“God damn it,” I shouted as I picked up a chair and threw it across the room, smashing a lamp, vase, and painting in my fury. “She was supposed to make me a cake today.”

I sounded like a lunatic, but I was so unhinged I couldn’t see straight.

“Stop it,” Nancy snapped as she righted the chair and tried to make sense of all the broken pieces of glass and pottery scattered on the floor. “Being a jackass is going to get you nowhere fast and it’s pissing me off. What did the note say?”

I paced the room and tried to tamp down the rage that was threatening to consume me. I wasn’t winning. “How could she be so fucking stupid? I can’t protect her if I can’t find her,” I snarled.

“What did the note say?” Nancy ground out through clenched teeth as she moved her laptop to safety. “Any clues to where she went?”

“None,” I growled, wanting to take the house down with my bare hands.

“And?” she pressed, ignoring my rage.

I paused and closed my eyes. “She said she loved me,” I answered my sister in a hollow tone that sounded dead to my own ears. “That she loved every broken and fucking beautiful piece of me. Why would she do this?”

Nancy leaned against the wall and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “It’s right there in the note. You just answered your own question. She’s letting you go because she loves you. If you want my opinion, Georgia’s as fucked up as you are.”

“I don’t want your opinion,” I snapped feeling like the world was dropping out from under me. Was this was love was supposed to feel like? If it was, it was fucking awful. “And that is the stupidest goddamned reason I’ve ever heard.”

Why in the hell hadn’t I told her what I was feeling? Would she have stayed if she knew? Why hadn’t I trusted her with my cold dead heart? I didn’t deserve her love and God knew she shouldn’t want mine, but I’d be damned if I was going to let her walk right into her death.

“There’s a vial of poison missing from your lab,” Caleb informed Nancy as he joined us in the den. “And the SUV you stole is gone.”

“Borrowed,” I corrected him with a muttered curse.

“How did she get through the landmines?” Nancy asked, perplexed.

“Georgia is a fucking super soldier,” I yelled and kicked a leather ottoman across the room. “She’s been trained not to miss anything. She probably saw you reset the mines with the remote.”

“That was from three hundred yards away,” Caleb pointed out.

Nancy shook her head and sighed. “I forget she’s been enhanced. Even though the ability to shift has probably left her, her senses are still off the charts. Sabrina Wenbo and Don Jarred fucked with her DNA to the point of no return.”

“What about her lifespan?” Caleb asked.

Nancy shrugged. “I’d have to do more testing to figure that out. Actually,” my sister said thoughtfully, “she might just accomplish what she’s set out to do.”

“And she might not,” I said, pacing the den like a caged tiger. “I have to find her.”

“Why?” Nancy demanded. “She left you because she loves you and wants you to live. You’re not going to respect that?”

“Fuck no.”

“Why?” Nancy challenged as Caleb’s eyebrows shot up at her persistence. “Why won’t you respect that?”

I wanted to deck my sister. I would never lay a hand on her in violence while I had life in me, but I really wanted to kill her right now. Instead of acting on my base instinct, I ripped the flat screen TV off the wall and hurled it out of the bay window.

Caleb watched my violence with interest and dismay. “Shit,” he muttered. “That was a great TV.”

Ignoring him, I turned on my sister. She stood her ground and stared at me with her arms crossed casually over her chest and waited.

“Because I love her,” I said so softly she had to lean in to hear me.

“What was that?” she pushed.

“I said, I love her,” I snapped. “I’m the worst thing in the world for her, but she is the best thing in mine… I love her.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Nancy said, putting her arms around me and hugging me tight. “Go get her.”

“I don’t know how—don’t know where the fuck she went,” I admitted, breaking the embrace, dropping to the couch and letting my head fall to my hands.

“Actually you do,” Caleb said.

I glanced up at my brilliant brother and narrowed my eyes. “I do?”

“She was with Tex for a couple of weeks. Right?”

I nodded, not following.

Caleb smiled and walked over to where I sat. “I’m gonna put money down that Tex chipped her for location. It’s something he does to keep the ones he cares for safe.”

I barely waited for Caleb to finish talking. I was on the phone to Tex so fast it made my head spin. My smile grew as Tex confirmed what Caleb had surmised.

“Bingo,” I said, showing my brother and sister. “I’ve got her.”

“We’ve got her,” Nancy said. “Or rather, we’ve got your back if you want us.”

I stared at my siblings—the two people who looked so much like me it was eerie. I’d always worked alone… maybe that was my problem.

Nodding slowly, I bit down on my bottom lip. “Are you sure? This could get seriously ugly.”

“Ugly is good,” Caleb said, grinning from ear to ear. “Let me grab some explosives and my laptop.”

“I want to get an antidote to the poison Georgia grabbed. I have a bad feeling about this,” Nancy said sprinting from the room.

I refused to think about losing. It wasn’t acceptable. Arming myself to the teeth, I grabbed the keys to Caleb’s SUV and centered myself.

“Georgia from Georgia, you are in big trouble,” I whispered. “After I kiss you senseless, I’m going to yell at you for a few days—or weeks—or years. You’d just better stay the fuck alive for me to do it.”

A song came to my mind as I made my way to the truck.

Love hurts.

Love scars.

Love wounds and marks.

But it also was something I’d realized very recently I didn’t want to live without—no matter how badly it hurt.