Page 84 of Wrecked By You

I should have known better. I should have remembered how she’d acted at our first meeting. How skittish she’d been, her relief when I’d offered to pay her in cash. The fear lodged deep in her eyes. How shuttered she became whenever I mentioned Chloe’s father.

And as soon as the private detective had told me he’d found out her real name using some kind of facial recognition technology that I didn’t understand, and uncovered a marriage certificate but no divorce certificate, I’d seen red. Kingcaid’s didn’t cheat, and nor were we homewreckers. Dad had drummed that into each of us since we’d gone on our first dates as teenagers. Yet Ella—Eloise—had forced that upon me without my knowledge.

But if I had an ounce of common sense, I’d have paused and asked myself why she had kept her marital status a secret. Why she was hiding from him. So far, I knew very little other than his name, Mateo Fernandez, and that he lived in Oklahoma. It wasn’t him I was interested in. It was her. Regardless, I’d asked the detective to keep digging and see what he could come up with. The more knowledge I had, then the better equipped I was to help Ella.

Fuck it.

I wouldn’t lose her. Not over this. Everything was fixable.

I rose to my feet and exited through the sliding doors and back onto the Strip. Fifteen minutes later, I walked into Kingcaid Las Vegas. My heart thudded as I strode down the hallway toward our suite, the mixture of hurt and outrage on her face as we’d argued nipping at my insides.

“Ella,” I called out as I entered. “We need to t—”

Pain exploded in my head, and I found myself sprawled on the carpet. Something wet dripped down my face. I touched it, looking at my fingers. Red. Blood. I leapt to my feet.

Two men came toward me. Meaty fists rather than sharp knives. Las Vegas rather than London.

But my brain couldn’t separate the two.

I froze.

My heart rate rocketed, causing shooting pains to race across my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath.

Move! Do something.

My body refused to obey. It was six years ago, and once again, I was outnumbered, helpless, and at the mercy of another.

No.

Not again.

Never again.

I wasnothelpless. And I refused to go down without a fight.

I braced myself, my belligerent stare daring them to take me on, my legs apart, my hands clenched into fists.

They made their move.

And I made mine.

I lost count of the punches I took and how many I threw. Tangled legs and arms and blood. Pain. And still I refused to go down, to let them win. To letherwin.

Fuck you, Sadie. Fuck. You.

Ella. This was to do with Ella. But she wasn’t Sadie. Not her. She was different.

Where is she?This was her husband’s doing. I was convinced of it. I felt myself weakening. Running out of time. One last push. One last try. I threw myself at the man closest to me. He fell against the other one, and the two of them crashed into the thick wooden coffee table in the center of the living room.

Crack.

Stillness.

Not moving.

Blood ran into my eyes, turning my vision red. I fell to my knees, my head swimming.Don’t pass out. Stay alert.I shook my head. Agony shot through my skull.Ow. No shaking. I crawled across the room to the house phone. I picked it up.

“Send help,” I gasped into the handset.