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“So much for date night though.” I pretend to pout.
“I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You always do.”
CHAPTER19
Alaric
Wiping the bloody pliers with a rag, I return my gaze to the body fastened to the chair with bolts, which are impaled through his knees and hands. Poor bastard. He did something that pissed off my client, and my instructions were clear—he was to suffer before he died.
I don’t usually take torture jobs, but once I did a background check, I couldn’t not.
He’s an escaped sex offender. He hurt kids. Countless numbers of them.
All I could think of when I read his profile was little Zoey. The money, the contract, none of it mattered as much as the anger inside me. I felt a burning need to kill this bastard, to make him hurt the way those kids did, to kill the monster. Even if it meant getting my hands dirty, it would be enough if it saved one child from his grasp. My own fury flowed out of me as I worked on him. I shocked him over and over, his screams the only sounds in this partially caved in warehouse I chose.
After the electricity, I pulled out every nail, broke each of his fingers and toes, and snapped his arms. I cut off his cock and balls, cauterizing the wound so he couldn’t bleed out. No, that would have been too quick for him. I wanted him to feel the fear each of his victims felt. I dragged it out, making him scream and beg until his mouth bled with each mumbled plea. Eventually the wounds became too much and his heart gave out.
It still wasn’t enough.
Grinding my teeth, I toss my tools back in the bag just as my phone rings—my personal one, not my work one, which means only one thing . . . Layla. I pull it out and accept the call. She never calls me at work, and a bad feeling starts to build in my stomach before her first words even reach my ears.
“Zoey’s been hurt.” She’s panting, and there’s panic in her voice.
“What? Where?” I demand, grabbing my bag and hoisting it up on my shoulder. I’ll come back later to clean the rest of this mess up. It’s risky, but Zoey and Layla are more important. I hear her running footsteps over the phone and her heavy breathing when she accidentally smacks into someone as they yell after her.
“Layla, talk to me,” I demand as I rush through the warehouse and outside to my car. I place my phone on the stand as her voice switches over to the speaker.
“Her school called. All they could tell me is that she was climbing and playing on some stairs and fell. She was rushed to the hospital. I was in class. I’m too far. Oh God, Alaric,” she rambles in complete and utter panic.
My heart stops before squeezing, and terror like I’ve never felt surges through me, but I breathe through it. I need to be there for her, for Zoey. They are both depending on me right now. Turning on the engine, I choose my words carefully. “I’m about ten minutes out. I’ll go there now. If she’s at the hospital, she’s in the best place. Breathe deeply and take a moment before you get in an Uber and meet me there. Baby girl, she’ll be okay. She’s strong, remember that.”
“She’s so little,” she cries, “and still so weak.”
“Layla, listen to me,” I order, my voice sharp. “This doesn’t help her. She needs you now, okay? We can fall apart later together. I’ll hold you while you cry, but right now, I need you to get to the hospital. I could swing by and pick you up, but then she would be alone.”
“No, no, I’m okay. I’ll meet you there,” she replies hurriedly, but she seems calmer as I gun the engine, racing around the abandoned streets and back into the city toward the hospital. I stay on the phone the entire time with Layla, talking to her and trying to ease her panic, even as mine eats me alive.
Zoey.
Fuck, she better be okay.
She’s Layla’s entire world . . . mine too.
They both are.
I can’t lose either of them.
There is no future, no me, without them now. Without Zoey’s laugh, without her tiny hand in mine as she looks up at me so trustingly. Nights spent laughing and talking animatedly over dinner, or even just when we watch movies together with both of my girls tucked under blankets, eating popcorn. I never knew what love truly was until them, or what being alive actually meant.
It means being vulnerable. It means loving someone or more than one someone so deeply that you make yourself weak in the sense that anything could happen—they could leave; they could die—and you still fall because the highs are worth the lows.
I fell in love with Layla Johnson Holmes a long time ago, and somewhere along the way, Zoey became like my own child.
If she’s not okay, not only will it break two hearts, but I know we wouldn’t survive it.
“Alaric?” Layla whispers, fear still lacing her usual soft, laughing voice.
