Page 142 of Sunrise

“Hold up.” Knox’s voice tenses. “I didn’t send her flowers.”

I sit up in alarm. “What?”

“I didn’t fucking send her flowers, Alex.”

My immediate reaction is to load her security cameras and check her house. But the fucking system update is still at eighty-five percent, and I can’t use my computer until it’s complete. “Shit.SHIT!” Panicked, I stand, tipping my chair over and instantly pull up the feed from my cell.

“What is it?” Knox yells at me. “What the fuck’s going on, Vault?”

The playback glitches twice before I’m able to pull up her feed. I see a delivery driver at her door with a massive bouquet. They exchange a few words, and he hands them over then leaves immediately.

“Sunnyside Florist,” I say, reporting what I see on the side of the van. “The roses came from there.”

“Want me to go find out who sent them?” he asks.

“Hang on.” I speed up the playback. Sophie leaves through the front door, dressed for work. She wobbles a little when she goes down her steps. The sun glare hides her from me once she’s in her car. A man walks down the sidewalk from the right side of the camera.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, watching this play like a fucking horror movie in my hands.

The man opens her driver’s side door and says something to her. From this angle, it’s hard to tell, but it looks like Sophie’s not moving. Like… at all. He looks up at the camera and fuckingwaves. Then he pulls her out of the car. She’s not fighting him back. Her head flops forward as he hauls her out and puts her into the backseat. Then he slams the door and calmly strolls up to the camera I installed at her front entrance.

“Nice try,” he says with a huge ear-to-ear grin. “But she was mine first.”

With that, he rips the camera off the mount and smashes it, cutting the feed off.

I’m out the fucking door, screaming for Knox to get to Sophie’s as fast as possible.

But he’s not on the line anymore.

???

Knox

Dressed for work, I grab the gun from my closet, stuff it behind my back, and race to my bike. Lifting the kickstand, I start the engine and blaze out, running every goddamn red light trying to stop me from reaching my girl.

Iknewsomething was wrong.

I felt it in my gut.

We should have never let her out of our sight. Those security cameras weren’t enough. We should have installed laser beams and a pack of guard dogs around her entire perimeter.

Ignoring every speed sign and traffic light, I don’t care how many felonies I rack up. Whizzing between cars, dodging and weaving anything in my goddamn way, I lean into the next turn so hard, my knee nearly scrapes the asphalt.

Suddenly, Vault rides out of an alleyway. We merge together, tearing up the street that’s packed with traffic. He hops the curb and takes the sidewalk. I slip between vehicles and nearly get clipped by a delivery truck.

We blast through another red light and his bike screams as he takes off in front of me, getting on the beltway. Once I’m off the ramp, I top out at a speed that makes Vault look like he’s standing still.

My vision tunnels. Vault catches up and I realize I’ve slowed down. He takes the first exit and ends up beating me to her house.

“Sophie!” he screams.

She’s not here. Of course, she not fucking here. Someone’s taken her to God knows where to do God knows what.

I don’t even know why we came. We’re useless.

“How much time’s passed?” I ask him.

He’s wild eyed with panic. “What?”

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