Page 292 of Mangled Memory
I’m sorry.
I was bluffing when I told Dad I remembered. I was so shocked by his question I wanted to see what he would reveal.
I guess my bluff worked, because you—a man who says he knows me like no one else on the planet—believed it as much as he did.
There’s nothing I can say to convince you what I feel foryou is real. This is the only thing I can think to show you I meant it when I told you I love you.
Yours,
Ayla
I open the folder to find legal ownership to Aspen & Evergreen signed over to me.
No. No. No.
This isn’t what I want. I want her dreams to come true for her. I want everythingfor hernot for myself.
I tuck the documents away in my desk for safekeeping. I have no intention of taking her business. This back and forth has to stop. I dial her and follow the song to find her phone on the mudroom floor near the hall tree.
Opening the garage, I see all our vehicles are there.
What’s going on?
I flip the security app on my phone as I yell her name throughout the house. Silence is the only thing that greets me. I run to our bedroom, all the while calling her name. By the time the app opens and I see she’s gone, I’m dialing Fitz.
“Young. Leave a message.”
Fuck!
I stop, flip my phone onto speaker, and call Ren. I get the computer voice for generic voicemail.
I think I’m going to lose my shit when my phone rings. “Yeah?”
“Barone.”
“Liam, she’s?—”
“I’m sending a pin. Three men walked in your back door and kidnapped Ayla and Young. Black suburban, newer model year. License plate six alpha tango one two one whiskey.”
“Where is she? Where is my wife?”
“I’m following the SUV now. We’re in Lakewood, heading to— Fuck.”
“Liam? Liam!”
“Check your text. It’s one of Dad’s properties. Bring backup.” He disconnects before I can tell him he’s my only backup.
I can barely think as I fly through intersections, red lights be damned, winding my way to Lakewood. The map app is constantly talking and the voice grates on my nerves. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life, and that’s including the days at Ayla’s bedside when we didn’t know if she’d wake up.
I knew I’d be by her side in thick and thin. If I sat there waiting for her to wake, there was hope. Knowing someone took her from our home and they could take her from me permanently, there is no surviving that.
The drive is a race against the clock, though I have no idea what happens when the clock hits zero. Liam never calls or messages again, and my repeated calls to Ren go unanswered and I receive no responses.
I skid to a stop in front of the building, the brakes screeching and the smell of burning rubber pungent as I exit the SUV. If I was supposed to come in stealth, I never got that memo. Then again, never in my life have I been stealthy.
I check my phone one last time, hoping for some indication from Liam of the situation I’m walking into. There’s nothing there and nothing to prepare me for what I see walking in the door.
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