Page 30 of Brutal Heir (Ruthless Heirs #3)

MY WORLD IMPLODES

A lessandro

“Where the fuck is she?” I growl over Matteo’s shoulder, my voice raw and fraying at the edges, as his fingers jab the keys in a rapid staccato mirroring my manic heartbeats.

An entire night that Rory’s been gone, and I’m losing my fucking mind. Twelve hours of deafening silence. Of unanswered texts, ignored calls, and a voicemail inbox filled with everything from fury-laced rants to hoarse, pathetic pleas.

And still, nothing.

At five o’clock this morning, I dragged Matteo out of bed to hack into Manhattan’s city-wide surveillance system to retrace her steps after she raced out of the Velvet Vault last night.

I don’t blame her for running, not after seeing Amber’s body. But strangely enough, the fear in her eyes didn’t seem to come from the bloodied corpse. It came after…

“ Merda ,” I hiss and bury my face in my hands.

I can barely see straight after spending the entire night searching the city for any trace of her like a fucking psychopath.

I prowled the streets like a feral animal, corner to corner, club to corner store, eyes scanning every blur of red hair, convinced I’d missed her by seconds.

Not only did I personally scour every inch of lower Manhattan, I also sent a dozen Gemini men to comb every damned alley and dark corner.

What if someone got to her?

What if whoever killed Amber went after my Red?

I dig my fingers into my scalp and press hard. The pressure doesn’t help. The pounding in my skull won’t stop. The image of Rory’s face as she turned away from me last night, eyes wide, terrified, and betrayed, loops through my mind on a reel of agony.

She didn’t just see a body last night.

She saw me.

And she ran.

“Fuck,” I grind out, swallowing the bile in my throat. I should’ve chased her. I should’ve said something, anything , instead of letting her vanish into the night like I meant nothing. Like we meant nothing.

My gaze flickers to Matteo, needing to focus on anything except my colossal fuck up. In addition to having him patch into the camera network, now he’s looking into Rory’s background. Any friend or old co-worker she might have fled to for the night.

Dio , I can’t lose her. Not like this.

I pace a crooked circle around my office, nearly tripping over the edge of the rug. My body’s wrecked. My knee’s burning. My shoulder throbs. But I can’t stop. Can’t sit still. Because if I do, if I let myself feel the full weight of this... I might shatter.

How is it possible that this woman has lived with me for over two weeks, and I don’t know a single thing about her?

Nothing except that she lived at a halfway house and was raped by that piece of shit Chip Armstrong. But he’s not a problem anymore. Not that I thought she would ever go back, but I even searched the house where they met last year.

No luck.

Now, Matty’s going through all her ex-employers.

“Anything?” I bark.

“Not much.” He cants his head over his shoulder and eyes me warily.

I must look like a lunatic. “You know, your little nurse is like a ghost. She’s hardly left a footprint in the year that she’s lived in Manhattan.

No family. No social media. And before that…

I can barely find a single thing about her in Belfast. Just that diploma from her nursing school and not even an actual birth certificate for Rory Delaney. ”

My brows slam together as I consider. That is odd. But that’s not helping us find her right now.

“Keep looking. Focus on the past year in Manhattan.”

“I am. We hit a dead end on the video surveillance once she dipped into the subway.” He shrugs. “I’m scanning the stops along the way, but there are literally hundreds of possibilities.”

“Serena said something about her needing to get out of her current apartment before she moved in with me. What about her employment record? There has to be an address listed.” I peer over his shoulder, scanning lines of code and databases I don’t understand.

“There has to be a landlord or maybe even a roommate.”

“Already on it, Ale.” He shoots me a smirk as he points to an address on the screen.

Hope blossoms in my chest, the tension radiating from my entire body finally lessening a notch. “Then why are we still sitting here?”

And I’m gone, out the door before he’s even out of his chair, blood singing in my veins. I don’t know what I’ll find when I get to that address. But I swear to God, if she’s hurt, if she’s scared, or if she even thinks for a second that she’s alone, I’ll burn down the city to prove her wrong.

My rapid footfalls echo across the walls of the corridor, my compression bandages digging into my skin from the frantic pace. But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but finding Rory and bringing her home.

The creak of the front door swinging open sends my heart lurching up my throat.

“Oh, hey ya, Johnny.” That familiar Irish lilt has my heart soaring.

I dart down the next corridor like a man possessed, my jaw nearly scraping the floor.

“Yeah, I’m good, thanks for asking.”

Then I freeze.

That voice, Dio , that fucking voice, wraps around my chest like a vice, and I can’t breathe. My feet move before I tell them to, thudding across the marble as I round the corner. And there she is.

Rory Delaney.

Dripping wet, cheeks flushed, eyes wide as they lock on mine.

Alive. Safe.

And more beautiful than I remember, even with shadows bruising her eyes and her curls a damp mess around her face.

She’s here. She came back. I don’t know how long I stand there, gaping at her like a coglione , but the moment my lungs start working again, I cross the remaining distance in two furious strides.

“What the fuck, Rory?” My voice cracks under the weight of everything I’ve been holding back. “You disappeared. For twelve fucking hours. I thought—” My throat closes. I drag in a breath like it might stop me from shaking. “I thought something terrible happened to you.”

She flinches.

I curse again and rake a hand through my hair. “You can’t do that to me. You can’t just… vanish. After what we saw. After what we—” I stop short, jaw locking tight.

She shifts, opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off.

“You should’ve screamed at me. Thrown something. Slapped me. Anything but leave.” My chest heaves, that wild fury crashing into something softer, more gutted. “I would’ve taken it. All of it. I deserved it for how I acted.”

Still, she doesn’t say a word. Just stands there, dripping onto the polished floor, her eyes searching mine like she’s not sure if I’m real.

So I take a step closer.

Then another.

Then I press my forehead to hers.

“You scared the fucking life out of me, Red,” I whisper, my voice wrecked. “Don’t do that again. Please.”

And for the first time, I let my hands cup her face. Just to be sure she’s really here. Just to feel that she’s not slipping away.

Not again.

Not ever.

Her breath catches, hot and shaky and so close to my mouth. I feel it, her hesitation, her confusion, her fucking heartbreak, and still, I don’t move. I don’t rush her. I just stay there, my forehead resting against hers, trying to soak her in.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She doesn’t pull away.

So I tilt my head.

An inch.

Another.

My nose brushes hers, and her lips part, soft and slow, like a door cracking open to something dangerous but sacred.

“Tell me to stop,” I rasp, my thumb tracing the curve of her cheek, down to her jaw. “Say the word, and I’ll back away, Rory.”

Her eyes lift to mine, bright and blazing and filled with something that makes my knees go weak. She doesn't say a word.

I don’t need permission after that. I make the choice, and that choice is her .

I close the distance, and my lips brush hers.

Not rough. Not hungry. Not yet.

It’s slow. Intimate. A breath shared between two broken souls that should’ve never collided but did anyway. Her lips are soft, hesitant at first, but then she leans in, and that’s all it takes. My world implodes.

My hand slips into the damp tangle of her hair, the other finding her hip, drawing her closer.

She melts into me with a breathy sigh that shatters what little control I have left.

The kiss deepens, my tongue gliding against hers, then her fingers are fisting the front of my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she lets go.

And Dio , I want more.

I want all of her.

I kiss her like I’ve been starving for this exact moment. Because I have. Every stolen glance, every sarcastic jab, every night she bathed me, and I pretended like it didn’t undo me. I kiss her for all of it.

Her lips move against mine with a desperation that matches my own, a clash of tongues and teeth and unsaid things. It’s messy and real and so fucking raw that I don’t realize I’ve made a sound until I feel the vibration of a groan rumble in my chest.

Suddenly, she pulls back, gasping. Her eyes are wide, stunned, lips swollen from the heat of it all.

My hands drop to my sides like I’ve just been burned. “Rory,” I breathe.

She takes a step back, not far, but enough that ice douses the fire surging in my veins.

“I can’t,” she whispers, eyes flickering away.

And those two words wreck me. But I nod, swallowing the ache clawing its way up my throat. “Okay,” I whisper.