“Kai is strong, just stay alive,” Liesel says.
I can’t stay alive if Kai is hurting.
I fire off several rounds, pushing men back as I make my way to the stairs. I have to find her. I need to know she is safe.
I reach the basement stairs being guarded by five men. My suspicions were correct; they are in the basement.
One, two, three, four, five.
That’s how long it takes me to take down five men with five shots.
They all fall, one blocks the door with his limp body, but I pull his corpse away from the door as easily as I would move a sack of potatoes.
I throw the door open, practically yanking it from its hinges, and then I run down the stairs with my gun aimed. If I see Milo touching Kai, I will kill him without giving him one more second to breathe.
Down into the hole underground I go.
“Kai!” I scream into the darkness, but I see nothing. I get no answer.
“Kai!” I yell again.
I run to the cage Milo kept me in. The door is open, and I dart inside even though I can clearly see through the bars the room is empty.
Kai was here. I can smell and feel her in every essence of the room. I don’t see any blood, no sign of a struggle. Whenever she left, she left willingly.
I walk over slowly to the bed and feel in the crevices of the wall. The heart I carved is gone, but the knife remains.
Fuck, she has no weapon.
But she took the heart. When I started carving it, I didn’t think she would ever see it, it was for me. But I think somewhere in my heart, I knew she would be here, and she would need it.
Please let it be enough to protect h
er. She still hasn’t pressed the alarm on her earrings. Please be somewhere safe. Please know that I love you.
“Enzo!” Langston yells.
I look up with a gloominess in my eyes.
“Have you found her?” I ask.
“No.”
A deep fear grows stronger in my belly. Where are you, stingray?
“But the mansion is secure. The grounds are secure. We won,” Langston says.
“No, we didn’t win until we find Milo and Kai. Not until Milo is dead, and Kai is safe. That’s when we win.”
“Have you found her?” I say into the earpiece.
“No,” Liesel answers.
“I thought the earrings were supposed to be able to track her.”
“They are, but wherever she is, we lost the signal,” Liesel says.
Fuck.