CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

AVERY

“IT HAS TO BE HIM,” I SNAP, fisting my hands down by my side while pacing back and forth in my study.

My brother shakes his head. “Damon had no way of knowing where she was at.”

“He could have had someone follow us home from the party.” It has to be him. If not, how will I ever find her?

“Then waited until you sent her off to Vancouver?” He shakes his head. “Plus, how would he have known where the tracker was?”

I run a hand through my hair. The door opens, but I ignore whoever it is. “I don’t know,” I snap, frustrated. I’ve got to find her. She’s still injured from what I did to her … Fuck, I whipped her. I slapped her. Then I fucked her out of rage. I didn’t want Damon to get my little toy. Now he’s stolen it from me.

I’ll get you back, Bunny!

“It has to be an inside job,” he offers.

“No. No one would betray me like that. They know I’d kill them,” I growl, looking at the floor. Still pacing.

“Maybe they don’t expect to get caught.”

“Oh, I’ll catch him …” I trail off, still pacing my study while he stands in front of the fireplace.

“How many knew about the tracker?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I snap.

He grabs my shoulders and yanks me to a stop. “You do too know. Calm down. Take a deep breath. We will find her,” he promises.

“Sir?”

“What?” I growl, turning around to see Kayn standing in my study. “Anything?” I ask.

He and my men have been out looking for any trace of the car. Of her. I told him not to return until he had something helpful. If it’s Damon, as I think it is, she could already be on a jet and heading toward Cuba. The realization of that has my knees buckling.

He shakes his head. “But I need to speak to you.”

“Then get your ass back out there!” I bark, pointing at my closed door. “I don’t have time …” I pull my cell out of my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Tristan asks.

“Fritz. I want wheels up in twenty.”

“Where the hell are you going?” he demands.

“Cuba …”

Tristan snatches the phone from my hands. “You’re not fucking thinking clearly.”

“I’m thinking that the fucking bastard …”

“I agree with your brother. It has to be an inside job.” Kayn interrupts me.

I run a hand through my hair. Fuck, Bunny! Just hold on. I’m gonna find you.

“You have an idea of who it is?” Tristan asks.

“I do.”

I walk over to him and grab him by the collar of his shirt. “Then fucking spit it out!” I shout.

He stays calm. “I need you to promise you won’t act …”

“I’ll rip his fucking throat out!” They all know I don’t make promises!

“Right away. If I’m right, he will take us to her. But you have to be patient.”

How the fuck am I supposed to be patient? Someone could be raping her. Beating her. She could have already been sold. And I’ll never see her again. The thought is paralyzing. I release Kayn and stumble back a step. My brother grabs my arm, but I pull away.

“Who is it?” Tristan asks.

He takes in a deep breath. “Darrell.”

“No!” I say, shaking my head. “He wouldn’t touch her.” I know he had hit her, but he knows firsthand what I would do to a man who would dare take her from me.

“Sir, please. Just hear me out.”

The plea in Kayn’s voice makes me pause. I’ve never heard him ask please before. The man is six-foot-four and almost three hundred pounds of solid muscle. He takes what he wants. He doesn’t beg or plead.

“Why him?” I ask, and my throat tightens. Kayn’s been by my side for years, and he doesn’t fuck around. If he thinks Darrell is behind it, then he has reasons. He wouldn’t make that accusation lightly.

“By the way he is with her.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I snap.

He doesn’t flinch from my harsh tone. “Have you watched the tape from yesterday?”

“Yes. I’ve watched it fifty fucking times, but what does that have to do with anything?” I can’t watch them cuff her, cut her, and take her anymore. I can’t do it.

“No, I mean the tape when we all returned home.”

“No,” my brother answers, but I’m already going over to my screen to pull up the surveillance from when I know they arrived.

Kayn walks into my house first followed by a sleepy looking Bunny, then Darrell. She comes to a stop inside the foyer, and Darrell shoves her forward. She falls to her knees, and my jaw tightens.

Kayn turns around, hearing the commotion and her small cry, and helps her to her feet. “Hey, take it easy. The drugs haven’t worn off yet,” he tells him.

Darrell shrugs carelessly. “If Avery was smart, he would keep her drugged twenty-four seven. The bitch is much more tolerable when she’s unconscious.”

She sways, and Kayn doesn’t release her. “How much did you give her anyway? She should be more lucid,” he comments, looking down at her.

“Enough!” He squares his shoulders. “I wasn’t taking the chance of her stabbing me with a fork again.”

Kayn sighs. “I have already spoken to Avery. You guys get settled in, and I’m gonna go get him. Keep the place together until I get back,” he tells Darrell and then releases Bunny.

She wraps her arms around her chest and looks at Darrell. “May I call him?” Her voice is rough from sleep.

“Who?” Darrell snaps.

“Avery. I want to talk to him.” She rubs her eyes.

“No.” He snorts. “You’re not allowed to use a phone.”

“I don’t think that rule applies when it’s him I want to call,” she says angrily. Finding that fire I know she has. I hope wherever she is right now, she is fighting. Hang on, Bunny.

He slaps her across the face, and she stumbles back into Kayn. Kayn leans down to whisper into her ear, and then she turns and walks up the stairs to go to her room.

Kayn grabs him by the back of the neck and yanks him forward. “Keep your hands to yourself,” he orders.

“We’re allowed to do what is necessary to keep her in line.”

“I’m allowed to do that. You’re just a fucking overpaid babysitter. So keep your fucking hands to yourself,” he snaps, then shoves him away. “Now go upstairs and let her use your cell to call Avery. I’ll be back soon.” He walks toward the door but turns to face a pissed-off Darrell. “I mean it, Darrell. Keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll cut them off myself.” Then he walks out.

“She never called me,” I say more to myself, lifting the remote to turn off the video.

My brother stops me. “Stay on him. I wanna see what he does next.”

We watch him walk into the formal dining room. The same one where I had Bunny bent over the table, and my anger rises that I allowed her out of my sight when I knew she was already in trouble.

He pulls his cell out and sends a quick text and then he looks up at the camera before turning his back to it and walking right out the front door.

“Goddammit!” I yell, throwing the remote across the room.

“We’ll find her,” my brother assures me.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kayn says, squaring his shoulders. “I should have never left—”

“You had orders!” I snap, interrupting him. It’s no one’s fault but mine.

“Yes, sir. But I could have sent Mason to come and get you.”

I look at him. “Go get Darrell. Bring him to me. Now!”

They both shake their heads. “We have to play this smart. He doesn’t know we’re on to him. I can watch his every move. Listen in on his phone calls but he won’t just come out and tell you what he’s up to,” Kayn announces.

“You expect me to sit on my ass?”

“Avery?” my brother snaps, and I narrow my eyes on him. “We expect you to be smart about it. If he was a man who you wanted information from, how would you get it?”

“Torture it out of them.”

“It won’t work with him, sir. I know Darrell. We need to wait for him to go to her,” Kayn offers.

I turn my back on them, running a hand down my face. I know they’re right. But what if he never goes to her? How long will she survive out there without me? I don’t want to find out.

_______________

It’s been forty-eight hours since she was taken, and I’ve done nothing but pace. And drink.

My hands itch to tear Darrell’s head off, but every time I go to make a move, my brother or Kayn get in my way. I’m about to rip both of their heads off just because I can.

I’m in my study, sitting at my desk. I open the top drawer and see her cell sitting there. I haven’t looked at it other than that one time. And it’s dead. Plugging it in, I turn it on. After a few seconds of it vibrating, it shows over fifty texts and ten voicemails.

I open it up and go through her pictures again, but instead of looking at the ones in the front, I scroll to the older ones. When I come to one that has me in it, my heart instantly stops. We’re young. She was sixteen and I was eighteen. It was taken sitting outside by my pool in the house I grew up in. You can tell it’s a picture she took of the original. She’s standing between me and my best friend. The guy she left me for. The one she chose. When there should have never been a competition to begin with. I should have seen it coming. I always found him too close to her. He would go out of his way when he came over to talk to her. She told me they were just friends, but I should have known better.

 

Twelve years ago

 

She sits at the outside bar, sipping on some lemonade in a pink two-piece. I promised her we would go swimming after I finished playing basketball. She has half her short blond hair up in a high ponytail. Her white sunglasses cover her face, and she’s smiling right at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Just admiring you,” she answers.

I look away from her, bounce the ball, and then jump up and shoot it. When it hits nothing but net, she claps.

“Best two out of three?” Tristan whines.

“Nope. Promised Bunny I’d go swimming with her.”

He picks up the ball and rolls his eyes.

I turn to walk over to her but stop when I see my friend Mitch standing beside her. I punched him in the fucking face a few weeks ago when I walked in on them playing pool and he had his hands all over her. I warned him to stay away from her, but he hasn’t listened. She takes a step back from him, and he matches it. Lowering his head, he looks her up and down, and my blood starts to boil when he reaches out for her. Her eyes meet mine, and she smiles nervously. “Avery. I’m ready when you are.” Then she turns around, giving both of us her back, and walks off, heading toward the pool.

Mitch walks toward me and winks before passing. “Tristan, I’ll play you,” he calls out.

I fist my hands and ignore the desire to punch him again. She assured me last time that nothing was there. He can try all he wants, but nothing will come of it. Instead, I remove my sweaty shirt and head toward the pool to be with my girl.

 

I power off her phone and drop it back into my desk drawer before slamming it shut. I stand, needing to move.

Promises. She’s the reason I quit making them. She’s the reason for every decision I have ever made.

How dare she do this to me! She fucking plays me. Leaves me. Ruins me. Then eleven years later, I take her with every intention to ruin her in return and then this happens!

She makes me feel again!

Makes me fucking love her again!

You never stopped loving her.

“FUCK!” I grab the nearest thing I see, which is an empty glass that held my scotch from earlier, and throw it across the room. It shatters into a million pieces when it hits the brick fireplace.

I turn to face my desk, grip the edge, and turn it over. My computer goes crashing off it to the floor along with my keyboard, cell and office phone. The drawers I didn’t have locked fall open, and the contents come falling out. My gun hits the floor with a clank.

My door swings open, and Kayn comes running in, gun drawn, followed by Tristan.

“Avery, man, you have to calm down.” My brother sighs when he sees my mess.

Fuck calm! I’ve never been rational when it came to Bunny. Why start now? No matter what she had done to me in the past, she is everything to me.

My rage.

My love.

And my sanity.

I took her in the first place to protect her, and she made me fail at that!

“I’m done waiting,” I say, walking behind my tipped over desk and grabbing my gun off the floor along with my cell.

“Wait!” Tristan says, jumping in front of me. “You need to wait—”

I point the gun at his face and cock it. “You have two options—move or die.” My voice is even and so is my breathing.

His jaw sharpens, and his dark blue eyes glare down my barrel at me. Kayn stands off to the side, silently watching us.

“Which is it?” I’m not bluffing. I never do. I will kill anyone who stands in my way of getting Bunny back. And I’m about to prove it.

He lets out a long sigh, holds up his hands in surrender, and steps aside. Good choice.

I walk out of the study. “Where the fuck is he?” I ask when I hear them following me.

Kayn responds. “He’s at the warehouse.”

The fucker has been moping around here pretending to be fucking injured from a gunshot wound. It was a graze. He staged her abduction and took a bullet to make himself look innocent. There won’t be much left of him when I’m done.

I walk through the house and out the front door. I’m jogging down the stairs and to my car that is parked over to the side of the driveway when Kayn stops me. “I’ll drive, sir.”

I turn around to see him heading to my Escalade, my brother following suit.

“How are you going to get him to confess?” Tristan asks, getting into the back seat behind me.

“Whatever it takes,” I say, looking out the bulletproof window but not really seeing anything as we pass.

“Come on, Avery. You have to have a plan,” he insists.

“I do. Torture him until he tells me where the fuck she is.”

The car falls silent, and I close my eyes while my right foot taps on the floorboard. My gun rests in my hand on my thigh.

I’ll find you, Bunny! Nothing could possibly stop me.

“Avery, there’s always the chance that …”

“If you value your life, you will not finish that sentence,” I warn my brother.

He lets out a growl of frustration. “We should wait. We don’t even know why he did it in the first place,” Tristan continues.

Why did he even fucking come? “It doesn’t matter why he did it.” I shrug my tight shoulders.

“But what would he want with her?” he continues. “If he was involved, he didn’t take her for himself.”

“Shut up, Tristan!” I shout. “I told you I don’t give a fuck why he did it! If he’s involved, he will take me to her!”

Even if I have to carry him to her because I’ve cut off his arms and legs, I will find her. I smile, knowing the smell of blood is in my near future. He’s gonna bleed until he tells me where my Bunny is.