Page 42 of Wild Devil

“Daze, for fuck’s sake. I know you’re worried about her, but you need to listen?—”

“Get the fuck off me, Ben. Or so help me God, I won’t hold back.”

“Listen to yourself,” Ben shouts, his tone firm. “Think. You’ll just get yourself killed acting like this, or do you really not give a damn about her at all?”

That final jab reaches me, and I go limp. He’s right. Not that it fucking matters.

“She’s dead,” I croak. “You heard them.”

“No one’s dead until the fat lady sings,” Damien says. He’s one of the men that releases me, his hands raised. Beside him, I see Marco who takes a step back. “We do this, then we do it right. I know you got your girl in there, but right now, it’s a hotbed. You hear that?” He cocks his head, listening.

“I don’t hear shit,” I say.

“Exactly. No fire sirens. No ambulances. No paramedics. That means they want this mess locked down tight, even if the bastard’s daughter could be in that ruin. Why do you think that is?”

He’s right. Panting, I look around and take stock of the obvious. It’s too quiet. There isn’t even a helicopter in the fucking sky to survey the damage. Judging from the smoldering remnants of the house, they’ve just let the motherfucker burn with no attempts to quash the blaze. I’m angry at the thought, but then I push it aside to see it from the perspective of a detached mercenary.

“They don’t want this getting out,” I say thickly. The smell of smoke is thick even from here. “Whatever they had here… They don’t want it known, not even by the fire department or police.”

“Exactly,” Ben says, stroking his chin. He moves to crouch beside me and paws at the damp ground before us. “The place went up fast. Definitely arson. Must have been set from the inside.”

“God, no…” I keep hearing the guard’s words echoing in my head. The door was fucking locked. The door was fucking locked. “Fuck, Frey.” My knees buckle under me. It feels as if someone kicked me in the chest, then pulled out a pistol to finish the job.

I imagine her trapped in the mangled remains of that house. All because I took so long to play detective. She needed me here. I should have never let her go.

“Day, I’m going to try and get a better vantage point—” Ben ducks beneath the branches of a nearby tree, heading toward the outskirts of the house. “I’ll see how many guards there are. If we play this right, we might be able to take them on and get to the house.”

“I don’t give a shit.” I shrug off the grief and let the bitter rage wash over me, giving me the strength to stand. “I’m going in there.”

“Well, just give us five minutes, Day,” Damien says while scanning the area. “Can you give us that? For now, you take two guys and check the road. We’ll clear the house. You’ll get to her, no matter where she is, you have my word on that.”

Several seconds later, Ben emerges from a thicket of trees, panting. “Come on, Day,” he says, nodding toward the manor. “The coast seems clear. Let’s see if any of those assholes are waiting in the woods.”

I don’t need to be told twice.

Following him, I tear through the narrow clearing that surrounds the property’s outskirts. This place would have been fancy as hell in its heyday, a place where Frey would have belonged. It’s the kind of home I could never give her.

Another crushing wave of guilt makes me grunt at the thought. If she really went up in that blaze…

The only way I can keep moving is to turn my brain off. Tuning into every sound and twitch of tree branches rustling in the wind, I focus on listening. Only a few yards from the road, I hear a noise that makes me curl my fists in anticipation—advancing footsteps. They’re soft, aiming for stealth, but nowhere near quiet enough. Some professional fucking guards they are. In lieu of fighting the fire and searching for survivors, they prefer to traipse through the woods.

I speed up, my nostrils flared, as I try to catch one of them unaware. There. I spy a lone figure picking their way through the trees—the first sign that my suspicion was off base. Still, I pivot to cut off their only escape and rush them from behind. Before I even touch them, more oddities stick out—despite being dressed in bulky, black material, they don’t appear to be armed. As my arm goes around their waist, their scent hits me full in the chest. I’d know it anywhere, delicate, and soft, so out of place above the stench of smoke that I know I’ve gone insane.

She really did die, and now I’m seeing her ghost, dressed in some billowing black dress that spills out from a pale blue coat. Even worse, I’m holding her in my arms. That’s how far my mind has wandered. The sad part is that I don’t even care. If this is what insanity is, I would rather be psychotic than face anything else.

She feels so warm that I can’t stop touching her, spinning her around to face me. Throughout her entire body, I can feel her pulse throbbing. Even her lips, though swollen in the pale moonlight filtering through the branches overhead, are wet and pink, but her skin…

That beautiful supple skin I once remarked belonged only on an angel, is now covered in blood.

Fresh blood.

Suddenly, her lips part. “Daze?”

Her hoarse, broken voice is what finally sinks in. She isn’t a figment of my imagination. Holy fuck, she’s real. Frey is alive, but barely. It’s like she’s blind, staring into nothing as her eyes meet mine. Even when I brush the hair from her face, she rarely blinks. When I lift her into my arms, she remains limp as if all will to fight is gone.

“I’m here, baby,” I say against her scalp, stroking through her damp hair. She doesn’t smell like smoke. Just fresh air, sweat, and blood. “I’m here. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe?—”

Another figure appears from the shadows, but I can tell right away that they aren’t a guard. However, they could still cause some damage with what looks like a stick, brandished above their head in a trembling grip.

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