Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120475 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 482(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
I step over him, adjusting my grip on the gun. “Nighty night, asshole.”
It’s only right as I’m about to leave him in the dust and get the hell out of there that it clicks.
Mads suggested this was blackmail or a rival for my spot who wanted me to break up with Bane.
But why wouldn’t they have tried offering me money first instead of this elaborate plot?
And then my stomach drops.
Because there’s only one person who has both the power and the spite to go this far just to rip Bane and me apart. Somebody who did try offering money first.
Fuck.
What if it’s his father?
But I don’t have time to dwell on it. Not now. Not when I still have to get out of here alive.
I lean down and riffle through the thug’s pockets. Nothing but a couple extra ammo cartridges.
I shove the extra ammo in my pocket, grip the gun tight, and run.
FORTY-SIX
BANE
Moira is gone.
It’s the first thing I know when I wake up, and it’s the only thing that matters.
I sit up in bed, my hand shooting out to the cold space on the mattress beside me where she’s supposed to be curled up like a little snoring kitten.
I can’t believe I let those fuckers last night convince me she’d left me. I came back home and fell into bed with a whisky bottle, full of despair.
I drag a hand down my face.
What the fuck was I thinking?
Even if she ran, so the fuck what?
She thinks she can disappear on me?
She fucking can’t.
She’s my wife.
I stare at the empty sheets for a long time, forcing my breathing to stay measured. The possessive rage that coils inside me—dark, lethal, waiting—wants to tear through the walls and rip apart everything standing between me and her.
The Moira I know wouldn’t just run. No note. No message.
I know I was her first… everything. Relationship. Attempt at commitment. And she can get freaked out. She can get manic, her decision-making becoming erratic.
That’s just all the more reason to find her and remind her of all that’s so good between us.
But I don’t move. Not yet. Not until I have a plan.
Five minutes later, I finally swing my legs over the side of the bed, planting my feet firmly against the floor.
My phone is in my hand a second later, my fingers already dialing Domhnall’s number. It barely rings before he picks up.
“What?” His voice is sharp, groggy. I don’t care if I woke him.
“Where is she?”
There’s a pause. “Bane—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
A slow inhale, like he’s bracing himself. “I don’t know.”
“Find out. You run a super security business, right? Well, let’s see you put it in gear. Help me find your sister.”
“I don’t—”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Silence. Then, a muttered curse. “Fuck. You think I’d let my own sister disappear?”
I breathe through my nose, forcing the fury into something sharper, something useful. “I’d fucking hope not, but I don’t know what kind of man you are, do I? Help me find my fucking wife.”
Another pause. Then, begrudgingly, “After you came to the club last night, I tracked her credit card.”
That gets my attention. My grip tightens on the phone. “And?”
“Last charge was at a bar yesterday afternoon. She went there after lunch with Kira, and it looks like she ordered a shitload of drinks all at once at two in the afternoon. I’m sorry, man. I told you, she just went on a bender.”
“What bar?”
He exhales sharply, then gives me the name. A place on the west side of the city.
I’m pulling the phone away from my face to hang up when I hear his voice again, “And Bane—”
I put it back to my ear.
“What?”
“Check back and let me know what you find. I still think she’s just fucked off, probably with some bloke she met at that bar. But I do care about my sister. If she’s in trouble, I wanna know.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” I hang up, furious at him for not giving a shit sooner.
I don’t have any more time to waste. I’m moving with a singular purpose, jumping in my car and putting in the bar’s address, then stomping on the gas.
The bar smells like stale beer and regret. It’s dimly lit, the kind of place where the floor is perpetually sticky, and the patrons have long since stopped caring about anything but their next drink. The bartender eyes me warily as I approach, polishing a glass with a dirty rag. “What can I get you?”
“Information.” I slide a bill across the bar. “Moira. Auburn curly hair. She was here yesterday afternoon around two o’clock.”
The bartender looks at the money, then at me. His fingers hesitate before he takes it. “Yeah, I remember her. She was with another girl. They looked close.”
Another girl? Kira said she got a text from someone. Everyone at the club last night just assumed it was a man. But it was a woman?