Page 13 of Cruel Hearts

“Run.”

“I won’t leave you,” I cry, clutching her to me. I won’t let her be alone.

“Stella, run.”

Two paramedics secure her to a stretcher, and her eyes meet mine. She’s right. I have to finish what I’m risking my life to do.

While the paramedics attach an oxygen mask to her face and yell medical jargon at each other, I lift Quinn’s messenger bag off the ground.

Without looking back, I meld into the crowd.

CHAPTER FOUR

Zane

I’m seething. Hal is supposed to be the best of the best, and he charges me like he is. The son of a bitch. I don’t know what the fucking hold up is. My sources are never wrong. The whore is alive and breathing in King’s Crossing. If my druggie snitches can find her, Hal should have no trouble.

It’s been twenty-four hours since I gave him the assignment, and he should have had it completed by now.

I pour myself a drink and wait, too agitated to do any work though there’s plenty of it that needs my attention. I can’t think of anything except having Stella’s blood on my hands.

Over the emergency PA system, security reports an active shooter outside the building, and all my employees are locked down until the situation is cleared. What a way to start the morning, but maybe that’s Hal finally doing his thing. Stella outside Maddox Industries grates on my nerves like a whore’s fingernails against my back. How dare she waltz right up to my goddamned building and think she can speak to me as if these past five years never happened.

I thought the bitch had common sense, but I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.

Hal strides into my office, frowning. “You didn’t tell me I would have competition.”

Tightening my grip on my glass, I ask, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Someone else is out to get Stella, Zane. Who?”

I scoff. “How in the hell should I know? And why does it matter?” I knock back the rest of my drink. “Do your job.”

I look out over the city. We could have had it all, Stella and me. We could have had the money, the power. The love. She threw me away for a crown. A real one. Not the fake one I promised marrying me would give her. The Queen of King’s Crossing. Fuck. How stupidly trite.

He sits at my desk and wakes up my computer. I don’t ask how he knows my password. He’s paid to know everything and I shouldn’t be surprised.

“Look at this,” he says.

I’m about to tell him nobody tells me what to do when he snaps,“Look at this.”

I walk around my desk and stand behind him.

Security footage from the camera mounted to the front of the building plays on the monitor.

In seconds, I search out Stella waiting to cross, holding the hand of a slim woman who has shaggy black hair. I can tell by their postures they’re good friends. Stella rarely spoke of her personal life, and I don’t recall her saying anything about having a friend in the city, but maybe she did. Or maybe she’s Italian, and she came over to the States with Stella.

My eyes devour her grainy features, the way her hair shines in the sun. She looks exactly the way she did the last time I saw her.

I force my gaze from her figure to her companion’s.

The light changes, and they start to cross the intersection. Several people are coming and going.

I’m growing impatient when suddenly a look of panic flashes across Stella’s face. She’s closer to the security camera now, and I pick out the shape of her eyes, her pert nose, the lush lips I enjoyed kissing. The lips I enjoyed as they roamed my body. Her skin is clear, and her hair hangs beneath her shoulder blades. I loved to wrap my hands in it while we made love. Tangling my fingers in it when she gave me a blowjob.

Now I’ll grip a handful in my fist and slit her throat.

She stumbles, and her friend bumps into her. After the slightest pause, the black-haired woman crumples to the ground.

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