Shattered King(70)

“Pancakes!” he yelled.

“I think you’ve created a pancake monster,” Lulu said, giggling beside me.

“No shit,” I mumbled and grinned over at her, heart so full I thought it might actually burst.

“Shit!” Josh mimicked.

Lulu’s smile vanished, and she narrowed her eyes. That was my cue to haul ass and go make the damn pancakes. I did it with a stupid-assed grin on my face the whole time.

After that, I had things to do, plans to make and shit to buy.

Lulu and I had lost more than enough time.

Tonight was the start of our lives together.

Lulu

I stared across the room at Hunter, phone to his ear. “Where?” he growled down the line. “He has to be there somewhere.” He was silent a moment. “Right.” Then he disconnected.

The happy bubble I’d been in burst and my fingers curled into tight fists. “Someone’s seen him, haven’t they?”

Hunter dipped his chin. He was hiding something, trying to protect me. I didn’t want to be kept in the dark. As much as I wanted to close my mind to it, I couldn’t, I refused to, not this, not anymore.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I persisted.

Hunter shoved his fingers through his hair, searching my face, no doubt wondering if I could handle the latest addition to this nightmare.

I stood and crossed the room to him. “I can take it, whatever you don’t want to tell me. I’m strong, you said it yourself. I’m done sitting in this apartment, letting things just . . . happen to me . . .” My anger rose. I wasn’t angry at Hunter; I was angry—furious—with Pierce. I was also done being his goddamn victim. “Tell me, Hunter. I won’t fall to pieces. I deserve to know.”

A spark of something warm ignited behind his eyes, something beautiful. It took the breath right from me.

“There she is,” he muttered.

“What?”

“My Lulu.” He slid his hands in my hair and leaned in, kissing me softly. “Is she back for good, or just a visit?”

My heart squeezed, but I refused to let him distract me. So I ignored how sweet and sexy he was being, along with his question. I wasn’t the old Lulu, not anymore, and I wasn’t the girl who’d been on the run for the last three years, either. I was some new mash-up of the two, trying to work out where I fit in, who I was. “I’m not going to back down.” I said.

“I know,” he said back, and there was pride shining down at me from his beautiful blue eyes.

I moved closer and cupped his jaw, his scruff teasing my palm. “Tell me.”

His fingers curled around the side of my neck, his thumb gliding across my cheek, offering comfort, trying to soften the blow he was about to deliver. “Pierce made an appearance at your mom’s funeral.”

I jerked in his arms, but he wouldn’t let go. “How dare he.” My anger shot higher, my fingers digging into Hunter’s biceps. “He didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her.” I felt my eyes prickle, not from sadness—from rage.

His thumb did another sweep across my cheek. “He was there for you, babe,” he said, laying it out.

Of course. The self-centred, sick asshole probably hadn’t even given my mom a second thought. Hate wasn’t a strong enough word for what I felt for Pierce.

“What happened?” I forced out.

“He got away, then last night we got a tip, but again he managed to vanish into goddamn thin air. Don’t know how he’s doing it, where the fuck he’s going, but he keeps giving us the slip. I want that fucker caught.”

“God, I just want this to end.” I rested my forehead against his chest, then looked back up at him. “The tip you got, where was he last seen?”

“Hunts Point.”

An ugly feeling, a memory, one I’d been supressing for a long time, slammed through me. My head spun, nausea curling in my gut. Oh God, I knew where he was. I dragged in a breath through my nose, my nails digging deeper into Hunter’s arms.

“What is it, Lulu? Talk to me.”

My eyes snapped up to his, “I know where he is,” I rasped. “I know exactly where he is. There’s an apartment building.”

“Do you know the street?”

I shook my head.

I stepped back and he let me, wrapping my arms around myself. “Pierce liked to gamble. An associate of his owned a run-down, shitty apartment building. A lot of the girls that worked for him, prostitutes, lived there. Pierce used to take me to the games.”

Hunter’s eyes got dark.

“There was always drinking and drugs, women, at the games . . .” I swallowed thickly. “I’ve worked so hard to push that place out of my head, I didn’t think of it. How could I have not thought of it?” I was babbling, but I knew, didn’t I? The reason I purposely hadn’t suggested going there, the reason I’d shoved it from my mind like it never existed.