Deception

Chapter 38 - Runaway

"What." My knuckles whiten with how tight my grip gets on the steering. I inhale a shaky breath trying to hold it together, but fuck- I can't. "Send the men, I'm on my way there too."

I smash the pedal, flooring it to her mother's apartment in Brooklyn. Once I get there I rush into the lobby where everyone and everything remains normal like nothing even happened.

My men stand by the elevator, firm and quiet to not alarm the public. I move past them and once I get to the seventeenth floor, my stone cold heart turns to ice.

Wooden pieces of the door lie around the hallway. There's glass and bullets and blood lying in pools leading inside.

I storm in, pulse tearing through my chest as I throw open every door in sight but she's not here. "CATALINA!"

After checking all four rooms, I pace around the main room as if she's hiding here.

Her shaken mother sits at the edge of a couch following my movement with her eyes. Her cousin stands by the counter, holding a cloth soaked with blood to his shoulder.

"Where is she." I rasp, but neither of them reply in due time. "WHERE IS SHE?"

Her mother sighs. "She left to go out before the shooting."

"You let her go out alone?" I ask her and the cousin, who doesn't reply. Fuck, I don't have the patience for this.

I leave, go down the elevator to the lobby and step out of the building where the cold air sits sharply on my skin.

Slush melts at the sidewalks. A car horn echoes from around the corner, moving towards this street, an epicentre of people and cars and the homeless.

I press a fist to my mouth.

She ran.

She ran and I don't know the fuck why. Surprises aren't her thing, nobody could have expected this but it doesn't matter, she can't go far. I won't let her.

I'm about to head inside to tell the men to start the search, before the sound of an accented voice stops me.

My head snaps to my right. The first thing I see is a pink jacket, and then an outstretched hand giving notes to an old woman by the street in a sleeping bag.

Holding a breath, I slowly head towards her.

"Sorry, I don't know proper English but I think that's how you say 'property'. I can check on my phone if you want?" She asks the woman who declines.

As if she knows I'm here before she even finishes, she meets my eye. Swallowing, her lips form a thin line and she stands.

The rain starts with a few droplets in her hair. It begins to fall with tenderness, but thickens with each second her gaze stays on mine.

Doe eyes. A soft stare, like the edge of the water on a shoreline. Like the beginning of a rainfall.

"I want to go with you..." She starts. "To get Bianca. I know you found her location, that's what Philadelphia was about right?"

I remain quiet. Hands behind my back. Brows furrowed with the dull intensity of the lights, a sure sign I spend too much time inside. Nothing leaves my mouth for a good minute, and then, "Get back inside."