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I’ll never admit it out loud, never tell a damn soul, but with Della in the hands of some maniac, I feel like I’m fracturing apart. I don’t know how to live without her now.
For years, we tiptoed around each other, but I always knew she was there. Knew that when it was our time, we’d get it together and stop screwing around. I can still remember the first time I took notice of her. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen…
“CJ, is that Holy Sinclair?” Della whispers to Carmine’s oldest girl at her sweet sixteen party while I grab a plate of food.
“Didn’t he grow up fine?” CJ snickers, and I roll my eyes. CJ is always saying shit like that, usually to try and get me in some kind of shit with her father.
I slowly turn towards the two, who sit huddled together at a small table. I’ve known Della O’Neill for years, but it’s been at least two since I’ve seen her, and as my gaze skims across her now, I can’t believe my eyes.
Her blonde waves cascade down her back, the freckles on her face are more pronounced, and when the fuck did her body turn into a woman’s? This can’t be the same gangly girl I’ve run into over the years. That Della didn’t have hips that make my mouth water or a chest that has my hands itching to touch her.
And those innocent fucking eyes, as they meet mine, I’m struck right through the heart. This isn’t the little girl who shyly hid behind CJ when she came over. This girl is turning into a stunning woman and making me extremely uncomfortable, given her age.
Sweet holy hell.
One day, this woman will bring me to my damn knees. If she doesn’t by the end of the night.
I only look away because she breaks eye contact. Forcing my feet to move, I leave the party and don’t return until the next day, but Della’s soulful eyes haunt me for years to come.
To this day, they still do, but for different reasons.
Moving to her bed, I lie down and stare up at the ceiling, waiting for word from someone that we have her location and I can bring her home.
I’m unsure how it happens, but I drift off into this state of unconsciousness but am still aware of my body when I feel her in my head.
She’s reaching out to me, begging me to find her. Sharing what’s happening to her, and the longer I’m immobile, the angrier and more irritated I become. She’s being tortured, and there’s no one there to stop it from happening, no one giving two shits about my girl.
“I’m coming, Della,” I whisper into the empty room just as a pounding on the door startles me out of my dream-like state.
“Holy, let's go. They’ve got something!”
I’m on my feet in the next second, feeling slightly drugged from what just happened. I have no idea if it was actually Del or if my head was making shit up, but either way, I’m bringing her home and ending the lives of those who took her.
* * *
“What do we know?” Pushing my way through Malice’s office door, I see four new faces.
“Holy, this is Asher McCall and his team: Brave St. James, Wilde West, and Carson Shay.” Malice points each out.
I don’t give a fuck who they are. “Where’s Della?”
Asher grins. “You were right, Carmine…single-minded. It’ll help. From what Wilde here was able to find out, it looks like Della was taken by the Global Initiative Group run by one Dr. Amber Graves.” A fucking woman? I wasn’t expecting that. “Dr. Graves has spent the last twenty years looking for and experimenting on other people like Della. Trying to dissect and replicate her empathic abilities.”
“How many?” Two fucking decades. How the hell is she still operating? “Who’s funding her?” With the way those men came in, they aren’t cheap.
“From what we’ve found, several hundred,” Wilde answers me, his next words reluctant. “She’s never been successful in replicating their abilities, which usually leaves her captives drained and weak.”
“Della might not survive.” Carter verbalizes what Wilde does not.
“How do they know about her?” I ask. It’s something that doesn’t make sense to me. Even if Sean Smith had spoken to them, her kidnapping happened a lot more quickly than I would have expected.
“Her mother.” Once Asher reveals this, all heads swivel to stare at Carter. “Before abandoning the girl, she sold her to them. Della would have been their first project if the woman hadn’t grown a conscience at the last minute.” Carter pales slightly. I know he killed the woman for leaving Della the way she had—on his steps in the middle of the night.
“Where. Is. Della.” I don’t fucking care about the details, I just want to bring her home.
Asher’s head shakes before nodding at Brave to give me the details. “An old government training facility in Bergen County, New Jersey.” Handing me a paper with the address and map of the building, I head towards the basement. I need weapons and lots of them.
Malice, Cowboy, Johnny, and Nico are on my heels as we silently strap up and get in the headspace we know we’ll need in order to rescue Della.
