Page 79 of Wild and Unruly
He waits a few minutes, and then he hangs up the phone. After a moment, he gets a message, and I wait with anxiety pulsating through my chest. “Who was that?”
“My contacts,” he answers vaguely, keeping to himself. “They sent the address. Keep going on here.”
“They sent the address. Already?”
“Yup.” He tucks his laptop away and looks over at me. “We have three hours, baby brother. Time to learn how to breathe.”
Ignoring how aloof he is, I focus on what is important, which is getting to Bonnie quickly and making sure she isn’t next on Tommy’s list.
Denver was dark when we arrived. After ten at night, the night crawlers came out in droves, littering downtown with what felt like hundreds of people.
“Fuck, I hate people,” Mitch grumbles, looking out the window at the crowd that is crowing at our truck. Probably mad it is a diesel.
“No shit,” I say, thinking about how isolated we are up on that mountain and how much I hate that the thought of moving here was feeling less and less appealing.
But…Bonnie.
I would do it for Bonnie in a heartbeat if that’s what she wanted, what she needed.
I pull into an underground parking garage as the GPS announces our arrival at her apartment complex. I make Mitch come along, just in case there’s something amiss when we get there, and I need his assistance.
Fuck. I felt like my stomach was in my throat, threatening to come out as vomit. I called her seven times on the way down and broke way too many speed limits, which got us here in half the normal time, and that entire time, Mitch never said a word, obviously picking up on the fact that I was overcome with emotion and needed the time to chill the fuck out.
We reach the elevator, which has a sign on it that reads “NoService,” and I shake my head, heading for the staircase and stomping up the stairs.
“Third floor,” Mitch reminds me as if I haven’t already memorized her address. Never again would I allow her to live somewhere that I didn’t know how to get to. I don’t care if that made me sound like a possessive asshole.
I was one, and I have no qualms over it.
We reach the door and see newspapers scattered over the floor, looking like they were stomped on.
I see Mitch reach under his jacket and produce a gun. I give him a look, and he nods toward the door.
I swallow my nerves, unsure what the hell I was going to do when I saw her.
Please let her be alive, I pray silently, my heart hammering in my chest.
Reaching the door, I lift my fist and knock loudly, hoping beyond everything that she is home and safe and that she is just fucking pissed off at me, and that’s why she wasn’t answering.
I can live with her being pissed. I can’t live if she’s not alive.
The lock clicks almost immediately, and I let out a breath when her gorgeous face comes into view.
That relief is quickly replaced with an instant anger that I’ve never felt before. I push into the apartment, my hands going to her, touching gently all over her body to make sure she was at least in one piece, and I gently cup her jaw. “Who?”
She doesn’t need me to finish my sentence, but I don’t really need her to confirm it either.
Tommy Smith just signed his motherfucking death warrant.
“Stets…” Her voice cracks and is hoarse and rough. I have to push aside my anger because when I pull her to me, her entire body racks with horrible sobs that break my heart.
He fucking touched her, hurt her, and when I find him, it is going to be the end of him.
Mitch comes into the room, and I realize he left to check out the apartment. “It’s clear.”
I nod at him and lead Bonnie to the couch, sitting her down gently and settling myself on the coffee table in front of her. “Bonnie, honey, tell me what happened.”
“I’m so sorry,” she cries out, and as I look her over, there is dried blood on her forehead and a swelling bruise around her left eye. That red tint of anger grows and grows until there’s a beast lurking just underneath the surface. “I shouldn’t have done it. I fucked everything up.”
