by Shayla Black
“I don’t know what to say to that, Liam. I lost a wife and a child in one day, and it eventually cost me my best friend. I might have been wrong to wait so long to vomit out the truth—”
Liam snorted. “Do you think so?”
“Look, I was wrong, but I came clean. Everything I said Thanksgiving night was honest.” Hammer stared into the mirror, trying to read Liam’s reaction. “I’m not even sure what you thought of the revelations about Juliet. You never said.”
“I didn’t think it mattered to you. Since she died, you shut down and pissed off. So I moved on. Am I supposed to be sorry for that?” Liam finally turned to him with a scowl. “What’s the point now? All this retrospective crap doesn’t change a thing.” Liam made to rise from the stool.
“Wait! I’m not done, damn it.”
Rolling his eyes, Liam settled back onto the barstool. “Hurry the fuck up.”
Hammer lost his temper. “You got a tampon to change?”
Liam stood. “That’s it. I’m done listening.”
He clenched his fists. “Damn it, this is not how my apology was supposed to go. Sorry. Just let me finish.”
“You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Hammer scrubbed a hand through his hair. Christ. Clearly, mending their fractured friendship would require more than words—if it was even possible. The brittle olive branch he’d been trying to extend Liam wasn’t reaching far. What he planned with Raine would probably break the damn twig in half.
But Hammer couldn’t continue to hurt her under the guise of protecting her. He’d caused her far more anguish by hiding his love. She was a strong woman. After weighing Beck’s advice, he realized that. If he took her training slowly, gave her a lot of praise and compromised, she could handle his needs. He would assure her that he didn’t expect her to be his slave. Hammer vowed to teach, hold, and love her so he could complete her, just as she would him. But he had to let her decide for herself…even if she chose Liam instead.
That very real fear made his stomach twist. For years, his selfishness had prevented Raine from growing. What if she couldn’t forgive him, either?
“Well?” Liam asked into his silence. “Never mind. Why are we even having this conversation? The bloody horse is dead. I think we’ve beaten him enough.”
“He’s just in a fucking coma.” Hammer tried to crack a smile, but it felt forced and insincere. “Look, I admit that I fucked up. I made the wrong choices. We’ve both paid a price. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I never did anything out of malice.”
“Got it. Thanks.” Liam nodded absently, then looked around the room.
A prickle of unease raised the hairs on the back of Hammer’s neck. “What’s wrong?”
“It would take me hours to explain, and I just don’t have the time or energy now. Besides, I’m not in the bloody mood to hear ‘I told you so.’”
They’d only ever really argued about one person. And if she had been here, she would have made far better coffee. “Where’s Raine?”
Liam wouldn’t meet his gaze. Alarm bells rang in his head.
“Where the fuck is Raine?”
“The last time I saw her, she was in my room. But I’m sure she’s left it by now.”
His flat reply, coupled with the flash of guilt in his eyes, screamed there was more his old pal wasn’t saying.
“Left for where?”
“Her own room? I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where your sub is?” Hammer jabbed, arching a brow.
Liam closed his eyes and sighed. “She’s not my sub anymore. I removed her collar this morning.”
The words punched Hammer. He felt himself gape at the news, jaw hanging, eyes bulging. A feather could have knocked him off the barstool. Hell, off the planet. “What?”
“You heard me. She’s not ready to give what’s necessary, and I’m bloody tired of trying to force her submission. I’m not letting her go, just giving her time to think, is all.”
Maybe that wouldn’t be true of another sub, but this one? She would take it as a crushing rejection, nothing less. In Hammer’s book, if Liam had removed Raine’s collar, that meant he’d released her. And she was fair game.
The selfish bastard in Hammer wanted to throw a party. Finally, Raine could be his. The Dom in him feared it wouldn’t be that simple. Now that Liam had crushed Raine by letting her go, she’d need tenderness and love—two things he wasn’t good at—to heal. Son of a bitch.
He damn near wrapped his hands around Liam’s throat and strangled the life out of him. “What the hell were you thinking? Was it your intention to shove her out the fucking door and push her off the deep end?”
Liam bristled. “I was trying to teach her. Something you should have done years ago.”
So much for mending fences.
His chest heaved as the last threads of control slid through Hammer’s fingers. “If you’d have asked me, I would have told you uncollaring her was the most counterproductive move possible. You should have tried to modify her behavior.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have—over and over. I was at the end of my rope.”
Everything coming out of Liam’s mouth blew Hammer’s mind. “Raine lived and worked at Shadows, but she’s never actually submitted before you. You know that observing and doing aren’t the same thing. You should have trained her, not dumped her like yesterday’s trash.”
“Don’t start with more guilt,” Liam growled.
Fuck that. “How much guiltier will you feel if she’s packed up and left?”
Hammer turned on his heel, Liam stomping close behind, and stormed down the stairs. His cries for Raine echoed through the cavernous dungeon. She didn’t answer.
Pounding on her bedroom door, Hammer screamed her name. Terrible silence followed. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he dug the key to her room from his pocket and shoved it in the lock.
“Why are you carrying a key to my sub’s room?” Liam challenged.
“I always have, and by your own admission, she’s not your sub anymore.”
With a curse, Liam shoved him aside. Hammer pushed back.
As the door swung open, their gazes ricocheted around the room. The closet gaped wide. Only a row of empty hangers remained. The dresser drawers staggered open like a mocking smile of crooked teeth. Hammer dashed into the room and looked inside each. He didn’t find much…except that old T-shirt of his she used to sleep in. The sight was a fucking stab in the heart.
“Shit! Where the hell has she gone?” Hammer couldn’t breathe. His heart stuttered in his chest.
“I don’t know.” Liam sounded stunned. Lost.
Rage railed through Hammer. He staggered against the dresser. When metal rattled, he looked down to find two keys on a ring. As he picked them up, he recognized both instantly.
“What are those?” Liam demanded.
“This one is to her car.” Hammer held up the oblong bit of black plastic, its silver saw-toothed blade sticking out.
Liam gave a visible sigh of relief. “Then she can’t have gone far.”
“Don’t kid yourself. This key…” He struggled to keep it together. “This is to the club.”
Liam braced himself against her dresser. He looked as if a wrecking ball had hit him squarely in the chest. “Oh god, she’s really gone.”
“No shit.”
“And she doesn’t mean to come back.”
Hammer slashed Liam with a seething glare. “Are you happy, genius? Where do you suggest we start looking?”
“I’ve no clue,” Liam muttered. “I didn’t think she’d leave before I even had the chance to talk to her.”
“What the fuck did you think she’d do, Liam? Sit in her room and ponder all the ways she could change to make you happy?”
“I thought we were important enough to her that she’d want to do the work, that we’d do it together. I told her not to bloody leave.” Liam sounded somewhere between bewildered and pissed off.
He launched the app to search for her phone and quickly tapped out the password. An agonizing thirty seconds passed. The system wasn’t finding her phone. Why wasn’t he able to locate her, goddamn it? A moment later, the display indicated she was offline. Did he want to be notified next time she came online? You’re damn right, I do. He tapped the screen to check “yes,” gritting his teeth. All he could do was wait.
“The brat turned off her phone. She knows I can’t track her unless it’s on.”
“She thought of everything, didn’t she?” Liam shook his head. “What about her bank account?”
Hammer lit up with a smile. “I have access to that.” He pulled his phone out again, input her password, and put in a request to alert him as soon as she used her ATM or credit cards. He logged out, then turned to Liam. “There. She may not want to be found, but it shouldn’t take long. She’ll trip up. And we’ll bring her home.”
Then I’ll straighten her out.
Liam nodded, but anguish tightened his face. “Hell, I can’t just stand here and wait.”
“Until one of those clues pans out, we need a starting point for our search. I’ll check the cameras.”
Liam nodded. “I’ll help.”
In the operations room, Hammer dropped into the chair, sending it spinning across the hardwoods. It rolled to a stop in front of the complex security board. His fingers flew over the keys in a blur. His heart lurched. He prayed he would find what he needed.
Because he couldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t rest until he found her.
He began rewinding the footage captured by the camera perched above Shadow’s back door. Liam peered over his shoulder.
Hammer paused the tape when a taxi appeared. He zoomed in as Raine stepped into view. Fear wrapped its icy hands around his throat and squeezed. All he could do was watch as the woman he loved opened the cab door. Dread that he’d never get the chance to tell her what was in his heart seized him.
Riveted by the images on the monitor, Hammer could only see Raine’s back. He studied her body language, as he’d done a million times. Her subtle nuances spoke louder than words. She was decimated.
Raising a hand to her cheek, Raine brushed away her tears. She turned slightly, tossing her suitcase into the back seat. Hammer caught a glimpse of her eyes, swollen and red, along with her nose. He swore to himself this wouldn’t be his last image of her.
Liam stared at the screen, barely breathing. “Bloody hell.”
Zooming back out, he noted the name of the taxi company, then jotted down the cab’s ID number before he snatched up the phone and began barking at the dispatcher.
Two minutes later, he was absolutely nowhere with the woman and her twang.
“Put your supervisor on,” Hammer barked. He didn’t give a shit about company policy; he needed answers. Every second spent listening to excuses furthered the distance between him and Raine. The clerk put him on hold.
“When did you last see Raine?” Hammer asked Liam. “What time was it?”
“Not long ago, maybe thirty minutes. I left to make coffee and give her a few minutes to get herself together,” Liam ranted. “I didn’t think she could pack up and flee that fast.”
“You don’t know her like I do,” Hammer growled.
“You’re happy as Larry to keep reminding me of that, aren’t you?” Liam looked ready to climb the walls—or beat the hell out of him. “I told her I’d be here to help her—always. She didn’t hear a bloody word I said.”
Hammer couldn’t resist baiting him again. “I have no idea why that’s a shock.”
Liam paced furiously. “Why the hell didn’t she come to you if you’re so important to her?”
The question brutalized Hammer, along with an avalanche of other crap. Sadness that neither of them had broken through to reach her wounded soul. Fear that Liam might be right. Anger that Raine didn’t love either of them enough to stay and heal herself. Just like Juliet.
“Because you ran her off first,” Hammer snarled.
“I literally made coffee, then went to the bar to take a breather and gather my wits before I returned to talk to her,” Liam explained. “I had every intention of keeping an eye on her so that she wouldn’t run. I meant to make sure she understood.”
“Understood what? I still don’t know what the fuck you thought you were doing.”
Liam waved him off. “I should have tied her to the fucking bed.”
“She’d have chewed through the restraints. Once her mind is made up…” Hammer let out a shuddering sigh. If he never heard Raine’s sassy remarks or saw fiery challenge light up her blue eyes again, he’d lose it.
“I needed her to commit to me, to us. She’s so damn broken. Removing her collar was the only way I could think of to jar her enough to dig deep.”
Hammer clenched his jaw, but before he could rail at Liam again, the supervisor came on the line. After wasting precious minutes listening to a guy who barely spoke English, Hammer’s patience ran out.
“Look, your driver picked her up at nine forty-three. Either give me the address, or I’ll call the mayor,” he blustered. “He’s a good friend, and I’ll have every one of your cabs red tagged for inspection with one phone call. Now give me the fucking address, you sniveling piece of—”
Liam grabbed the phone. “Excuse my friend. He’s distraught. Do you have the address, please? This girl is in terrible danger. We’re frantic.”
Hammer heard the man on the other end talking. Liam scrambled for a pen and wrote down the information.
“Thank you so much.” Liam ended the call, then whirled on Hammer. “What were you doing, threatening the only man who can help us? Keep your head screwed on straight.” Then Liam shoved the paper in his direction. “The cabbie dropped her here. Where is this?”
Bringing up a map of the city, Hammer nearly choked when he spied the familiar cross streets.
“Motherfucker!” he roared, jumping to his feet. His entire body trembled as he turned to face his friend. “It looks like she’s gone back home.”
Liam blanched. “Where she lived with her father?”
“No, but close. A drugstore near her old neighborhood.” Hammer’s blood ran cold. He shoved the desk chair away and marched to the safe in his office, withdrawing an envelope. He turned to find Liam standing there. “We’ll start searching there. On the way, you can tell me exactly what you said to Raine when you removed her collar. It might give me some clue where she’d have run.” He pulled his keys from his pocket, anxious to follow her trail.
“Don’t order me about like I’m one of your bloody subs.”
“I’m going out of my fucking head, in case you haven’t noticed.” Hammer raked a hand through his hair. “We’ve got to find her.”
“Then let’s go.”
They raced to Hammer’s car. When Liam slid into the seat next to him, he peeled out of Shadows’ parking lot.
As he watched the busy traffic crawling down the road, Liam buckled up. “Over the past week, Raine has crawled deeper into her shell. Even on a good day, she didn’t communicate, she isn’t honest, and she doesn’t trust. None of that is news to you.”
“No,” Hammer admitted.
“I’ve tried ‘modifying’ her behavior in every way you can think of. I’ve punished and rewarded. I’ve coaxed. I’ve praised. I’ve demanded and expressed my disappointment. Nothing.”
All that? Then again, Liam had never been less than thorough. Why would he have started slacking with Raine? He wouldn’t. In fact, as devoted as Liam seemed, he would have tried even harder than usual to reach the girl. And if Raine was truly giving that little… Hammer wondered if he wouldn’t have released her, too.
“Are you saying she’s more shut down than either of us realized?”
“Now you’re getting it.” Liam leaned back against the seat, looking exhausted. “I made it crystal clear that I wasn’t giving up on her, that I would be there for her. She didn’t listen to me.”
“All she heard is that you didn’t want her,” Hammer confirmed.
“Of course I want her. I tried to show her how much. Just because I’d released her didn’t mean I’d stopped caring or stopped protecting her.”
Who the hell was protecting her now? Hammer’s inner voice screamed that he needed to go faster. Hot and urgent, his thoughts raced as he tried to focus on the road. But terror clawed—an ominous déjà vu—back to when Liam had taken Raine from Shadows and sequestered her far away. While he’d nearly lost his mind then, there’d been comfort in the fact that Liam was caring for her. She’d been safe. But now…
“Raine is out there alone, upset, feeling unworthy and unwanted by both of us. I hope to fuck she doesn’t do something impulsive, like visit her father. Bill might be an old bastard, but he’s still mean.”
“Why would she go anywhere near her father? That makes no sense.” Liam rubbed the back of his neck.
“It does and it doesn’t. Raine will eventually realize that she needs to confront her past. Then it wouldn’t surprise me if she paid daddy a visit. But I hope I’m wrong.”
Ten long minutes later, Hammer pulled into the parking lot of the drugstore. The two men hurried inside and approached the young cashier. Her nametag read TONYA. The need to find Raine and hold her in his arms rode Hammer hard.
“Excuse me, lass,” Liam whispered in a buttery soft lilt. He’d used this verbal seduction on women for years. “Might I have a wee minute of your time?”
“Sure,” the young woman sighed with wide eyes and pink cheeks. She looked awestruck.
In unison, Hammer and Liam whipped out their phones, flashing the cashier different photos of Raine. Both turned to scowl at the other.
“Have you seen this woman today?” Liam asked.
Tonya stood nervously, nodding. But she didn’t speak.
