But I Need You (This Love Hurts 2)

Time changes so much. There’s always been more, far more important things than the little mouse who set me on this course. But now?

How could there possibly be anything other than her?

A stirring in my gut travels up my throat at the thought of her no longer existing. At the vision of her laying in a pool of her own blood like I’ve seen so many times with people in their last moments.

A strangled muffle echoes from the small closet. A quick glance proves the blood has leaked through the gauze once again. The bastard bit off his tongue and tried to swallow it.

An honest effort at suicide if ever I saw one.

I couldn’t kill all of them. After all, someone had to talk. And he will, with two hands that work just fine.

“Did you have something to say now?” I ask him, not bothering to hide my face. He will die the slowest and most painful death I can conjure for the last words he spoke to me:

You’re no ghost. You’re no grim reaper.

You’re just a man about to have his heart ripped out.

Any of the myriad enemies I have could be behind this. But there’s only one I can tie each of these pricks to. Only one who would go after her entire family.

There’s a reason she’s supposed to be mine.

Everyone will pay.

This world will burn if they hurt her.

Cody

“Tell me again what happened,” Skov asks me. Again. The fucker doesn’t know when to give up.

“They were already dead,” I tell him. My tone is menacing and I pray to God for more control than I currently have while staring at the half-wit across the steel table from me. Every so often his left eye twitches. The dumb fuck can’t control himself or his nerves.

“You’re wasting time looking in the wrong direction and meanwhile, she’s gone!”

“This isn’t the first time she’s been hiding out—”

Rage is unbecoming. Marcus told me that once. He cautioned me to contain it, but the worst bits of it boil over as I listen to this incapable fool imply that Delilah, my Delilah, left of her own free will.

“She was taken.” The back of my teeth grind all while the words spill out. “Someone went to her sister’s home, and took her.”

“And the men there when we arrived? Did someone else kill them too?

“You just happened to be at the scene, your girlfriend missing, men dead on site …” The dumb fuck who has it all wrong leans forward on the steel table, inching his face closer to mine.

The skin around my knuckles is tight as I clench my fist with the unbearable need to slam it into his smirk as he adds, “And you just happened to arrive after everything went down.”

“There would be evidence,” I grit out, although my vision blurs and I swear I see red. “Gunshot residue on my hands, perhaps, if I’d fired a fucking gun!” The words claw up my throat, each one raising the intensity as I stare him down. I stand up straight, throwing the metal chair back and listening to it clang as I scream at him. “Do your fucking job!”

The snide look on his face vanishes, fear flashing in his gaze as he backs away slowly. My shoulders hunch, my breathing coming and going as if I’ve just chased down the man responsible for all of this. Everything is tight and suffocating.

“I think it’s best you calm down, Special Agent Walsh.”

The statement isn’t uttered with contempt, not with anything other than innate concern as he takes another step back.

Everything is so hot; I’m nothing but a caged animal in here. “I need to help find her.” I barely get out the words before inhaling deep and slow. My head spins. “This can’t be happening.”

Where the fuck was he? Marcus killed them, but what about the woman he claims to love so much. Where the hell was he when she needed him?

With both hands behind my head, I turn my back to the interrogator. “I don’t have time for this. I didn’t do it and she’s out there.” The statement is simple and accurate.

“You just happened to get there … and Miss Jones? She was already gone?” He repeats the same question but without the doubt and thinly veiled sarcasm. As if he’s only double-checking facts.

Lowering my arms and picking up the chair, I tell him, “We were on the phone.” The metal legs scratch against the floor as I put the chair back into place and take a seat. “She screamed, the phone dropped and I heard her screaming and then it was muffled and then …”

Fuck, my hands tremble and I can’t even look him in the eyes.

“A man’s voice said something and then the line went out. I was close, but not close enough. The first thing I did was call in the disturbance.”