Chapter 20: Lower Wacker

Rhys's POV

Her first text came at the first light: Moving. Love you.

I read it standing in the board counsel's doorway, and I smiled at the screen.

The second text never came.

I gave it four minutes, which was three more than I could spare.

Then I called her and got her voicemail, and I called the driver and got nothing at all.

The tracker on the car had stopped on Lower Wacker Drive.

I do not remember the stairs.

I remember the underground road, wet and orange, and a truck sitting crooked across two lanes with its engine still running.

The black car lay against a concrete pillar with its roof pushed down on the passenger side.

Smoke came from the hood.

For one long second I was on the fourth floor of a burning hotel, and the corridor was black.

Then I was at the rear door, and it would not open.

I put my shoulder into it, and my boot.

The metal gave, and I tore the door back with my hands.

She was folded against the far seat with blood in her hair.

The man from Phoenix lay across her legs, groaning.

"Annika."

She did not move.

"Annika, look at me."

Her eyelids fluttered.

"Rhys," she said, very faintly. "You said every light."

"I know."

"I only got the first."

"Don't talk."

I pulled the old man clear and laid him on the road.

Then I got my arms under her and lifted her out of the wreck.

I carried her up the ramp, away from the smoke, with her head against my collarbone.

She was breathing. I told myself that over and over.

A police car skidded to a stop above us, and an ambulance came behind it.

"The truck driver ran," an officer said, jogging toward me. "We have him at the next exit. He says he was paid."

"By whom?"

"A man in a gray coat."

I did not answer.

I held her tighter, and I rode with her to Saint Anne's with my hand wrapped around hers.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Vows of Treachery: Claimed by His Ruthless Brother from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.