Page 103 of The Hunter

Her jittery behavior. Her practiced smile. Her polite laugh. She must have gone through the bag. Found the money and phone. She probably thought it was mine. If our roles were reversed, I would have done the same.

My mind raced as I thought back to the conversation I’d read on that cell. About the merchandise. The photo. Did she find it, too?

“Goddamn it!” I roared, tugging at my hair as I fought to keep myself from spiraling. I was usually the calm and collected one. Never got emotional.

But Ariana changed that.

Turned me into someone I barely recognized.

How could I have been so fucking stupid? So damn careless? How could I have just left that duffel bag out for her to rummage through?

I’d seen her snoop before. Hell, it was practically the first thing she did when she got here — poked around my house looking for any clue she could find about who I was.

And now, thanks to me, she was in danger.

“Fuck!” I bellowed, slamming my palm against the wall.

Cato whimpered behind me but didn’t bark. He just watched, quiet and still, like he knew something had shifted.

I took a deep breath. Then another. And another. Clearing away the panic and frustration.

I may have hated my father with everything I had, but he did teach me a few valuable things, even if I didn’t see it back then. He taught me how to survive under pressure. How to turn panicinto calculation. How to disengage from my feelings and focus solely on the task at hand.

And right now, the only task at hand was getting to Ariana before the Bratva.

I unlocked my cell and tapped on the screen, navigating to the app I was searching for. Luckily, I’d installed a tracker on the Wrangler. It seemed like overkill at the time. Now I was grateful for it.

A blinking red dot glowed, moving steadily south.

She wasn’t too far yet, maybe fifty or sixty miles away.

I didn’t waste another second. I grabbed the keys off the hook, threw open the truck door, allowing Cato to jump in before me.

Gravel spat beneath the tires as I flew down the mountain road, the tracker pulsing on the screen beside me. My heart matched it, beat for beat.

“Please,” I muttered under my breath. “Please don’t let it be too late.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ariana

The mountain seemed endless.

Twisting switchbacks. Narrow lanes hugged by cliffs on one side and shadowed trees on the other. Every curve looked like the one before it, sharp and unforgiving. I couldn’t be sure I was heading in the right direction.

I just knew I had to keep going.

The darkness out here was different. Not just night, but black. Like the earth had exhaled and blew out the stars. A sliver of moon hung behind me, barely enough to light the road. My eyes burned from staring so hard, the yellow and white lines blurring as fatigue clawed at me.

I had no idea how long I’d been driving. A few hours, maybe. My knuckles had gone pale around the steering wheel, my fingers aching from gripping it too tight.

The GPS on Henry’s phone had helped. The signal had been spotty, but it had flickered to life long enough to direct me down the mountain and onto a paved road. Not that I had a plan. I didn’t even know where I was going.

Only that it was away from him.

A loud ding cut through the Wrangler, jolting my already fried nerves.

I tore my eyes to the dashboard, looking for what caused that sound. The glowing icon mocked me.