I hesitated, not wanting to know what the words written in Stella’s graceful handwriting would tell me. If I didn’t acknowledge them, it couldn’t be real. Right?
Growing the fortitude to see what she’d written, I unfolded the note with shaky hands, gazing over each graceful loop of her words. I felt tears of rage building as I took in her final plea.
Max,
I love you, with all that I am, and all that I hope to be. But, before you, came a little girl who shares the beat of my heart. I can’t sit by and wait to lose her. I hope you understand and can forgive me when all of this is through. I’m going to get our girl.
Love always,
Stella
I reread the note with the hope that this was all a bad dream, clutching onto the final words of the woman I loved so fiercely. She’d sacrificed herself to go after her daughter, our daughter.
I crumpled the note into a ball, throwing it across the room with a frustrated groan.
Stella had spent so long fighting alone that she couldn’t sit by and wait for someone else to make something happen. She was used to taking matters into her own hands, even to her detriment.
I wanted to hate her for putting herself in danger. I wanted to rage, throw things, break down doors, and run guns blazing into that warehouse to save them.
But, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t hate Stella for choosing Charlie. I couldn’t hate her for being so jaded that she couldn’t sit behind while someone else did the legwork of saving her entire world, our entire world.
I couldn’t hate the woman with a single bitter bone in my body, but I refused to let her do this alone.
Snatching my phone off my nightstand, I pressed re-dial on the last number to ring through. A gruff voice croaked with sleep on the other side of the phone.
“Stella’s gone. She’s gone after Charlie.” I managed to grit into the receiver.
“Max, what are you talking about?” Sheriff Cortez asked, clearing the thick haze of exhaustion from his voice. “I’ve got two officers on detail over there now. They would have alerted me that she was there.”
“I don’t give aFUCKwho you have sitting outside of that warehouse. Stella isn’t here, and she left a note saying she’s going to get Charlie.” I spat.
I could hear furious typing on the other end as he attempted to reach the deputies in charge of staking out the building. I’m sure they weren’t going to have jobs after all this was through, but to Stella’s credit, she was crafty. She knew how to keep a low profile. She’d been dutifully doing it with Dean for years.
“Por el amor de Dios,” He grumbled. “Max..”
“She’s there, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” he stated matter-of-factly. “But..”
I could sense he was going to try to talk me out of going after them, but I wasn’t going to hear it. Stella has spent too long without someone in her corner. I needed to be there.
I knew Sheriff Cortez was doing all that he could to get Charlie back, but Stella wouldn’t trust anyone until she could put her own two eyes on her daughter. She was going to go in there and get herself killed, unless we did something, and fast.
“With all due respect, sir, those two are my entire world. I’m not going to sit by while some crazy fucking drug dealers do God knows what to them.” I said, hopping out of the bed and reaching for the side table to grab my firearm.
Sliding the drawer open, I noticed its vast emptiness and sent up a silent thanks Stella had armed herself before heading into the lion’s den. Pride echoed through my chest and I fell even more in love with the woman.
“Emmanuel?” I asked, his silence a testament to how I’d stunned him with my admission.
“Yes, Max?”
“You might want to call in a few more deputies to meet you over at that warehouse, because if I go in there, every mother fucker in that building, except my girls, are getting a bullet between the eyes, and I won’t think twice about pulling that trigger.”
With that, I hung up the phone and slid it into my back pocket. I walked down the hallway and across the other side of the house, banging loudly on Wade’s door.
I was going to need reinforcements. As much as I hated dragging him into this, he wouldn’t want to be excluded. He loved Stella and Charlie just as much as I did. We were a family.
