Another wave of nausea hit me, only this time there was no stopping it. I had just enough energy to throw my body to the side, hurling the contents of my stomach onto the carpet.
At least you won’t be taking a trip to the hospital this time, Rachel!
And that one sentence was enough to have it all come flooding back. Remembering choking on my vomit on Dante’s bathroom floor was all the reminder I needed that Dante had done this to me.
Dante had been one step ahead of me. He was here, waiting for me. And fucking Vienna had drugged me.
And now they had my son.
Unlucky for him, I was one step ahead of him in this round, because this wasn’t my first time being drugged.
Alex had used roofies on me enough times for me to recognise what my body was currently withdrawing from. The confusion, the sore head, the nausea, dizziness, heavy tongue and lack of control over my limbs. They were all familiar to me. And if I remembered correctly, the side effects lasted around twelve hours.
I narrowed my eyes into slits, scanning the room for a clock and quickly saw that it was a few minutes past two.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees, and rocked backwards, hauling myself up so I was sitting on my bent legs, my feet under my ass, my hands on my knees, and mentally calculated the timeline.
I’d arrived at Hayley’s between four and five. It was still pitch black outside, so the clock had to be showing a.m., not p.m. Even if Dante hadn’t set off to Leeds straight away, more than enough time had passed that he was definitely back at the club by now. It would take me a minimum of four hours to get there, and I had to go back home first to get my car.
Which also meant that Dante had time to hide Axel. He knew I would come after him, and he knew I wouldn’t be far behind. It would be a small miracle if Axel was at the clubhouse waiting for me — if the clubhouse had even been rebuilt yet.
“Argh!” I screamed out loud, fisting my hair in frustration before I punched the carpet, immediately regretting my outburst as pain flared up my arm and sent a jolt of shock ricocheting through my pounding head.
I took a couple of deep breaths, forcing a calm I didn’t really feel into my body before I pushed myself to my feet—only to go falling back to the floor with a scream, scrambling backwards until I felt the sofa behind me, and used the arm of it to pull myself to my feet with shaky legs.
Oh, God… Hayley…
I spun around and emptied the contents of my stomach once more when I saw her. Her glassy eyes stared past me, mouth slack, a pool of congealed blood darkening the carpet beside her, and half the contents of her skull were on the floor next to her. I closed my eyes tight, desperately trying to ignore the image of the flies dancing around in her brain matter, greedily ingesting their next meal.
This is all my fucking fault. She deserved so much better than this…
Hayley had never harmed a soul in her life. She was the sweetest, most wonderful woman, and because she had made one foolish mistake, she paid the price with her life.
However, even though it made me feel like a heartless cunt, I couldn’t afford to care about her right now. Because the one person I loved more than anything was currently in the hands of a man who would do anything he could to keep him from me.
Would he, though?
Well… Maybe not. But he would put stipulations in place, and I didn’t need to hear them to know I wouldn’t fucking like them.
And like a lightbulb going off in my foggy brain, I suddenly remembered the scrap of paper given to me by Frank.
I bit my lip, my eyes glancing at the clock once more as I noted the late hour. But Frank had said anytime, hadn’t he? And I had little other choice. My legs were still shaky. I could barely support myself, let alone walk to my house to get my car keys.
Before I could doubt myself any further, I stumbled over to Hayley’s corpse, catching myself a few times as I almost fell over.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to her as I sank to my knees at her side, and rolled her over so I could search her jean pockets, quickly finding the phone I was looking for.
I crawled back over the carpet to the front door, remembering that was where I had left my backpack, and dug around until my fingers wrapped around the envelope Frank had given me.
With shaky hands, I typed in the number, counting the rings, praying to a God I didn’t even believe in that Frank had found the time to put the SIM card into a device.
“Hello?” came the groggy voice after what felt like a million rings, when in actual fact, it was around five. “Rachel?”
“Frank,” I sobbed with relief, with fear, with every damn emotion under the sun. “Frank, it all went fucking wrong. Dante… he… they… were waiting. They were already here.”
Get a fucking grip of yourself, woman! Since when have you ever allowed anyone to see you cry? Straighten your goddamn spine, sniff back those useless tears, and get your head in the fucking game!
I was right. Of course I was.
