Page 68 of The Defiant Curse

Gene hadn’t.

So, this was his self-imposed sentence. He was forced to wait it out, sitting on his hands as he fought the urge to lose his collective shit.

Now, as Gene was in the shower, after they all hit the gym, trying to burn off the worry, he was sitting there on their bed, waiting his turn.

Gene had offered to soap him up, but he wasn’t feeling it. With Elizabeth out there alone, how was he supposed to think about sex at a time like this?

He.

Was.

Worried.

Her phone had to be off, because he had texted her multiple times with no reply. On top of that, if her phone was off, she couldn’t be tracked. There was no doubt that was the plan.

His wife had retained her title as hide-and-seek grand fucking champion.

As he sat there, Gene’s phone chimed from the nightstand, and while he would NEVER violate anyone’s trust, he was anxious.

As soon as the screen lit up, he saw the text preview and a very familiar number.

Oh, and he recognized it immediately because that same number was in his phone.

It was family.

Reading over the text, and while it was only the preview part, he got the gist of it.

He’d fucked up.

‘She landed and is situated. We’re good. I’ll update later. We had a situation with the ghosts. For now, it’s under control. She’s heartbroken over what happened with Ethan more than anything…’

Oh, holy shit.

In that moment, his heart went wild.

Now, he knew where she was, but he also knew that she was suffering because of him. Could this self-imposed exile to Scotland be all because of him? Was he the real reason she was trying to find herself?

Because she lost him?

Yeah, now, he felt it to his bones. Elizabeth had run because he’d inflicted one too many killing blows to her soul.

Deep down, he knew that loving him wasn’t easy. Ethan knew that he was an emotional rollercoaster on a good day, and now, his trauma and issues had caused the strongest person he knew to run.

And that terrified him.

If she was running, what would make her come back? Was there anything out there that could make her return to them?

Not to the job, but to him?

Their whole world was built on the two of them, and there was no denying that for the second time in their relationship, he’d chipped away at the foundation enough that things began falling apart.

His lack of faith in her, and his idiocy of saying it out loud, had caused this.

Well, then, it was time to fix it.

So, as he sat there, Ethan knew what he needed to do. It was time to go get his wife—or at least go be with her as she found herself.

Yeah, he knew this was risky, but…his gut told him that this was the right thing to do.