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Angel.
I scream his name until my cries are drowned out by more thunder, and then I run. Into the forest. Into the darkness.
19
Angel
GET OUT OF THE COUNTRY. NOW!!!
The mysterious text rattles through my brain just as loud as the gunshots that came over my speakerphone.
It almost seemed planned. That text, then a call from the security detail I had sent with Catalina. The driver was panicked, and I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of what he was saying before his voice was demolished by that deafening roar.
I recognized that roar.
Someone was shooting at them. At my men. At my hostage.
All I could do was listen, but I was already in my car, and I made a sharp turn the second shit hit the fan. Whatever my plans were before my phone started ringing, they changed when I heard Catalina’s distant cries for help.
The line went dead soon after.
She called for me, and I wasn’t there to protect her.
Anger whips around inside of me as I race down the highway, swerving in between cars. The thought of Catalina trembling because of someone else has my hands shaking from rage.
Someone was waiting for her. Someone who has to be involved in all this shit. It’s the first real clue I’ve had in all of this insane mess. Well, that and the text.
I was about to call my people at the phone company to trace the number before Catalina’s call came through. Right now, my attention is entirely on getting to her, but the boss in me slaps some sense across my permanent scowl.
After a hard right turn, I call the only people I know who could trace the text.
The phone rings and rings...
And then goes to voicemail.
Fuck.
I slam my steering wheel with an open palm and leave a message. My tone might be a little too harsh for a recording—if something like that leaks it might challenge the image I’m trying to cultivate to the public—but right now, I could care less about appearances. Fury and dread and regret control me. I’m not sure where the regret comes from, I just know that I need to have Catalina back by my side.
It was a stupid mistake to even send her away in the first place. I must not have been thinking straight after a hard night. No one can protect her like I can. No one should have to protect her but me.
Maybe you just did it because you knew it would make her happy...
Another hard right turn and I’m on a dusty dirt road. A plume of orange dust rises in my wake, shrouding any view of what I’m leaving behind. Good. The past can go fuck itself. Right now, only the future matters.
Only Catalina.
If she’s taken from me, then everything truly goes to shit. Then I have nothing.
What the fuck is happening to me!?
I almost want to blame her. My life has taken a sharp turn downwards ever since she first appeared in it—though, I’m sure she’d say the same thing about her life when I showed up.
But I don’t blame others for my misfortune. I was born into misfortune, raised by it, and I know better than anyone that it can be taken control of, twisted into a more desirable shape—but first, I need to know the fucking source of it.
I glare down at the GPS in my range rover. When I punched in the coordinates to Catalina’s village, it said it would take me up to 4 and a half hours to get there. Like hell I was going to wait that long. Barely two hours later, and I’m racing up a hilly road, the final stretch.
The arrow on the screen shows that I’m nearly there. I just have to pass over a bridge, then...