Page 79 of Ruthless Salvation
I lifted my middle finger in the air, knowing security cameras likely captured my exit. I wasn’t interested in hiding. Let the fucker come for me. I’d be waiting.
* * *
Almost an hour later,I was walking into the lobby of Keir’s apartment building when my phone rang with a call from an unknown number. I answered, curious if my suspicions were correct.
“Byrne here.”
“Mr. Byrne. I appreciate you taking my call.” It was Karpova, probably trying to send his own message by getting my number so quickly.
“Not at all. I was expecting you.”
“You can hardly blame me. That was quite a message you sent, but my question for you is, what next? I have nothing more here that you can threaten or take, but you…”
I had to hand it to him. He had the intrigued psychopath tone down to a science. Keir could be eerily stoic, but this guy was in a whole other class.
“There’s always your life,” I reminded him.
“I would like very much to see you try.” Genuine eagerness licked at his words.
“I doubt that. I’m a man of conviction. As you’ve seen, I follow through with my threats.”
“Mr. Byrne,” he started with a hint of impatience setting in. “Give me my wife, or you will live to regret it. I can promise you that.”
Hiswife?
I had to fight back a crippling wave of shock. He couldn’t know how profoundly he’d shaken me.
“So you can beat her to a bloody pulp? I don’t think so. Didn’t your mother teach you better than that?”
“You have twenty-four hours to give me myfuckingwife. I will not tell you again.”
The line clicked dead, the sound of his fury buoying me.
His wife.
Stormy had married fucking Karpova and hadn’t told me. He wasn’t just an ex. He was her fuckinghusband. Why the fuck hadn’t she told me? What more was she holding back?
If I had any chance of keeping her alive, I needed to know the goddamn truth—all of it.
I looked at the elevator and contemplated going upstairs, but I was too keyed up from my night and Karpova’s little revelation. I’d end up saying something I’d regret. Instead, I went back to my car and set out to relieve the tension pulsing behind my temples.
His fuckingwife.
Present
Despite my exhaustion,I woke up three times in the night, hoping Torin had returned. He never did. I had no missed calls or texts. Feeling a twinge of panic filter into my bloodstream, I decided to check in with him.
Me: U ok?
I made sure the ringer was on and lay in the dark, hoping for a reply. The next thing I knew, I was waking a fourth and final time to the smell of breakfast cooking.
Torin hadn’t replied.
I quickly got moving in the hopes that he might have come back and slept on the couch to keep from waking me. I found Rowan and Keir together in the kitchen. Rowan stood at the stove frying sausage while Keir sat at the table, sipping coffee. Both had their eyes on a small kitchen television showing a news program.
“Good morning,” I greeted them.
Both were so engrossed that they hadn’t noticed me join them.