Page 83 of Even if You Fall

“You could’ve just talked to me,” I said softly.

“Then tell me what you’re thinking,” he begged just as quietly, his hand flexing against me.

I instinctively glanced to the side and nearly choked on the breath I’d just taken when I saw we weren’t alone. “Hudson’s smiling at us,” I whispered when I met Adam’s stare again.

Adam glanced over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing when Hudson wryly said, “Don’t mind me.”

With a heavy sigh, Adam focused on me again. “We won’t have time once we go in there,” he informed me. “There’s a lot the team needs to go over and prepare for. A lot we need to try to fix.”

“Go,” I told him, jerking my chin in the direction of where Hudson stood. “Do what y’all have to.”

“Talk to me,” he begged on a whisper, drawing me even closer.

“Adam, we can?—”

“My head isn’t gonna be in it,” he said over me. “I’m gonna be worrying about you and this the entire time, and I need my head to be clear so I can do my job.”

I released a heavy sigh before relenting. “I already said it was terrifying to listen to you say you were gonna destroy Owen—that you were gonna enjoy it—and it was. It’s unsettling to think about anyone actually killing someone, let alone planning it. And, yes, it’s worse that it’s Owen, but not because I want to be with him, or anything like that.

“It’s that he’s someone I know,” I explained and felt embarrassment heat my cheeks. “It’s that Ididlove him and thought I was gonna be with him forever—not that any of it was real. But it felt real at one point, and that part of me hurts at the thought of him dying.”

“Chloe, he kidnaps and traffics women,” Adam ground out. “He’s setting you up to kidnap and trafficyou.”

A shuddering breath escaped me at the reminder. “I know. I know, but killing?—”

“He just had another woman taken this morning,” he continued over me, shocking me into horrified silence. “We think he did it because we got you away from here. We think it was his way of getting us back here—gettingyouback here.”

I didn’t realize my breaths were coming too quick and too shallow until Adam curled his hands around my cheeks and forced me to look at him.

“Breathe for me,” he said softly yet firmly. “I won’t let him anywhere near you.”

“But—” My chest pitched and ached as my stomach rolled, this time not having anything to do with the altitude.

First Lainey, now this woman, all because I’d fallen for Owen’s charms...

“Breathe,” Adam commanded as he pressed his forehead to mine.

A strained sob wrenched from me. “Who was she?”

“This isn’t on you,” he whispered, sensing where my thoughts had gone. “We messed up by focusing on the wrong people here, but we’re looking for her. All right?” When my head just shook, he repeated, “We’re looking for her.”

“But everyone’s at this house or flying.”

He hesitated before saying, “Trust me.” Leaning back, he lifted my head to search my eyes as he repeated his earlier vow. “I won’t let Vance get anywhere near you. But he’s already shown he doesn’t care that you now have all of us around you, and guys likehim? They don’t stay in jail, if they even go, which means he needs to be taken out.”

My jaw trembled as I processed what he was saying. “And you? I’m pretty sure you don’t have a mafia family to keep you out of prison, and murder usually has a long sentence attached to it.”

One side of Adam’s face pinched in both offense at my assumption and worry for my next reaction. “Yeah...I was trained so I wouldn’t get caught.”

A desperate laugh bled from me at the insinuation, not that I should’ve expected anything less with their background.

“The only thing we need to worry about with this is retaliation from the Wreckers, which we’re already dealing with anyway,” he told me, his head subtly bobbing before slanting in hesitation. “Briggs might have a plan for that, though.”

“Might,” I said on a heavy breath.

“We’ll take care of this,” he said unquestionably. “No matter which plans succeed and fail, we’ll end this.”

His dark eyebrows drew close as one of his thumbs brushed across my bottom lip, then trailed to my jaw as he searched my face. “I didn’t understand the rash decisions Briggs made, or the lengths he went to when he thought Lainey and Kaia were being targeted by the Wreckers, but I get it now,” he mumbled. “I would go to war to keep you safe. Gladly.”

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