Perfect Ruin (Unyielding #2)(65)

My gaze slid to the chair I’d sat in the day I’d brought London here and waited for her to wake. Then to the bathroom where I saw her toothbrush sitting in the holder on the counter. I walked across the room, into the bathroom then ran my thumb over the bristles—dry.

The idea that Vault had found my house, found London…

I swiped my arm across the counter top sending everything flying into the wall then crashing to the floor. I stormed out of the bathroom, pulled my cell from my back pocket and tapped the code then contacts then went to hit Dr. Westbrook’s number.

I stopped.

Mistakes. That was exactly what rage did. Reacting without thinking and that was what I’d nearly done. Calling her father was a mistake. Vault knew every incoming number and every outgoing number on his phone.

“Fuck, London. Where the hell are you?”

I switched phones, tapped, and then held it to my ear. He picked up on the first ring. I interrupted his ‘what’s up’ with, “She’s gone. Need eyes on the street.”

“Okay. How long?” Ernie asked.

I walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out the milk and read the stamped date on the top. Expired six days ago. I tossed it into the sink. “I left thirteen days ago. Could be gone since then.”

“She have wheels?”

“No.”

“Take me five hours to fly there.”

I frowned. “Where the f*ck are you?” Since London had been with me, I hadn’t spoken to Ernie. He’d said he was taking some time, meaning he was going somewhere hot and lying on the beach doing f*ck all except women. “Just get here. I’m calling in my marker with Deck on this.”

I hung up.

Deck suspected Connor was alive. Deck, who Chaos was in love with. Deck, who had been a pain in my ass. But Deck had skills and I’d use them. I’d use anyone and anything to get her back.

I walked into the living room, pushed the couch aside and crouched. My palms slid over the hardwood until I felt the slight indent. I pulled out my knife, stabbed it between the two pieces of hardwood where the dip in the floor was and peeled back one of the boards.

I reached inside and pulled out the leather satchel that held my numerous fake passports and all the paperwork I hid from Vault, including the deed to the house. I grabbed the larger knapsack that had a few of my knives, and cash. It wasn’t my only cash because I didn’t like it all in one place, but it was enough.

Then I grabbed the last bag. A bag I never wanted to use, but the reality was London may not have run away or gone to see her father. There was a third possibility. Despite there being no indication of a struggle, Vault could’ve found my house. Found her.

I unzipped the last bag and carefully pulled out the device.

No attachments.

No ties to anything.

But it was too late for that. Maybe a couple of months ago this would’ve been easy, but as I set the device and placed it on the coffee table, tightness gripped my chest.

She lingered here and part of me didn’t want to destroy that. No, not part of me—all of me.

I stood, snagged the two bags, the heavy one slung over my shoulder and started for the door.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

I threw open the door and walked out.

The sound of my steps on the patio stones were steady and casual, matching the thump of my heart. This is what I needed to do.

I folded into my car, turned the key and the engine came to life. Then I slowly drove down the driveway.

I glanced once in the rear-view mirror just as the ground rumbled beneath the car and there was a loud boom.

Pieces of the house lifted into the air with flames. Black smoke billowed into the sky. I stopped at the road and watched in the mirror as the house burned.

It was the destruction of the rage. Destruction of what one girl made me feel for the first time in my life.

I had to burn the emotions and find the calm again.

Because if I didn’t, the rift was going to split and there’d be nothing left of me. The darkness would be all consuming and even London’s lightness wouldn’t be able to bring me back.





Present Day

France



MOTHER WAS DEAD.

I killed her and all I felt was relief and satisfaction.

Fuckin’ dead and maybe I was just as bad as her because I’d enjoyed watching her flounder as she struggled to breathe with the wire tight around her delicate throat. I liked how her fingernails dug into the backs of my hands as she clawed and raked at me, at the wire, at her neck, her eyes begging.

I’d begged at one time, too. As a kid, I’d begged for the pain to stop. Begged her not to kill my father. Begged night after night for my sister to be saved from the farm. Begging did f*ck all.

Mother destroyed what a child was born with—innocence. The power hungry bitch had turned Vault into an organization about supremacy and control using any means to get it and, in the process, changed the beliefs it was built on. Her vision corrupted its path and I’d been a part of that.

I walked down the darkened corridor. My dress shoes a drum on the hard cement floors, like the music before a death scene in a movie. Echoing. Loud. Solitary.

It reminded me of the day I walked the corridor in Vault’s Toronto house after Deck, his men, and me rescued Georgie from Tanner in the shed. The day I saw her in the cell. When I heard London’s cries.