I can tell by the look on his face that he has no idea what’s going on. Whatever brought Harper, and hopefully Sierra, to that warehouse, he’s not part of it.
“I’m going.” I meet Lorenzo’s eyes, ready to fight for the right if I have to.
He just nods. He understands now. He’s got a woman he’d burn the world down for, too.
“Bring her back.”
I strip off my tux jacket and shove a gun into the back of my pants. Sierra’s father watches me with sharp eyes. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t try to stop me. Maybe he’s realizing that right now, a man like me is exactly what his daughter needs.
Dario falls into step beside me.
“I’m coming with you.”
I don’t argue. Don’t thank him. There’s no time for words.
Sierra’s out there. In the hands of a man who’s already proven he’ll hurt her. Every minute I waste is another minute she’s scared and alone and wondering if anyone’s coming for her.
Hold on, Sunshine.
I’m coming.
40
SIERRA
I focuson the blood on my knuckles.
Not the bruises throbbing up and down my arms. Not the cold metal floor of the windowless van. Not the fact that I’m still wearing my wedding dress, the delicate lace now torn and filthy.
Just the blood. The satisfying crack of cartilage when my fist connected with that man’s nose in the kitchen of my parents’ house.
I did that. Me. Sierra Dixon, who cries at dog food commercials and apologizes to furniture when she bumps into it.
I broke a man’s nose, and I’m not even sorry.
“You’re making a mistake.” Harper’s voice is shrill, panicked, grating against my already frayed nerves. “I wasn’t supposed to be taken too!”
I don’t look at her. Can’t look at her. Because if I do, I might start screaming and never stop.
The van hits a pothole, and my shoulder slams into the wall hard enough to send pain radiating down to my fingertips. I swallow the gasp before it escapes, because I refuse to give these men anything. No reactions. No fear. Nothing they can use.
That’s what Matteo would say. Matteo, who’s probably standing at the altar right now in his tux, wondering where the hell I am. Matteo, who trusted me to show up. Matteo, who will come for me.
He’ll come. He has to come.
I cling to that thought like a lifeline.
“Sierra.” Harper’s voice cracks. “Si, please. Talk to me.”
Now I look at her.
She’s a mess, mascara streaking down her cheeks, hair falling out of the elegant updo she spent an hour on this morning. This morning, when she told me I looked beautiful. When she hugged me and said she was so happy for me.
“How could you?”
The words come out quiet, nothing like the hurricane raging inside me.
Harper flinches like I slapped her. “I didn’t have a choice. You have to understand, they said if I didn’t help them get to you, they’d kill Julian. They’d go to the hospital and finish what they started.”
