“Sure is,” he pants, sweat pouring down his pale face.
“Good,” I mutter before gripping Patrick’s head and snapping it to the side, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. “That’s for my grandma, dick.”
“Bro, none of your grandparents are still alive.”
Chapter 3
The Hunter
Claire is screaming from upfront to keep driving, but the engine stalls.
I kick Patrick’s dead body off of me and stand, perspiration coating my skin.
I’m point-two seconds away from passing the fuck out. My body is beginning to
shut down from the physical trauma, but I can’t allow it to just yet.
Jay quickly unbuckles and stands. “Come on, they’re waiting for us,” he
urges, noting the state of duress I’m in.
“I need to take care of Claire,” I say, but that notion dies the second we bust
open the van doors. Other cars have already stopped on the side of the road, getting out of their vehicles to check on us.
Fuck.
I can’t kill a woman in front of civilians, no matter how tempted I am.
Just as Jay and I crawl out, Claire emerges from the passenger side, a wild look on her face.
“Don’t you dare,” she hisses through her teeth. Red lipstick stains them, giving her a feral look.
“Or what?”
When she has no answer, I shoot her a wink just to get her asshole clenching
from anger, and head towards the huge military-grade van waiting for me.
“Hey, man, you good?” a passerby asks.
“Yep, all good. Thanks for stopping,” I say over my shoulder. The bright headlights from his car highlight the incredulous look on his face as he watches me climb into the open doors.
Michael’s face greets me, and I nearly sigh in relief. If he’s alive, that means
the little girl we saved from the ritual is, too.
He leans forward and helps me in, assumingly noticing the agony painted on
my face. I can feel my scars tightening, now incapable of concealing the misery.
My poker face has cracked.
I’m ready to let Jesus take the wheel. The second I collapse on the bench, Michael pounds once on the wall, and we take off.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” Jay says, glancing at me with concern. “A
bomb went off, and Zade was within range of the blast.”
“Why the fuck did they set off a bomb?” Michael asks.
“My guess is it was one of the self-destruct bombs, implanted specifically to
destroy all evidence and anyone inside. They’re commonly in places with top-secret information in case they’re infiltrated or compromised.”
I grunt. “We’ll have to check in with who was impacted by the explosion and
make sure none of ours were killed.”
Jay nods, and I turn my attention to Michael. “You get the girl out safely?”
“Yep,” he confirms. “With Ruby, and on her way to get treatment.”
I nod, some of the pressure easing off my shoulders, but not nearly enough.
It’s like the Empire State Building is resting on them, and only a penny fell off.
They still have Addie, and the rage is steadily churning beneath the surface.
I’m going to burn the entire fucking world down until I find her, and I don’t care
who gets burnt.
“Do we know anything about who was involved in her kidnapping?” I ask,
voice tight with fury, clicking off the video on my laptop. I just finished watching the surveillance footage of Addie’s car crash, caught by several streetlight cams. Watching her being dragged from her car, knocked out, then carried into the van has me shaking with rage.
Jay is already working on tracking it through street and security cams, but it
doesn't feel like enough.
I've only been admitted in the hospital for a few hours, and I'm seconds away
from leaving again.
Thankfully, I didn’t suffer any serious damage. My entire back is black and blue from when I was propelled into the altar, but there wasn’t any internal bleeding like I had feared.
I got lucky I didn’t break my goddamn back, but I damn near came close to it.
“Her picture was posted to a forum on the dark web a day before she was taken. The poster was anonymous, of course, but the ad reads that if anyone brings Addie in alive, then they’d receive a fucking massive reward.”
“How much?”
But I don’t even need him to answer. I’ve already located the original ad, which has since been deleted, but nothing is ever truly erased from the internet. I click the ad, and Addie’s face pops up. Beautiful unusually light brown eyes,
cinnamon hair, and a light dusting of freckles peppering her nose and cheeks.
My heart clenches at her smiling face—the same picture used as her author photo outside the bookstore, and the very one that instantly drew me into her. It still has the same effect on me as it did then.
The price tag is listed right beneath it in bold, red letters.
Twelve million dollars.
Pocket change to those handing it out, but an incredible amount to the smaller
fish in the pond. An amount that someone would have to work hard to spend in
their lifetime.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. A
massive migraine is blooming, and restlessness invades my senses. I want to claw out of my own skin, if only it means Addie will be waiting for me on the other side.
Jay’s lips are tense. “I know who answered the ad, and who was responsible
for her kidnapping.”
I drop my hand and pin a look to my right-hand man, waiting for him to drop
the proverbial bomb. Dread washes over me, and I have a feeling this one might
actually succeed in killing me.
“Max,” he says quietly.
My eyes close, and my control finally shatters, slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass. It was only a matter of time, and the last grain has now fallen.
Inky-black darkness corrodes every cell in my body until there is no light left
within me.
Red consumes my vision, and I snap into motion. My laptop is launched
across the hospital room, the loud crash from it slamming through equipment and into the wall swallowed by the roar ripping from my throat.