Page 15

She looks up at me, and then a chuckle slips past her pink lips. “That’s fair. You have your heart broken?”

I raise a brow, and though she has to work to swallow, she doesn’t relent. I soften my face and sigh. Right now, I appreciate her candor.

“You could say that.” I sniff, rolling my arm to look at the Band-Aid again. They’re green T-Rexes, mouths open in a roar. I imagine I didn’t look much different not two minutes ago.

“She was taken. Kidnapped.”

The nurse gasps, quiet and soft, but it feels like a shout when I’m so hollow.

“It’s my fault. I didn’t…” I trail off, deciding it’s best not to tell her that I didn’t kill a man who I should’ve, a long time ago. “I need to get her back.”

She blows out a shaky breath and straightens. “I’ll make sure no charges are pressed so you can save her.” She points to the Band-Aid. “Maybe no more life-threatening injuries, yeah?”

I grace her with a strained smile, and assure, "I'll pay for the damages."

"That would be appreciated," she says.

I nod and turn my attention to the ground. The white tile blurs as I feel her presence leave, replaced with Jay's.

“I know where he is,” he murmurs.

I look up at him, murder in my eyes. He tightens his lips, knowing I’m not going to settle down.

“Let your body heal, man. You’ll be useless otherwise. We’ll get him, and find where they took her the second you’re not broken anymore. You may be able to move now, but the next few days are going to hit hard, especially now that you walked around with a big-ass bed on your back. Your very injured back, might I add.”

“The longer I wait, the more likely she is to disappear. To suffer and have unimaginable things happen to her,” I argue through clenched teeth. The muscle in my jaw is nearly ripping through my flesh from how hard I’m grinding them.

He bends down and puts his hands on my shoulders, dipping his chin until he catches my eyes. I glare at him, wanting to go back to not being able to hear or see anything.

Jay is stupidly brave and doesn’t back down.

“I promise you, man, I will have the team looking for her. I will do everything in my power to get us closer to her.” The intensity in his words and stare is easing my anxiety as much as it’s capable, which is microscopic.

I’ll never be able to relax, to not feel my insides twisting into knots and the panic gnawing at my heart until there’s nothing left.

I know my body is going to give out on me, but nothing—and I mean, nothing—is going to keep me from finding her.

Clenching my fists, I nod. I have no plans to stay in this hospital. To stay still. But arguing right now isn’t going to change anything at the moment.

I need rest. Lots of it. Because the second I open my eyes, I won’t close them again until Max’s head is in my hands.

“You can’t just bust down the door all willy-nilly, Zade.”

“The fuck I can’t,” I bark, glowering at Jay as he meticulously paints his nails eggplant purple from the seat next to my hospital bed.

It's the fifth day, and I’m green in the face with anxiety and frustration. I made five escape attempts within the first two days, but they kept knocking my ass out with drugs to the point where I completely lost time. I stopped escaping because I’d rather be semi-useful behind a computer than be dead to the world and not be doing anything at all.

The only other reason I gave in was that I was physically incapable of even squeezing my ass cheeks without my vision going black with pain.

I may not have suffered any life-threatening injuries, but my body is sure acting like it did.

Jay curses softly under his breath when he gets a dot of nail polish on his skin, poking his tongue out as he carefully wipes the paint off.

My new computer is on my lap, the camera feed showing Max and the twins, Landon and Luke, lounging in his office, drinking expensive scotch and probably laughing over the big deposit that just came through to his bank account.

Twelve million dollars. The price for kidnapping Addie.

“You know he didn’t do it himself,” Jay reminds me, and then holds up his hands to marvel over his work.