Page 4 of Catch My Fall

It might have been my first kiss with the man of my dreams, and although he doesn’t realise it yet, I’m going to make sure it isn’t the last.

1

Present

Another sleepless night has my eyes bloodshot and heavy as I stare at my reflection into mirror above the bathroom sink. I barely recognise myself. My eyes are red with lack of sleep, my skin pale and my hair a greasy unkempt mess. The unshaven scruff along my jaw and the fact I can’t remember the last time I showered is the least of my worries right now. All night, just like almost every night for a fortnight, I tossed and turned, unable to shut off my racing mind as I lie awake, staring at the moon out the window, wondering if wherever she is, she can see it too.

Sierra.

On the rare occasion I do manage to fall asleep, albeit only for a few hours at a time, all I see is her. She fills my dreams. Most of the time, she’s as she was, smiling and happy, a fun carefree young woman with her whole life ahead of her. But then sometimes she’s alone, lying on a mattress shrouded by darkness while she cries, the walls that hold her captive cold and grey. And all the while, she calls out my name. Pleading for me to save her. It’s that sound that keeps me awake, because how the hell am I supposed to sleep while she’s out there and she needs me?

Two weeks.

It’s been two long, gruelling weeks since she was taken, ripped away from her family and her friends, caught up in a war raging between her brothers and a monster hell-bent on revenge. Two weeks of working tirelessly alongside her brothers, Gage and Rafe, spending every waking minute trying to find her, only to turn up with nothing.

No leads.

No clues to point us in the right direction.

No idea where she is or if she’s even alive, but what use would she be to him if she were? As much as I hate to think it, maybe it would be better if she weren’t. I can only imagine the things she’s being subjected to, things that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Things far worse than death.

I take a seat at the desk in the corner of my bedroom and pull open my laptop, bringing up the video footage from the night she disappeared.

I do this religiously every day, it’s a way of torturing myself because I’m the reason she’s out there somewhere.

On the screen, I watch as her car rolls up to the curb not far from the house, her hands fisting the steering wheel as her head tips forward onto it, almost like she’s crying. She sits like that for a few minutes, the engine idling as she builds up the courage to come back home and face her brothers.

Just as she’s about to pull away, a dark van swerves to a stop directly in front of her car, blocking her in just as two masked men jump out, pulling open her car door and dragging her out.

She kicks out at them, but she’s no match for them, and they throw her into the back of the van as though she weighed nothing. Within a matter of seconds, she’s gone, the van peeling away like it was never there.

I slam the laptop closed and bury my head in my hands, the sick feeling in my stomach the same as that night when I found her car empty, still idling where she left it, the driver’s door flung wide open.

I will never forget the wave of dread that slammed into me when I returned to the house to tell her family she’d gone, but they already knew. The bastard that took her called them, delighting in how easy it was to steal her away and loving every single second of it. My stomach clenches as the memory of her screams echoed through the speaker, a sound that has plagued my dreams ever since. The guilt of failing to protect her twists in my gut and until we get her back, that guilt is going to eat me alive from the inside out.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Gage.

Gage: Need you in my office. Now.

My heart lurches in my chest as I head out.

Does he have a lead? Has he found her?

For a year, I’ve been living in the building adjacent to the Hudson mansion. When Gage hired me to be the head of his security, he had me move onto his property to be closer to his family.

That was the day I met her for the first time.

Fuck, did she knock me off my feet… Regardless of our age difference, I remember thinking she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Her hazel eyes wide and bright, her smile alone enough to have even the most stone-hearted of men falling to their knees before her.

I march through the house towards the study, and when I get there, Gage’s younger brother, Rafe, and Derek, one of Gage’s guys are sat opposite him. Derek is good at digging up dirt, hacking into accounts and CCTV systems which makes him invaluable to us right now.

He spent hours scouring the camera footage of every street for miles the night she was taken in the hope of getting a lead. He managed to track the van that took her away, but lost sight of it through a blind spot in the city’s camera network.

“What’ve you got? Any leads?” I ask Gage, my tone hopeful.

He shakes his head solemnly. “I just received another text. This time it’s a video.”

My stomach bottoms out. “Have you watched it?”

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