Page 225 of Unleashed
Who's going to believe me?
He groans as his fingers twitch against the tile.
He's going to wake up. And when he does, whatever power he held over me before is nothing compared to what he'll do now.
I just tried to kill him.
I have minutes. Maybe less. And there is only one hope I have of fixing this. I launch myself up the stairs, running on pure adrenaline, and get my phone.
One more call. One last chance to survive.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Ace
Song- One Number Away, Luke Combs
The guy from the alley didn't make it.
He's laid out on the dirt floor of our barn, covered by a tarp, and he ain't getting back up. Died about ten minutes after Colten brought him in.
I hit him too hard. Or maybe I hit him exactly hard enough, and his body just wasn't built to survive the kind of rage that's been building in me for weeks with nowhere to go.
Either way, I never got the name. The one word he choked out in that alley. Died with him.
"Romeo is attempting facial recognition, but you made quite a fuckin' state of his face," Colten says as he walks back in, phone pressed to his ear.
Ain't no one going to be able to recognize this asshole. I beat him beyond anything dental records could help with. But you never know what tricks Enzo and Romeo have up their sleeve. If anyone can do it, it's them.
"He thinks Italian. Likely," Colten says, lowering the phone.
I nod, staring at the tarp. Italian. Not Greek. That shifts things. That shifts a lot of things. And leads me back to a mafia princess on a power trip in LA.
Hunter accepted her offering of Carson and gave her nothing in return. She told us we didn’t want her as an enemy.
"Well, he sure as shit ain't a cowboy," I say.
He had nothing on him. No wallet. No ID. No cell. Not even in his car. These people know what they're doing. You don't send a man with no identification to follow someone unless you've already planned for the possibility that he doesn't come back.
Which means whoever sent him knew this was a risk. And did it anyway.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
The vibration cuts through everything. I pull it from my back pocket.
Unknown number.
The same unfamiliar area code. The one I didn't call back. The one that sat wrong in my gut.
My chest tightens.
"Give me a minute," I tell Colten and stride out of the barn.
The sun hits my face. I walk until I'm out of earshot, lean against the hitching rail, and hit accept.
I don't say a word. Just listen. Holding my breath. Heart hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. That same earth-shattering reaction that happens when only one person in this world is with me.
Silence on the line, followed by little shaky breaths. Breaths I could never forget. Not in six years. Not in sixty. I'd know them in the dark. I'd know them in a crowded room. I'd know them on my deathbed because those breaths are the soundtrack to every night I ever held her while she fell asleep.
