My family.
Yep. This was definitely a dream. A perfect, beautiful, wonderful dream he wanted to lose himself in forever.
A clap of thunder interrupted from somewhere off in the distance. Jagger frowned because the disruptive sound shouldn’t have no place in a scene as serene as this.
He looked up at the sky, finding it the perfect shade of blue. There wasn’t a single cloud for as far as the eye could see, but still something in his gut felt off.
In the dream, Jagger glanced back at Talia and the smiling child just as another loud boom sounded from above. The earthbeneath them shook, and a massive, endless chasm began to form in the space between them.
No!
He started to run for his dream-self’s wife and daughter. Jagger sprinted forward, fear for his loved ones coursing through his veins.
Literal tons of sand poured over the newly formed cliff’s jagged edge. In a rush, he quickly calculated his speed with the distance it would take to leap across the dark and deadly cavern. All he knew was that he needed to hurry.
If he didn’t get to them in time, Jagger knew to the depths of his soul he’d never see them again. And that damn hole in the ground was growing bigger and bigger with the sky’s rapidly increasing, thunderous bellows.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
There it was again.
Talia’s golden gaze sought his from a growing distance. The features of her beautiful face—and those of the adorable little girl’s—began to fade.
Talia!
His dream self yelled for her, but she didn’t seem to hear. Seconds later, a final hard, loud bang sounded from somewhere behind. Immediately after, he heard a man’s deep voice hollering out his name.
Jagger!
He spun around in the sand to see Jason Ryker walking on the beach toward him. The man’s dark gray suit and black tie seemed noticeably out of place.
Ryker?
“Jagger!”
The alarm in the man’s voice sounded a lot closer than it should.
What the?—
“Damn it, Brooks, wake the hell up!”
The room was doused in a sudden flash of light, and it took Jagger a beat to finally peel his eyes open.
“About time your ass woke up.”
Jagger rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Ryker?” His vision focused enough to see the other man standing at the foot of the bed. “What are you?—”
“Where’s Talia?”
“What do you mean?” He blinked, glancing at the place on the mattress where she’d fallen asleep. “She’s not here?”
“Do you think I’d be standing here if she was?” Ryker looked as serious as Jagger had ever seen him. “Ah, hell, Jagger. Talia’s missing.”
Talia’s missing?
The man’s words were like a bucket of ice-cold water being poured over Jagger’s head. When his brain finally caught up to the seriousness of the situation, he threw off the covers and shot up from the bed, not caring that he was still buck-ass naked.
“The fuck do you mean, Talia’s missing?” he growled. “She was just here!” His gaze flew to the bedside clock.
