I don’t know how much she even knows about the whole situation—or if she is on his side or not—but considering they’re siblings, she must know something.
“Oh God,” she gasps. “He didn’t kill you. Eivor was right.”
“No, still ticking, sweetheart, now tell me where Soren would go.”
“You have to find him. My uncle…Eivor, he sent—oh God. I tried to stop him. I tried to tell him to give it time, but he said that we’d already lost Soren, that there was no point,” she explains.
I growl under my breath as I stomp through the garage to my car and unlock it with a click. I get in, turn the engine on, and make my way out as quickly as possible.
“That son of a bitch,” I huff. “I don’t know where he is. But I might know where he would be. Is there someplace significant to your parents?”
“What?” Rosalie asks. “I’m trying to get out of here. Eivor locked me in his study on the second floor. The windows don’t even open! Fuck!”
“You can’t do anything, I can,” I remind her. “Now calm down and think.” I have her on speaker phone now as I drive.
“Uh…ah…okay, there’s safe house about twenty minutes from the coast. It used to be where our parents went for vacation. We were taken there once or twice. I don’t know whyhe’d go there; Eivor would be checking all of the safe houses for him,” she explains.
I shake my head. “He didn’t go there, Rosalie. They took him,” I tell her. “If Eivor is as fucked up as I think he is, he’d want Soren taken to someplace important to him. Text me the address now.”
“Okay, okay. There.” Rosalie’s breath is muffled on the phone.
I glance at the text and realize I’m going the wrong fucking direction.
“Shit,” I mumble. The tires squeal underneath me as I do a u-turn in the middle of the road and then speed forward toward the address. Passing by the driveway to the Dresvanni estate once more.
“Got it, I’m headed there now,” I tell her.
I’m about to hang up but Rosalie says one last thing.
“Carmine?” she says slowly. “Don’t let him die.”
I grip the steering wheel harder.
“I won’t.”
The car rumbles underneath me in the cold. It’s not my usual car, no it’s an older more vintage one that I got at auction a few years ago. They won’t see me coming quite as quickly in this. Still, they’ll definitely hear me coming.
I don’t care.
The second I get to the small house in a conspicuous little neighborhood, I get out, leaving the keys inside and the car running. I don’t care what happens to it, or me. I need to get Soren.
There are no cars outside the house. There’s not even a light on, but I know he’s in there. He has to be.
If he’s not here, then I’ve wasted my time following a false lead. Who knows where he could be, what might be happening to him.
As I’m making my way around the house to the back door instead of the front, I see a dim glow come from the basement window at the base of the house.
“Got them,” I whisper and pull my gun out. I make my way to the cellar entrance of the basement. Not caring who I’m about to face.
I try the door, but it’s locked. That’s of no consequence to me.
With all of the force I can gather, I slam my foot into the lock and door and it goes flying open. I nearly fall down the short flight of stairs but manage to catch myself.
At the same time, I hear him scream.
Soren.
“Don’t come any further!” a voice yells out.
