Page 198 of Fractured Future

That’s exactly what I have now.

Avoiding the caustic looks that both Warner and Hyland shoot me while deep in conversation with a member of their forensics team, I slip from the apartment to enter the security-lined hallway.

The only person I’ve ever met who was able to gain the upper hand over me paces back and forth out here, repeatedly stabbing her phone every time she attempts to redial and gets cut off again.

“Fuck!” she screeches.

Ember hurls the phone at the floor, watching it bounce off the carpet and skate away. I quietly slink over to her, keeping my hands laced behind my back.

“Going well?”

“No one is answering me!” A muscle jumps in her jaw.

“That’s kinda the point, sweetheart. Luis wants to set the time and place in which he’ll deliver his first demand.”

“What kind of sick game is this? Wouldn’t it be quicker to just take me and skip off into the sunset?”

Drinking in the pointed curves of her face, the way her auburn brows scrunch together when she’s enraged, and the endless beauty of her half-blue, half-grey eyes, I merely shrug.

“You’re not a lone wolf he can simply pick off. Luis is intelligent enough to realise that where you go, an army follows. He’s playing this smart.”

Shoving flaming-red hair back from her face, Ember trains her storm-filled orbs on me. “You seem confident in that prognosis.”

“It’s what I would do.” I lean against the wall.

“Oh, how comforting!”

“Come on. Look who you’re talking to.”

Clearly exasperated, she works on slowing her breathing for several seconds. I really don’t like seeing her calm down. Her spit-fire rage is what interests me the most.

“When he calls again… Don’t think for a second about sacrificing yourself.”

“You think I’m that stupid?” She rolls her eyes. “Come on.”

“I seem to recall you begging to take your brother’s place during that phone call.”

Her feet spread wide like she’s preparing to fight. “So I could draw Luis out into the open and bury a knife in his fucking gut!”

I’m not even remotely ashamed to admit that my cock twitches at the venom lacing her voice. I’d love to see her inner darkness unfurl as she enacts her vengeance. Perhaps I could even assist.

“If Luis harms Tom, he will hold no power over you. Therefore, Tom must remain alive in order to manipulate you. He won’t be killed.”

“Yet,” Ember groans.

“Well… Yes. Yet.”

“Then we have to find him before that‘yet’arrives. I will not lose another member of my family.”

Unable to hold myself back, I seize a strand of her curious, flame-dipped hair. The tips remain blonde from where an old dye job grew out in captivity. I had wondered if she’d cut them.

“Care for some help with that?” I hum.

Blue-tinged graphite skates over me in contemplation.

“Apparently, we are allies now.” My fingertips dance over the long strand, letting it curl around my fingers. “Therefore, my services are available.”

“If we find Tom… We find Luis.”