He'll come looking.
He'll find me. He has to find me.
The baby. Oh god, the baby.
My limbs feel heavy, disconnected from my body.
The world is going fuzzy at the edges, sounds distorting like I'm underwater.
I try to hold on, try to stay conscious, but the darkness is pulling at me, dragging me down.
My last coherent thought, as the world fades to black, is a desperate prayer.
Please. Please let the baby be okay. Please let RJ find us.
Then nothing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RJ
Something's wrong.
I've been staring at the door of Bubba's for twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-three minutes since Dalla walked through it, promised to sit by the window where I could see her, promised to be back in thirty minutes.
She's not by the bloody window.
I noticed about ten minutes ago.
Got up to check the angle, make sure I wasn't missing her behind a pillar or something.
But the booth by the window is empty.
Someone else is sitting there now—an old-timer with a beer and a newspaper, completely oblivious to the dread coiling in my stomach.
She moved, I told myself.
Found a better seat. She's still in there.
But my gut is screaming.
That instinct that's kept me alive through years of combat, years of protection details, years of walking into dangerous situations—it's never been wrong.
And right now it's telling me something is very, very wrong.
I check my phone for the fifth time in three minutes.
No texts. No missed calls. Nothing.
Hey, where are you?I type.Everything okay?
I wait.
The message shows as delivered.
No response.
