My fingers tightened around the wheel as I failed spectacularly at that endeavor.
He'd looked hurt. Not angry, or dramatic as I'd come to expect from him in our short time together. Just outrighthurt.And somehow that felt worse than getting shot.
I exhaled sharply through my nose. None of it mattered anymore. He was gone. Safe, as far away from me as he could be. That was all that counted.
Before I could congratulate and self-flagellate myself anymore, my phone buzzed against the center console. I tried ignoring it, not in the mood for any of the usual suspects and definitely not in the mood for any strangers.
But it just buzzed again. And then a third time. Annoyance prickled down my spine as I snatched up the phone, expecting someone to harass me for some overdue paperwork.
But that wasn't what it was.
A photo message from an unknown number.
The second the image loaded, the world stopped.
Alfie. Unconscious. His head lolled sideways against what looked like concrete flooring, his hair falling over his face, and his wrists zip-tied in front of him.
And what looked like a bruise darkened one cheek.
Something inside me went absolutely cold. Milo leaned forward slightly from the back seat. "What's got you so glum, bounty hunter?"
I barely heard him.
Before I could do anything to respond to the text, another message came through.
If you want the boy back, you bring us Graves. No cops. No funny business.
A location pin followed immediately after. My grip on the phone tightened hard enough that the plastic threatened to crack. Behind me, Milo cackled, like he knew exactly what was happening.
"From the tense set of your shoulders, old man, I'm guessing you got some bad news. That’s definitely made my day." He sounded much too gleeful.
I looked at the photo again. At Alfie. So still. He was filled with too much life to look so... quiet.
I don’t know how long I waited for the inevitable threat, but the phone stayed silent. No sadistic follow-up, no ticking clock or a promise of violence. It was all right there in the first message: they had the boy, and they knew I’d give them exactly what they wanted.
I put the truck in park at the nearest rest stop and stared through the windshield, letting the dull ache in my leg ground me.
Milo was quiet now. I guess, due to my earlier silence to his jab, his confidence was replaced by an uneasy tension. He might’ve been a dirtbag with a history of poor decisions, but even he could sense when the game might turn sideways.
“Seriously, fucker. What the hell is going on?” he finally asked again, voice lacking any real bite.
I didn’t reply. Didn’t even look at him. Instead, I opened my phone and copied down the coordinates. Whoever was behindthis had gone out of their way to make things difficult for me. The pin dropped just about two hours from my current location, which meant Alfie and his lumberjack friend had headed in the opposite direction I had.
Just my fucking luck.
I drove. Past the posted limit—past what anyone with a lick of sense would’ve considered safe, with a bullet wound tightening in my thigh like a vise. My hands were steady, but my vision kept narrowing down to just the phone screen and the location pin blinking at me like a dare. Every ten minutes I checked the rear-view mirror to make sure Milo hadn’t managed some escape artist bullshit, and every time I looked I wished I’d see Alfie instead. The only other thought in my head, looping like a broken tape: how the fuck had this happened? I’d left him. I’d made sure of it. I’d watched him drive off with the world’s ugliest lumberjack for backup, and I’d congratulated myself on keeping him safe. That was the whole point: I ruin things, I leave before they break, and everyone gets to live another day. So how did he still end up on the line? Simple answer: I wasn’t careful enough. Or…
Well… maybe he would have been safer if I’d just kept him close?
Could that really be the answer?
Should I save my bratty boy, and then keep him close to me forever so I could make sure he was safe?
That sounded reasonable.
Right?
14
