Page 163 of Hidden

Of his voice.

Of the fact that if I survived this, if I got out, if I somehow made it through the next few hours without my body giving up on me entirely, then the next place I would run would be to him.

I held Natalie’s gaze for one final second.

Then I opened my mouth.

And let her kill me.

Chapter 42

Vienna

Now

I didn’t stop moving until I was far enough from the house to trust that I wouldn’t be seen if someone glanced out of a window.

Even then, I didn’t trust it fully.

The trees at the edge of the compound swallowed me up quickly, branches scraping against my cut and boots crunching softly over damp earth as I pushed deeper into the cover of them until the house was little more than a shape through the dark. I could still see the glow from some of the downstairs windows through the gaps, still make out the occasional movement if I stared hard enough, but from where I was standing now, I had enough distance to think.

There had been no sign of her, no trace of the usual quiet life she kept in that space, no shadow behind the curtains, no flicker of light, no indication that Gabriella had simply been moved somewhere else in the house for the night.

That was the part I couldn’t shake.

I dragged a hand over my beard and forced myself to breathe through the thoughts trying to crowd in all at once. Panickingwasn’t going to help her. Losing my head wasn’t going to get me answers any faster. If she were alive, then I needed to move quickly. And if she wasn’t…

No!

I pulled my phone from my pocket before that thought could finish forming and stared at the screen for half a second too long before pressing Dante’s name.

He answered on the second ring.

“Talk to me.”

I leaned back against the tree behind me and kept my eyes on the compound as I spoke. “I’ve got her.”

The lie came easily enough that I almost hated myself for it.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, not suspicious, just brief, like he was shifting gears from concern into planning.

“You’re with her now?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“In her room. Got in through the window.”

Dante exhaled slowly, and I could practically hear him recalculating the situation in real time. “How bad?”

I looked back toward the house, my jaw tightening as I searched for movement. “Shaken,” I said after a beat. “Tired. A bit out of it. But she’s breathing.”

“You need backup?” he asked immediately.

And there it was. The offer I knew would come. The thing I had already decided I was going to refuse before I ever pressed call.

“No.”