Page 48 of Unhinged Cravings

Chapter Seventeen

EMERSON

You’re full of shit,” Pack told me, crossing his arms and staring me down.

“And you’re the only asshole I let talk to me like this. If you were anyone else, your tongue would be nothing more than a bloody stump.”

He laughed. “I’m serious, Cade. Can you really do it after all the shit you’ve been doing with her? A day at the beach? Sleeping with her every night?”

“I’m not fucking her,” I grumbled.

“Not yet, but that wouldn’t be as bad as the real reason.”

My eyes narrowed. “Watch yourself.”

“No, this is too important. You have your hostage in your bed every night. You smile when you see her. Smile, Cade. I’ve known you for twenty years and I’ve never seen you smile like that.”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Can you kill her? Because I don’t think you can.”

Neither did I. The thought gutted me. “No, I can’t.”

I fell into my chair, rubbing my temples.

“Then what are you going to do? She was your winning card, and now those threats are empty ones.”

“Greyson will come. He won’t leave her with me, neither will her uncle. I won’t need to kill her because they’ll get her.”

“And can you let her go?” There was no judgement in his question, and I looked up at him.

“I don’t know.” He was the only one I trusted to hear that admission.

His phone rang, and he glanced at it before answering. The concern in his eyes changed the air in the room.

“We’ve got a problem, boss.”

I stood quickly, tension high in every muscle.

“Ava escaped. She’s running across the west yard.”

All thoughts of our prior conversation vanished, and a myriad of emotions jutted at me. She’d run away. Left me as easily as if there was no connection there, as if she hadn’t laid on the foyer floor and told me she’d stayed because there was no more searching. As easily as if her smiles had been false, her words hollow.

“Cade? What do you want them to do?” He still had the caller on the other end waiting for instruction.

The west lawn was off her bedroom, but I had left her in my room. She had waited for me to leave, then made her escape.

“Shit. Tell them to stand down. I’ll get her.”

I bolted from my office and ran through the house toward her room. Throwing the door open, I saw the open window.

“Damn it, Ava.”

Her silhouette moved under the moonlight. She was too close to the woods. My initial hurt morphed to horror. We had traps throughout the woods. I couldn’t have my men monitor every inch of them, so we’d laid traps in specific spots that my men knew to avoid but Ava didn’t.

I jumped from the window and took off after her. She hadn’t even changed and with her bare feet, her pace was slower than mine. The five miles I put in running almost every day made my strides longer and my pace faster than hers.

“Ava, stop!”