Page 105 of Hellebore

Chapter Thirty-Three

DRYSTAN

Two Weeks Later

It is almost nine at night. The rain stopped hours ago, but the fucker has not come out yet.

System of a Down plays low through the speakers because the silence is killing me day by day. Fourteen days without her. Fourteen days without knowing if she is alive or not.

“Please be alive,” I whisper again, the words barely audible over the music.

We went through my entire life since I was a kid and nothing seemed to matter, nothing fit whatever this is now. Until Enzo went through the time I was in jail and crossed information with the guys we were with inside, their families, and then my lawyer.

My fucking lawyer. Not him though, that would have been easier, but his wife. The apartment Archibald sent Briar to was owned by some shell company. Enzo dug deeper and deeper until he found a name. Elisa Grant.

I did not recognize the name until he showed me her married name. Elisa Stein. Married to Nicholas Stein, my fucking lawyer.

Two weeks to find this information. Why would my lawyer’s wife pay for Briar’s apartment? And he fits what Briar told me about the men. Older. Rich.

Nicholas is fifty-five years old, filthy rich. Mansion in a fancy neighborhood near Seattle.

So here I am, back in the city where it all started. Fake documents got me across the border easily, but I did not use the ones my father got me since Nicholas was probably the one who made the contacts. Enzo made me new ones so there are no trails of me ever coming here.

The night air is cold through the cracked window, the wind whispering against the car like it knows what I am waiting for. I sit here in the shadows across from his mansion, engine off, the low thrum of the music the only thing keeping me from losing what is left of my mind. The house is lit up with warm lights in the windows, but I have not seen him yet.

Fourteen days. Fourteen days of not knowing if she is breathing, if she is scared, if she is still fighting or if they have already broken her. The thought alone makes my hands tighten on the wheel until the leather creaks, the rage simmering so hot beneath my skin that it feels like it might burn me alive from the inside.

I lean back in the seat, eyes never leaving the gate, the cold wind carrying the faint scent of wet earth and pine through the open crack. She is out there somewhere. My Briar. The only piece of this world worth saving. And this man, this Nicholas Stein, is the thread I have to pull until the whole rotten web unravels. I will find her. I will bring her home, and every single person who touched her will pay in ways that will make the devil himself look away.

The music shifts, the beat heavier now, matching the steady thrum of my heart.

I wait.

The night stretches on, cold and endless, but I will not move until I have what I came for. She is mine, and I am coming for her.

The gate finally begins to open.

His white Mercedes drives by. He is alone, that’s too bad, I would kill his wife too.

I start the car, a black muscle car from Easton, and drive after him, keeping my distance. The engine rumbles low and steady beneath me as I follow through the quiet streets of his neighborhood, the headlights off, relying on the faint glow of streetlamps and the full moon overhead. He drives through one intersection, no other cars at this hour.

The next signal turns red.

Right on time.

Enzo never misses.

He stops and I ease forward very slowly and bump him from behind, not enough to leave any marks but enough for him to feel the jolt. The impact sends a satisfying thud through both vehicles. I see him waving his hands inside, frustrated and oblivious. I keep the motor running as he steps out of his car. “Do you know how expensive this car is?”

He reaches my window and leans in.

His face changes color the moment he recognizes me. I smirk.

“Hey, Nicholas.” He tries to step back, but I grab the collar of his suit and pull him in toward me. My elbow cracks into the back of his neck. His body folds against the side of the muscle car before sliding bonelessly toward the pavement.

I step out of the car, hook my hands beneath his arms and drag him across the wet asphalt before shoving him into the trunk.

I drive off toward the warehouse. I cannot drive back to Hellebore with him, so I found a replacement spot, in the middle of nowhere.