Page 60 of Widow's Walk
“Haven’t found her yet.” And I don’t think we will. At least not here.
He’s silent for too long. “You should have told her.”
Yeah, no shit.
“I have to ask you, Blackwell. Is it worth it?”
I halt in my steps. “Of course it’s worth it. She’s wortheverything,” I answer so hurriedly as if the words have been waiting on the tip of my tongue to spill out at the right moment.
“So, this is your decision.”
“Yes.” I start moving again.
“You understand the position this puts us in,” he tries to remind me.
“I do.”
He sighs before speaking again. “Well, she didn’t have much of a head start,” he points out. “We’ll find her.”
She wasn’t supposed to find out this way. Not without hearing it from me. That I had no intention of going through with it. There could never be anyone else. Not for me. Not in this life or the next. It was always Sinclair.
But she knows, and now she’s gone. Every minute she’s out there, exposed and vulnerable, her life is on the line. The thought of someone getting their hands on her first punches a hole through my chest.
No matter how far she runs, how well she hides, I will find her.
And God help anyone who stands in my way.
Chapter twenty-four
Blackwell
It’s been months without her.
No contact. No leads. No sightings. Just left reaching for her in the middle of the night, only to come up empty. Her side of the bed, cold to the touch. Left chasing shadows.
It isn’t the fact that she left without a trace. Or that she ran from me. It’s the fact that I still have no clue what goes on in that beautiful, twisted head of hers that is the most infuriating of all. That she can so easily play me.
She led me to believe she was oblivious. She gave absolutely nothing away. No cracks. Never wavered. She knew, and yet she withheld her reaction. Bottled up her vengeance. She kissed me back with every kiss. Shook with every orgasm. Curled into my side when she slept.
I’ve kept eyes on her family’s estate around the clock, thinking that’s where she may have run to take cover, but there hasn’t been any detection of her. We haven’t flat-out asked the Ortizs ifshe’s there, in case she’s not. They don’t need to know that she’s out there somewhere. No one does.
Once word gets out, there’ll be a pretty price on her head from all their enemies.
As predicted, when we informed the Bozzellis that there would be no marriage arrangement between our families, the deal was taken off the table. There hasn’t been anything brought forward about whether they went to another family or not. But it doesn’t matter.
Deal or no deal, it’s time to rid the world of the Ortizs. Sinclair excluded. Tonight is the night.
We come with no mercy. The Ortiz estate folds like paper. The gates are breached, the perimeter swallowed by our men like a tide rolling in to cleanse the land. Their men scatter like roaches when the floodlights slice through their manicured façade.
Screams echo, ripping through the dead of night. Gunfire cracks from all ends.
I stare up at the highest point of the house, half expecting to see Sinclair there, perched like a queen with a bag of popcorn, watching us dismantle her past with wicked delight. But only the ghost of her remains.
By the time I step foot in the foyer, the fight is already over.
Smoke still lingers from the flashbangs. Blood streaks with boot prints cover the marble floor. Windows are shattered, and doors hang from their hinges. Taking on the look of what this place has always been.
A well-decorated grave.
