Page 109 of Duty Unbound

I took advantage of his momentary distraction, lunging for the door. If I could just get outside, find someone, anyone?—

My fingers had just closed around the handle when I felt Tommy’s hand on my shoulder, spinning me around. Fear erupted through me, hot and urgent. This was it. He was going to hurt me now.

“You can’t leave yet,” he said softly. “Not until you understand.”

I tried to push past him, panic overriding caution now. “Let me go, Tommy!”

“I can’t do that.” His expression was sorrowful as he reached into his pocket. “Not when we’re so close to having everything we’ve always wanted.”

I glimpsed the syringe in his hand and tried to twist away, but my movements were still sluggish from the previous dose.

“Tommy, please,” I begged, real tears springing to my eyes. “Please don’t do this.”

But it was too late. I felt the now-familiar sting of the needle in my arm.

“Soon,” Tommy promised as my vision began to darken once more, his voice fading as if from a great distance, “you’ll understand everything.”

And the world faded to black, carrying with it my desperate thoughts of Ethan, of Nova, of home. Would I ever see any of them again? Or would this boathouse in New Orleans be the last place I ever saw?

Chapter 35

Ethan

I pulled my SUV into Nova’s estate, hands still unsteady on the wheel. The moment in that abandoned warehouse kept replaying in my head—the medical examiner pulling back the sheet, my stomach clenched in terror… followed by that rush of relief when I saw it wasn’t Mel.

The massive front door swung open before I reached it, revealing Ty’s anxious face.

“There you are. Jace is having a damn hissy fit, saying he needs to talk to you.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face. “What’s happening?”

“Not sure, but he’s been bouncing off the walls for the last twenty minutes. Says he’s found something big.”

My pulse kicked up as I followed Ty through the marble foyer toward our makeshift command center. Nova’s usually bustling mansion had fallen eerily quiet since Mel’s disappearance, the dancers and assistants speaking in hushed tones, if atall. Even Nova had abandoned her diva role, appearing only occasionally with red-rimmed eyes and uncombed hair.

Jace looked up the moment I entered the security room, his normally calm demeanor replaced by barely contained excitement. Logan sat beside him, studying streams of data on multiple screens.

“About damn time,” Jace said, pushing back from his workstation. “You have to see this.”

I dropped into the chair across from him. “What’ve you got?”

Jace’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “I’ve been digging through Mel’s phone data, looking for anything unusual.”

“And?”

“I hit a fucking gold mine.” He spun his monitor toward me. “I found tons of previous missed calls and texts from some guy named Tommy Fitzsimmons. Apparently, Mel went on a date with him a few months ago.”

Why did that name sound familiar? I leaned forward, scanning the messages filling the screen. “Just one date?”

“Two, actually. But that’s not the interesting part.” Jace scrolled down, revealing dozens more messages, all from the same number. “After those dates, Tommy obviously wanted to keep in contact, but Mel didn’t feel the same. Mel responded to the first couple of texts, then basically ignored him.”

I read through the one-sided conversations spanning months—casual at first, then increasingly personal, as if Tommy and Mel had some ongoing relationship despite her silence.

“That’s not normal,” Logan observed.

“Exactly,” Jace agreed. “But it gets better. Remember those spam coupon texts Mel complained about? I found tons of them on her phone, all for local shops. When I looked into it, they were all generated from an app that creates fake numbers.”

My tired brain began connecting dots. “This Tommy guy is connected?”