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“And you would be?” she asks, voice lightly trailing off.
“Olivia. Tell him it’s Olivia Raven.”
7
LUCA
As we’re headed home from the now-burning warehouse, I’m almost asleep thanks to the cocktail of adrenaline that’s already wearing off. I’d prefer to keep searching for Olivia, but I’ll be no good to her if we get a new address from the account information and I don’t get some sleep.
My phone buzzes. I intend to answer it in case it’s someone with information about Olivia, but I accidentally send them to voicemail after fumbling to get my phone out of my pocket.
I consider calling right back, but the number is showing up as blocked and I’m too worn out to care. If they have something important to say, I can listen to the voicemail.
I close my eyes again, and a minute later, my phone vibrates again. I assume it’s from the call, and go to listen to the voicemail, but it’s a text message that has my heart nearly pounding out of my chest.
Unknown: I’m with Olivia Raven at the light rail stop on Bybee Blvd. She’s in bad shape and needs a hospital, but would only let me call you.
“Turn the fuck around,” I boom through the SUV. “Get to Bybee Blvd right fucking now.”
Damon doesn’t ask why. Just spins us around in the middle of the road and hits the gas harder. “What part of Bybee?” he finally asks, making a sharp left turn.
Jaxon already has the map up on his phone, waiting for further instructions to assist Damon.
“It’s the light rail stop there,” I say as I call the number showing in the text back.
A woman's voice answers hesitantly. "Hello?"
"Give Olivia the phone," I demand, the urgency making my voice sharp, even if it's not aimed at her.
She doesn’t reply to me, but I hear her softly speaking Olivia’s name and some rustling, then the phone is picked back up. “She’s not coherent. She really needs a hospital. I’m a CNA. I could—"
“You’ll do nothing other than wait right where you are and make sure she’s still breathing,” I interrupt more harshly than I’m sure this woman deserves after calling me, but I can’t control my emotions. Not when my mind is conjuring images of my beaten Raven.
“I will get her a doctor as soon as I have her,” I say, only slightly calmer.
“Three minutes,” Jaxon announces, then adds, “And I’m already texting Theo. I’ll make sure he meets us at the house.”
Theo is the doctor we call when we need things kept more private. He also stitched up my bullet wound. He better fucking be there.
I hear a groan through the phone and have to be careful with how tight I squeeze the device in my palm. “Is she okay?”
“Her vitals seem strong,” the stranger says. “I think she’s more exhausted than anything else.”
I fucking hope so.
“Turning on Bybee,” Damon says. I start to look out the window, but it isn’t until we pass a golf course that I see the train stop.
Damon slams on the brakes, and I shove my phone into my pocket as I race out of the SUV. Every lengthened stride sends shooting pains through my body, but there isn’t a damned thing in this entire world that could keep me from being the next person Olivia sees when she opens her eyes.
I see a woman on a bench beneath the awning where the train stops and start to panic when I don’t immediately see Olivia, but she’s on the other side of the stranger and I’m at her side in seconds.
My shaking hands, usually associated with control and destruction, cradle her battered face with the utmost gentleness. One of her eyes is practically swollen shut, deep bruising covers her previous perfect skin, and blood is crusted at her hairline.
Rage boils beneath my surface, but my touch remains delicate and careful. "Raven?"
The word leaves my lips with a heavy sigh behind it, as if I haven’t been truly breathing since the moment I realized she was gone. I need to know who did this to her. I need to make them pay in the most gruesome way I can imagine, but more than that…
I need her.
