Page 92 of Ghost
She was gone.
His body vibrated.He stormed back inside and went directly to the laundry room, where he kept his tools.After grabbing a roll of duct tape, he returned to his bedroom.
The man on the floor hadn’t regained consciousness.Ghost seized his phone from the nightstand and called Rami.
With the device pinched between his ear and shoulder, he knelt beside the intruder and bound his wrists with the tape.
Rami answered groggily on the fourth ring.“Hello?”
“It’s me.Mila’s been taken.They got her.”He went to the guy’s ankles and wrapped those too.His movements were automatic, robotic.
“Fuck.”
Ghost went to his dresser, shook out a pair of jeans, and stepped into them.“I need to find her.”He spoke more for his benefit than Rami’s.
He heard Ivy’s sleepy voice in the background.
“Go back to sleep, babe,” Rami told her.A door clicked shut.“All right.Gimme a quick rundown of what happened.”
Ghost’s gaze landed on the bed and his stomach bottomed out.“I don’t know.I woke up to someone rushing me with a knife and realized she was gone.”
“Footage?”
He hit speaker and pulled on a henley.“I’ll check.I’ve got one of the guys here.His partner must’ve left without him when he realized he was caught.”
“Good.We’ll question him.I’ll call the guys and we’ll meet you there.Get started on the footage and see what you can determine.Hunter said he had people ready to—”
“It wasn’t Hunter.”He scooped the phone from the bed and stalked down the hall to his office.
“Who’s got her?”
“Irinia.The woman who kidnapped her when she was a kid.”
Rami blew out a breath.“Jesus.”
“Mila cut ties with her earlier.Told her she was done.I should’ve fucking known she might try something.”
“All right.”Rami’s voice was level.“We’ve got a good starting point.Find out what else you can.We’ll get her back, man.”
Ghost didn’t respond.He hung up and shoved the computer chair aside.It bounced off the wall.No way he could sit right now.He fired up his PC and opened the security system.
In less than a minute, he’d brought up the playback of the last half hour.At 3:43a.m., Mila went to the bathroom.He switched to the other camera angle.He had one camera in his room and another in the main area.
Mila walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.Seeing her move around, alive and well, was like a trick of the mind.A dark figure stepped out of the hallway.He must’ve been hiding in the office.From this vantage point, Ghost couldn’t see where the intruders had entered.
The man slinked through the dark.He pulled something white from his pocket.Ghost squinted, leaning in closer to the screen.The guy spilled something from a glass bottle into a rag.Had to be chloroform.
He wanted to get up and go to the kitchen, to intervene, but he couldn’t do anything but watch.Mila placed her glass in the sink and walked toward the bedroom.As soon as she passed the man’s hiding spot—against the wall around the corner beside the fridge—he jumped her.
Mila fought.Damn, the cocksucker had a hold on her.She pushed off from the edge of the island, sending her attacker into the fridge.
Ghost tensed.His hands bunched into fists.As pointless as it was, he couldn’t help but root for her as she twisted and fought back.Even though he knew she wouldn’t succeed.It was like watching a movie on repeat, hoping for a different outcome.
A second man approached.Then, as if a switch had been flipped, Mila’s limbs went lax.Her eyes closed.
Ghost’s windpipe constricted as he watched the soon-to-be-dead man sling Mila over his shoulder and make his way toward the front of the townhouse.His pulse roared at a deafening decibel.Emotion built in his sinuses.If they fucking touched her—
He struggled to breathe.Tension radiated from his chest to his jaw.Christ, he hadn’t felt this kind of fear, this kind of protectiveness since...
