Page 23 of Tempting Fate

Except it’s another delay I don’t need right now.

Another second that passes while Lily remains missing.

I try the front door. It’s locked as well. After double checking the handgun is loaded, I edge my way inside. Heart beating wildly, I scan the main living area. The smell of Lily’s perfume floods my senses, and my knees sag as I fight not to break down.

“Lily!” I shout into what I can already tell is an empty house. “Little Cherub. Fuck. Please, sweet thing, be here somewhere.”

Her dirty mug is still on the coffee table, the T-shirt she pulled on when she got out of bed remains balled up on the couch, left there after I went down on her this morning. It sits next to the book she’s reading with Slash as part of their book club for two and her half-finished needlework project.

A series of embroidered cocks.

The shit she gets up to with the other old ladies normally makes me laugh. Right now, it kills me. My chest tightens to the point where I’m struggling to breathe when I think about how I pounced on her, interrupting her as she tried to cram in another episode of her vampire show and finish off the embroidery before work. We’d started on the couch. I’d quelled her triggers while eating her out, then we’d ended with her tits pressed to the shower tiles so I could drive myself inside her until we were both breathless but satisfied.

And running late.

“Fuck, Lily… if you’re hidin’ somewhere, it’s safe to come out. It’s just me.” I rub at my chest to loosen the vise grip around my heart. “Carnage. Metukà shelì. I’m callin’ carnage.”

Even as I shout the safe word we created years ago, I know she’s not here.

Lily isn’t hiding.

She’s gone.

Stolen.

The only boon in this situation is that the presence of her SUV in the driveway means she made it home. That cuts down the time she’s been missing by more than half an hour.

Still, a lot can happen in an hour and a half.

I learned that the hard way four years ago.

My mobile phone is still locked in the box in the chapel, so I tiptoe deeper into the house to grab one of the backup burners I use when I’m on a run. As I move through our home, the muzzle entering each room first just in case my senses have failed me, a shudder runs the length of my spine. This emptiness, this brittle silence, could become my reality if I fail to find my woman before something happens to her.

Something worse than what’s already been done.

After dragging the nondescript box off the top shelf in our walk-in-robe, I dig out the burner. I rip it out of the packaging Cub stored it in to keep it clean from interference until we are supposed to depart. Every second that ticks by while the damn thing powers up weighs heavily on me. As soon as the signal settles, I hit green icon on the only number programmed in the burner and wait for the call to connect.

It takes three attempts before he answers.

“She there?”

“Nope.”

The exhale that erupts from Slash is filled with every bleak emotion that’s surging through my veins. “Cub’s on it, but Brutus is breathin’ down his neck—it ain’t goin’ well. He’s put a bar stool in the wall so far.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ. I swear… I hate that cunt sometimes.”

“Hearin’ ya.”

The uselessness pounding through me makes me restless. I stomp out of my bedroom, stopping to pull open cupboards in the hallway and slam them shut once it’s clear nothing’s been disturbed. I make quick work of checking the other rooms. Not a thing is out of place. Entering the spare room at the back of our house, the final area left to search, I slide open the wardrobe, peering inside. It’s empty—like I knew it would be. With my free hand balled into a fist, I listen to the commotion at the compound coming through the phone while I take a look in the ensuite bathroom.

“What do ya want me to do about the prez?” Slash asks. “Give me the word and I’ll put a bullet in ’im.”

Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I stop abruptly. The bruise on my face inflicted by the boot of Joseph’s minion is setting in. But it’s not the damage that makes me take a second look at myself.

It’s the despair in my eyes.

Agonisingly familiar.

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