Page 58 of Betrayal & New Beginnings

He squeezed my throat harder, and it began getting hard to breathe.Itried moving butIcouldn’t do much with my arms still tethered to the headboard and his body pinning my legs.Iwas frantic, trying anything asIfelt my chest tighten, struggling to get breath.Iclosed my eyes, trying to focus, when all of a sudden, the restricting feeling on my throat was gone andIheardRandallyell.Iopened my eyes asIgasped in a huge breath.IsawRandallbeing thrown to the ground by a man in black, and the next thingIknew,IsawWade’sbeautiful face in front of me.Iwondered ifI’dblacked out.Yes,Imust have blacked out, andWadewas now the angel of death taking me away.

23

WADE

We followedEllie’sdot all the way out of town—a good twenty-minute drive under normal circumstances—but it was rush hour, so traffic was bad, doubling our travel time.Herdot had been stopped for at least ten minutes, andIwas panicked.Itried to draw on myArmytraining to stay focused and calm, butIwas struggling.

Vince’s phone rang, and he answered it through the car speaker.

“What have you got?” he asked, straight to the point.

“We’re here atBeth’splace,”Axelexplained quickly. “She’snot here.Carisn’t here, and we got in the apartment and she’s not inside either.Doyou want us to go look somewhere else for her?”

“No, just go back to the office and helpTammyandRuthiewith the police.Thanks, man,”Vincesaid as he ended the call.

“Where the fuck did she go?”Isaid out loud.

“Turn here,”Archeryelled out. “Herdot’s at the end of this road.”

“Wade, listen to me,”Vincesaid sternly. “Youare not going in half-cocked.”

I started to growl and interrupt him, but he held up his hand.

“No, dude,” he continued. “Wehave no idea what we’re walking into.Ifhe has a gun on her, you storming in there could make it worse.Wehave to do this the smart way.Wealldo this the smart way.Archer, textRuthieour current location and have her send the cops here.”

“I don’t want the cops involved, becauseIwill kill him ifIfind him,”Isnarled.

“Wade, why do you think we waited this long to give them our location?”Archerasked, andIknew what he wasn’t saying.He’ddone it this way to give us time to take care of it ourselves, or at least a decent head start.

We pulled up the drive but stopped short so no one heard our vehicle.Aswe got out of the car quietly, we saw two cars—one that looked likeBeth’sblueCorollaand a blackSUVwithTennesseetags.Thiswas it.

“Beth’s here,”Itold them. “That’sher blue car.”

“Okay, we don’t know for sure, but it appears she’s in collusion with him, so we need to be careful of both of them,”Archersaid, always being the voice of reason, whichIdesperately needed at this moment. “Hereare some comms,” he said, handing us earpieces. “Doyou both have weapons?”

“Yes.”Iusually didn’t carry it while working at the pub, but sinceIwas upstairs in the security office,Ihadn’t taken it off yet.NotthatIneeded one—theRangershad trained me to be deadly enough with just my hands and body.

“Yeah,Ido,”Vincereplied. “Herdot’s definitely in that building.”

“Let’s go,”Isaid asIopened the door to get out.

We closed the doors as quietly as we could, then started moving toward the house.Archerwhispered in the comms he’d go around to the back of the house to check for alternate exits.VinceandIwent up to the front.Aswe got to the front door,Iheard a man yell in what sounded like agony.Vincesignaled me that he had my cover and to try the front door.Itopened freely, which was not a good sign.Ifthe bastard wasn’t worried aboutEllieescaping out an unlocked door, then she must be restrained.

The first thingIsaw wasBeth.Herprone body was on the floor and there was a lot of blood under her.Isignaled toVince, and he covered me whileIcrouched down to check for a pulse.Therewasn’t one, which didn’t surprise me, given the amount of blood and the gunshot wound to her head.Iwhispered quietly in my comms to alertArcherthatBethwasDOA(dead on arrival).Istarted to stand back up, whenIheard a scream and recognized that voice to beEllie’s.Myentire body stilled, andIfelt chills on every inch of my skin.

I started to move toward the sound, whenIfeltVincegrab my arm.Hesignaled for me to stay slow and quiet.Iknew the only thing we had going for us right now was the element of surprise.Weneeded to maintain that sinceBethwas already dead and we didn’t want to addEllieto that list.

We quickly but quietly stalked down the hallway to the right where the noises were coming from.

The long hallway appeared to be lined with bedrooms and bathrooms.Wecame up to the last one on the left, and whatIsaw would haunt me for the rest of my life.Aman’s body on top ofEllie’s, with his hand on her neck, suffocating her.Iknew it wasn’t the smartest move tactically, butIlaunched myself at him, ripped him off her, and threw him to the ground.Ipinned him there and got several good, hard punches into his head beforeVincegrabbed my arm.

“I got him.GocheckEllie,” he said sternly.

I released the dickhead and turned around forEllie.Iwould never forget how she looked in that moment.Tearson her face, her neck covered in red finger marks, and her arms tied to the bed.Shewas gasping for air but looking right at me, and then her eyes closed.

“Ellie, wake up, sweetheart,”Itold her, putting my hand on her cheek and trying to get her to open her eyes again.

I vaguely notedVincetalking behind me but didn’t register what he was saying or who he was even talking to.

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