Page 31 of Hunted

He was sick.

Gambling wasn’t a vice for him. It was a disease he never learned to fight. I hated him for what he did. I loved him for the father he sometimes was when sobriety permitted.

And I ran from the consequences of both.

The file closes with a summary that makes my blood run cold.

Subject vanished successfully. No confirmed sightings since.

Search suspended at principal’s discretion.

It’s time stamped four years ago, then resumed six months ago.

So Valentin Moretti did come looking after I fled.

He let me go. Not out of mercy. By choice. And now, six years later, he’s decided it’s time to collect.

Why?

I lean back, the weight of it pressing hard against my chest. The agency pressure. The secrecy. The ten-million-dollar urgency. The way his silver eyes glinted when he spoke Lyra’s name.

The inkling I had in Hale’s office deepens.

Timing.

This is about something marching towards a deadline I know nothing about. Something big enough to rattle the one domineering being who shouldn’t rattle easily.

I close the file carefully and rest my hand on it, jaw tightening as a memory surfaces unbidden.

The heat of him at the door tonight.

The vicious threat in his eyes when he told me not to let him down.

Dread curls low and sharp.

Seven days.

I don’t know what he’s really hunting. But I know this much.

Whatever it is, it started with me.

I sit on the edge of the sofa and stare at my phone, thumb hovering as I scroll deeper into contacts I don’t like to use. It’s a last resort after three people hung up on me, one laughing outright and another warning me off my request.

I stop on one name, consider it, then call.

It rings twice.

‘What do you want, Cross?’ Jax Calder asks, voice rough, amused, and already suspicious.

He’s a bounty hunter the agency pretends doesn’t exist. Not rogue or unsanctioned, because he’s not stupid enough to get erased, but he specialises in off-book problems that don’t want to be solved cleanly and prides himself on surviving them anyway.

We’ve crossed paths twice. Neither time ended with blood on the floor, which counts as mutual respect.

‘I need information,’ I say. ‘On Valentin Moretti.’

Silence stretches, then he exhales. ‘That’s not information you ask for free. Or at all if you value keeping that sexy little ass of yours.’

I ignore the stupid sex jibe. ‘I didn’t say I was asking for free.’