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In that second, I knew what I wanted.
Her.
The expression she made when she was really happy and couldn’t quite hold it all back, the little noises that would slip out when she bounced around from excitement, and everything in between.
I wanted her.
The realization hit like a truck and I swallowed, watching as Devin smiled knowingly. “Do you understand now?” He asked, and I nodded.
I’d never hurt her, not on purpose, and I’d try my best not to do it by accident, too. If either of us wanted out later down the line…then so be it.
I didn’t want to pine from a distance, uninterested in other women while she was freely offering me everything.
It was worth the risk.
Straightening, determination hardening into a ball in my chest, I spoke. “I need to go and talk to her.”
Devin clapped me on the back with a wide grin. “That’s the spirit! She’s probably still at the apartment-.”
Before he could finish the sentence, his phone chimed. The second he heard it, he snorted. “That’s the security app I installed. It's connected to a camera back home that’s triggered by motion sensors. She probably forgot to shut it off.”
He rolled his eyes affectionately, but when he opened his phone and looked at whatever message the app sent, all color leached out of his face.
My stomach dropped, adrenaline hitting as I tensed. “What’s wrong?”
Apparently my words snapped him out of it, because he was on his feet in my next heartbeat and all but running for the door. I followed, dread fisting an icy hand around my heart as I barely made it into the car before he hit the gas.
“Damn it, Devin. Tell me what’s going on!” I snapped, hating the fear and uncertainty working through me. What could he have seen from the camera that had him running like this?!
The answer dropped my stomach to my shoes.
“Someone broke into the apartment, and Bea is there. We’re a few minutes drive away.”
Sound dulled to a buzz as that sank in. Someone was in the house with Beatrice. The siblings didn’t have a gun or any other real weapon, something Devin had complained about more than once, and Bea had no self-defense training.
My hands fisted on the seat underneath me, my nails biting hard into my palms as I fought to just breathe.
Panicking wouldn’t do anything. I needed to think.
Pulling my phone out, I muttered, my own voice sounding weird, as if through water. “I’m calling the police.”
He nodded, eyes only for the road as I made the call and gave them what little information we had. By the time I hung up I could hear the sirens not far behind us, the sick fear swirling in my gut not abating.
The drive was torturous, feeling longer than the few minutes it was, and Devin hadn’t even fully stopped the car before we were jumping out and running up the steps. The front door was wide open when we reached it and I shuddered, racing past without letting myself think too much.
She’d be fine. She had to be fine.
The dog I’d found a few months back lay on his side in the living room, the steady breathing telling me he was just knocked out. I didn’t stop to check on him yet, too focused on the missing person.
When Devin and I barged into her room, my heart stopped. Beatrice was on the ground against the far wall, curled into the tightest ball I’d ever seen before, and over her stood a man obviously spun out on something.
He froze when he saw Devin and I, his already wide eyes growing impossibly more so before he tried to lunge for the window. It would have been satisfying to watch him drop the few stories, but rage howled in my veins, demanding blood for blood.
He’d laid a finger on Beatrice. I’d make sure he remembered why that was a bad idea.
He got one leg out the window before I fisted a hand in his shirt, ripping him backwards. He tried to struggle away but I held firm, spinning to slam him face-first into the floor as hard as I could. A sickening crack echoed through the room, and vicious satisfaction followed it.
Then I flipped him over, planting a knee right over his diaphragm. I didn’t put my weight down on it, but the threat was there. He stilled, staring up at me with pupils blown to nearly comical proportions.
