“Can I do anything?” I asked hesitantly.
Dex’s eyes drifted up to mine, slowly. He was still pissed, I could tell, but he was trying to rein it in. “No, babe. We got this.”
“You sure? I don’t have very much money, but if that’s what they want, I’ll give you what I have to get him back,” I told him, feeling my chest constrict. This shit was straight out of an action movie, only this time I couldn’t be certain it would have a happy ending because life wasn’t always like that, unfortunately.
Dex looked at me for the longest before shaking his head and lowering his voice. “No, no. Don’t worry about that. It's not your money they want.”
I almost asked what the hell else they would want. I almost also asked who "they" were. But my survival instincts said this wasn’t the right time to ask so I bit back the questions and nodded at him.
“Babe, this place is about to get packed. Got any errands or something you can run before you go to the shop?” he asked me in that same soft tone he’d just used.
I didn’t but obviously he didn’t want me to be at the house when the other guys from the WMC showed up. But if it helped Sonny, then I’d move back to Fort Lauderdale or drive down to Venezuela if that’s what he wanted.
“Yeah, I can go do a few things.” I just didn’t know what.
His head tilted down so that he could look at me through his long, dark eyelashes. “All right. Already talked to Blake and he’s openin' with you instead of me but put my phone number in your cell so you can get in touch with me if you need to.” He pinned me with this concrete-like look, his tone attempting to be reassuring. “Don’t worry about Sonny. We’ll find him."
I wanted to believe him, but those were pretty much the same words Sonny had told me right before he’d let some assholes do who knows what to him.
~ * ~ *
“Babe.”
Make it stop.
“Babe.”
Oh God. Please. Stop.
I’d barely fallen asleep following an hour long staring contest versus the ceiling. The tension in my body after my shitty day had finally seeped out of my bones enough to let me relax. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Sonny. Kidnapped Sonny. Missing Sonny. Possibly injured Sonny. I wouldn’t let myself even think that something else could happen to him, but wasn’t that what people did in movies and in real life? Torture and… do other things?
I buried my face deeper into the pillow.
All day, I’d been worried sick. After Dex had pleasantly kicked me out of the house, I’d gone to the mall. I watched a matinee by myself at the theater to kill time until work while also distracting me just a little from the uneasy goldfish swimming around in my stomach. I couldn’t remember anything clearly, not the movie or the things I’d seen in the stores, or even the customer’s faces I’d helped throughout the day at Pins.
Blake and Blue must have known something was up because they’d been even nicer to me than usual. They gave me space by not asking a million questions I couldn’t answer but came by to sit with me silently each opportunity they had. I'd tried calling Dex a few times but he'd only answered the first time, sounding annoyed beyond belief but promising to call me if he found out anything. I never got such a call, so I called him again and got no answer.
Fucking Sonny.
The more I thought about what happened, the more pissed off I got. He’d known they were out there. The men hadn’t broken into the house and taken him. Sonny had to have walked out of the friggin’ house and gone to them. What the hell had he been thinking? Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who was an idiot.
So I stewed all day. Thinking about friggin’ Sonny and how much of a dumbass he was. Thinking about what reasons those men could want him for.
Sonny didn’t tell me enough about what he did when I wasn't around or when he magically disappeared at night, so I had no idea the kind of crap he got into. Mainly, it was blind trust between us. Neither one of us was used to having someone to answer to.
As soon as we closed down the shop that night, Blue had asked me if I needed anything—which was extra sweet because she rarely spoke to anyone, much less me—and then we’d all gone our separate ways. The thought of not going to Sonny’s hadn’t even entered my mind, so I drove straight there, showered again, forced myself to eat two-day-old leftovers, double-checked to make sure all the locks were secure, and went to bed. The bed where I tossed and turned for more than an hour before I somehow managed to fall asleep, pushing away that little voice that warned me here was someone else that I cared about that I could lose.
And now, I was quickly losing that sweet reprieve from reality.
“Honey, wake up,” someone whispered in the dark.
Someone?
Shit!
I knifed up in bed, my heart jack-hammering against its house of bones. I blinked away sleep, expecting to see one of the bikers, or I don’t know, a serial killer sitting on the bed next to me with his hands on my arm, thumbs making lazy circles on my skin.
“What the—!” I panted, blinking in the dark to see that strikingly familiar facial structure inches away.
“Chill, Ritz,” Dex murmured gently, thumbs still circling.
My hand flew up to press against the skin over my heart, willing it to slow down. “Jesus, you scared me,” I panted.
In true, normal Dex fashion he didn’t smile in amusement or apologize. "What are you doin' here?"
"Sleeping?"
He sighed. "Blake didn't get my text?"
What was he talking about? I shook my head.
“Get up,” he ordered. “You need to go talk to your bro before we get outta here.”
I blinked again slowly as his words settled in. Talk to my bro? "Sonny's here?" My voice hitched up.
Dex nodded. "He's packin' some shit up. Pack a bag so you don't have to come back here for a while, then go talk to him."
Confusion swamped me in a million different ways. Where was Sonny going? Where the hell was I going? But mainly, I was wondering what was going on, period. There was too much secrecy to make me feel good.
Like a good girl, I tried to focus on what to pack so I could figure things out as soon as possible. Luckily, I had enough good sense before falling asleep to keep a pair of sleep shorts on because I usually slept in just my underwear and a bra. Dex flicked the lamp on while I grabbed a bunch of random clothes from the dresser.
“Where was he?” I asked him while stuffing my duffel with what I’d absently picked. I couldn’t even look at Dex as I asked him the question, it made me too nervous. I'd ask if Sonny was fine but he wouldn't be home packing if he wasn't.
“County hospital.”
My spine snapped up to standing, the muscles along my back tensing. "What?" I'm pretty positive I screeched out the words.
"The county hospital, babe. Some lady found him by the park unconscious this mornin' and called in an ambulance for him," he explained.
Without even thinking about it, my legs became unglued and started leading me around the bed to skip the whole packing thing and find Sonny instead. But Dex held up his arm, blocking me from going around him. "Calm down, Ritz. He just had a little concussion, a few bruises. He's all right," he said softly. "Finish packin'."
What the ef constituted a little concussion?
I was going to be sick. Breathing in and out of my nose a few times, I looked up at Dex's eyes to see if I could catch a hint as to whether he was being honest with me or not. Those fathomless dark blue eyes were intent and clear in a challenge of the wills, like he could tell I was trying to catch him in a lie.
"He's okay," Dex insisted, nudging me back with the muscles of his forearm. "Finish up, babe."