Page 244 of At the Edge of Surrender

What she needed and wanted.

“Come now, look at me. I am thriving,” I told her.

She let go of a wry chuckle. “Oh, I know why you’re thriving.”

“Can you blame a man?”

Mallory leaned over to pick up a box of ginger beer, and her voice softened. “No, I can’t. Emery seems really amazing.”

My chest tightened with joy. “She is.”

She and that little girl were the best thing that had ever happened to me. A reprieve from my sins.

Couldn’t wait to get back to them. I’d changed my schedule to more normal daylight hours so I could be with them more. Not wanting to sacrifice my evenings with my daughter or my nights wrapped up in my woman.

My cell rang from my back pocket, and I set my clipboard aside so I could pull it out.

I tried to ignore the unsettledness that washed through me when I saw it was Otto, and I accepted the call and pressed it to my ear.

“What’s up, man?”

A disturbance sheared through the line.

“Fuck, Kane. I just got this sense that something was off, and I knocked on the door. No one answered, so I went in, and they’re gone.”

The unsettledness burst into panic. “What? Where the fuck are they?”

Fear hit me like a battering ram. Thoughts immediately on whoever had tried to get to Emery at the grocery store. My instinct had never settled into the idea that it’d been random. Intuition telling me that it wasn’t over.

But still, I’d sunk too much into the comfort we’d found. Had gotten too complacent. I never should have let either of them out of my sight for a second. Should have had every single one of my brothers standing guard.

“He got to them,” I wheezed on a horrified breath.

Whoever the fuck he was.

I was already moving, running through the stockroom and out to the front of the club.

“I’ll be right there. Get everyone to my place. Stat.”

Dread curled through my being, disbelief a vise around my chest.

I blew out into the heat of the sun, sweat instantly slicking my flesh as I sprinted to my bike. I jumped on and kicked it over, pinning the throttle as I peeled out in the lot and took to the bumpy dirt lane.

Shadows flashed across my face as I flew between the line of trees. Blood sloshed and careened through my veins, pure desperation taking me over.

I skidded as I came to a stop in front of my house, tossing the kickstand and running up the porch steps to where Otto waited.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry, man. I have no idea how someone got to her while I was here.”

I couldn’t speak. I just ran inside, shouting, “Emery! Maci!”

Emptiness echoed back, and my heart flopped in my chest.

“Did you find anything? Any clue?” I demanded.

A frown carved Otto’s brow. “There’s a bunch of shit on the floor in the closet in her bedroom. It was like she was…looking for something.”

Confusion nearly tripped me, and I hesitated for a beat before I bound up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I raced into her room and dropped to my knees where she’d scattered a pile of her things.

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