Page 112 of Corrupting Ivy

My phone rang.

“Jason?”

“Uh, this is Officer Scott. They gave me this number through dispatch. Your vehicle was involved in an accident on county road—”

The moisture in my mouth evaporated as I backed away from everyone, then walked behind the pallets. “Is she okay?”

“Sir, the only person in this vehicle is a male. Do you know who that may be?”

“My bodyguard. Where is Ivy?”

“Like I said, there is no woman here. Only your bodyguard, and I’m sorry to say… it looks as though he’s been murdered—”

I hung up the phone and closed my eyes. Breathing through my nose, I squeezed my phone until I couldn’t take it any longer. A surge of rage sliced through me like a red-hot iron, severing me in two, crippling my resolve.

“Fuck,” I yelled, then pushed on the stacked pallets until they toppled over with a thundering crash. My men rushed in armed to the teeth, weapons drawn just as their training taught them.

“Stand down, it’s okay,” Alek said.

Jake came out with his laptop in his hands. “Whoa shit. What happened?”

Alek filled him in while my pulse pounded frantically in my ears, dulling out the echo of conversation.

Where was the switch, the control? I’d lost it, and now all I felt was a torrent of emotions I’d held back for over two decades, beating against me like a whirlwind eroding away my willpower.

Her phone.

I pulled up the app on my phone that gave me her location.

She’s moving.

I sighed as the taut muscles loosened. She’d listened to me, and that was her saving grace this time. This single action is the difference between her being lost forever or me finding her and killing whomever took her.

Closing my eyes, I placed one hand against the wall, and breathed deep, repeating my mantra until the anger abated, the fear ceased, and nothing but the vibration of destruction inhabited my thoughts.

Emotions aren’t meant to lead.

“She’s moving,” I said.

“What?” they said in unison.

“She’s moving. Look.”

I showed them the red dot moving on my screen.

“She’s got well over two hours on us.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know where she’s headed.”

My head throbbed likesomeone stabbed an ice pick in my brain and left it there. My neck ached as the car hit every pothole in the road. Of course, my head probably hurt more so because of the loud Garth Brooks music coming from every speaker in the car, amplifying it in my small metal coffin.

He hadn’t said a word to me since he and his accomplice, Deputy Peter Jameson, duct-taped my hands and mouth on the side of the road, then shoved me in the trunk. I should have known that spineless sack would help him. He could never refuse an order given by Jeremiah.

The car slowed to a stop, and the engine cut off.

Did they need to get gas? I thought they did that already?

I kicked against the inside of the car and prayed to God that someone heard my muffled cries. The last time we’d stopped, fear froze me in place, and I didn’t make a noise. This time, I gave it all I got, thrashing around, kicking the back of the taillights. Anything to garner attention to the red car with a woman in the trunk.

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