Page 101 of Locke

Because this man truly did have eyes and ears everywhere.

I’d barely finished that thought when the loud engine of a truck stopped in front of the alleyway. I blinked in its direction, noting its lights were all out. I slinked further down the alleyway, quietly hiding behind a dumpster bin. Sliding down to the ground, I went utterly still.

The door of the truck opened and then slammed shut. I listened intently on the heavy footsteps that followed. I expected them to be moving in the direction of the shops or even the building, but they entered the alleyway where I was, coming straight for me.

And there I was, completely cornered, knowing that he had found me.

It wasn’t fair.

“I’m going to fight,” I said to him then. “I swear to God, Locke, I will fight to my death because this isn’t what I want. You’re bad for me. You make me feel too much. Please, don’t do this.”

But the being stopped before me, its dark silhouette staring down at me hunched on the ground.

And I felt a cold feeling climb down my spine as I realized, no, this was not Locke.

He bent down, picked me up, and I screamed black and blue as he carried me to the truck.

“You’ll get what you want,” the voice said. “You’ll never see him again.”

Thirty-Three

Locke

It wasn’t a fair game, not when his network in Blackwater spanned the entire town and then some.

He knew where she was the moment she left her building and ditched her phone on the bus bench. The whispers left trails behind that he simply had to follow.

Callum, one of his gunners, informed the strays not to mess with her. Unless they wanted to taste Locke’s fury, she was off limits. She may have been his lioness, but on the streets, she was a baby bird surrounded by wolves. For her safety, he could not risk it.

He stood in the dark at the top of the stairwell, looking down at the dark cavity she was spotted in. He had let her think she had made it into the night. But now it was getting late, and he was itching to have her.

Only…it was not Kali.

He felt a slight panic as the hours continued to slip by.

He should have found her by now.

His men were turning over every fucking leaf.

He assured himself she’d found a small place to slip into. Eventually, she had to show herself.

But then the hours turned to days.

And then it was a week, and his little lion was still at large.

Only then did his anxiety begin to grow. And soon he was pacing like a caged animal, barking orders, feeling a fury and helplessness he hadn’t felt since he’d been locked in a hole to be rutted like a whore.

He wanted her so badly. He needed her beneath him, beside him—she belonged to him. She was his, fucking his, and where the fuck was she?

Find her, he demanded.

Bus stations, shelters, taxi services and community centres—he searched all of it. Until he was at the front of the search, doing it himself.

And when not even that gave him his lioness, he did something he hadn’t done since his mother died.

He wept.

And after he’d wept, he finally turned to those few people in his world that ever understood him.

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