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“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Dylan…” she sobbed into the phone.
“Calm down, darlin’. Where are you?”
“Home,” she wept, barely getting the words out.
“I’m on my way. I will be there in five minutes. Just hold on, suga’, okay?”
“Okay,” she bawled.
“Aubrey, darlin’, don’t cry. I’m coming for you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Dylan, I’m so sorry, you have to know that. Please, please, forgive me.”
“Suga’, there’s nothin’ to forgive. I love you. I will always love you.”
“I love you, too. I never stopped. I swear to you I never fucking stopped,” she cried.
My heart soared. I had waited almost eleven goddamn years to hear her say that to me again.
“Please forgive me. Please… promise… no matter what you’ll forgive me…”
“Always, Aubrey, always.”
She whimpered into the phone as if it caused her pain to hear me say that and I didn’t understand.
“Darlin’, there is no me without you. Don’t you understand that?”
She wept harder.
“Where’s my girl, huh? Where’s my tough girl? I need you to take a few deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth.”
“I don’t know anymore. I have spent the last year trying to find her.”
“It’s okay, we will find her together. Just you and me, just you and me,” I repeated, needing to get through to her.
I pulled into her driveway, opening my door before I had the car in park. I ran up to her door, slamming it open with her still on the phone.
“Aubrey!” I yelled out into the foyer. “Aubrey, where are you?” I asked into the phone.
“In the guestroom closet.”
I placed my phone in my back pocket and pulled my gun from my holster just in case the motherfucker was still in the house. I ran to the first door that was closed that could have been a bedroom. She wasn’t in there.
“Aubrey?” I shouted, running up the stairs, taking three of them at a time. “Aubrey! Answer me, darlin’!”
I heard sobs coming from one of the bedrooms and when I went to open the door it was locked. She cried louder and harder, I didn’t think twice about it. I stepped back and kicked the door open.
I sprinted toward the closet, slamming the sliders open. What I saw nearly brought me to my knees.
She was sitting in the back corner with her knees pressed against her chest, her arms tightly wrapped around them. The jewelry box that I had given her was clutched securely in her lap, with the music playing. She held a filet knife so fucking tight in her hand that her knuckles turned white.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed out, taking in the bruises all over her face, her busted lip and her left eye almost swollen shut.
She hadn’t looked at me once, hysterically crying. I holstered my gun and placed my arms out in front of me, scared shitless that I would frighten her.
She was in shock.
“Darlin’, it’s me. It’s Dylan. Can you hear me?” I crouched down beside her, immediately grabbing her hand and to my surprise, she let me.
