Page 23 of Freed
Because even here, in my own bed, my mind is somewhere else.
Withher.
Always with her.
I drag a hand down my face and sit up, the mattress dipping beneath my weight. My phone is already in my hand before I fully register reaching for it. The message from last night sits at the top.
A tip. Just another one in a long line of dead ends and wasted time. But this one felt different. It wasn’t vague or desperate or someone fishing for money. It was precise. And it mentioned something no one outside my inner circle should know.
My jaw tightens.
I leave the bedroom without a sound.
Fran doesn’t stir.
The hallway is dark, the penthouse quiet in that suffocating way that makes every thought louder. By the time I reach my office, I’m already pulling up the files sent to my email.
There’s a port, a name, and a date that lines up just close enough to when she disappeared. Italy.
My jaw tightens.
I cross-reference it with shipping logs, private charters, anything that might connect. It takes an hour. Then another. The deeper I dig, the clearer the picture becomes—not complete, but enough to feel the shape of something real.
“She’s alive,” I murmur to the empty room.
The words settle heavy in my chest.
Alive… and hidden.
My hand curls into a fist on the desk as a slow, dangerous clarity spreads through me.
Someone helped her.
Someone moved her.
Someone thought they could keep her from me.
They were wrong.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the screen, but I’m not seeing data anymore.
I’m seeing her.
The way she used to look at me. The way her voice softened when she said my name. The way she felt in my arms, warm and alive and completely mine.
A sharp exhale leaves me.
I drag a hand down my face, but it doesn’t help. Nothing does.
I shove free of my boxers, hating the instant, aching response of my body. Hating that she can still do this to me. That after all this time, Elizabeth still has the power to undo me with nothing but memory.
My head falls back against the chair, eyes closing as the past takes me under. I remember the way her fingers curl around me, like she never knows where she ends and I begin. I remember the way she comes apart for me in trembling pieces, until there’s nothing left but heat, breath, and my name spilling from her lips like a confession she can’t hold back.
My hand tightens on the armrest until the wood groans beneath my grip.
I can still feel her.
The phantom weight of her body presses against mine. The heat of her skin. The way she used to melt for me, like she was made to come undone in my hands. My jaw clenches hard enough to ache as I drag in a slow breath, but it does nothing to cool the fire burning low and vicious inside me. If anything, it only makes it worse. Memory sharpens into hunger. Hunger twists into something darker. Something dangerous.
