Yes, he was aware.She’d been in the limo, telling Atlas that she loved him.Explaining that love wasn’t always perfect and sweet.Not soft and gentle.
She’d also been telling him that she knew who the killer was.
“Where is Lily?”A sharp question from one of the reporters.
“She’s safe,” he snapped back.Lily was safe.Desmond was getting her.
The wail of sirens grew louder.He looked up and saw the flash of lights approaching.An ambulance.A police cruiser.A fire truck.
“She’s not here!”Not a reporter’s voice—Desmond’s voice.He pushed through the crowd even as the ambulance braked nearby.“Atlas, she’s not here!”
Atlas felt something rip apart inside of himself.He leapt to his feet even as EMTs barreled toward Carl.They grabbed for Carl.
Two grabbed for Carl.One grabbed for Atlas.“Sir, sir, you’re bleeding, and you have burns?—”
He broke away from the EMT and raced toward Desmond.
Desmond’s eyes were wide.Wild.“She wasn’t at my car.Her ring—her ring was on the ground.”He lifted his hand and the sapphire and diamond ring rested in his palm.
Lily’s engagement ring.
The ring with the tracker so that he could alwaysfindLily.
A roar broke from him, and the chaos and shouts from the reporters immediately ceased.All eyes were on him, but he didn’t care.He was racing toward the sedan.Desmond and his plain cars.Always saying they helped him to blend in, that they made guarding Atlas easier.
The driver’s side door hung open.No sign of Lily.He’d told her to go to the car just because he’d wanted her away from the flames.He’d wanted her to be safe.
He surged forward, grabbing for that door.Something seemed to snap beneath his foot.He looked down…
A broken syringe.
“No.”Atlas shook his head.“Lily?”The car was empty.No Lily.He whirled around.“Lily!”
The cameras were rolling.The reporters gaping at him.
“Lily!”
She was not there.
“We’ll find her.”
Atlas sat on the couch.His hands were between his knees, his head sagging forward.
“I’ve got every cop and federal agent in the county searching for Lily,” Gage continued as the Fed paced in front of him.“We willfindher.”
Atlas had been taken home by the cops.They’d wanted him to go to the hospital.To get checked out.Screw that.He had no intention of seeing freaking Dr.Phillip Owen again.
Gage had arrived at the scene as the cops and EMTs had been trying to get Atlas in the back of an ambulance.The Fed had needed to physically force Atlas into the back of his government-issued SUV.Atlas had been so desperate to keep searching.To find Lily.
She’d been taken from him.Taken while he’d been busy hauling Carl out of the wreckage.There one moment, and gone the next.
“We’re reviewing every bit of footage that the reporters on scene had,” Gage continued.He paused near Atlas.His voice was grim but determined, as he added, “Maybe someone picked up something that we can use.Something that will help us.”
Lily was gone.The bastard had taken her.And Atlas washelpless.“She knew who he was.”
“What?”
The doorbell rang.He was so damn tired of that doorbell ringing.Cops and Feds.In and out.
