“Ending this once and for all.”
I hear a shot, and then the darkness takes me.
Chapter Fifteen
Wyatt
“Where are they?!”
My pulse is pounding after an hour of searching the house, only to find that my Ellie is nowhere to be found and that Aunt Lynn and Jerry are missing, as well.
I’d left earlier to rush to a meeting, a last-minute urgent call from one of my execs, only to get home and discover that Ellie is missing.
That can only mean one thing, and the thought of something happening to her because I fell for Jerry’s bullshit and let him into our home…
“Son, calm down now. Let’s go look at the security tapes and then we’ll figure out what’s going on,” Pop says quietly, his hand squeezing my shoulder when I threaten to start tearing the place apart brick by brick.
“Bro, do not lose it now. Your woman needs you, not an out-of-control lunatic. Pull yourself together. We will find her and that jackass Jerry.”
“If he’s hurt her, I swear to God I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands,” I snarl, regretting my words when I hear Ma gasp.
“It’s not him!”
Roman runs in, breathless and looking like he hasn’t slept in days, his hair and clothes dishevelled and unkempt.
“What the fuck, Roman? Of course it’s him. I should have never—”
“No, Wyatt, look at the tapes and I’d bet my next paycheck the culprit is Lynn. I just cracked that e-mail that was sent to Charlie Pyle and it came from a dummy e-mail address that led me to her IP. It’s been Lynn all along.”
The silence that descends is deafening, and I hear Dad’s uneven breaths wheezing in and out a minute before he goes pale and clutches at his chest.
“George!”
We’re all on him in a heartbeat as he grimaces and his face turns a mottled shade of red.
“He’s having a heart attack! Jace, call 9-1-1! Jude, move back. Goddammit, Jared, hold your mom while I take a look at him. Wyatt, snap out of it, asshole, and go look at the tapes. Miah, go with him and find Ellie.”
I’m numb when my brother pulls me away and starts moving me toward the security room. I’m not seeing a thing when Miah finally pulls up security footage and starts running through it.
I finally come to when he slaps me across the face and starts yelling curses at me, and then I see it. Ellie walking with Lynn, collapsing. Jerry running toward them where she fell at the tree line.
There is a scuffle that Lynn wins, as shocking as it seems, and then she aims the gun at him and shoots before two armed men come tearing her way. One grabs my unconscious Ellie, while the other starts dragging Jerry into the woods and dumping him there.
“Come on!”
We’re running and in the trees in under two minutes where we find Jerry, unconscious and barely breathing. There is no sign of Lynn or Ellie.
I want to say that I’m the hero that tears off into the trees and magically finds Ellie, but I can’t. Instead, I help Miah carry poor Jerry back to the house where the ambulance EMTs are working on Dad while Roman tries to stop the bleeding from the bullet my uncle took to the shoulder.
“What the hell?”
“She shot him. She had two guys who came out of the woods and grabbed Ellie. She must have drugged her…Goddammit, Ellie can’t take sedatives of any kind.”
I remember how sick she was all through that first night after I drugged her and took her to Gardner’s house. She’d puked and shivered as if fighting off a raging fever before the drugs had left her system, and that had only been a light dose.
What if Lynn gave her too much?
Stop, Wyatt, just stop thinking that way and focus.
“They have Ellie.”
Roman finally ties off Jerry’s wound and lets the EMT take care of him before rising to his feet.
“We need to find her, man. I broke into her shrink’s office and read her file, and that woman has got some really negative thoughts about Ellie. Why the shrink didn’t report her as dangerous is beyond me, but I’d lay odds that she’s in mortal danger with that woman. Lynn will kill her, Wyatt.”
My blood runs cold and my knees threaten to give out again, but I keep it together by sheer force of will and turn to Jared.
“There’s only one place I can think of that she’d take her, bro, God willing I’m right and we’re not going on a wild goose chase.”
“I agree. I’ll call Case and have him get the jet ready. Miah, stay with Ma. Jace, Roman, you ready?”
I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life and leave my parents unprotected and my father at death’s door to go and find Ellie before that wolf in sheep’s clothing can end my life as I know it.