Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Henry
The shrill ring of my phone yanked me out of sleep like a punch to the gut.
I blinked up at the ceiling, disoriented. My mouth was dry, my head cloudy. The room was dim, the only light coming from a lamp in the corner. The cushion beneath me was too rough to be the bed.
It felt like the couch.
Why the hell was I on the couch? It wasn’t even the couch in the bunker. That I could have understood. But in the living room?
Cato pawed at me with a low whine, his nose nudging under my chin. A sinking feeling formed as I pieced together the events that led me here.
I remembered eating dinner. Chicken marsala with green beans and mashed potatoes. Ariana was even jumpier during our meal than she was earlier. Her laugh was a little too bright. Her smile a little too forced.
And then…nothing. Just fog.
The phone buzzed in my pocket again. I fumbled for it, my hands still sluggish and uncooperative. I blinked at the screen as I struggled to focus on the name.
Salvatore.
I never heard from him twice in one day.
Hell, I rarely heard from him twice in one year.
After everything else going on, I couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling clawing its way through my body.
“What’s going on?” I answered.
“Just heard from a contact in Miami,” Salvatore said, his voice brisk. “That Bratva enforcer you disposed of? Well, his cell phone came back online. The Bratva is tracking it and they dispatched a team.”
I sat up too fast, the world tilting. “Say that again.”
“The Bratva enforcer’s phone… It’s back online.”
“Do you know the location?”
“Not the exact coordinates, but they sent a team to Maine.”
A knot twisted in my gut. I hadn’t touched that burner since I got up here. I kept it powered off, hidden in the duffel bag.
“I have to go,” I said curtly then ended the call.
My body moved before my brain caught up, pain throbbing in my ankle with every step as I bolted up the stairs and into the bedroom. I rushed to the ottoman and unzipped my duffel bag. Everything was as I left it.
Except for one thing.
The phone was nowhere to be found.
I turned to the bed.
Empty.
Ariana was gone.
“No, no, no,” I muttered, panic slamming through me like a freight train.
I tore through the house, my heart pounding, dread thick in my throat. I checked the bathroom. The library. The kitchen. But I knew she wouldn’t be in any of those places. I could feel her absence.
When I yanked the garage door open, my worst fear was realized.
The Wrangler was gone.
Of course she ran.
I should’ve seen the signs. Hell, I did see the signs, but I was too trusting to put the pieces together.
Her jittery behavior. Her practiced smile. Her polite laugh. She must have gone through the bag. Found the money and phone. She probably thought it was mine. If our roles were reversed, I would have done the same.
My mind raced as I thought back to the conversation I’d read on that cell. About the merchandise. The photo. Did she find it, too?
“Goddamn it!” I roared, tugging at my hair as I fought to keep myself from spiraling. I was usually the calm and collected one. Never got emotional.
But Ariana changed that.
Turned me into someone I barely recognized.
How could I have been so fucking stupid? So damn careless? How could I have just left that duffel bag out for her to rummage through?
I’d seen her snoop before. Hell, it was practically the first thing she did when she got here — poked around my house looking for any clue she could find about who I was.
And now, thanks to me, she was in danger.
“ Fuck! ” I bellowed, slamming my palm against the wall.
Cato whimpered behind me but didn’t bark. He just watched, quiet and still, like he knew something had shifted.
I took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Clearing away the panic and frustration.
I may have hated my father with everything I had, but he did teach me a few valuable things, even if I didn’t see it back then. He taught me how to survive under pressure. How to turn panic into calculation. How to disengage from my feelings and focus solely on the task at hand.
And right now, the only task at hand was getting to Ariana before the Bratva.
I unlocked my cell and tapped on the screen, navigating to the app I was searching for. Luckily, I’d installed a tracker on the Wrangler. It seemed like overkill at the time. Now I was grateful for it.
A blinking red dot glowed, moving steadily south.
She wasn’t too far yet, maybe fifty or sixty miles away.
I didn’t waste another second. I grabbed the keys off the hook, threw open the truck door, allowing Cato to jump in before me.
Gravel spat beneath the tires as I flew down the mountain road, the tracker pulsing on the screen beside me. My heart matched it, beat for beat.
“Please,” I muttered under my breath. “Please don’t let it be too late.”