Buttons & Hate (Buttons 2)

And that’s when I remembered the GPS I installed in her ankle.

I hadn’t look at it once since she arrived here. She didn’t try to run and she didn’t try to remove it on her own. It was still implanted under the skin. When she was admitted to the hospital the doctors asked about it but I told them to leave it in.

Now I could trace her location.

She was in Rome. Her coordinate moved at a steady pace, which told me she was in a car. Bones lived in the area so she was dangerously close to being swept away forever.

I had to move fast.

***

I hauled ass in my sports car and made it to Rome in record time. On the way, I called Cane and told him what happened.

“They just broke in?” he shouted over the line.

“Took her and ran.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m almost to Rome. Gather the men and meet me.”

“I’m on it. Where is she exactly?”

“Not sure. Last time I looked she was about to enter the city.”

“Keep me posted.” He hung up and the line went dead.

I broke every speeding law and cut off a lot of people to get there as quickly as possible. All I had were two pistols and my rifle but that would enough. I could take out a hundred men if I had to.

I had to get her back.

When I reached Rome I checked her coordinates again. She was probably heading south where Bones had a few headquarters. Once they got here there they would transfer her into a helicopter and fly her out of there before I could intervene. It would only be a few minutes before they found the tracking device and removed it.

The dot was nowhere on the map.

I searched through the grid of Rome but didn’t see her dot anywhere. Her location was non-existent even though the transmitter still sent a single.

Where the fuck was she?

I pulled over and kept searching, not understand what was malfunctioning. She wasn’t in Rome. In fact, she wasn’t in Italy at all. When I zoomed out of the map I finally found the dot. It was over the Atlantic Ocean, slowly moving over the water.

What the hell?

It took me a moment to figure it out. There was no other explanation for her flying west out of Italy. There was no other explanation for her being on a plane.

She escaped.

As I watched her fly away a smile formed on my lips. “Go, Button.” A moment of pride flooded through my body. She refused to be captured again, and when I wasn’t there to save her she saved herself. She used that smart brain of her and found a solution to her problem.

I’d never meet another woman like her.

I watched the dot fly further away as the devastation sank into my body. She left Italy without a backward glance. She didn’t try to contact me and tell me she was safe. The second her freedom was available she left.

She left me behind.

My instinct was to go after her but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. She didn’t want me anymore. I refused to give her what she wanted so we couldn’t reach common ground.

Maybe this was for the best.

But when I pictured returning to my mansion in Tuscany I was filled with depression. Her smell wouldn’t sink into my sheets every again. The buttons would remain in the jar on her table, untouched and forgotten. I wouldn’t see her face first thing in the morning. All the little things that made my life enjoyable were now gone.

But she took them with her.