Page 100 of The Florist and Her Alphas

Twenty-Six

COLE

“Liana! Liana, answer me,” I bark into the phone as I race to her flower shop. All I can hear is her breathing. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She would never ignore me like this.

Suddenly, a loud thump, and my heart drops.

I immediately call Ezra on another line.

“Yeah?”

“Liana called me, and there’s nothing on the line,” I bark. “I’m heading to her shop right now.”

“We’re coming,” he says quickly, and without question.

The brakes scream before I even see the storefront, rubber biting into wet asphalt, and I’m already unclipping the seatbelt before the car has fully stopped moving.

My boots hit the sidewalk, and I’m across it in four strides. Inside, August is at the front counter, glasses pushed up his nose, wrapping a bundle of flowers for a woman in a wool coat who’s asking him something about vase life. He is smiling. He is completely, obliviously calm.

He glances up and sees me in the doorway.

“Cole,” he says, confused. “What are you doing here?”

“Where’s Liana?”

He blinks at me, still smiling faintly, still not understanding. He gestures toward the back with the twine in his hand. “In the back. Grabbing ribbon. She should be right out⁠—”

I’m already past him.

The corridor to the back room is narrow. The door bangs against the wall as I throw it open. The room is empty.

I stop.

My whole body goes still. My eyes move around the room. Catalog. Assess.

I notice a phone face up on the worktable. It’s her phone with the floral purple case. No. No. No.

My heart sinks when I see the shears. The blade is dark at the tip. Wet. A single slow drop of red hangs off the handle and falls onto the wood while I’m looking at it. I hope that’s not her blood, so help me God.

But beside the shears is her ring.

Suddenly the raw scent of another pack hits my nose. Like pine and gun oil. Then her scent of crushed roses threads through it all, so sharp it puts a fist around my throat, fear. Her fear.

“Fuck,” I growl.

August has followed me down the corridor. He stops in the doorway, and he makes a low, wordless, gutted sound.

“Oh, God,” he says in a panic, running around the back room. “Is she alive? Where is she…?”

“Stop,” I bark, needing him to be functional. We can’t spiral. Not yet. “We’re going to find her. I need you with me.”

He nods. His jaw is shaking.

I open the drawer under the worktable and pull out the security tablet. August comes around to stand at my shoulder. I open the back-door camera feed and scrub backward through the last ninety minutes.

Empty alley. Closed door. Nothing.

Then, eleven twenty-three, the frame changes.