She’s gone. Lost somewhere on this island that suddenly feels impossibly, stupidly large. Night has fallen, but we’re still out here, our beams of light traveling over the forest floor as we call for my babygirl.
“Alexis!” Maxwell’s voice carries through the dark. “Alexis, honey, if you can hear us, yell!”
We all pause, waiting for any sound, any hint she might be close by.
But all that greets us is silence.
Sliding my hand into my pocket, I grip the locket we found up in a tree. Clearly put there as a decoy, a clever trick I can’t help but admire despite my worry.
A clever trick she will be answering for once I have her back where she belongs. In my home, in my bed, safe and fucking sound.
“Cat!”
Whipping around at the sound of Evander’s voice, hope and terror tangle in my chest, a crash of emotions that knocks the very air from my lungs. “What? What is it? Did you find her?”
“Yes.” He appears from the dark, his flashlight barely illuminating his stony face. “But she’s not on the island.”
“Where the hell is she?”
“Here.” He thrusts a large, bulky phone at me and I snatch it from his hands, holding it up to my ear.
“What the fuck have you done with my babygirl?” I snarl into the receiver.
The voice that comes through the phone is familiar, deep and smoky and distinctly feminine. “Well, that’s a fine greeting,” Grayson Thorne answers with a low chuckle. “Here I am, doing you a favor and you’re swearing at me. Tsk tsk, Catharina.”
“Gray.” My head swims with relief. “Do you have Alexis? Is she with you?”
“She is. Safe and sound and well fed. Poor Little thing stumbled right into my office looking like she’d been crawling through mud for three days straight.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“Do you want to talk to your Mommy, sweetheart?” There’s a pause, followed by a low hum. “She’s shaking her head.”
“Grayson, I swear to god?—”
“Hang on a minute, sweetheart. Auntie Gray is just going to step outside and talk to your Mommy for a minute. You sit your bottom right there in that chair until I get back, understood? Good girl.”
My stomach twists with jealousy, ridiculous as it may be. That ismyLittle girl, and the sound of another woman calling her a good girl has my vision going red at the edges. I try to breathe through it, to remind myself that I’m grateful Grayson is taking care of my baby and she isn’t lost or injured somewhere in the dark.
It feels like an eternity I have to wait for Grayson to speak again. “All right, Cat, what the fuck happened?”
There’s the Gray I know and… well,lovemight be a strong word. Tolerate and respect, certainly. “I wish I knew, Gray. I put her down for a nap after our trip to the waterpark and when I went to get her out of her crib, she was gone.”
“She didn’t want me to call you.” Gray’s voice is more somber than I can ever remember hearing it. “Not because she was worried you’d be mad, but because she didn’t think you’d care. It was hard to figure out what she was saying through the tears but I can tell you one thing for sure, I’ve got a very heartbroken Little girl in my office. One who thinks her Mommy doesn’t love her.”
Nothing, literallynothingcould have shocked me more than those words. But on the heels of it comes a determination stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before.
“Send Evander your coordinates. I’m on my way.”
I’m still not sure what the hell happened this afternoon. But if my Little girl needs me to prove to her how much I love her, then that’s exactly what I’m going to fucking do.
Lexie
Behind me, the door opens again and Auntie Gray slips back inside, her expression carefully neutral as she settles into her seat across from me again. Behind her stands a giant of a man with a thick dark beard, his arms crossed over his chest. Uncle Axel, I’ve been told to call him, has been watching me with the same dark eyes as his sister while Auntie Gray went outside to talk to Mommy.
I have to fight the urge to squirm in my seat when Auntie Gray pins me with her own dark gaze. “Your Mommy is on her way.”
Excitement and hope flare to life inside my chest, but they’re quickly smothered by heartbreak. Sliding down in my chair, I cross my arms and turn my head away from the stoic blonde across from me. In the back of my mind, I’m well aware that I look exactly like a sulky child, no matter how hard I’ve tried to insist that I’m not a Little girl. “She’snotmy Mommy.”
