Page 69 of Out for Blood
Every trafficker I interrogate.
Every hard drive Tyler hacks into at three in the morning.
Every single body dumped without a second thought.
I pin my gaze on the shredded target again.
A small tremor creeps into my voice, “If they’re still alive somewhere and I stop looking, they could be lost forever, and we could be running out of time.”
Real fear surfaces through my defenses.
Not fear for me but for them. Marie and Sofie, their kindness and friendship.
“They’re still out there,” I whisper. “I can feel it.”
Tyler considers me for a long moment before drawing nearer until his forehead nearly touches mine.
“Then we keep hunting.”
Revenge was never just about me; somewhere between the bloodshed and the rescues, it became something else entirely.
Now it’s about every person who never made it home.
Every person who is trapped waiting for someone to come through the door.
Rage burns through me, scorching every hollow place in my very being. It’s the only thing holding me upright because the second it fades, grief will drag me under.
And maybe that’s the most fucked up part of all, I do feel like the reaper.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Not even five minutes after we walk through the front door of our house, the phone from inside the dresser drawer that is reserved for traffickers, chimes.
The sound lances through the house like a siren in the dark.
Every notification from that phone feels like a countdown to another monstrosity waiting to be uncovered.
I’m already heading to the dresser, my heart racing. I rip open the drawer and snatch up the phone, the screen glowing in my palm as the ringtone continues.
I don’t say a word to Cassidy as she recedes down the hallway toward our bedroom to change.
We both know the moment that phone goes off, everything else stops.
Striding in the direction of my office so quickly my shoulder clips the wall, I shove my office door open and hurl it shut behind me hard enough the frame clatters.
I flop into the chair behind my desk, the leather protests under me as I comb a hand through my hair and toss the phone beside the keyboard.
Then I bring the office to life.
One by one, the monitors power on, blue light cascades acrossthe room. Screens shimmer from black to streams of code, security feeds, encrypted servers, and tracking programs I conceal with passcodes where no one else can get into them.
I brace my forearms against the desk as another notification chimes across the phone beside me.
I don’t even detect Cassidy as she saunters over to me.
She leans down directly in front of me, her face almost touching mine.
She asks as her hot breath is woven with temptation, “What would I do without you,husband?”
