Page 111 of Believe it or Knot

I don’t think too hard about why that might be.

I frantically search the small space, already knowing it’s empty, but unable to stop myself. My harried gaze picks up pieces of the scene, the knocked over furniture, the broken glass, the back door standing wide open. Upstairs in her bedroom, the bed sheets are ripped from the mattress, her clothes are strewn around the room, and that damn purple unicorn Rafe won for her is split open, the stuffing pulled out and littering the space like some kind of macabre snow.

I take heaving gasps of air, unable to regulate my emotions or my breathing.

When I was running special ops for the army, I was always the calm one, the cool and collected one. I kept my head under fire and could always, always maintain a level head.

This lack of control in a crisis is new for me. Volatile.

But then, everything regarding Sorrel is too volatile for me, too much. Too possessive. Too protective. Too in love with her to see reason. Too selfish with her to share.

This isn’t helping. Standing here, losing my goddamn mind, isn’t helping.

It takes a while, but I slowly detach myself from my emotions, from this being Sorrel that’s missing. I force my mind to think about this as just another operation. This isn’t Sorrel’s house. Those aren’t her clothes. And that isn’t her songbook ripped to shreds.

She’s safe and sound, and I have a job to do.

Focus, Gage. Fucking Focus. What do you see? What do you smell?

I run my eyes over everything again, this time emotionally detached, the scene playing out in my head with some faceless woman as the victim. Not my Sorrel.

I take a deep breath and note that all the scents in the house are stale. A few hours old. Sorrel’s lavender, Sylvie’s honeyed nectarines, Sadie’s cherry pie and a fourth that’s barely detectable. It smells of chemicals. Like an air freshener. Whoever was here must have used scent dampeners and then used an imitation scent, just in case.

I frown when I realize that the three scents I recognize are older. Whoever was here lingered after she was out of the house. I look around the destruction again, seeing it with fresh eyes…

Maybe they did all of this after they took her, maybe…

I cut off the thought, my eyes landing on the stupid purple unicorn. It didn’t need to be torn apart. I doubt whoever did this was looking for something. From what I can tell, nothing was stolen. The TV is still on the wall. Her guitar is propped against the bookshelf.

A glance out the window shows her recording studio outback is untouched.

That purple unicorn being disemboweled feels like a message, a warning.

So now I’m gonna go have a conversation with the people who gave it to her.

I storm into the Cordova pack house with my gun in my fucking hand like a lunatic. I know I shouldn’t, that Rafe is just as likely to shoot me down as he is to disarm me, but I am beyond giving a fuck.

The three Cordovas blink as I stride right up to Grayson and slam the barrel of the gun against his forehead. I keep my finger off the trigger, but that doesn’t mean I won’t shoot the asshole if he’s hurt Sorrel.

Rafe has his gun out and pointed at me in an instant. I don’t even know where he got it from, and I don’t fucking care. “Where is she?” I snarl at the alpha in front of me. “I swear to fuck if you fucking hurt her…” I let the threat linger as Liam’s cheesecake scent turns acrid with fear. It takes everything in me to not immediately soothe him. My alpha screams at me to make it right, but I can’t give in to instincts when Sorrel needs to be my focus.

“How the hell did you get in?” Rafe growls, but I ignore him. He’s just the muscle. Grayson is the fucking brains and if they did something to Sorrel as retribution for a perceived slight, the plan came from him. I’ve done my research. As soon as I realized they were interested in my girl, I looked into every aspect of their lives and what I found was a bunch of shady deals and missing bodies.

Grayson’s brother, Luca, might be a criminal and part of the Falcone pack, but Grayson’s hands are just as dirty. Rafe’s too.

“Where is she?” I repeat. Gray doesn’t flinch, but Liam’s scent is getting even more bitter, anxiety and fear flooding the space.

“We don’t know where she is,” the omega says frantically. “We’ve been trying to reach her. But we can’t fucking find her to apologize for how we treated her. We want to make it right, but she’s not answering.”

His words ring of the truth and I’m inclined to believe him, but he’s an actor. He could just be that convincing. I keep my gaze on Grayson, waiting for him to tell me the same. He nods slowly, his forehead pressing harder to the barrel of my gun as he does. “It’s true. It became apparent someone manipulated us into believing the worst of her. We need to find her to apologize.”

Rafe has lowered his gun, but he still has it in his hands. “Why did you think Sorrel was here?”

My jaw tightens and releases, making my teeth ache before I lower my gun, too. “You have a tendency to eviscerate your enemies,” I say without tiptoeing around the matter. “The last woman who got close enough to break your hearts… you ruined her.”

Liam stares at me, wide eyed. “Because she drugged Gray and tried to bond him against his fucking will. She pushed him into a rut using illegal omega pheromones and then begged for him to claim her. She deserved whatever they did to her.”

I arch a brow at him. “What did Sorrel deserve? Did she deserve for you to abandon her at the first sign that she might not be the shining girl up on the pedestal you thought she was? Did she deserve to have you rub Hollis Grailess in her fucking face?”

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