I laugh, a sound that scares me.“No.You don’t get to tell me to wait while she—” The sentence breaks.
I’m not a kid crying.I’m not that twelve-year-old boy in my father’s office watching a friend get executed.
I’m a man with a gun and a brain.I don’t wait.I fix.I move.That’s what I do.
“You don’t get it.”Vinnie’s voice goes soft.“You’re not the only one who loves her, Hawk.We do too.We won’t—” He swallows.“We won’t throw her life away.I know what I’m doing.I’m on the lead.I can try to preserve both of them without doing something stupid.I need you right here.I need you to be stable.I need you to be useful.”
“You’re asking me to hand you my heart on a string,” I say.
“Yeah,” he answers.“But I’m not cutting it off.I’m holding it for you.”
I think about Dani’s note again.
Don’t worry about me.I will be fine.I meant it when I said I love you.
Of course she loved me.Of course she would risk everything for that little girl.She is that woman.She’s brave.Broken but brave.Everyone knows the strongest are the ones who’ve been the most broken.Broken bones knit back together and become stronger.
That’s my Daniela.
I want to smash something until it’s dust.I want to drive until my tires melt.I want to set the world on fire.
Vinnie continues.“The last ping is out by Old Mill Road, past the river, in the old county.There’s an access road.It’s two hours if you drive like the devil’s chasing you.But Hawk, there’s a catch.The chef knows we can track her, so it might be a red herring.”
My jaw tightens.“So we wait for him to make a call?For him to reveal his hand?”
“We listen,” Vinnie says.“He wants Daniela, not Belinda.This isn’t a ransom situation.We have to watch.If you go, you’ll do something you’ll regret.”
“You’re asking me to trust you,” I say finally.
“You trust me with Raven,” he says without hesitation.“Aren’t we family?”
Family.
Daniela is my family now too.
Memory claws at my ribs—Dani’s laugh last night, the way she curled into me and fell asleep.The image of her writing those three lines and walking away.The knowledge of what she’s willing to give up for that little girl tightens in my chest.
I leave the office and pace the kitchen island like a man on death row.
I want to go.I want to burn the world down and rebuild it only if she’s in it.
But Vinnie’s voice echoes in my head.
I know how men like this operate.Sometimes they keep their word because it’s in their interest to.Sometimes they don’t.If we go in hot and wrong, we might lose both.
That isnotan option.
