Page 165 of Hidden

That almost got a smile out of me.

Almost.

“Good,” I said instead.

“You’ve got medical supplies waiting too,” he went on. “Doc’s already setting shit up. If she’s hurt, if she’s been drugged, if she’s in any kind of state, we’ll sort it.”

Drugged.

Something ugly turned over in my stomach at the word.

Because I had already considered that possibility and pushed it away, not because it wasn’t likely, but because I wasn’t sure I could stomach all the ways it might be true.

“Vienna?”

I realised too late that I’d gone quiet.

“Still here.”

Dante exhaled. “Bring her home, brother.”

The words hit me harder than I’d been expecting. Because he believed that was what I was doing. He believed I had her. He believed I was about to walk out of this place with the woman I loved and bring her back to where she belonged.

And God help me, I wanted to believe it too.

“I will,” I said.

Then I hung up before he could say anything else.

For a moment, I just stood there in the dark with the phone still in my hand, staring at the house through the trees and listening to the quiet buzz of blood beneath my skin.

The night had gone colder while I’d been on the phone, or maybe that was just me finally standing still long enough to feel it. Either way, the air bit harder now, slipping beneath my cut and settling against skin that still hadn’t fully come down from the fight, from the adrenaline, from the slow, creeping dread that had been stalking me since I looked through that window and found nothing.

I shoved the phone back into my pocket and let my head tip back against the bark for one brief second.

I had lied to Dante. I had lied to the club—the only people on this earth who would have torn this entire compound apart brick by brick if I had simply told them the truth.

But the truth was useless right now, because if I said out loud what I was beginning to suspect, they would come.

Not one or two. All of them.

And if the Devils came crashing through these gates tonight, whatever chance Gabriella had left, however small, however fucking fragile, would disappear in a storm of gunfire and retaliation and Nico’s inevitable need to make an example of someone before he lost control of the board completely.

No.

This had to be me. Quietly if I could, but violently if I had to. Either way, it had to be me.

And if I found her alive, then I’d carry her out of here myself and get her back to the people already waiting to protect her.

If I found her hurt, I’d still carry her.

If I found her broken, unconscious, bleeding, half out of her mind, I’d still carry her.

And if I found her dead…

My jaw clenched so hard that it hurt.

No.