Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 85228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I rev my engine, drawing both of their attention with plans to speed off and wash my hands of her completely, but when he releases her and she looks in my direction, all I see is pure panic and terror in her eyes.
I try to read the entire situation, first struggling to shake the idea that she's with someone else from my head. Before I can park my bike, I notice the gun pressed into her side a second before the man wraps his arm around her waist and drags her into the house.
Jesus, is this really happening right now?
I jump off my bike, unconcerned when it tips over on its side, and opt to hide behind her car because it's the only thing in the driveway that provides any form of protection if the guy decides he's going to start shooting at me from one of the windows on the front of her house.
It isn't Scott Wilson, and I don't recognize the guy. I pull out my phone, selecting Casper's contact information as I try to run every face from the club through my mind.
"What's—"
"I have a hostage situation at Caitlyn's house. A man with dark blond hair. I don't know eye color. He's approximately six feet tall and has a lean build. He’s wearing a fucking peacoat and a Christmas sweater. He has her at gunpoint."
"I'm going to dispatch some of the guys. Do you want local law enforcement?"
"They'll just fuck everything up," I mutter. "What do you have?"
"Nothing yet," he says, sounding disappointed in himself as I hear his fingers working over his keyboard.
"I don't see an unfamiliar car anywhere near. What did her security system show?"
Silence fills the line.
"Casper!" I growl.
"That she turned it off at eight seventeen this morning. It's been disarmed all fucking day."
"And the other system?"
"I'm working on it," he says, and I feel vindicated that I've won the argument I had with the guy when he said it was a violation of privacy to have a secondary control on her system that she couldn't deactivate. The woman had windows unlocked and no batteries in her smoke detectors. She'd be dead if I let her just exist in life without interference. Hell, I don't know how she has made it on her own as long as she has.
"I need to go in."
"You need to wait for your team," Casper snaps. "They're already on their way. ETA fifteen minutes max."
"Who are you sending?"
"Everyone."
"He could be doing God knows what to her inside right now," I argue.
"Wait for your team, Jersey."
"He was touching her," I pant, feeling more and more out of control as the seconds tick by. "She doesn't like to be touched."
I peer around the side of her car. I don't know if the lack of activity is a good or a bad thing.
"Who the fuck is he?"
"I'm working on it. I've got several good images from the camera system and I'm running them through facial recognition."
"It doesn't matter who he is," I remind myself out loud. "He's here to hurt her. This never ends well. All I have is this fucking .380," I say, pulling the handgun from my boot. "I'm so fucking unprepared."
"We can't go through life prepared for war every single second of the day," he argues, but hearing it and knowing it to be true doesn't calm anything inside of me.
"I didn't check her cameras," I mutter. "I should've checked. We should've had someone at her house."
"We've been spread thin working all these leads we got from Adair's paperwork."
"Doesn't fucking matter," I grind out. "We fucking failed her. I failed her."
"ETA three minutes. Hemlock called in local law enforcement, but I think our guys will get there first."
"I don't fucking have three minutes," I growl.
"Two and a half," Casper says. "Let Hemlock take the lead. You're too invested."
"I have to save her," I manage, the sting of tears making my vision blurry. "I can't fucking lose her too."
"You won't, Jersey. You won't."
How the fuck does he even know? He can't possibly predict the future.
My hands tremble as I fight the urge to run toward the house and kick in the front door. I'll be met with a rain of bullets, but if he plugs them all into my chest, then he won't have any left for her, and that is a deal I'm willing to make.
"A minute and a half, man. Hold tight."
I swallow against the lump in my throat. I know going in there half-cocked and full of ego will only end badly. I've seen it too many times before. I'm no fucking superhero, and I know, for a fact, I'm not bulletproof. I don't even have my vest on. It would've been cumbersome as fuck to drive to Ohio and back with one on.
I was prepared to drive by her house and make sure she was safe, not get into a shoot-out with an unnamed man holding her hostage.