Page 89 of Callow

The door was locked.

The alarm was still set.

And the only way that bar could have been removed from the track wasfrom the inside.

“Goddamnit, Daphne,” I growled as I rushed through the apartment to knock on Daph’s door. When I got no answer, I opened it, finding a lump on her bed.

I almost relaxed until I walked over to find she’d shoved her pillows under the covers.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

In part because she’d clearly sneaked out when there was some fucking whack job who had it out for her thanks to me and the club. But also in part because I knew Sabrina was just breathing a sigh of relief, thinking her rebellious phase was over.

And I had to be the one to tell her it wasn’t.

I sucked in a deep breath as I moved back to the bedroom, finding Sabrina already starting to sit up, her arms up above her head as she yawned.

“Hey,” she said, all sleepy and sweet.

And all I wanted to do was get back into bed with her and get lost in her, make slow, sweet love for hours.

But I had to break the news to her instead.

“Babe, Daph snuck out,” I told her, watching as she went from shocked to defeated in just a blink. Then, remembering this wasn’t a normal situation, panic grew.

Her hand shot out toward the nightstand, finding her phone, and likely trying to look at Daph’s location.

“Damnit,” she hissed, jumping out of bed, eyes huge. “She turned off her location,” she said, stumbling around in the dark before I flicked on the light so she could see. “She could be anywhere.”

Yeah, she could.

And as the light came up in the morning and she hadn’t made her way home, I had the gut-clenching feeling that wherever she was, she was no longer there willingly.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Sabrina

I should have known not to trust that things were all different and my kid was never going to step out of line again.

I think I’d just been operating under the assumption that she was scared enough from her near-death encounter to calm her down for a while.

I mean, I guess kids always thought they were invincible. I sure as hell did at her age. Going seedy places with sketchy guys. Doing shit that would turn a decent mother’s hair white.

But, damnit, this wasn’t kids being kids shit.

This was ‘there’s guys with guns after you’ shit.

“Okay, let’s focus,” Callow said as I rushed out of my room, frantically calling Daphne even though it kept going right to voicemail.

“I can’t believe she did this,” I said, raking a hand through my hair. “I mean, I can. Butdamnit.”

“How about you call Britney?” Callow suggested, still the voice of reason. “Ask her if Allie has any idea what Daph is up to.”

“Okay. Yeah. Right,” I said, shaking my head at myself for not thinking of that first.

It was the crack of dawn, so the phone rang for a while before Sam’s voice answered, still half asleep.

“Sabrina, everything okay?”

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