Page 143 of Double Down

“What the fuck?” Maverick and Storm are both staring at the phone like it’s the devil incarnate.

“Did her father sell her to cover his debts?” My question isn’t really a question. We all heard it. We all saw it.

Unknown

Walk out of the hotel lobby.

No more games.

Coldness spreads icy fingers through me. Phoenix did this. She left the penthouse to meet with whoever sent her those messages. The same person that Danner works for, or Danner himself. Who the fuck knows? We don’t know fucking anything.

I rake my fingers into my hair and pull until pain spears at my skull.

Storm’s jaw flexes once. He looks everywhere a body could’ve brushed against something and left a story. There isn’t one. Phoenix walked out of here. She wasn’t forced.

“I have to find her.” My skin is starting to itch. The lack of control is driving me right to the edge of madness.

“Atticus, do you see anything on the cameras for the lobby.?”

While he’s muttering to himself, I walk to the glass window and stare down at the river.

I pushed her. I did this. Somehow, I know this is my fault. All of it. I pushed her down into my soul as deep as she would go, and when I got the chance to have her again, I tainted it with the poison running through my veins.

The awareness that she apparently left of her own volition sits sour on my tongue. Whether it was coerced or not—she made achoice. And yet I can’t help feeling some level of culpability in that choice.

I should have told her I wanted her to stay.

That I needed her to stay.

That we all need her to stay.

She doesn’t get to make the choice to leave us, damn it.

My arm sweeps out, knocking the phone and a pile of other shit on the counter to the floor. I turn from the kitchen to stare out the window. The suite breathes once and then waits for me to decide who we are.

“Say it.” Maverick is at the threshold, watching me with rage in his eyes.

“She’s gone,” I say the words, and my voice stays even because that’s what’s going to keep us from drowning.

“But whoever touched her is going to die. And I’ll drag our little princess back by her fucking hair if I have to.”

TO BE CONTINUED… in Wild Card