Page 179 of Ruthless Desires: Vol. One

Hang on, Wren. Please. I’m so sorry.

“He’s going to kill her,” Oliver whispers. One of his hands is gripping my arm painfully, but I don’t shake him off.

When Jordan finally pulls her up, I have to blink back tears of relief. But almost immediately, he forces her back under.

“No,” I murmur. My free hand clenches into a fist involuntarily, my fingernails digging into my palm.

Jordan does it again. And again.

By the time he releases Wren, she looks like she can barely keep herself upright. Two men grab her and drag her out of view. My heart clenches when I lose sight of her, but at least she’s still breathing.

She’s still alive. We can still find her.

Jordan comes to stand in front of the camera. The smile on his face is sickening. “I’m going to find you. All of you. And once I have you here, I’m going to kill her in front of you. Slowly. Painfully. You’ll learn not to mess with me.”

Please be a dream. I just need to wake up. This can’t be real.

The video ends. All three of us stare at my phone in silence. My throat feels clogged up, and when I manage to swallow, it aches.

It’s not until Rhett speaks that it’s solidified in my mind that this is very, very real.

“We’re going to find her,” he says lowly. “And we’re not going to stop until we do.”

“We can’t wait until tonight.” My mind is already going a mile a minute, working through all the different ways we can get back sooner. “Fuck. Give me a minute.”

I pull up the number for my contact at the airport, pacing as the phone rings.

“Hey, man. What’s up?”

“I need that plane off the ground in under an hour. What’s your price to make it happen? A hundred thousand? Two? Three? I need to get homenow.”

“You’d pay that much just to get back twelve hours earlier?”

“I’d sell my fucking soul if I could.”

“Hey, whatever. It’s your money. How about four?”

“Consider it done. We’ll be there soon.”

I yank a shirt over my head and grab my bag. Thankfully, we didn’t really get a chance to unpack anything.

Downstairs, the girl at the counter is confused as to why we’re checking out so quickly, but thankfully she doesn’t ask a lot of questions.

On the way to the airport, I call Finn.

“Thank fuck,” he says. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to reach you for a couple more days.”

“Tell me everything you know.”

“Wren called me last night, but she was gone by the time I got to the apartment. There was a bloody knife on the floor, but that was the only evidence of a break-in. The apartment complex’s security cameras were wiped. I’ve been trying to figure out who took her, but I don’t have a lot to go on.”

Fuck.Did she get cut? All the videos Jordan sent were either poorly lit or at awkward angles. It’s possible she has a knife wound that we couldn’t see. If it gets infected… shit. We need to get to hernow.

“It was Jordan Williams,” I say. “He’s keeping her somewhere.”

“Torture?”

“Drowning.”