Page 10 of Brutal Obsession

All of them feature blond women about Harper’s age and size.

Confusion gives way to understanding.

Enzo De Luca was bluffing.

The first message and photo date back to April. That means he’s been searching for Harper as long as we have, with the same lack of success.

I squint, trying to process this and coming up short.

Wait a fucking a minute. If Enzo De Luca didn’t take Harper after I ran into her at the bar, then what happened to her?

Ice-cold fear freezes my gut. Have we devoted our resources to a wild goose chase, hunting down the wrong man this whole time?

Is it the Red Hill Mafia again? They went after her sister, Riley, a few weeks ago, but she has history with them. We abducted their heir in retaliation after he attacked her and tucked him away in a cell. As a gesture of good will, Shane eventually returned him, a little worse for wear, in exchange for an agreement to expand part of our turf and a big shipment of designer party drugs. Harper went missing before any of that went down, though.

If Enzo doesn’t have Harper, where the fuck is she?

I scroll back up to the top message, the one that came in a few seconds ago. When I click it open, the image that materializes in front of my eyes shrivels my lungs.

All the oxygen in my body evaporates at once.

It’s her.

A candid photo of Harper Brennan in a blue bikini and sunglasses, lounging in a beach chair and reading a book.

The image is dated today, and when I double-click the coordinates listed beneath the photo, a map of the Pacific Ocean pops to life with a little red dot blinking in…

The Hawaiian Islands.

Motherfucker.

Wild shock grips me before my brain races to the truth so quickly I nearly black out.

Harper wasn’t abducted.

She ran away. On her own. Of her own volition.

For eight weeks, I’ve been in chaos, over-a-fucking-cliff and worried out of my mind, wondering if she was okay, keeping a list of all the ways I planned to make Enzo’s death painful depending on what he dared to do to her.

Meanwhile, the little witch spent the entire time sunning herself in the tropics and drinking mojitos on a beach.

My hands curl into fists. The worst part isn’t the fact that we’ve worked around-the-clock to find her flighty, irresponsible ass, or that I began a slow descent into insanity ever since her engagement announcement, or even that my friends, our associates, and I keep repeatedly risking our lives in hopes of tracking her down.

No, the worst part about this photograph is that for months, I’ve stopped picking up other women. The only reason I’ve stepped foot in a bar is to search for her.

Ever since the night before the wedding.

The night she fucked me up by letting me taste her sweet lips.

I’m so sex-deprived it’s a miracle my cock hasn’t fallen off. Meanwhile, she’s kicking back on some beach in Hawaii, looking like sin in a tiny bikini and probably taking dick from every horny asshole in the Pacific.

My fingers twitch. So help me, I could strangle her.

A bookcase to my left explodes open, tomes spewing to the floor. My gun’s already in my hand, trained at the hidden entryway.

I want it to be Enzo, because Ivery badlyneed to blow off some steam, but the person hurrying to close the bookcase behind him is a wild-eyed, out of breath Rory with disheveled golden-brown hair.

Relief pings through me, but not enough to lessen the frustration and anger that currently consume my body.

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