Page 139 of Almost is Never Enough

With a big, sleazy grin on his face, he jumps up and runs up the three steps to the ring, throwing the door open. He walks over to my opponent and nudges him with his foot. His head rolls to the side and the crowd only gets louder as Arnie looks up, his grin growing.

“Going on to the finals,” he yells, coming over to me and grabbing my arm. He raises it in the air as the people around the cage begin beating their fists against the chain link. “Hyyyyyyyddddeeeee.”

Yeah, great, whatever.

The crowd screams my name right along with him and I give him a nod before yanking my arm from his hold and turning towards the door. Gear is waiting at the bottom of the stairs and he’s watching me closely as I jog down the steps and walk past him.

“Where the hell are you going, Roost?”

I turn back to him. “Lennon is gone.”

“What?” he asks, turning to scan the crowd. “Are you sure?”

I grit my teeth and roll my shoulders. “Yes, I’m fucking sure. I spent the whole fucking fight looking for them and they aren’t fucking here.”

“I’ll call Jumper,” he says, pulling his phone out as I turn to the crowd again.

Yeah, fine.

Do that.

I need to go look for my girl.

As I step into the crowd, people immediately start touching me, clapping me on the shoulders, brushing their hands along my arms as they offer their congratulations.

It makes my skin fucking crawl.

There is only one person whose hands I want on my body.

And right now?

I can’t fucking find her.

I ignore all of them as I push through the crowd.

Where the fuck is she?

The crowd parts as I get close to the bar and I take a deep breath, glad to be out of that mob.

But she’s not here either.

Fuck.

“Where are you, Lennon?” I whisper, turning toward the bathrooms that are set up by the trailers. Thankfully, I don’t have to go back into the crowd to get to them.

But she’s not here either.

I turn back toward the cage, running a hand through my hair. What if she’s hurt? What if she’s fucking lost? What if somebody fucking took her?

Memories of that night at Voodoo splash through my mind and my heart thunders in my ears as I remember how small and scared she looked curled up on the floor of the bathroom. And then there’s Owen cornering her at the street fair yesterday.

Could he have shown up here?

And if he did, where the fuck did they go?