Rick laughs. “I see. Does this business happen to be a hot blonde, around 5’7”, with a suicidal disposition?”
His curiosity turns my hand into a tight fist. I’m not the only predator with Anna in his sights, but our respective end games couldn't be more different. He wants to fuck her. I want to fight for her. I want to slay every demon she wages war with, and restore her crown. As for Sanders, he’d rather hang it on the bedpost when he was done and leave her drowning in dirty sheets.
I need to make shit right. Years of working for Santiago have twisted that compulsion to match the direction of his bullets, but the rules have never changed as far as I’m concerned.
My fingers stray to the chain around my neck, to the two wedding rings locked together there.
Protected.
Respected.
Lost.
Not this time.
“We need to meet.” I wrench my fingers away.
“Fine. I’m in Miami. I flew in last night.”
“Where?”
“I bought Andrei Petrov’s old place down on the waterfront. Had to wash Dante’s blood off the desk first, though.” Sanders chuckles darkly at the memory.
“Give me an hour, and Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“Lose the company.”
He sighs in annoyance. “Stop shitting on my parade, you moody asshole.” And then I’m left listening to the silence of a disconnected call.
I check my watch. Fifteen minutes. I’ll give her another five, and then I’m banging down her door. I’ve called ahead already, and the team at the Greens facility is expecting us. Rehab will keep her safe from herself, from all those who’d take advantage of her, from me...
Next thing I know I’m ramming my fist into the center of the steering wheel—inhaling the pain like it’s a goddamn drug; blind rage hitting me square out of nowhere.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I slam my fist down, over and over—my loss of control as shocking to me as it is to the couple passing by outside.
I had no business spilling my lust to her. It broke all the rules. She wears her emotions like an armor to hide the emptiness inside, whereas I feel the slices and cuts of both of our agonies behind an ice-cold exterior. Anything else is a weakness I can't afford.
Flipping off the couple outside, I send a message to the cleanup crew. My hands are still stained from the mess I made. First the Russian, and then those two bastards downtown, and for the second time tonight I regret killing too quickly. Their deaths should have symbolized their stupidity. They hurt something of mine; something I’ve already claimed—in mind, if not in body and spirit yet.
I should have toyed with them the same way Dante does: exposing new facets of fear behind their eyes, stripping them of their masculinity. Making them beg for their mothers and for a mercy that would have been a pleasure to deny them.
Instead I lost control.
Red dress. Spun gold. So much fucking life.
Nineteen minutes.
Where the hell are you, Anna?
I pull up the tracking app I installed on her cell. She’s still in her apartment. Inactive. She must be in the shower. I imagine her slumped over in the stall, bruised and wrecked, the water running in messy rivulets over the marks left by two dead men.
Five more minutes, I tell myself, hissing out a breath.
I last three, and then I’m striding across the sidewalk and into the building, letting the door slam shut behind me, the thin metal frame rattling like thunder in the still, dark quiet of the night. I’ve known her security code for a long time. I know everything about her except for her thoughts, but I’m learning to predict them, and that’s what’s making me uneasy.
The elevator is out so I take the stairs at a run. The feeling that she’s slipping away is icing up my spine. It’s a feeling I never thought I’d have again. It’s a feeling that drives down deep into my bones like that twister all those years ago. Mixing with the poison there. Making me want to fix her even more.
“Anna?” I reach her apartment and pound my anger into the woodwork. Once, twice, three times... “Anna, open the fuck up!” I pause for a beat to listen. No pleas to keep the noise down or panicked footsteps. Nada. Nothing. She wouldn’t dare. “Anna! Open this goddamn door now!” I take a step back to gain some traction, lifting my boot to smash it in.
“She’s not there.”
Instinct has me spinning around and reaching under the tails of my shirt for my gun. The door of the apartment opposite is spilling white light into the hallway. Some old lady in cheap gray nylon, her gray hair in pink curlers is peering out at me through the crack.
I freeze with my hand still behind my back. “Did you say something, ma’am?”
She glances down at my arm. She’s knows exactly what’s there—it’s pretty fucking obvious—and the crack in the door narrows to a fine sliver.
“She left ten minutes ago.”
She goes to narrow that sliver to zero, but my boot is too quick for her. The door rebounds violently, and she lets out a cry.
“I don't want any trouble, mister!”
“No trouble here, darlin’.” I lengthen my drawl to inject a little southern charm into the proceedings. I try not to kill women, least of all old ladies who look like crackhouse Betty Whites. Where the fuck did you go, Anna? Are you hiding in here?
The old lady sniffs. The sliver widens into a crack again. “You her boyfriend?”
“Nope.”
“A cop?”
Is she fucking kidding me?
“No, ma’am.”
“You a bad man?”
The worst.
“My Jerry was a bad man,” she says with another sniff. “He’s been dead for five years now. Best five years of my life.”
I force a smile, but it’s not a natural thing for me. Hell, it’s a damn sight scarier than my gun. She tries to slam the door on me again, but my foot stays put.
“I’m not here to hurt her or you, Mrs…?”
“Wyatt. Ingrid Wyatt.” I watch her gaze travel down to my arm again.
Slowly, I bring it away from my gun and hold both hands up in submission. “Anna’s in trouble. I’m here to help.”
Her sour expression slips. I see regret, and my smile vanishes.
“Tell me where she is, Mrs. Wyatt.”
“I-I don’t know.”
“But you saw her?”
The old woman nods frantically, her candy-pink rollers colliding together like fucking atoms.
“And?”
I trace the nervous glide of her throat, but those wrinkles around her mouth still aren’t budging for me. She needs a little more persuasion so I prop one hand against the doorframe, blocking the hall with my six-foot-four frame, invading her personal space with every shade of warning.
She backs down pretty quick after that.
The door swings open to reveal a shit-colored, geometric-print eye fucking. The whole place reeks of the kind of pussy that doesn't interest me.
“She used the fire escape,” I hear her say.
That’s when I see the breeze blowing through the soiled net curtain by the kitchenette.
“Motherfucker,” I roar, pushing past her to reach it, but all that’s waiting for me outside is the heat and humidity of South Beach, Miami.