm inside, gun drawn—
—At nothing.
The place is empty.
“Fuck,” Levi curses.
My chest fills with lead, but I force my legs to carry me, stopping just a few feet inside the door.
The knowledge of what I could find inside is fucking terrifying, and my mouth fills with saliva when I see the jagged note written and left on the table.
History always repeats itself.
Gritting my teeth, I rip open the closed bathroom door, nearly dropping to my knees at the tear-stricken face staring back at me.
“Jesus Christ, Bella,” Levi growls, dropping down in front of her to untie her. She’s been bound and gagged, and she stares up at us through big, wide eyes. Other than a few bruises on her face, she looks physically unscathed.
Mentally, it’s a different story.
The moment Levi removes the gag from her mouth, she’s throwing out the details a mile a minute.
“. . . he showed up I my room with a gun. Why is he alive? I thought he was dead? And then Mila,” her eyes lock with mine. “Christian I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. He threatened to kill me. And Talia’s working with him—”
“Where is she?” I rasp, the pit in my chest opening up further and further until it’s nothing but a black chasm.
She looks like she might break down. Guilt crosses her features, and she grimaces through her tears.
“She . . . she . . .”
“Bells, tell us,” Levi says, rubbing her back in soothing circles.
Unfortunately, I’m not feeling very soothing right now. Not with my wife still missing.
Bella looks right at me, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“He took the two million Mila brought to save me . . .” she breathes “Then he took her, too.”
My wife has been missing for three hours, and I’m losing my fucking mind as the sun starts to set over the horizon. My chest aches with a hollowness I’ve never known. Like someone ripped my heart out and threw it in a goddamned meat grinder, then laughed in my face about it.
I’m unsure how to get rid of the irritable, edgy sensation slipping through my muscles, like death by a thousand cuts.
Why did she have to fuck up all my plans?
I was comfortable. I was good at my job. Helping the helpless. I never felt like anything was missing because my life was complete with my work.
Then she waltzed into my soul with her pretty gray eyes and that blonde hair and the softest heart and fucked everything up.
Now, everything is incomplete.
I’m incomplete.
Pain is easy.
Emptiness is what’s fucking hard.
I’m exhausted. Sore. Pissed off and growing more and more desperate with each passing moment.
Everyone is gathered around the house. Paulina helped Bella clean up, and they’ve been speaking quietly in the spare bedroom since. Ava is here, looking grim in her spot by the fireplace, and Levi’s been calling in favors left and right. I’ve even spoken with Logan, who’s gotten in touch with his FBI buddies in Seattle. I’ve searched her cell phone. The car. Fucking everywhere.
No one can find her.
Her fucking ring was left in the car. The tracker I’d had installed inside is useless to me if she’s not fucking wearing it. If I get her back, I’ll make sure she wears it to bed, to shower, to the fucking bathroom.
I haven’t received one text or call apart from the picture of Bella. I also haven’t moved from my spot on the front porch where Phantom sits at my feet, watching me with sad brown eyes while I pet his head.
On the outside, I’m calm. Resolute. On the inside, though, I’m on fire. Burning from the inside out with flames I can’t extinguish. I can’t shake the awful visions swarming in my head, like that video playing over and over again.
Mila is innocent. Whatever happens to her is because of me. Because I’m in love with her, and my brother will do anything to take that from me. Just as he did our mother.
His hate is potent, mixed with his delusions. He’s a walking time bomb. One I thought died when he lit that cabin on fire sixteen years ago.
Until my girl is safe and sound in my arms again, I’ll light the fucking world on fire, and not a soul can fucking stop me. Hell will look like a tropical vacation spot by the time I’m done with this goddamned state.
“You need to eat.”
“Fuck off.”
Bella, never one to be swayed, steps out on the front porch anyway.
“Doing whatever . . . this is, isn’t going to bring her back. You should be out there, searching.”
“I’ll let you know when I need advice from someone who was just kidnapped hours ago.”
She lets out a deep breath like she’s composing herself.
“I’m going to let that go because I know you’re hurting. I’m also going to tell you that you won’t be able to find her if you’re dead, and right now, you’re looking close to it.”
“I’m fine.”
“Will you just stop being a stubborn asshole for two seconds?” she snaps, that carefully composed calmness gone in the blink of an eye.
Good, that makes two of us.
“Listen to you?” I snort, rising from the chair. Her eyes go wide as if she thinks I might hurt her. “Why the fuck would I want to listen to what you have to say?”
Storming inside, Bella follows me, hot on my tail. I ignore her, grabbing the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet in the kitchen and flicking the lid off.
—Only for it to fly at the wall a moment later when that pissed-off rage takes hold.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she snaps, and Levi takes one look at the scene, his eyes going wide before he jumps off the couch. He places a hand on her shoulder, trying to wrangle her in, but she’s not one to be persuaded. “Your wife is missing, and you’ve been staring at your hands for the last two hours like she’ll magically appear? And now you want to get drunk ?”
I stand to my full height, my chest bumping hers and knocking her back into Levi.
“What the fuck else do you want me to do?” I growl, and Levi yanks Bella back from me. “I’ve got surveillance teams all over the fucking country looking. I’ve got the goddamned cops and FBI involved. You want the fucking president next? Want me to send up smoke signals? I can’t fucking find her, and this is my fault !”
Paulina steps out of the room, her eyes glistening. Her tear-streaked face means nothing to me. She may as well be the shattered whiskey bottle lying in pieces on the floor.
The room is silent, everyone having stopped what they were doing to look at me, currently losing my fucking mind.
Great. The more, the merrier.
In a rush of anger, I whip the barstool beside me at the wall, watching it splinter. The fragile wood is a replica of my self-control.
Then, because that felt so damned good, I threw the next one too.
Fuck those stools. I’ve always hated them, anyway.
My head spins at that moment, and I stumble back a step, falling to my knees on the hardwood floor. The blood rushes in my ears, my heartbeat a pounding drum in my throat. Sweat coats my skin, and for the first time since my wife went missing, I realize what the feeling in my gut is.
It’s fucking hopelessness.
“This is my fucking fault,” I breathe, and no one says a word. I’m not even sure anyone even breathes. When the man who’s always in control finally snaps, shit tends to get volatile.
As expected, Bella is the one to speak up.
Wrenching away from Levi, she drops down to her haunches in front of me, her light blue eyes flashing with tears.
“Then fucking find her.”
And then it clicks.
“The cabin.”
Everyone stares at me, no one understanding what I’m saying.
Except Levi.
One look at him, and he understands.
“The fucking cabin.”
I surge away from Bella and climb to my feet. Levi races towards the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” Bella barks, following after us. When I grab the shotgun, I keep it loaded in the closet by the front door, her eyes go wide as saucers.
“Paulina,” I point to her in the doorway on the front walk. “Keep Bella here. There’s a gun in my nightstand. Grab it. Don’t open the door for anyone.”
“Your father—”
“Fuck him,” Levi groans from the driver’s side of the car.
I nod to Paulina, who looks back and forth between the two of us with both despair and confusion. Today’s been a day of revelations for her. Finding out Sebastian’s dead. A missing Bella. Now, a missing Mila. I’ll deal with her later. For now, I need to get my wife.
Bella chases after me when I storm towards the car, still wrapped in a throw from inside. “Christian—” she starts, and because I know she’s going to ask to come with me, I pull her into a hug.
Her spine stiffens, and she freezes, but eventually, she hugs me back.
“Please . . .” she can’t say the words.
All I can do is nod when I pull away.
I’ll get her back or die trying.
Because without her, what else have I really got to lose?
“Don’t leave the house.”