“Owen? Oh my God…I was worried I wouldn’t be able to reach you. You have to come quick.”
The woman on the other end of the line was speaking so quickly that he almost didn’t catch all of her words. She was sniffling, and he didn’t recognize her voice.
“Come where?” he asked. “Who is this?”
“It’s Michelle. Ruby’s friend.”
His grip on the phone tightened until he heard the plastic creak, a warning that he was about to break the thing. Anxiety clawed its way into him, making his stomach roll and his blood rush to his ears.
“What’s wrong?” he barked into the phone. “Where’s Ruby?”
“I don’t know! I came home and she wasn’t here, but it looked like there was a struggle, and then I saw the blood…”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Lock the door and don’t call anyone else.”
Stevie had already left the room when he picked up the call, and he was glad that there was no one around him right now. Panic and anger were turning his mind into a roaring rush of violent thoughts, and that didn’t bode well for talking to anyone.
He broke every speed limit on the way to Michelle’s apartment, mentally cursing himself for not insisting that she move in with him. His home was secure. No one would be able to get to her there.
Owen knocked on the door of her apartment, calling out to Michelle so that she’d know it was safe to open. He didn’t bother to greet her as he strode into the apartment. His entire being was finely tuned to figuring out what happened to Ruby. No one mattered.
He was two steps into the apartment when he saw the first couple of drops of blood on the light hardwood floor. There was a trail, and it led him to the living room where there was much more. It wasn’t enough to be fatal, but the idea of Ruby bleeding at all made him feel gutted.
Was she stabbed? Shot?
Why was she taken?
But he already knew the answer to that. Ruby was his girl, and that put a target on her back. He knew that going into this relationship, but he’d done it anyway, like a self-centered prick.
He should have protected her, never should have let this happen.
Swallowing back the bile that appeared in his throat at the thought of what could be happening to his ray of sunshine, he turned to Michelle.
“Anything other than the knocked over chairs and blood that you’ve noticed?” he asked, his voice sounding cold even to his own ears. Michelle looked uneasy, and he couldn’t blame her. He was furious, and that was never a good thing. Oven might try to be a better man than his father, but the ability to be ruthless and cruel existed within him. Having Ruby taken from him brought all of that to the surface.
“Just her purse on the floor by the door with everything in it,” Michelle said. “I was gone all afternoon, and I just got home and saw this…”
“Did you call the police?”
Michelle bit her lip. “I thought about it, but Ruby told me…”
She was being timid, and he could feel himself losing patience with her. He didn’t have time for this. But she was Ruby’s best friend, and if he upset her, Ruby would be mad at him when he got her back.
And by God, he was going to get her back.
“She told you I’m in the mafia?”
“Well, not in those words, but yeah. I thought that you might need to know about this first.”
“Good call,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “The police would just get in the way.”
He called Brogan first, ordering him to get the surveillance footage from the electronics store across the street. They had to have a camera outside, and Owen wanted all the footage for the day immediately. Brogan was a good soldier. He didn’t ask any questions, even when Owen added that he should obtain the footage by any means necessary.
Next, he went into Ruby’s room. Her phone was sitting on her nightstand. There would be no way to track her without that. Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, he picked up a pink scrunchie that was next to her phone. It felt silky between his fingers, but not as soft as her hair.
A sudden wave of grief tried to crash over him. Pain made his heart feel like it was being squeezed and his hand shook when he closed it around the scrunchie.
No.He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t give into his worst nightmare, not now. Ruby needed him.
