I slamKing back against the wall and hold him there with my hand around his throat. The fucker barely reacts. “What do you mean, you’ve lost her?” I squeeze hard, and Mason lays a hand on my arm.
“He can’t answer you, bro. You’re choking him.”
I let go suddenly, backing away with my hands held high. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. I just…”
King nods, rubs his throat. “No need to apologize. We get it. So, we tracked her phone to a cab. It left your place just after you went to the store and drove around for a while. I’ve spoken to the driver, and he says the lady was ‘on edge.’”
I nod. Of course she fucking was. She lied to me, got me out of the apartment, and ran.
I’m not wasting any fucking time feeling sorry for myself here because this is Ellie. The love of my life. The woman withmore integrity in her little finger than the rest of the world put together. If she lied to me, it’s because she felt she had to. And the only reason that makes any sense is him. Frank-fucking-Fallon. Now I’m here with my brothers at the house we grew up in. The house where I’d first thought about asking her to marry me—which I still have every fucking intention of doing.
“So, she got out on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. The cabbie said she was on her phone all the time, on the verge of tears. Said it was like something out of a movie, like she was making sure she wasn’t being followed.”
“Yeah? Then why the fuck didn’t he call the cops, or keep her safe? The goddamn asshole.”
Nathan stands in front of me and meets my eyes. “We’d all feel the same as you, Maddox. But try not to spiral here. That won’t help you, and it won’t help Ellie. Drake is picking up her phone now. She left it in the cab after she was dropped off.”
Fuck, he’s right. But I still want to slam my fist into his face. I want to hurt somebody so badly right now.
I nod. Right on cue Drake walks into the room. He holds up a package, passes it to King. “Her phone.”
So she left it in the back of the taxi. Did Frank tell her to knowing it could be tracked? King opens it up and then looks at me. “Passcode?”
I have no clue. I barely know how to use my own damn phone, never mind somebody else’s. I suggest some combinations that might work. Her birthday, her siblings’ ages. King tells me I have one more try before the thing locks.
“And what happens then?”
He looks at me calmly. “Then, it takes a whole lot longer. I’ll get into it, this is just much quicker. And time matters here.”
Elijah is by my side, exuding that stern big brother energy that I need. “Take your time, Mad,” he says gently.
I rack my brain, trying to come up with something else.
Then it comes to me. Probably crazy, probably wrong, but I have nothing to lose. I tell King the numbers, and he grins as the phone yields. Six numbers that bring tears to my eyes.
The date we first met in Morocco all those years ago.
I make to grab the phone from him, but King gives me a look. It’s calm and cool and everything I’m not. “Let me go through this, Maddox. I know what I’m doing.”
My dad puts his arm around my shoulders, and I finally let go of some of the tension. The fury and the fear. He might be in his seventies, and we might have a complicated history, but he’s still my dad. The big solid rock, Dalton James. He hugs me fiercely then holds me back by my shoulders. “Let King help, son. Let us all help.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m going to call Keres. Let me know as soon as you know anything. Or if that bastard comes back online.”
Frank Fallon’s phone has been disconnected. King has someone checking when and where it last ‘pinged,’ whatever the hell that means. His buddy Charlie Evans at NYPD has put out a BOLO alert, even though officially there’s no crime here. Ellie is an adult who left my apartment of her own free will a few hours earlier. There’s no evidence of foul play, and no proof that she has come to any harm. So the be-on-the-lookout is a favor, nothing more.
I’d find those facts comforting if I didn’t know better. There’s no way she really left of her own free will. She was coerced somehow, and knowing Ellie, it was because she was protecting someone.
My call with Keres goes about as well as you’d expect. She’s quietly furious, and I pity anybody who falls victim to her wrath. She icily asks questions, tells me she has some arrangements to make, and informs me that they’ll be here as soon as possible.
“We really should have killed that piece of shit when we had the chance,” she snarls. I express my agreement, and then she hangs up.
I sit on the bed after the call and take a minute to do some deep breathing, the kind Ellie and I sometimes do together. It will do nobody any good if I go off at the deep end.
I breathe, and I pray, and I try to balance my anger and fear with hope. Once that woman is back in my arms, I’m never going to let her go again. My dad was right—the perfect time never comes. I don’t need the perfect ring, or the perfect moment, to ask her to be my wife.
Together, we’re already perfect.
I can see her now in my mind. Her smile. Her eyes. Her curls. The way her curves feel pressed up against me when we spoon. The sweet sound of her voice. Everything about her is bright and alive and perfect. She radiates goodness and positive energy. There’s no way I can ever fucking lose her. No way in hell.
