Page 43 of Love Loathe Devotion (Tightrope #3)

The automatic doors slide open with a whisper of chilled air as Nico and I step into the hospital lobby. It smells like bleach and worry. The kind of scent that clings to your skin and settles in your throat.

I’ve barely slept. I haven’t even changed out of my stage clothes. My boots still carry dust from the London arena, and my body’s running on nothing but adrenaline and fear.

Nico’s at my side, silent and alert, his gaze sweeping the space like he’s expecting something to go wrong at any second. Knowing him, he probably is.

I head for the main desk, heart pounding. “We’re looking for a patient—Joey Ryan. Four years old. His parents are Lucas and Sam Ryan.”

The nurse glances up from her computer. “Are you family?”

“Yeah,” I say without hesitation. “We are.”

She nods once, tapping at her keyboard. “He’s in post-op recovery on Pediatric Level Two. Do you want me to see if one of the parents can come out?”

“Please,” I say.

As she picks up the phone, I glance at Nico. “Post-op. Does that mean they got him a kidney?”

Nico shrugs. “No clue but I fucking hope so.”

As we wait, I text Laney again, my need to see her like a drumbeat in my chest. “Where the hell is Laney?”

He shrugs, checking his own phone. “She hasn’t texted?”

I shake my head and try calling her.

Voicemail.

My stomach knots tighter. She wouldn’t sleep through a call. Not tonight.

The elevator dings and the nurse gestures. “Second floor, someone will meet you there.”

We take the elevator up, the fluorescent lights making my skin feel tighter, like I’m wearing something that doesn’t fit. I run a hand through my hair and tap the phone against my thigh.

“She was at the hospital,” I mutter. “Waiting. Holding it together for Lucas and Sam.”

“She’s probably passed out,” Nico says. “Think about what she’s been through. That’s a lot of emotional weight.”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I know.” But my fingers don’t stop twitching.

The elevator opens and we step into a quieter corridor. Less foot traffic. The hum of machines filters down the hallway, along with the occasional beep, like the heart of the hospital thudding slow and steady.

I scan the signage until I spot a recovery suite marked with Joey’s name.

Just as we approach, the door cracks open and Lucas steps out.

He looks wrecked—eyes bloodshot, hair wild, scruff starting to show. But there’s a glimmer in him that wasn’t there the last time I saw him.

Relief.

“Hey,” he says, a tired smile breaking through. “You made it.”

I grab him in a hug without thinking, gripping tight. “Damn right I did.”

He claps my back. “You came through for us, man. I mean it. We wouldn’t be here without you. Without what you did. He got his fucking kidney thanks to you.”

I pull back slightly, my eyes searching his. “He’s okay?”

Lucas nods, blinking hard. “Yeah. He’s okay. Dr. Scott says the transplant went as well as they could’ve hoped. Joey’s strong. He’s already asking for cartoons.”

A breath leaves me in one long exhale. I rub a hand down my face, letting that small smile come for the first time in hours.

“And get this,” Lucas adds, voice catching. “The donor match? Came from the intake after your Berlin gig. Someone listened, Eddie. Someone signed up and saved my boy.”

I don’t even realize I’m pulling him back into a hug until I feel his arms around me again. “You would’ve done the same,” I whisper.

Lucas laughs softly. “Yeah, but I didn’t have the lungs or the crowd to do it.”

Nico smirks nearby, arms crossed. “He’s not wrong.”

Lucas finally pulls back, blinking hard. “Sam’s with Joey. You can see him later once they settle him more. I told him his Uncle Eddie was coming. He’s gonna lose it.”

“I can’t wait,” I say, warmth blooming in my chest even as another chill creeps in around the edges. “Hey,” I ask, trying to keep it casual. “You haven’t seen Laney, have you? I’ve called a couple times.”

Lucas frowns slightly. “No. Last I saw her, she said she was taking Merlyn home. Said she’d come back.”

“Did she?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Not yet. She probably crashed.”

My gut twists. I nod slowly. “Yeah. Probably.”

But my thumb is already hovering over her contact again.

Call.

Voicemail.

Nico steps closer. “You wanna go check on her?”

I nod once. “Yeah. Let’s head back.”

Lucas puts a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you again. Both of you. I mean it. I—” he stops, clears his throat. “I love you guys. In a manly, non-emotional way, obviously.”

I laugh, even though my chest feels tight. “Love you too, you asshole.”

“Tell Laney thanks, okay?” Lucas adds as he heads back to Joey’s room. “She held me and Sam up last night. Like a goddamn anchor.”

I watch him disappear behind the door, and I should feel lighter.

I don’t.

Nico watches me for a beat. “Let’s go.”

I follow him down the hallway, fingers still wrapped around my phone like a prayer because something’s off and I can feel it.

The sky’s just starting to crack open—thin bands of lavender and gray spreading over the horizon—but I barely register it. My fingers are clenched around the wheel, knuckles bone-white, and the tires hum against the road like a warning I can’t ignore.

Nico sits beside me, calm as ever, one leg stretched out, the other ankle resting on his knee, like he’s just cruising through another morning. But I can see the way his eyes flick across the landscape, his jaw tight behind that composed expression.

I’ve called Laney five times since we left the hospital.

Voicemail.

Every. Damn. Time.

“She’s probably asleep,” I say, more to myself than him. “She’s gotta be. She was wrecked. Everything with Joey… it had to wipe her out.”

Nico nods slowly. “Maybe.”

I glance over. “You don’t believe that.”

“I believe she’s strong,” he says. “But my gut’s twitching.”

Mine too.

I try to reason with myself. What if she took Merlyn out for a walk and forgot her phone? What if she took a sleeping pill? What if she dropped her phone and it broke and now she’s watching bad TV under five blankets and I’m about to look like an idiot?

But the longer the silence stretches, the tighter my chest pulls.

I finally break the quiet. “She wouldn’t just… not answer. Not now. Not after last night.”

“I know,” Nico says simply.

I hit the turnoff to the private road, the tires crunching on gravel. The trees lining the driveway whisper in the wind, soft and cold. My stomach twists as the house comes into view.

Something’s wrong. I don’t even see it yet. I just feel it.

I throw the truck into park, leap out before the engine fully shuts off. “Laney!” I call as I jog up the steps.

No answer.

I reach for the doorknob—and pause.

It’s cracked open.

My pulse spikes.

I push inside, eyes sweeping the entryway, calling her name again. “Laney?”

Then I see it.

Her phone.

Smashed.

The screen is shattered, the casing splintered near the bottom like it was ripped out of someone’s hand. It lies just inside the doorway, abandoned. Wrong.

“Shit,” I whisper, crouching to pick it up.

Nico steps in behind me, instantly alert. He doesn’t ask permission—just starts moving through the house like a soldier clearing a perimeter. Kitchen. Living room. Bedroom. Back hallway.

“Clear,” he calls quietly.

But my panic’s already sprinting ahead of me.

I run through the house myself, like I’m going to find her curled up in a corner I somehow missed.

Nothing.

No Laney.

No note.

No sound.

Just Merlyn.

Sitting by the fireplace, ears up, eyes watching me.

Alone.

I drop to my knees in front of her. “Where is she?” I whisper.

The dog gives a soft, distressed whine. I notice now—her fur’s sticking up. She’s alert, tense. Agitated.

My mind races. How did someone get in? Why would they take her? Who the hell would—

Then the realization crashes in like a goddamn freight train.

Could Randy have taken her?

Tasha Monroe is the other option but I quickly dismiss it. This isn’t her style and she wouldn’t have worked so fast. She thought taking my freedom was her revenge so she had no reason to go after Laney.

That asshole is involved I just know it. Fury and fear rise together so fast I almost choke on it. I stand and spin toward Nico. “She’s not here. Her phone’s broken. Merlyn’s on edge. This isn’t just her forgetting to charge her phone—someone was here. Someone took her.”

Nico’s already pulling out his own phone. “We’ll find her.”

“How?” I rasp. “We don’t know where she—”

“I said, we’ll find her.” His voice is still calm, but it slices through the noise in my head like a knife. “I’ll call in every contact I have. But you need to stay sharp. We’re not panicking. We’re moving.”

I nod, but my fists are clenched, heart pounding so hard it hurts. I look down at the shattered phone in my hand then up at the empty doorway.

And I swear—whoever touched her, whoever dared take her…

They don’t know what kind of hell they just opened.

I can’t sit still.

I pace the length of the hallway, Merlyn trailing behind me, restless and whimpering, her nails clicking against the wood floor. I try to dial Laney again, even though her phone’s in my hand—shattered—as if the universe might give me a different answer this time.

Voicemail.

Every ring is another nail driven into my chest.

I place a call to Jake Marshall and explain the situation I’m in, and he instantly offers to help. When Cherry was in trouble, I dropped everything and Nico and I helped end the man who threatened her. He’s only too happy to return the favor now.

“Leave it with me. I’m gonna loop Hunter in too. He has a few friends that might be able to help and get access to the communications through his company Lungo Tech.”

“Thanks, Jake.”

“No problem, man.”

I hang up, hating how helpless I feel right now, how impotent.

Nico’s across the room, pacing slower than me but every bit as charged. He’s on his phone, speaking low and fast in Italian, and it’s the tone that gets me. It’s not clipped and controlled like usual.

It’s furious.

“I don’t care if you’re at the port or the Vatican,” he snaps into the phone. “You lost him? You had one job.”

My stomach turns.

He ends the call with a violent swipe, then throws his phone onto the table so hard it bounces and nearly slides off the edge.

“What the hell just happened?” I ask, stalking over.

“Marco—my guy on Randy? Pulled from the detail last night.” Nico’s jaw ticks, teeth grinding. “Guess who called it?”

“Who?”

“Vincenzo.”

I freeze. “Your Capo?”

Nico nods, seething. “Yeah. That selfish son of a bitch rerouted Marco to babysit a shipment coming in from Liverpool instead. Product, something dirty, no doubt. Marco didn’t even push back. Just left the tail cold and didn’t even have the decency to call.”

“You gave an order,” I say, the realization dropping like a hammer. “And he disobeyed you, but you’re the Underboss.”

Nico picks up his phone again with a sneer. “Not just me. The Don. My father put me on this. He told Vincenzo I had priority. And that little prick ignored it.”

He’s texting now—fast, clipped bursts of rage flying from his thumbs.

“I told him,” Nico mutters. “I told Marco—‘you find Randy, or you pray I don’t find you first.’”

My blood turns to ice. Being underboss at his age is quite the feat, and Nico has succeeded because he’s ruthless but he’s made enemies and some of them are inside the Famiglia.

Nico doesn’t threaten. Nico delivers.

And someone took my Laney.

I grip the back of a chair, breathing hard. Before I can spiral again, my phone rings in my hand—Hunter McKenzie. I swipe to answer instantly. “Hunter.”

“Eddie,” he says, voice sharp. “I got something.”

I nearly collapse with relief. “Talk to me.”

“I called in a favor with a guy who owes me—cyber side. Had Randy’s phone ping off the last known tower. Twenty minutes ago, he was at a hotel complex on the far side of the city.”

“What hotel?”

“New development. Parkside International owns the land, but it’s under third-party management. Mostly corporate stays. Quiet. Empty this time of day.”

My mouth goes dry. “Address?”

Hunter rattles it off, and I repeat it aloud for Nico, who’s already halfway to the door with his phone back to his ear.

“Hunter,” I say, pulse drumming, “you just saved my fucking life.”

“I’ll send security to the hotel,” he replies. “You want me there personally?”

“I need eyes on that place now.”

“You got it. Be smart, Crowe. And keep your temper in check. You’re no good to her if you go in hot.”

“I’m past hot,” I grit out. “I’m nuclear.”

He exhales. “Bring her home. Call me if it goes sideways.”

I hang up.

Nico’s already opening the SUV door.

I follow him down the driveway, my boots thudding against gravel like war drums in my chest. I watch him check the clip on his firearm before handing me a spare and I do the same.

“You heard?”

“He was at a hotel.”

“One of Randy’s family’s hotels.”

Nico slams the door shut. “Then let’s go get her.”

Whoever has her—whoever touched her—is going to wish I never stepped off that stage.

Because I will tear this city apart to find her.

And I will not stop until she’s back in my arms.