Page 129 of Between Never and Forever

“I’m not yours.” I shook my head, but suddenly it felt heavy and dizzy and like I might be under water.

“You are!” His voice raised wildly, and he shook me in frustration. “I own you. My record label.”

“No. What?” Everything blurred together. His words, my words, my thoughts.

“We just need to get back to my place. I couldn’t have you sleep with him again. Not like you really were on your wedding night. You belong to me. You’ve always belonged to me, and he’s soiled you. Almost ruined you.” He continued to mumble, and I saw how his pupils were so dilated, he wasn’t all there. I wasn’t either.

“What did you do, Ezekiel?” I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

He scooted over to me and pulled me close. Then he pressed my head to his shoulder even as I tried to fight him off. It wasn’t any use. I was drowning in heavy water. It was sloshing over my thoughts, dragging me down. Even as I tried to yell, my voice was silent.

Into the night. Into the blackness I went.

ChapterForty-One

DEX

“Where the fuck is my wife?”I bellowed, and my voice ricocheted throughout our suite as I swiped a vase off the table and it crashed to the ground.

We weren’t married. I hadn’t gotten to see her walk down the aisle, but she’d always been mine. No one was going to even try to correct me right now.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Cade typed away as he spoke, trying to track down something with the drones while Izzy sat next to him, typing on her phone. “It’s only been five minutes. We’re going to find her. She’s going to be okay.”

I should have never agreed to let her go alone to her parents’ house in the first place, even though he’d insisted. Now a damn vehicle had picked her up instead of him driving her back. And I’d been stupid enough not to put a tracker on her ring this time.

Fuck. Whoever had taken her had known.

“I’m hacking Trinity and Platinum Casino systems,” I finally said as I sat down, because if the blame had to be on someone, it could be on me.

“Let’s all get in their systems,” Bane announced over the FaceTime Pink had him on. He was fully on board with breaking every law now.

Pink was wringing her hands. “If you guys don’t find her, I’ll—”

But Bane cut Pink off. “We’ll find her, Pink.”

“Pull up all the shareholders,” Dimitri said softly.

Dante shook his head. “It’s not about investments.”

“It’s about who has access, and investors always get access.” He looked at me imploringly. “Do it, Dex.”

It was something in his voice. He knew. Shit, I think I knew. I’d told myself that the man wouldn’t, that I’d threatened him enough, that we had enough on him to put him in prison for decades.

Still, all signs pointed to him. I’d wanted to be sure, to be meticulous, to run everything beyond reasonable doubt. I’d had Cade pulling files on him, Bane confirming with our rival casino, and going through all the yellow tape the right way. I hadn’t told Kee because she didn’t need to know.

I was done doing that now.

I hacked government systems and private corporation files fast. While I was digging, I continued to pull up facial searches of Kee and all my cameras.

“Damn, I think you might be even more fucked-up than I am,” Cade admitted as he glanced at it.

All the screens showed Keelani at different times. I was mapping her face, tracking her whereabouts, figuring out her every move. “It’s my job to be fucked-up. You’d do the same for Izzy.”

“If she was missing, sure. But before I didn’t.”

“Maybe you should have,” I threw back as we all pounded on our keyboards. “Didn’t you get my sister kidnapped?”

“Whoa. That’s out of line. I got myself kidnapped,” Izzy interjected, head down as she worked away. “Give me some credit.”