Page 82 of Ruthless Salvation

I’d met grown-assthugs who couldn’t throw shade the way that cat could. It was like the damn thing knew something had happened when I showed up at my place without Stormy.

He sat on the dresser, ears back and tail swooshing, while I tried to go to sleep, which was hard enough when my own guilt set in. I nearly shit myself when I woke up to find him looming over me.

“I get it,” I grumbled, rolling away from him. “I overreacted, but that was a pretty huge oversight on her part. You gotta at least give me that.”

The cat started laughing at me.

My eyes flew open. How the fuck was the cat laughing? Cats don’t laugh.

I whipped my head around just in time for the little monster to cough up a giant hairball on my pillow.

Jesus fucking Christ.

He wasn’t laughing. He’d been puking.

“Motherfucker, that stinks. You hairy piece of shit. You had to do that on my goddamn pillow?” If Storm didn’t love that thing so much, I would have tested the nine lives theory and sent him flying over the balcony. Instead, I stomped into the kitchen for paper towels and cleaned up the mess.

I needed to get up anyway and go see Storm. She’d probably been worried while I’d had my head up my ass sulking. I couldn’t help it. I had a hair trigger when it came to honesty. The second I detected a lie, my first reaction was to cut and run. Most of the time, that practice served me well. I didn’t need liars in my life.

But the world wasn’t black and white, and not every lie was necessarily bad. Storm was just as gun-shy to trust people as I was. As much as it hurt to have her keep something so important from me, I couldn’t be angry, and I needed to tell her that.

I tossed some food into the cat’s dish, hoping to bribe the thing into cutting me some slack, then jumped in the shower. I was only in for a minute when my phone began to wail.

It was the new alarm I’d set up. Storm had breached the digital perimeter I’d designated around Keir’s building.

I was out of the shower in a heartbeat. Water dripped all over the floor as I checked the app and verified that her GPS location was on the move.

The fuck was going on? Keir had promised to keep her with him in the apartment.

I dialed Storm’s number, but the call went to voicemail. Next, I dialed Keir.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?” I barked.

“On the treadmill. Where the fuck are you?”

“You’re in your apartment?”

“Yeah, I told you we’d stay here. What the hell is going on?” His voice sobered.

“GPS says Storm is on the move. You sure she’s still there?”

I heard him start walking before I even asked.

“Shit,” he hissed. “Her room is empty.” Heavy footfalls echoed in the background. “She’s not with Rowan, and I don’t see her anywhere else.”

Fear unlike any I’d known clamped tight around my chest. “You think Karpova could have walked in there and taken her without you two knowing?”

I’d never forgive myself if he’d taken her while I was off wallowing in self-pity.

“I wouldn’t—” Keir paused, and I could hear Rowan’s voice in the distance. “Why the fuck would she do that?” he asked her.

“Do what?” I demanded.

Keir sighed. “Rowan says it’s not her place to say, but she thinks Storm may have run.”

Run? From me? Why?