Page 48 of Cara

Like business, I ask a question. It’s leveled—controlled. “Where.Is. She?”

“She’s being hauled out of a lake as we speak.”

Behind the chaos that ensues when I hear those words, I must keep control. Her life might depend on it.

Slow your heart rate.

Find the air around you.

Clear your mind.

All of my training fails me. My pulse runs wild. My hands tremble at my sides. My mind tells me to look for the nearest object with the ability to disfigure him. “You didn’t kill her,” I say, my voice deceptively calm. “Vito wouldn’t just kill her.”

“If it were just to get to her, he wouldn’t have. Butyouare his target, not her. He wants to see you unravel. This woman was the only way to make that happen.” My fists clench. “She has always just been collateral damage.”

A bottle. A broken chair leg. A dull knife from the drawer. That damn hairbrush I can lodge in his narrow windpipe.

He shrugs. “It wasn’t personal. Not for me, at least.”

He has no proof he has her. None.

These are just empty words.

Bedlam overtakes my body. A loose cannon recognizes another, his eyes watching me roam the room with intense caution. He knows who I am.

Without her, I can become anything. Anyone.

“Looking for a weapon?”

He flashes the gun under his coat as if that will make me suddenly rethink my actions. My mouth thins, surveying the destroyed space as I lose myself, someone else taking over.

“I don’t need a weapon.”

Most men my size move slowly, hindered by muscle mass. Men in my position have grown soft, often allowing others to do the difficult work. Not me. I reach him before he can even grasp his gun, tearing him off his feet. Crimson blood splatters as I pound his face with a closed fist, hearing something in his neck fissure from the whiplash. He crashes into the wall, unable to recover as I’m right on top of him, seizing him again, denting the pristine wallpaper with his skull.

Clambering for his gun, my fingers peel his back, sliding it out of the holster. Barricading him to the wall, I lodge themuzzle at the base of his chin. “Cut the bullshit. This act you were sent here to play.”

He hasn’t recovered from the impact. When he manages to find my eyes, I already know what he sees, what makes him blanch—a monster.

The fucker is disturbed enough to grin, and the fractured heart of this monster instantly knows fear. “It wouldkillyou, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t be able to take knowing you failed her. You sent her off on her own andlet usfind her?—”

What little control I had…

I lose it. Immediately.

He doesn’t have time to retaliate while I wail on him, discarding the gun to beat him with my bare hands. Dragging him off the ground, I search his disoriented expression.

You can’t kill him. Not until you find her.

“I could do thisall day,” I rage. “Make this easy. Give me what I want.” I'm desperate. I’ll make a deal with this piece of shit to get to her. “Vito doesn’t need to know.”

“There’s no deal to make, man. I told you.”

My hand dents the wall beside his face, a crater left in its wake. “Liar!” I snarl, blood red rage blinding my vision.

He wouldn’t be here if she were gone.

He knows I’d kill him.