Page 132 of Swept for Forever
Just then, something crashed in the kitchen.
“Elia?” Claire called.
“Yeah—yeah!” came the quick reply. “Just dropped the lid.”
Claire rose. “I’d better check on him. He’ll say everything’s fine even if he’s lost a finger.”
While she and Elia murmured in the kitchen, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I shifted, trying to dig it out. It had wedged itself in the worst spot.Dammit.I wrestled it free, my heart already kicking. It had to be Dom. Maybe they’d found the bag.
But the moment I opened it, the world around me fractured.
It was a picture.
Of a coin.
Dom’s old courtroom coin, the one he never went anywhere without. Only now, it was smeared with blood.
Underneath it, a message said,I’ll send you the coordinates. If I don’t find you there ALONE by eight, your man is dead.
My fingers trembled, and the room blurred as panic surged up.
That coin was definitely Dom’s. I’d know it anywhere.
This wasn’t a bluff.
I glanced at the kitchen. Claire stood beside Elia, checking his hand and laughing softly. They had no idea. No idea that the warm, safe bubble we were floating in had just been punctured.
Claire turned toward me. “Hey, you okay?” she asked
I blinked hard and nodded too fast. “Yeah.” My brain scrambled for something, anything, that didn’t sound like I was about to do something stupid. My eyes darted to the window. “Thought I just saw a pair of mountain bluebirds.”
“They’re around this time of year. Pretty little things.”
“I’ll go take a look.”
I walked toward the front room, trying not to run. Noah’s truck keys were right there on the coffee table, just where he’dleft them before heading out with Dom. I snatched them, then slipped through the front door without a sound.
There were no imaginary birds, no second thoughts. I climbed into Noah’s truck and pulled away from The Lazy Moose. My hands locked on the wheel, and my heart broke with every mile.
Because Dom had made sure I was safe.
And now I had to do the same for him.
Even if it meant walking straight into hell.
36
DOM
We pushed through a maze of broken branches and trunks, scanning every cranny in the tangled mess. My shirt snagged on bark, my boots sinking into spongy moss.
Then I saw it, just off-center from where I’d first looked. A pack, still caught on a dead tree, wedged high in the crook where two limbs split. It was mangled but somehow still holding together.
Noah whistled low behind me. “That it?”
“Yeah.”
