20. Alex #3
I’m two seconds from coming apart entirely in the middle of my own lobby when one of Frank’s men walks over with a bellhop trailing nervously behind him.
“Sir, I saw her a couple of hours back. She had her cat with her, said something about the vet, an emergency. She went out through the service exit in the back.”
My entire body goes rigid.
“The back?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see a car?”
“No.”
“Why did you let her through?”
The kid pales.
“She said her driver was waiting. The cat was making a lot of noise. I thought?—”
Frank steps in before I say something unforgivable to a man who had no reason to know any better.
“Show us.”
We search every inch of that alley, there’s nobody there.
No sign of her, no indication of where she went from there, just empty concrete and a row of dumpsters.
Where would she go?
Liam.
Of course.
I call the men watching him. “Has Emma Clarke been there?”
“No, sir.”
“Has Liam left campus?”
“Normal schedule. Nothing unusual.”
“Any visitors?”
“No.”
“Anyone he doesn’t normally meet?”
“Nothing we’ve seen.”
My stomach drops another inch. Belle would go to Liam. If she ran from me, her brother would be the first person she needed to see. Unless she was trying to protect him from me too.
I deserve that thought.
“Keep watching him. If she appears, call me before you do anything else. Do not stop her. Do not frighten her.”
“Yes, sir.”
I end the call. There is one other person.
Dante.
I call him.
“What did you do?” My voice comes out low, dangerous, before he’s said a single word. “Did you convince her to change her mind?”
“What are you talking about?”
A pause, and something shifts in his tone, fast, alert.
“Where’s Belle?”
“She’s not with you?”
“She’s not with me.”
His voice sharpens further.
“Hartley, she might be in real trouble. She called me earlier. Wanted out. Wanted my help to leave.”
Every organ in my chest drops at once, a single cold plunge that leaves my ears ringing and the phone nearly slipping out of my grip.
“What did she say?”
“She wanted to take my offer.”
“What offer?”
“To get her somewhere, you couldn’t control every door.”
I close my eyes.
“She wanted to see Liam first.”
My eyes open. “What?”
“She said she needed to see him before anything else.”
“But she never got there.”
“No.” Dante’s voice changes.
“She didn’t want to leave through the front because Frank and Steven would stop her. She told my people to meet her at the service entrance behind the building.”
“Your people picked her up?”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“She never reached them.”
“You fucked up, didn’t you,” Dante says, quieter now.
“I fucked up.”
My voice cracks clean in half, and I have to brace one hand against the brick wall of the alley to stay upright.
“I ruined everything.”
“So you know.”
Something in his voice shifts again, softer, almost sad.
“You finally know.”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Enough.”
“No, Hartley. Do you know?”
I close my eyes.
The file.
Belle at twenty.
The choices she made.
The life she lost.
The years I spent hating her for saving me.
“I know everything.”
Dante goes silent.
Then:
“I’m on my way.”
“Dante—”
The line goes dead in my hand. One of Frank’s men jogs over from the far end of the alley, something small and furious clawing at his forearms.
“Sir, found her hiding behind the dumpster.”
Bee. Everything inside me drops. I take her before he’s finished the sentence. She goes rigid in my arms for a second, claws catching my jacket, body fighting on instinct.
Then something in her recognizes me.
She stops.
Presses herself hard against my chest instead, claws still hooked into my shirt like she’s afraid of what happens if she lets go.
“You’re okay.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Bee makes one low, broken sound and buries her face against me.
Belle would never leave her, not voluntarily.
Never.
Not even to get away from me.
Frank isn’t looking at the cat anymore. He’s looking at the ground near the wall.
“Sir.”
I follow his gaze. Belle’s wallet lies near the curb. A few feet away, papers have scattered beneath a pallet and along the edge of the dumpster.
Her documents.
My body goes stiff.
Someone took her.
I look at the alley again and can almost see it—Belle coming out with Bee, expecting Dante’s men, thinking she had finally found a way around me.
Instead, someone else was waiting.
I pushed her to this. Took her money. Threatened Liam. Brought another woman into our bedroom and made Belle believe whatever existed between us would never be more than what I chose to give her.
So she tried to leave.
And someone took her before she could.
Bee shakes beneath my hand. I pull her closer.
“You’re okay.”
Frank is already issuing orders behind me.
“Lock every exterior feed. Pull municipal cameras. Traffic cameras. Every vehicle entering this alley during the relevant window. I want plates, faces, delivery logs, everything. Call the police liaison and?—”
“Frank.”
He stops and turns. He has worked for me long enough to know every version of my voice—the one that gives an order, the one that ends an argument, the one that leaves no room for failure.
None of them comes out now.
“Find her.”
My voice gives on the last word. I tighten my hold on Bee, but she is still shaking against my chest.
“Please.”
I have never begged a man who worked for me for anything. I do not give a fuck who hears it now.
Frank’s face changes.
I look back at the alley, at the place where Belle vanished after I spent ten years searching for her once already.
“Just find her.”