I sink back onto the couch. “How long will that take?”
Dragon shrugs. “As long as it takes.”
I want to grab him by the collar, to demand he move faster, make calls now, do something, anything, that will lead me to Kayla sooner. But I force myself to stay seated, to nod as if this is a reasonable answer. I need his help more than I need to vent my frustration.
“I’ll contact you if I find anything,” Dragon adds, and it’s clearly a dismissal.
One of the men from the door steps forward, ready to escort me out. I stand slowly, fighting back the urge to beg Dragon to hurry, to tell him that every second Kayla is with his psychotic twin brother is a second too long.
Instead, I simply nod. “I’ll be waiting.”
Outside, the sun is starting to set, casting long shadows across the compound. I stride toward my bike, each step feeling heavier than the last. What do I do now? Where do I go? Back to Redbird to shake down my own contacts? Back to the clubhouse to face Atlas’s wrath and plead for the club’s help after all?
As I swing my leg over my bike, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, hoping it might be Dragon already with information. Instead, I see a notification for an email from an unknown sender.
The subject line makes my blood run cold: “she’s very cheerful today”
With shaking fingers, I open the email. There’s no text, just a video attachment. I tap it, dread building in my chest as it loads.
Kayla’s face appears on the screen. She’s sitting in a chair, her dress torn and dirty, her face pale but defiant. My heart lurches painfully at the sight of her. She looks tired, afraid, but still so beautiful it hurts.
“I think,” she says, her voice catching slightly before she continues, “I think that if you really wanted to hurt Roman, you should have skipped me and kidnapped Naomi. Or done something else to harm the Devil’s Rejects. Me? I’m just… an afterthought.”
The video ends abruptly, freezing on Kayla’s face, her eyes downcast, defeated.
I stare at the screen, unable to breathe. Afterthought. The word slices through me like a blade, cutting deeper than any knife ever could. Is that what she thinks? That she doesn’t matter to me? That I wouldn’t tear apart heaven and earth to find her?
But haven’t my actions proven her right? I missed our date. I ignored her calls. I chose the club over her time and again. And now she’s paying the price for my failures.
My phone buzzes again. A text message from an unknown number: “doesn’t seem like she‘s much use to me then, is she?”
Panic surges through me, white-hot and blinding. My fingers fly across the screen as I reply:
“You can have me. Let her go and you can have me.”
I stare at the screen, waiting for a response that doesn’t come. Seconds tick by, stretching into minutes. Nothing. The silence is worse than any threat could be.
I force myself to take a deep breath, then another. I need to think clearly. Need to focus. Falling apart won’t help Kayla.
What kills me most is knowing she believes what she said; that she’s just an afterthought. That I don’t value her above everything else. I‘ve failed her in so many ways, but I swear to whatever god might be listening that I’ll make it right. I’ll findher, save her, and spend the rest of my life proving how wrong she is.
I shove my phone back into my pocket and kick my bike to life. I may not know exactly where Kayla is, but I do know where to start looking. I have my own connections in Redbird, people who specialize in finding things that don’t want to be found.
As I roar out of the Drago’s Inferno compound, a cold resolve settles in my chest. I will find Kayla. I will get her back. And if that means selling my soul to the devil himself, then so be it.
I’m coming, Sunshine. Just hold on a little longer.
13
Chapter 13
Kayla
The oatmeal sits like a lump in my stomach, congealing the way it did in the cheap plastic bowl. I scrape the last few bites with the plastic spoon, swallowing mechanically, and make myself a promise that when I get out of this, I’ll never eat oatmeal again. It doesn’t help that there is never any milk. No sugar. Not even a pinch of salt. Just a bowl full of grayish paste.
Wrath makes it this way on purpose. I’m certain of it. I’ve never seen anyone else but him cook. When I eat with the others, the food is good, very good even. But the first time I was served oatmeal, Wrath brought it to me himself. He’d shoved the tray at me, a cruel smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Compliments of the chef,” he’d muttered before stalking out and slamming the door behind him. At the time, I hadn’t even noticed what was in the bowl; I had just been grateful he hadn’ttried to kill me. Now, it’s usually Scorpion or Tank who brings me my breakfast. But the contents of the bowl are always the same. Punishment porridge, I’ve come to call it.