I already know what they’re going to say. And I already hate it.
“No,” I say flatly. “We don’t leave her.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Graham replies, tone unreadable. “He won’t let it go. And if this threat is real, if it connects to her…we need to know who’s behind it. Fast.”
“We’ll leave her with private security,” Carson adds, softer. “People we trust. You know we wouldn’t leave her with anyone less.”
I look back at her.
Willow, pale and still, finally breathing without pain. Herfingers twitch again in my grip, a ghost of a hold, barely there, but breaking me anyway.
God, this feels wrong.
But they’re right. If this is connected to her—if she’s in the crosshairs—we need to get ahead of it.
I lean forward, brushing my knuckles gently across her cheek. “I’ll be back soon, princess,” I murmur. “Try not to give the guards hell.”
She doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t have to.
Because I already know the second we walk out that door, I’m going to be thinking about the moment we walk back in.
CHAPTER 9
Finn
Four days.
She hasn’t left her apartment in four days.
I pace the length of my newly-obtained apartment, flicking the curtain open just enough to scan the street below. Nothing. No familiar flash of pink hair, no sign of her. She hasn’t even been walking around her apartment across the street.
I know her schedule. Her routines. I know the way she craves movement, the way she burns restless energy walking through the city. She doesn’t sit still. She doesn’t hide.
And yet, for four days, she’s been a ghost.
Something is wrong.
I rake a hand through my hair, breathing through the irritation buzzing beneath my skin.Patience, Finn. Patience.I tell myself it’s nothing, that she’s fine. That she’s simply recovering from the game, from whatever minor inconvenience has kept her inside. But I don’t believe that.
Not when I’ve seen the men guarding her. Besides the three in her apartment, there are more around her building.
I’ve tracked their movements, watched them trade shiftsoutside, covering the entrances like she’s some high-profile asset instead of my Willow.Mine.
The first day, I waited. The second day, I started watching the exits more closely. By the third, I was trailing one of them when he left for coffee, just to see where he went, if he reported back to someone, if he was hiding something from me.
And today, I’m done waiting.
I move to my desk, flipping through the pictures I printed last night. A habit, one that usually soothes me, lets me see her the way I see her, not the way the world does.
But tonight, the images just make my blood burn.
Because they’re old. Because they’re not her now.
Because I don’t know what’s happening to her.
A muscle ticks in my jaw as I pick up one of the more recent shots, the one from that night at Poor Choices, from before she disappeared. Her lips parted, her pulse hammering in her throat, her pupils wide and dark as she looked at me.
