Page 23 of Dirty Little Vow

“I’ve got this.” I step around him and head for the door, the swooshing of my heart in my ears, energy pinging through my body.

Calm the fuck down, I mentally chide myself.Calm down.

Control.

I reach for the gold handle entry to the bar and yank the door open. I enter to find a room with a bar as the centerpiece and high-back booths lining the walls. At first glance, there is no one in the place, but the height of those booths and the way they wind the bar make that an impossible assumption.

A server walks in my direction. “Sit anywhere and I’ll be right with you.”

“I’m looking for a pretty blonde. I’m meeting her.”

“Oh, right. She’s in the very back booth.” She points to my right.

I’m already walking, my footsteps hitting the carpeted floor with the force of a furious man on a mission. I check every booth as I pass with no luck, turning a corner with one, two, and then the final third booth. It’s empty, and that realization is a punch in the gut, but there is an envelope that reads “Tyler” on the outside in Bella’s handwriting, perched in front of a drinking glass.

Fear is not an emotion I am familiar with on any level, not for a very long time, but fear is a living, breathing beast inside me in this moment. I snatch it up and pull a card from the inside that reads:

A formal meeting will be held at the Allen residence in exactly forty-five minutes.

—Bella

Chapter Nineteen

Tyler

I stare down at that note written in Bella’s delicate script, and the room spins around me. It’s her writing but not her words, which means she was alive when she wrote it and under duress though I have no doubt Bella has a calm head on her shoulders. I have to assume this is some kind of ransom exchange, but if I let myself think too hard, those thoughts are going no place good. Bella has a level head. She’ll be smart. She’ll stay alive. I sink into the cushion of the booth, and I can smell her sweet, floral perfume, realization crashing over me. She was just here. She’s close. I stand up and walk toward the rear exit sign.

“Tyler.”

Dash appears in front of me, inside the hallway I’m about to enter, and one look at my face and he says, “She’s gone.”

“Yes,” I confirm, my voice raw, the words rasping from my throat. “But she’s not been gone for long.” I shove the note at him. “She was just here. I can still smell her perfume. We need to check the area. Now.”

He eyes the note and gives a nod. “Yes, go. I’ll help, but I’m calling Dierk’s men and talking to the staff here.”

I’m already moving, walking down a short hallway, a mix of emotions driving my steps until I exit into the alleyway. I jerk my gaze left and right and there is nothing but a narrow path just big enough for a vehicle, and there’s nothing to be seen. They would have had a car waiting back here. She’s gone. I know she’s gone, but I have to keep looking.

My cellphone rings and I snatch it from my pocket, grappling with razor-sharp emotions mixed with dread as I bring the screen into view to find an “Unknown Caller” identification. Aware this is Bella’s kidnapper, I answer with, “Where is she?”

“Tyler.”

At the sound of Bella’s voice, relief floods the despair I’ve been living with these past two hours and washes it away, if only momentarily.She’s alive. “Bella, baby. Where are you?” I ask, and I swear for the first time in my entire life my voice cracks. “I’ll come get you now.”

“You can’t,” she whispers, and every emotion I feel is magnified by ten with the distress I hear in her voice. “Looking for me is a waste of time too. I’m okay and they want you to go to the meeting.”

They want me to go. She didn’t tell me she wants me to go. “Will you be there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m not harmed. I just want to come home, you know?”

Talk about being punched in the gut. She wants to come home,our home.And I don’t even know how to make it happen. “Baby, youhaveto come home. I can’t—”

“Don’t.You’re not talking to just me right now. Keep our personal stuff personal. Ineedyou to do that.”

In other words, don’t make her a weakness they can further exploit. “Bella—”

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