Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(94)

I chuckled under my breath, setting my phone aside. I had to have looked at Nikki’s picture at least a thousand times since she’d sent it an hour ago.

“That I do.”

Still blew my mind that I did. That Nikki was mine.

My body rumbled with possession.

Every inch.

“She pretty? Let me see.”

Old pervert.

Amusement swimming through me, I started wiping down the bar. “Hell no. Do I look like the kind of guy who shares my girl?”

His laughter was some kind of ridiculous guffaw and he smacked his hand on the wood. “Don’t reckon you do. Look like you’d tear a poor sucker limb from limb.”

“Sounds about right,” I said, grinning when I felt the presence standing across the bar from me.

I looked up.

Seth.

My smile started to widen until I caught the expression on his face.

I straightened. “Seth, man, what are you doing here?”

His voice was quiet, lined with a tremor. “Need to talk to you. In private.”

I tossed the rag onto the bar and hollered at Cece, who was manning the opposite end. “Watch things for a bit. I’ve got to step outside.”

“Sure thing, boss.”

I wound around the end of the bar and followed Seth. He headed straight down the back hall, passing by the sign that read: Employees Only.

Could feel the disturbance radiating from him, riding on the air that suddenly felt too fucking thick.

My breaths grew hard, and my heart fisted in an unknown sort of pain when he blew out the big metal door and into the vacant back lot.

Only thing back there were the employees’ cars and the dumpster the kitchen used.

Humidity slapped me in the face, but it was Rex standing with his back pressed to the brick exterior wall, his head rocking up and down and his fists shoved deep in his pockets, that felt like a punch to the gut.

My attention swung back to Seth. “What’s going on?”

His eyes squeezed shut. “I’m breaking a thousand rules by doing this, but I needed to tell you before you heard it somewhere else.”

Tension stretched across my chest.

Pulling and pulling.

Any harder and it would rip me right in half.

“What?” I had to force out the word.

Seth hesitated, looking to the ground, inhaling deep. Sympathy shaded his eyes when he looked back up at me. “You know they started excavation down on Row.”

I glanced over at Rex, confusion so thick I was having a hard time seeing through it, before I swung my gaze back to Seth. “Yeah, of course, I know. Rex said everything was given the go and the permits had been approved.”

Seth blew out a strained breath, a bluster of hesitation coming off him.

Overwhelming waves.

“Ollie.” There was nothing but pity in the word.

Could feel Rex flinch from the side.

Foreboding ridged like ice skating down my spine.

“What the fuck is goin’ on, man?

Seth blinked, and the words came from his mouth like a slow purge. “A body was unearthed at the work site.”

My knees gave with the blow, and my hand shot out, catching on the wall. I shoved it down and gritted my teeth. “What’s that got to do with me?”

The words might as well have been darts.

Sharp as arrows.

Denial and defense.

Seth’s brow twisted, lines distorting his face, and his words were a choked breath. “They’re speculating they’re Sydney’s remains.”

“No.” My head shook, and my lips pursed as I rejected the idea. “No.”

Seth reached out and set his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ollie. I know you always hoped for a miracle.”

Hoped for a miracle.

Hoped that my sister was still alive.

That someone hadn’t buried her like she was trash.

Blood.

Dirt.

Bones.

I gasped for nothing. My lungs no longer functioning.

Seth edged back, and his attention jumped between Rex and me. “God, I’m sorry. This is the last kind of news I want to deliver. I’ll give you guys some privacy. If I find out anything, I promise, you’ll be the first to know.”

He turned, and I stood stock still, watching him jog away.

Frozen.

Brittle.

It only sent a crack running down the middle of me that I knew would shatter me in a million unrecognizable pieces.

Rex groaned a devastated sound. “Fuck, Ollie . . . I—”

I flew around to face him. “It’s not her.”

Grief blistered across his face, through his red-rimmed eyes. Etched and carved and wrecked. He pushed from the wall, approaching me carefully.

“It was her, man. The foreman . . .” He blinked a bunch of times. Like he couldn’t see through the horror wracking my mind. “He called me away from the architect when they uncovered something.”

My head shook.

Rejection.

I didn’t want to hear it.

I just couldn’t make the words from on my tongue.

“I ran over there . . . thinking it was gonna be an old sewer system or something like that and they needed my direction.”

He pressed both his hands over his face. His voice cracked on a cry. “The necklace, the one your mom gave her for her sixteenth birthday, it was there with the remains.”