Page 31 of At the Edge of Surrender

It took until the dust finally settled for me to finally pull my act together enough to move.

Turning, I bounded back up the porch steps and into the house, bare feet thudding over the hardwood floors and up the staircase to the second level.

I didn’t slow as I darted down the hall to the bedroom at the end, and I hurried across to the bathroom so I could grab my phone where I’d left it on the vanity.

My fucking fingers would hardly cooperate as I thumbed into the screen and found the number I needed, my pulse erratic and my breaths shallow as I lifted it to my ear.

It rang three times before he finally answered. “What’s up, man?”

“Cash, need your help.” Couldn’t stop it from coming out a growl. Any lightness I normally possessed stripped away. Paring me down to this volatile desperation that made me feel like I was going to blow.

“Thought it was Otto who was going to need my help protecting him from River.” His voice was wry.

Rare as fuck that the guy was actually in a decent mood, cracking half a joke, but I didn’t have time to delve into any of that.

“Need you to do something for me,” I gritted.

He must have finally heard the urgency in my tone, the fuckin’ undercurrent of panic, because he went silent for a beat before he asked, “What’s going on?”

“Need you to find someone for me.”

Cash was Sovereign Sanctum’s hacker. Dude could dig out any information we needed, or when the situation called for it, create it as if it were fact.

“Who?” Worry cut through the word.

“A woman. Her name is Emery.”

“And…?”

And fuck…

I gripped the back of my neck as I started to pace in the confines of the bathroom.

“And that’s all I’ve got other than I think she’s staying here in Moonlit Ridge.”

Another beat of silence before disbelief filled his voice. “This the girl you hooked up with last night that Theo was talking about? Don’t tell me you’re trying to get me involved in some kind of stalker shit. Think you know we go the opposite of that.”

Was he kidding me?

And hooked up with her? My aching cock begged to differ.

“Do you know me at all, man?”

He grunted. “Know the way your ass flies through women.”

“Then you know I don’t get infatuated.” At least, I hadn’t. But I was teetering on some kind of precipice that made me feel like I didn’t know myself at all.

This gravity that burned me through.

A flashfire I couldn’t snub.

“Then what’s it for?”

“Can you just fucking trust me and get the information I need?”

He seemed to war for one second before he muttered, “Fine.”

I could hear the heavy pound of his boots as he stomped through his cabin, and I could tell he was moving into the locked room where he had a shit ton of equipment for all the stalkinghedid. I heard the squeak of his computer chair as he sat down, then the clacking of a keyboard.

---