“Safe. No. Safe,” she whispers as if her mouth is pressed directly into the speaker of a phone. It’s not one I know of because I’ve had her phone traced. She must have gotten a new one or is using the one where she’s been staying since she left.
I hit the mute button on the phone and scream for Kai, who has been lingering around my door like he fears I might do something stupid. “Kai! Get your ass in here now.”
He comes running in, his dress shirt untucked, no tie, and barefoot. “What is it, Boss?”
In a second, he takes in the alcohol and the blood and rushes to my side, even as his own feet get cut on the glass. “Let’s get you—”
I shake him off. “Get the fuck off me. It’s Valentina on the phone, calling my phone. Go trace the fucking location!”
He rushes out without another word, and I unmute and continue to listen. She’s panting and mumbling into the receiver, and I’m trying to pick apart every word, but I’m getting nothing.
“Val, baby, please…tell me where you are? Please.” I’ll beg…I’ll do anything to get her back.
She mumbles louder, and I catch the word father and hiding, but everything else is muffled, not helped by whatever phone she’s using. It must be cheap, or service is shit where she’s located. “Come on, baby. You’re stronger than this. I know you can tell me where you are. Let me help you.”
I cradle the phone against my shoulder and strip my clothes off on the way to the closet. In seconds, I’ve changed into new pants and a clean shirt. The blood on my shins and feet will hold for now. Nothing major was injured. The room will smell like very expensive bourbon for some time, though.
“Talk to me, Val,” I order as I button my cuffs and then tuck my shirt into my slacks. “Come on, baby. Give me something.”
Once I get my feet jammed into shoes, despite the pain, I race out of the room and down the hall to Kai and Michail, who are on babysitting duty tonight. As if one of them could stop me from doing anything.
I stare up at the monitors while Kai types on the computer in a frantic rhythm. “Come on, you bastard. Go faster. We need to get to her. Something is wrong. I can feel it, and I can hear it in her voice.”
He ignores me and continues his work as Michail shoves some weapons in his holsters and studies the map from the gun vault in the corner. “Any ideas?” he asks a moment later as the pinpoint on the city map still roves.
“Val, help me out here. Tell us where to find you. We’ll come help.”
She mumbles and sobs, then lowers her voice even more to a whisper. “He’s going to hurt me for this, so bad. He’ll make me regret it.”
Fear spikes through me, sharp and biting, cutting the haze of the liquor even more. Is she talking about me? I hate the fear in her voice.
It tears me in half. I’m stuck between hunting her down to make her pay for leaving me and enfolding her in my arms to keep her safe from everything…including myself.
I swallow down a wave of bile. Dammit. When we were together, I got rough, but I thought we were on the same page, that she understood and could take it. She said she could do that for me. Did she lie?
The computer beeps, and I slap Kai on the shoulder as the dot stops in one of the shittiest neighborhoods right in her father’s territory. I race out the door with Kai and Michail on my heels. “Hang on, Angel, I’m coming. Stay there. Don’t you dare fucking leave, or I will hunt your ass down and make you regret it.”
It feels like it takes years to load into the SUV and head across town to the seedy motel on the map. Why is she hiding there? It’s near the edge of the city, so maybe she planned to stop there until she could get farther out of town. If she’d succeeded, I might not have ever found her. The thought makes me cold, frost ridden, and uneasy. No. We’ll get her back, and I’ll make sure she never runs away again.
I hold the phone harder to my ear. “Still there, Angel? We’re coming. Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine.”
Another mumble and then the line goes dead. I curse and hurl my phone at the dashboard. “Drive, Kai. Drive like your life depends on it because if I miss her, I will shoot you in the head and then shove you out the door to chase her down.”
As usual, he doesn’t respond to my threats but does follow my order. “We’ll get her, Boss. She can’t get out of that neighborhood before we get there, and those people…they are poor and will help find her if she’s already made a run for it. We’ll get her.”