31. Max
THIRTY-ONE
max
Rolling over onto my side, I reached for Stella’s sleeping form. When my hands came up empty, the sleep induced fog receded as panic flooded my veins, shooting me up into the sitting position.
Turning my head, I noticed her side of the bed was empty. I laid my palm on her pillow and was met with a stark coolness.
“Stella?” I called into the dark room, hoping that she’d gotten up to use the bathroom, or maybe even just couldn’t sleep and went into the living room.
I reached over and turned on my bedside lamp, illuminating the room in a golden glow. Empty. A gut churning dread filled me as I looked around for a clue as to where she’d gone. Something wasn’t right.
Had she gotten up and gone back to sit vigil in Charlie’s nursery?
A glitter of something sitting on her nightstand caught my eye, and I lifted the covers to scoot over to her side. Sitting on top of her end table was the necklace I’d given her just the day before.
I didn’t remember her taking it off, but she may have removed it before coming to bed. The glittering stones stood contrast against the darkness, a mocking one-finger salute to all the progress we had made.
She had loved the necklace, I was sure of it, so why did she take it off?
I shifted the necklace off what looked like a note scrawled quickly on a bright yellow post-it note and my blood ran cold. In that moment, the silence felt heavy, and I knew, with a certainty that chilled me to the bone, that something was very fucking wrong.
I hesitated, not wanting to know what the words written in Stella’s graceful handwriting would tell me. If I didn’t acknowledge them, it couldn’t be real. Right?
Growing the fortitude to see what she’d written, I unfolded the note with shaky hands, gazing over each graceful loop of her words. I felt tears of rage building as I took in her final plea.
Max,
I love you, with all that I am, and all that I hope to be. But, before you, came a little girl who shares the beat of my heart. I can’t sit by and wait to lose her. I hope you understand and can forgive me when all of this is through. I’m going to get our girl.
Love always,
Stell a
I reread the note with the hope that this was all a bad dream, clutching onto the final words of the woman I loved so fiercely. She’d sacrificed herself to go after her daughter, our daughter.
I crumpled the note into a ball, throwing it across the room with a frustrated groan.
Stella had spent so long fighting alone that she couldn’t sit by and wait for someone else to make something happen. She was used to taking matters into her own hands, even to her detriment.
I wanted to hate her for putting herself in danger. I wanted to rage, throw things, break down doors, and run guns blazing into that warehouse to save them.
But, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t hate Stella for choosing Charlie. I couldn’t hate her for being so jaded that she couldn’t sit behind while someone else did the legwork of saving her entire world, our entire world.
I couldn’t hate the woman with a single bitter bone in my body, but I refused to let her do this alone.
Snatching my phone off my nightstand, I pressed re-dial on the last number to ring through. A gruff voice croaked with sleep on the other side of the phone.
“Stella’s gone. She’s gone after Charlie.” I managed to grit into the receiver.
“Max, what are you talking about?” Sheriff Cortez asked, clearing the thick haze of exhaustion from his voice. “I’ve got two officers on detail over there now. They would have alerted me that she was there.”
“I don’t give a FUCK who you have sitting outside of that warehouse. Stella isn’t here, and she left a note saying she’s going to get Charlie.” I spat .
I could hear furious typing on the other end as he attempted to reach the deputies in charge of staking out the building.
I’m sure they weren’t going to have jobs after all this was through, but to Stella’s credit, she was crafty.
She knew how to keep a low profile. She’d been dutifully doing it with Dean for years.
“Por el amor de Dios,” He grumbled. “Max..”
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” he stated matter-of-factly. “But..”
I could sense he was going to try to talk me out of going after them, but I wasn’t going to hear it. Stella has spent too long without someone in her corner. I needed to be there.
I knew Sheriff Cortez was doing all that he could to get Charlie back, but Stella wouldn’t trust anyone until she could put her own two eyes on her daughter. She was going to go in there and get herself killed, unless we did something, and fast.
“With all due respect, sir, those two are my entire world. I’m not going to sit by while some crazy fucking drug dealers do God knows what to them.” I said, hopping out of the bed and reaching for the side table to grab my firearm.
Sliding the drawer open, I noticed its vast emptiness and sent up a silent thanks Stella had armed herself before heading into the lion’s den. Pride echoed through my chest and I fell even more in love with the woman.
“Emmanuel?” I asked, his silence a testament to how I’d stunned him with my admission.
“Yes, Max?”
“You might want to call in a few more deputies to meet you over at that warehouse, because if I go in there, every mother fucker in that building, except my girls, are getting a bullet between the eyes, and I won’t think twice about pulling that trigger. ”
With that, I hung up the phone and slid it into my back pocket. I walked down the hallway and across the other side of the house, banging loudly on Wade’s door.
I was going to need reinforcements. As much as I hated dragging him into this, he wouldn’t want to be excluded. He loved Stella and Charlie just as much as I did. We were a family.
“Hey fucker, wake up!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the wood.
The heavy beat of my desperation was accented by cursing on the other side of the door. I heard a groan and a thump as Wade rolled out of bed and scurried over to the door.
His eyes were wide, his hair a mess, and his boxers askew. He’d clearly been fighting some demons in his sleep, something I’d make sure to talk to him about later. He rubbed at his eyes to clear the haze and looked up at me with a questioning stare.
“What the..” he started before taking notice of the inherent rage coursing through my face. “What happened?”
“Stella’s gone after Charlie. Get dressed and grab a gun. We’re going to get my girls.”
Quickly, and without question, Wade grabbed jeans, a black tee shirt, tennis shoes, and a belt from near the door. He walked over to his own bedside table and grabbed his firearm.
Thank God Pops had always taught us the importance of protecting yourself and those you loved. We were ready, but prayed we wouldn’t have to use it.
“Let’s go. I’ll call Ray from the car.” He snapped, squeezing past me to head towards the front door.
Before he got too far, he stopped and looked me in the eyes, placing his hand on my shoulder with a tight squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get them back.”
I wish I matched his confidence. It would have been a welcome reprieve from the gnawing fear that had taken residence in my gut.
Stella and Charlie were my world. Their presence in our lives had made everything brighter.
Without them, I’d go back to being a bitter shell of a human, void of any genuine relationships.
I wasn’t going to let that happen. Come hell or high water, I was bringing my girls home.
It took Wade and I less than an hour to make it to the warehouse.
Neither one of us had uttered a word the entire drive, except for when Wade called Ray to make sure she knew what was going on.
She had insisted on meeting us there, but Wade talked her out of it, citing that she needed to stay behind in case someone needed something at the ranch.
She’d reluctantly agreed and I could hear the pain in her voice as she told us to be safe.
I wasn’t sure if her worry was for me, Stella and Charlie, or Wade, but it was painful to hear the crack in her voice as she said goodbye.
I spent the drive trying to avoid thinking of the worst-case scenario. My mind had spun in circles as images of Stella and Charlie, lifeless and covered in blood, popped in and out.
Instead, I focused on all the things I was going to say and do when we finally reunited.
I focused on visions of Stella walking down a flower draped aisle, wearing a slim fitting white gown. Her hair would be curled, brushing over her bare shoulders, a huge smile on her face as she made her way towards me, forever on our minds.
I imagined Charlie’s childhood unfolding at the ranch, where she would learn to ride the horses she’d grown to love. Of course, I’d end up buying her a horse and Stella would shake her head at how wrapped around that little girl’s finger I was.
Images of Stella cradling her swollen belly as she grew our first child together. How Charlie would be the best big sister, doting on the new baby with unfiltered love. The joy of holding our newborn and growing our family filled me with warmth.
I wasn’t giving up on our happily ever after. If anyone deserved a win in the column of life, it was Stella. She’d given up so much of herself for others, she deserved to get everything she could ever dream of.
The cutting of the engine pulled me from my daydreams of a future with the woman and girl I loved.
We’d pulled up beside the two deputies on duty and I nodded in acknowledgement in their direction. An overwhelming sense of rage filtered through me.
How had they not seen Stella go into the warehouse? They were supposed to be covering all the entry points.
Sheriff Cortez pulled up beside Wade’s truck, quickly cutting the engine and stepping out. He looked ever the vision of authority in his tan uniform with a shiny sheriff’s badge pinned to his chest.
He didn’t look like a man who’d been woken from sleep less than an hour ago to the news that a woman he considered another daughter had put herself in harm’s way. The gaze on his face was formidable, and I would hate to be the deputies on the receiving end of his wrath .
“I’ll deal with you two later,” he spat at the deputies cowering to his right. “For now, give me all the information you have.” He commanded, as he spread a map across the hood of his cruiser that detailed the inner blueprints of the building.
Fumbling for their words, the deputies filled us in on how Stella had managed to get inside. They had been in the process of a responsibilities hand over, when she’d skirted around them and entered through a side door on the loading dock.
They didn’t know a lot about what was happening inside the building, except that the female seemed in charge of caring for Charlie and there was a male who’d been seen entering the building as well.
“Okay, so game-”
The sound of a gunshot from inside the warehouse cut Sheriff Cortez off. Neither Wade nor I hesitated. We sprinted towards the front door, drawing our own weapons as we ran.
I felt my pulse thrumming in my ears as I sent up a silent prayer. Adrenaline coursing through my veins and fear clogging my senses.
Please God, let them be alright.