“Yep,” he confirms. “With Ruby, and on her way to get treatment.”
I nod, some of the pressure easing off my shoulders, but not nearly enough. It’s like the Empire State Building is resting on them, and only a penny fell off.
They still have Addie, and the rage is steadily churning beneath the surface. I’m going to burn the entire fucking world down until I find her, and I don’t care who gets burnt.
“Do we know anything about who was involved in her kidnapping?” I ask, voice tight with fury, clicking off the video on my laptop. I just finished watching the surveillance footage of Addie’s car crash, caught by several streetlight cams. Watching her being dragged from her car, knocked out, then carried into the van has me shaking with rage.
Jay is already working on tracking it through street and security cams, but it doesn't feel like enough.
I've only been admitted in the hospital for a few hours, and I'm seconds away from leaving again.
Thankfully, I didn’t suffer any serious damage. My entire back is black and blue from when I was propelled into the altar, but there wasn’t any internal bleeding like I had feared.
I got lucky I didn’t break my goddamn back, but I damn near came close to it.
“Her picture was posted to a forum on the dark web a day before she was taken. The poster was anonymous, of course, but the ad reads that if anyone brings Addie in alive, then they’d receive a fucking massive reward.”
“How much?”
But I don’t even need him to answer. I’ve already located the original ad, which has since been deleted, but nothing is ever truly erased from the internet. I click the ad, and Addie’s face pops up. Beautiful unusually light brown eyes, cinnamon hair, and a light dusting of freckles peppering her nose and cheeks.
My heart clenches at her smiling face—the same picture used as her author photo outside the bookstore, and the very one that instantly drew me into her. It still has the same effect on me as it did then.
The price tag is listed right beneath it in bold, red letters.
Twelve million dollars.
Pocket change to those handing it out, but an incredible amount to the smaller fish in the pond. An amount that someone would have to work hard to spend in their lifetime.
“Fuck,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers. A massive migraine is blooming, and restlessness invades my senses. I want to claw out of my own skin, if only it means Addie will be waiting for me on the other side.
Jay’s lips are tense. “I know who answered the ad, and who was responsible for her kidnapping.”
I drop my hand and pin a look to my right-hand man, waiting for him to drop the proverbial bomb. Dread washes over me, and I have a feeling this one might actually succeed in killing me.
“Max,” he says quietly.
My eyes close, and my control finally shatters, slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass. It was only a matter of time, and the last grain has now fallen.
Inky-black darkness corrodes every cell in my body until there is no light left within me.
Red consumes my vision, and I snap into motion. My laptop is launched across the hospital room, the loud crash from it slamming through equipment and into the wall swallowed by the roar ripping from my throat.
I convulse violently from the force of the piercing wail falling past my lips, so long and sorrowful that it tapers off into a silent scream. Heaving in a breath again, another thunderous cry explodes out of me as I grab the bedside table and launch that next.
Without sight, the IV pole follows, whipping it towards a window and nearly shattering it from the force, the pinch from the needle being torn from my skin imperceptible.
My hearing goes after that as if I’m underwater and all sound is diluted. The tide batters into me, drawing me into its clutches and sending me spiraling down into the black pit of despair at the bottom.
My hands grab at more equipment, all of it crashing to the tile as anguish tears through my chest.
This is my fault.
All my fucking fault.
Just as I stand, muffled shouting arises, and I feel several sets of hands grab my body at once and shove me back down. I fight against their hold, continuing to roar, but my blindness works against me.
Straps circle around my wrists and chest, imprisoning me to the hospital bed.