Chapter 17
I glaredat the phone in my hand, feeling my pulse quicken as the call disconnected.
“Right to voicemail, again,” I muttered.
Lincoln’s eyes narrowed, his hand clenching the kitchen counter tight.
“Fuck.”
Fuck was right. It’d been six fucking hours since Kenzie had left for one of her walks in the woods. I knew she’d brought the phone I’d bought her, but the damn thing was going right to her voicemail on every call. It was starting to get dark outside too, and my nerves were starting to fry.
It wasn’t that I didn’t think Kenzie was capable of taking care of herself. And it wasn’t like I thought she’d gotten lost on the clearly marked trails that she’d walked on a bunch of times before. And it also wasn’t like we lived anywhere dangerous. This country town was safe as could be.
…None of that stopped my heart from racing or my mind from playing out every single worst-case scenario. I mean how could I not? This was Kenzie we were talking about. This was the girl I loved, who captivated me in so many ways. I’d sworn to her and to myself to protect her, and now here we were with darkness approaching, her cell not answering, and a million questions blazing through my head.
I glanced up at my friend, seeing the exact same fear and tenseness on his face.
“I’m going out looking,” he growled, whirling and storming for the door.
“Lincoln.”
He paused, shoulders heaving as he glanced back at me.
“This property is thirty fucking acres, and that’s before the trails cross into the public lands and your damn property.”
His jaw clenched, and I could relate that shitty feeling of helplessness I knew he was feeling too.
“Let’s get smart about this.”
I jerked my head for him to follow, storming out of the kitchen towards my office. There, I woke up my computer, my jaw tight and my eyes focused as I called up the security cams for the house. Lincoln paced behind me as I scrolled back to a shot from the back deck from six hours before.
“Alright, there she is.”
Linc whirled back, leaning over my shoulder. There on the screen, we could see our angel lacing up her boots, stretching, and then stepping into the woods down the path from my back gardens.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got any fucking cameras hanging from trees do you?”
I growled. “I wish. Fuck, I’m going to call Sheriff Watkins and get him to get his guys out there looking for her. You and I can—”
“Where’s that trail lead?”
I frowned, glancing back at him. “Like five different places.”
“Yeah, well, think like her. C’mon, we know her. We know how she thinks. Where would Kenzie go?”
I chewed on that, my blood running hot as the minutes without knowing where she was ticked agonizingly by.
“Think, Marine,” Lincoln growled. “Remember how she tried to pull us out of work earlier?”
I smiled grimly, thinking back regretfully how I’d promised her “later” and “after work” when she’d tried to coax Linc and I back to bed earlier, before her hike.
Suddenly, I glanced up at him.
“She could’ve tried to come back here.”
I whirled to the screen, scrolling through the cameras until I found the one by the front gate. My blood raced in my veins as I fast-forwarded through the time log, until suddenly, we saw it.
There was Kenzie, opening the security pad. And there was a car, slowing behind her.
A sinking, cold feeling gripped my heart. And as the car pulled up behind her, and the door swung open, I could tell Lincoln knew too as I heard his breath hiss.
It was her dad, along with my fucking sister.
We watched, the cold rage building and building as he grabbed her, and as Stephanie helped. When he slapped her, I roared, lunging out of my chair.
I didn’t need to see the rest.
“Let’s go.”
I stormed from the room, my vision red with fury and every muscle in my body tensing and readying. Lincoln ran after me, right there with me, and not even asking questions until I barreled into the garage and jumped behind the wheel of my Bentley.
Lincoln wordlessly jumped in next to me, his face grim as I gunned the engine, hit the button for the garage door, and roared down the driveway.
“I know where they are,” I growled under my breath, both of us heaving and seething in the tense silence.
“Well I didn’t think you just wanted to go for a drive,” he muttered back.
“My sister and that dipshit are supposed to be in jail. In fact, the DA we know swore he’d call me first thing if they somehow got early release.”
“No call, huh?”
I shook my head.
“What, they fucking broke out?”
I glanced at my buddy. “Either way, they’re out.”
“And they’ve got her.”
I gritted my teeth, the fury raging through me.
“They’re going to call, and they’re going to want money,” I spit. “I know my goddamn sister, and that’s their play here. Probably looking to score more drugs or some shit.”
“But you know where they are.”
“Yep.”
The small town where I’d built my house, and where Lincoln was building his wasn’t just some random town. Back when I was young, when things were simple and before our parents died young, they used to bring Steph and me here. The small little country house we used to rent for a few weeks in the summer was gone by the time I’d decided to move here, but it was that land that I’d built on.
Back then, with no tv or internet or bullshit like that to capture our attentions, Steph and I had gone exploring instead. Specifically, the old Peterson Mill out by the edge of town. And instantly, I knew two things as I gunned the engine, blasting down the country roads as the blood pounded through my veins like diesel.
One, Steph and her dipshit boyfriend were out for cash, and they’d grabbed Kenzie to do it. They hadn’t called yet, but I knew they would, and I knew for certain where they were.
I knew that and one other thing: if they’d harmed one single hair on Kenzie’s head, there’d be fucking hell to pay.
The car screeched around a bend, kicking up dirt as I slammed on the gas. Suddenly, my cell chimed over the bluetooth, and I glanced at Lincoln, who clenched his jaw grimly.
“Right on fucking time,” he muttered.
“You fucked up, Stephanie.”
I didn’t even let her talk before I spoke, my voice cutting through the phone like a jagged blade. I could hear her stammering, caught off guard by me knowing exactly who it was before she even spoke.
“Listen, Wilder—”
“No,” I growled, my voice like cold ice. “You listen. We’re coming for her, and if you have any fucking sense left in you, you and that piece of shit who calls himself her father will leave her, and get the fuck out of dodge, now.”
“Fuck you, Wilder, if you want to see this bitc—”
“If you hurt her in anyway, I will bury you, both of you,” I said quietly, every muscle in my body clenched tight. “Do you understand?”
There was silence before suddenly, he came on the phone.
“Alright you rich prick,” he mumbled. “We’re gonna need one million bucks, today, in cash. You fucking got that, moneybags?”
“No deal,” I growled.
He laughed. “Fuck you, man. You wanna gamble with her life?”
“She’s your daughter,” Lincoln hissed, his hand balling into a fist like he might put it through the dash speaker.
“Yeah?” the man snickered. “Well it sounds like she’s your whore, so—”
“You’re a dead man,” Lincoln said quietly, his eyes narrowed and looking straight ahead. “You’re a fucking dead man.”
“One million, you pricks!” Kenzie’s dad spat into the phone. “We’ll call you back in one hour to tell you where to—”
I ended the call abruptly.
“You bring a gun?”
I shook my head, glancing at Lincoln. “You?”
“Nope, but it doesn’t matter,” he growled. “Just get me in that room, and I’m going to put your sister and that piece of shit in the fucking ground.”
The rage exploded through me as my hands gripped the wheel tight. My foot brought the pedal to the metal as the car thundered down the backroads.
It was time to take back what was ours.