Page 41 of Hold Me Before You Go

I watched as the sun slowly rose, its bright rays peeking out from behind the mountains, glistening along the snow caps as I took a sip of my fourth cup of black coffee. I didn’t know how long I’d been standing here, waiting for the sun to grace us with her beauty, but I wasn’t moving until she was above the highest peak, shining down on this city. I needed to feel her warmth against my skin.

I needed a reminder of Carrie.

Four days.

Four days, and a lifetime of secrets had been uncovered. We were one step closer to getting the love of my life back, and yet?

I was lost.

I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I tried, all I saw was her, screaming in pain, blood covering her face. It was just flashes, bits and pieces of the nightmare that unfolded before me the last time I’d been in my office.

A sun ray landed on me, covering me from the neck down. My chest tightened as I bent my head, seeing the warm light cover my blood-stained cargo pants and boots. With each breath, my abs constricted underneath the fresh shirt I’d just put on, and my throat began to burn. I swallowed, ignoring the pain as I watched the rays shift, moving over to my right. My eyes followed, not wanting the warmth to disappear.

My eyes lifted, tracing the length of the ray up to the window to find a small rainbow, the sunlight creating a prism of sorts.

It was the most color my office had ever seen.

I felt something wet on my scarred cheek then, and without moving my eyes from the rainbow, the small flashes of red, blue, and green like a beckon, I brought my hand to my scar, wiping away the tear.

I was a fucking wreck.

My emotions were all over the place. I’d lost control over them days ago. Despite that, my mind was clear. I couldn’t slip back into the past again, and one way of doing that was avoiding sleep.

The ray moved further away from me, stretching over to the far side of the building, its light shining on someone else now.

“I’m coming, baby,” I promised the empty office softly, exhaustion lacing my voice. I paused, waiting for an answer because my soul desperately needed one. When it didn’t come, I bowed my head and whispered, “Just hold on for me, Sunshine.”

Another tear fell, landing on my scar again, but this time, I didn’t wipe it.

Instead, I downed the rest of my coffee and turned back to my desk. Once the mug was drained, my eyes focused on the set of pictures on my desk, one of a man and one of a woman, both smiling. The woman had gray hair, pulled back and styled in a way that made her look younger than she actually was. The man, even at his age, still had a full head of hair and a cocky bastard kind of a smile.

Robert Hale’s parents.

They’d been here for only an hour, the mother crying and screaming for mercy.

No one here was in the mood to give her any. She remained in lock up, in a soundproof room, pacing back and forth as her irritating voice bounced off the walls while her husband was gagged and bound to a chair in the secondary lock up soundproof room. I contemplated giving Dominic the go ahead to pull all thirty-two of the man’s teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers.

A knock sounded on my office door, and I looked up to find Hayes walking in, his eyes hard.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he replied, sighing at the end when he looked over to the couch, seeing the folded pile of blankets resting atop the pillow. When he looked back to me, he said, “I need you at the top of your game for this. If we’re going to find Carrie—”

“Until she is back with me, I will never be at the top of my game,” I growled, slamming my hand on the table before I could stop it. My anger was in the driver’s seat now, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Until Carrie was back home—in my fucking arms—the anger wasn’t going away. I could keep the rest of my demons in check, Dominic made sure of that, but anger?

There was no stopping that.

“Gray—”

“Don’t you fucking get it?” I barked, throwing my arms out. “I am not myself without her. I will never be at the top of my game ever again. She fucking—” I cut myself off, looking away from him.

A tense silence lingered between us as the unfiltered, raw, ugly fucking truth slammed into me.

I was nothing without Carrie.

She was sunlight, and I was nothing but a mere shadow, worthless in this world. My soul wasn’t tethered to hers. No, my soul simply didn’t exist until her. My life was nothing until her. Nothing, not even Red Snake, could fill the hole inside me that was meant for her and her alone.

“Gray,” Hayes called softly.

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