The way I saw it, so long as the Order considered Haven Adrian’s, she was safe. So long as Adrian knew that Haven was mine, she wasuntouchable.
He did. From the first time I confronted him when we were twelve and I demanded that he refuse to Claim Haven, I knew that he had no interest in taking the girl I wanted as my own. He’s stuck by that for the last nine Claiming ceremonies, and Iknow damn well that Adrian Heller will do the same for the three that come next.
Adrian… Adrian has aplan. He’s going to wait out the clock. Once Loni is thirty—and considered basically even more worthless by Jack and the old guard than when she was seventeen, unmarried, and sexually active—he can marry her and it won’t go against the Order’s bullshit charter. They won’t twist it so that she’s designated as one of the Used, Adrian gets the woman he’s been obsessed with since kindergarten, and if Jack decides to interfere with his marriage, Adrian has an ace or two up his sleeve.
He’s only worried about Loni’s position in the grand scheme of things. He was willing to wait a decade to Claim her if that’s what it took, and he’s spent that time making himself indispensable. Add to that how he will call on the blood oath he made Jack notarize when he was freshly eighteen, and he’s convinced his plan will work. He’ll end up with Loni Dougherty as his wife, and whether she agrees or not, he’s prepared to spend the rest of their lives together making up what happened after Bas’s party.
There is no alternative. Adrian will have Loni, and once he can’t Claim Haven,Iwill.
I wanted to do it that sultry August night. Seeing Haven in that white dress for the first time, staring at her across the bonfire as my newly-branded palm burned in fuckingagony, I almost did it. Only knowing that Dallas’s old man would find a way to refuse my Claim, putting my future with Haven at risk, made me say ‘no’ after I promised her that I would Claim her.
But how could I tell Haven that the only reason I couldn’t keep my word was because Loni took off? If Adrian could’ve Claimed Loni, I would’ve had Haven… but with Loni missing, that was impossible.
Only Loni? She’s not missing, missing,missing. She’s moved on, but not far enough from Adrian, even if she thinks she did. She’s not in Harmony Heights, but we know where she is; hell, I went to her college graduation to snap pics for Adrian since Jack won’t let him out of his sight.
Why would he? Adrian knows where all the bodies are buried. He knows how the game is played in Harmony Heights, and has a whole damn ledger of who really is Owed what. He’s the fucking Kingmaker, he is, and even he couldn’t protect Haven.
Ineeded to be able to protect Haven.
A giggle swells in my throat. Fuck. What would Haven say if she saw what she reduced me to just by disappearing? Maybe she did plan this. Maybe she did leave. Maybe she figured out that I spent most of my evenings parked in a lot opposite her ground-floor apartment, watching her live her life while imagining what ours will be like together one day. Maybe?—
I slam my fist into the mattress. No.No. Haven is mine. She has to be. And just because I haven’t gotten another lead today, doesn’t mean that there won’t be one tomorrow. Until they lay her corpse at my feet, I’ll never believe that Haven Smith willingly walked away from Harmony Heights.
Fromme.
And if they do just that? Find her body and I have to accept that she’s gone where I can’t flirt and tease and promise her wordlessly that I haven’t given up on her? I know that I’m well past the time to inject another sedative when the idea of buying a commercial-grade deep freezer and installing it in the basement so that I can keep Haven with me always sounds like a brilliant plan.
Relaxing my hands, I grab for the injectable. My good buddy Sebastien didn’t think it was a smart idea to give me a bottle of sleeping pills, and he passed that message along to Adrian. Baswas too worried that I’d lose hope, that I’d swallow them all. Just because he got all mopey after the shit Julia put him through, that doesn’t mean I’d give up. Hell, if Dallas survived losing his Lucy the way he did—watching his girlfriend accept another Offering because Jack Collins didn’t think she was good enough for his boy and he made it so she’d go—there isn’t anything Connor Heyward can’t do.
Except fully accept that he’llneverhave Haven Smith. Because even if I did? I wouldn’t kill myself.
The rest of Harmony Heights, though? The goddamn world?
Good fucking luck.
My fingers close around the slender vial. When I’m in my right mind, I would never contemplate suicide. Then again, I lost my damn mind the moment I understood that Haven was missing. That’s why I only bring one injection into the room with me when I admit defeat, searching for sleep. I uncap it, but before I can pull up my sleeve and jab it in my bicep, my phone buzzes.
My heart pounds so violently, I swear I can feel the echoes of the pain throughout my entire body.
I can’t help it. Every time the phone rings or a text comes through, when someone bangs on my door or tries to get in touch via DM, a tiny part of me hopes that it’s Haven trying to get in contact with me. That maybe she needs me, that she made a mistake, that—wherever she is—she wants me to come get her and bring her home.
Dropping the syringe, I reach for my phone, shuddering in absolute disappointment when I see Bas’s name on the screen. Why? Why is he calling me? He knows better than to interrupt me when I’m searching, unless?—
I answer the phone. “Hello? Bas? What’s going on?”
There’s a pause on the other end before he says softly, “Jesus fucking Christ, Con. When was the last time you got some sleep?”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Otherwise maybe Havenwillbe.
Six weeks. Forty-two days. Iknowher. She never would have left. Something happened. Someonetookher, and no matter what it takes, I’m going to get her back.
I’ve hired investigators of my own. I nagged the fuck out of Jack in the beginning, believing the King when he said the Order would do anything to make sure an Offering wasn’t in any danger. I’ve trusted my bros to help me when I physically couldn’t continue in the search because, apart from me, no one seems to give a shit what happened to Haven Smith.
That’s why, when Bas says, “Any update today? Any news?,” I don’t bite his head off like I really, really want to.
Instead, I force my jaw to work as I spit out: “No.”
