Page 14 of Reed

There’s no need to thank me. I told you. You are mine, and I take care of what is mine.

I can’t help but smile because I’m starting to like the thought of being his more and more.

“Mommy happy,” Jacob says.

“Reed,” Caleb says before they both grab another fry and walk away.

Chapter Eight

Reed

Gabe called to tell me Dan had towed Ali’s Jeep to his place, and they were heading to the gym. I headed to Dan’s to talk about what I wanted him to do with the Jeep and put down my card to pay for all the repairs. It took a good hour to get a list of everything wrong with it. Dan suggested scrapping it, but I didn’t want to make that decision for Ali. I told him to get me the total, and I would let him know as soon as I talked to her.

Right as I was leaving Dan’s, Gabe texted.

Gabe

Get your ass here now. We got something.

I pull a U-turn, not giving a shit about the police, and head there instead of back to my house. As I pull up to the back of the gym, my phone rings again, but this time it’s Leon.

He doesn’t give me a chance to say hello before he starts talking. “Man, when you step in it, you do it in the worst way possible, don’t you. We need to talk.”

Unbuckling, I leave my SUV and head toward the back door. “Then talk.”

I pull open the door and head for the second door on the right. Placing my palm against the scanner, I wait for it to read my hand and let me in. All while waiting for Leon to fill me in.

“Not on the phone. Where is she?” His reply leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Leon has no issue normally talking to me about business over the phone. It’s not every day that I have to bring him in, but when I do, he is never this cryptic.

“Somewhere safe,” I say, grinding my teeth as I walk down the stairs that lead to our offices.

“Fuck. I’ll be there in five and Reed,” he says.

“What,” I growl, throwing open the meeting room door. Gabe, Jessie, and Nick all look up from what they’re doing. I’m already on edge, and whatever it is that Leon is refusing to tell me is pushing me closer to snapping. He’s holding the match to my already short fuse.

“Stop fucking digging. Right now.” Leon finishes and hangs up.

Nick is the first one to start talking. “We have a fucking problem,” he says, sliding a picture across the table.

“A big fucking problem.” Jessie nods at Nick and slides a piece of paper across. “Whoever did that to Ali’s Jeep wiped the whole fucking thing down. We have no usable prints. Like none, not even hers or the boys,” he says.

New match meet fuse. “What the fuck? Who took the time to wipe everything down.”

“That’s not all,” Gabe says, pulling some kind of contraption from a box.

He places it in the middle of the table. I don’t worry about gloving up before I reach out and pull it closer to me. They already dusted it for fingerprints, and it’s not like we are going to the police about this. Before I can ask anything, he pulls out something else and drops it on the table.

“They also left this,” Gabe points to the single Lilly, whose white petals are dripping something red on the table. “The flower was resting on the dashboard with this note. We found that...” he points to the thing in my hands. “Under Ali’s seat. Luckily, I found it before we made the mistake of triggering it.”

“What does the note say, and is that blood or more paint?” I put down the contraption and hold my hand out for the piece of paper Gabe is holding. I read it as Gabe tells me the flower is covered in paint to look like blood. There is only one sentence on the white piece of paper, written in sloppy, loopy handwriting.

I’m coming for what’s mine.

“What’s his!” I laugh darkly, pulling the attention of all the guys. “The only thing he will be getting is the blade of my knife or a bullet, depending on how generous I’m feeling when we find him.” I nod toward the contraption and slide the note into my pocket. “Have you figured out what the hell that thing is?”

Gabe flips it over, and I see a needle attached to the bottom of the pressure plate. “When someone—Ali, to be frank—sat on the seat, the pressure plate would activate this,” he points to a mechanism. “It would push the needle forward, which wouldstick her, and then it would push the plunger of the needle down.”

I thought seeing Ali afraid caused me to feel a rage that I’d never felt before but hearing that someone tried to drug her made what I felt before child’s play. My mind tries to conjure up images of what would have happened had I not been with her, but I refuse to allow them to form. The room takes on a red haze, and I have the urge to destroy everything around me. “What was in the needle?” I ask through clenched teeth.

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