Page 101 of Ruthless Protector

Fucking empty.

Zeke cursed from the bedroom and walked out, holding the phone. “Wherever he’s taken her, it was without this.”

“Goddamn it.” I kicked the piece-of-shit couch in the middle of the room. “Where the fuck are they?”

Ruby touched my arm, fire blazing in her eyes. “We will find her.”

I fucking hoped so. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to Tilly. If Trent hurt her. If he decided to run.

Willa and Tilly, they’d become everything to me. Everything. I’d spent a lot of years believing I didn’t deserve happiness after what happened to Kate and Louis. But Kate had loved me, more than I’d deserved, and she would have loved Willa and Tilly as well. She’d want me to be happy. And Willa and Tilly made me happy. In a way I never thought I’d find again.

I couldn’t imagine my life without either of them in it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Zeke said, and they all filed out.

I didn’t move. Van came up beside me. “Zeke’s gonna take surveillance and Ruby’s scouring the apartment building, going door to door. If they come back, we’ll know.”

I nodded numbly, feeling fucking helpless. Hunter and Neco were out following a couple of other leads. We had informants out on the streets asking questions. We’d called in markers all over the city. Tomas was even talking to some of his “associates” to get us more intel. We were doing all we could at this point, but it wasn’t enough.

“Go home to Willa, she needs you,” Van said.

I held my friend’s gaze. “How can I go home to her and tell her we’ve got nothing. That the most important person in her world is still missing, and I can’t do shit about it?”

His expression was sympathetic. “None of this was your fault, you know that, right?”

I gritted my teeth. “Christ, Van. I don’t need a damned psych assessment. I’m not going rouge. But I shouldn’t have waited. I should have dug up every damn one of her secrets, but I didn’t. I let her go it alone. And I’ll have to live with that.”

Van said nothing, but I could see it in his eyes. I was already living with the biggest failure of my life, a bigger loss than anyone person could handle—one more, and fuck knew what would happen. What I’d do.

I strode out of that shitty apartment and headed for home.

I had to tell Willa I’d failed her.

Fuck.

Willa

I paced around the living room for the millionth time. I was losing my mind. Jude hadn’t been gone long, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to just sit around here waiting.

I just wanted Tilly back. I just wanted her to walk back though that front door with Jude, safe and sound.

The knock on the door was loud in the silence, startling me out of my thoughts. It had to be Jude. I rushed over and pulled the door open.

I froze.

A scary-looking guy, almost as big as Jude, stood there. I recognized him instantly. One of the goons from the poker game.

I tried to shove the door closed.

The guy put his shoulder to it and heaved, knocking me back. I stumbled and slammed into the wall. He advanced on me, followed by another thug.

I spun, wanting to make a break for the back of the house, but one of the henchmen was prepared for the move and blocked the way. With nowhere else to go, I grabbed the hall table and knocked it over, then dove in the opposite direction, hitting the stairs, taking them two at a time, up to the second floor.

I was cornered.

With nowhere else to go, I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door shut, throwing the lock, and backed away. There was no escape. I couldn’t fit through the window, and there was nothing to push in front of the door.

It flew open a second later, bouncing off the wall, hinges splintering. One of the big men strode in, a nasty grin on his face.