Sold.
The room keeps moving.
I don’t. Not at first.
Logan notices. “Cobra.” I turn my head. “You’re with me.”
“No.”
His stare hardens. “Not asking.”
“I’m not sitting in your office all night.”
“You’re not tearing the town apart either.”
“I know.”That makes him pause. I meet his eyes. “I need to be in our room.”
Understanding flickers. Olivia. Her scent. Her things. The last place she felt like mine before they put her under lights and sold her.
Logan nods once. “Shadow goes with you.”
I don’t argue. That alone tells him something.
Shadow falls in beside me as I leave the office.
The clubhouse outside the room is quieter than it should be. The women know enough to be afraid, not enough to be destroyed by details. Mac stands near the hall, arms folded around herself, eyes red but dry. Kya is beside her. Brooke sits on the couch with Emma, one hand over her mouth. They look at me. I don’t stop. Can’t. If one of them asks if she’s okay, I don’t know what my face will do.
I reach our room and open the door.
Shadow stays in the hall. Doesn’t follow. Smart.
The room smells like her. That almost takes me to my knees. Her hoodie is on the chair. The one she borrowed from me and somehow made hers. A brush sits near the dresser. Her phone charger is plugged into the wall. Small things. Nothing to anyone else.
Everything to me.
I step inside and shut the door halfway, not closed. Not hiding. Just enough. The room is still. I look at the bed. At the place she slept. At the place she laughed and pinned me down and told me a part of her had always loved me. My hand curls around the edge of the dresser. Control. Timing. Targeting. Breathe.I pull in air that tastes like her and smoke and the old wood of the room.
Tomorrow. Ten p.m.
She will be delivered to Matteo’s residence.
Alive.
She has to be alive.
The collar means alive matters to them for now. The buyer means alive matters. The transfer means alive matters.
I hold onto that because it’s useful. Not because it comforts. Comfort is too soft. Usefulness keeps me upright. I open the drawer where she found my passport. The one that told her my birthday. The reason she left. The reason they had the opening.
No.
I shut that thought down hard.
They are the reason. Not her. Never her.
I pull the small torn bag Blaze saved from the parking lot out of my cut. He gave it back before we came into the office, silent, face tight. The paper is crushed. Inside is a small box. Damaged.
I open it.
