15. My Old Friend Fear - Rafe
Three beeps. Three innocuous tones. Three insignificant sounds that indicated a dropped call. They slammed into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs, stealing the strength from my legs. I collapsed into the chair in the living room and hit the callback button, but Alex’s cell went straight to voicemail.
I’d known it would.
Just as I knew she was in trouble, and there wasn’t shit I could do about it, stuck out here in the woods without transportation, because she’d made sure of it.
A shiver went through me as I recalled the last word she’d spoken before those dreaded three beeps.
Dad.
She wasn’t alone in that house after all, and the only thing that gave me hope was that it was her father and not Zach who’d caught her just as I was talking her into leaving.
Fuck. Why couldn’t she have called me two minutes earlier? She might be on her way back if she had.
“What’s going on?” Jax settled next to Angel on the couch across from me, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. He handed one to Angel, and she blew on it before taking a tentative sip. The girl hadn’t said a word since we’d awoken at dawn and found Alex gone.
The Jeep missing.
Jax’s tires slashed.
Fucking hell, she’d pay for this.
“She was about to get the fuck out of Dodge, but her father showed up. Now her phone is going straight to voicemail.”
“You think he’d hurt her?”
“He’s never been known for protecting her.” The more I thought of the hell that man put her through over the years, the faster rage rushed through my veins. I’d lost count of the times I’d held her in my arms as she sobbed over her mother’s death, and her father’s possible hand in it.
I’d listened as she told me how that bastard had treated her in the hospital after Zach kidnapped her. Remembering made me thirst for retribution on her behalf. What kind of father turned a blind eye to the kind of sexual abuse Zach had unleashed on her for years? The man hadn’t just ignored it, which was bad enough, but he’d covered Zach’s tracks.
For a fucking decade.
Abbott De Luca was a slimeball, the type of man who’d had an innocent man thrown in jail to cover it up. The kind of guy who had fucked with his daughter’s head to keep her quiet.
The kind of man who would kill to protect his rapist son.
I jumped to my feet and began pacing, both hands tugging at the thick strands on top of my head. “I can’t just sit here.”
“She didn’t leave us with any other choice, man. She knew exactly what she was doing when she took off.” A frown mired his expression. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear her leave.”
“You and me both. After the way she reacted to the news, I should have known better.”
I should have known how desperate she was to confront her father, no matter how convincingly she’d promised not to bolt. I fucking knew her, damn it. Self-destruction filtered through her blood, and it would destroy us both if I didn’t do something about it.
“Why didn’t you keep her chained up?”
“I thought I’d given her enough time to rethink shit. I went too fucking soft on her.” Brushing my fingers across my belt buckle, I narrowed my eyes. “Trust me, it won’t happen again.”
She would come back to me, safe but appropriately ashamed for her actions. She fucking had to because I wouldn’t accept the alternative. And as soon as she came through that door, I’d have her sprawled out, ass up, awaiting atonement.
She wouldn’t dare fight me on this.
I tried her cell for the fifth time and got the dreaded voice recording. It took everything in my arsenal of self-control not to launch the phone across the room.
Anger was a given. She couldn’t pull these types of stunts without summoning the beast inside me, and holy hell, was he looking forward to getting his hands on her. But the terror winding around my throat…I didn’t know what to do with it. Probably because there was nothing I could do, other than keep trying her number.
I wiped the sweat from my brow and paced another round in the living room. “I fucking hate this. How could she do this to me?”
What a ridiculously rhetorical question. It bounced around my mind in accusing glory. Had she felt this lost and helpless when Jax told her I was dead? I’d assured her over the phone that she wasn’t alone. That I was here.
But that hadn’t always been the case.
I’d left her alone for six months. While I attempted to get my head screwed on straight, she’d dealt with her grief on her own. No family, no friends.
Only Jax’s occasional visits to check up on her.
I hated myself for that more than she knew.
“Sit down, man. You’re driving me nuts. If you think she’s in serious trouble, call the cops. At the very least, she can use the interruption to get the fuck outta there.”
I didn’t like that option, but short of finding a way to teleport my way to her, bringing the authorities into it was my only choice, regardless of the complications that might arise from calling the cops. But this was Alex, and the decision was a no-brainer.
With a deep sigh, I dialed 9-1-1 and hoped like hell their intervention wasn’t needed.