Page 67 of Hunt You Down

André pulled up a chair next to me and grabbed my hand. “I’ve spent the last week hoping to see those baby blues. I’ll take what I can get.” His voice broke, and he swallowed hard. Soft lips against my forehead, and he sat down in his chair.

“I’m really sorry⁠—”

“No,” he interrupted, tenderly brushing my forehead with a single knuckle, like he was scared to break me. “Don’t you dare apologize for anything.”

“I made you sick.” I tried to laugh, but it hurt. Everything hurt.

“Your brother tried to warn me. It’s my fault for not believing him.” André looked down at our entwined fingers. “I never wanted to believe that people were capable of this.”

I glanced between the two men.

“What were you doing with the police?” I asked André.

“Something went wrong with my first statement. I needed to do it again.”

“Statement about what?”

André looked… haunted. Dylan on the other hand, appeared impressed. “If you won’t tell him I will. But I thought he’d like to hear it from you.”

“For god’s sake, someone tell me,” I demanded.

“I got your text,” André said, not taking his eyes off our hands.

Text? I never sent a text. “What are you talking about?”

Alarmed, André looked at my brother. “It’s okay,” Dylan told him. “It’s a trauma thing—he’s subconsciously blocking details out. We just have to remind him.”

“How much do you remember, baby?” André asked.

“I um… I remember you leaving for work, and then Regan took me. We were in the car for a long time, but things get blurry after that.”

André peered up at Dylan again, and Dylan nodded.

“You were gone for three days. After the first night, I couldn’t track your phone. That’s when I called Dylan. We must have searched every house in New Orleans looking for you. Neither of us slept. The police weren’t much help. They’d search until dinnertime and call it quits. We were just about ready to lose our minds when I got a text from you. I don’t know how you did it, but you sent us your exact location. I tried to call again after that… and text, but I don’t know what happened.”

“I told Hot-Head Harry over here to sit back and let the police handle it,” Dylan offered. “I don’t think he heard a word I said that night.”

“No, I didn’t,” André confirmed. “I knew the police would take their sweet time getting there, not to mention you were in a different district—I decided to take matters into my own hands. Regan was not happy to see me, but I didn’t care.”

The crashing and shouting came back to me. Then…

“There was a gunshot.”

André raised his head, tears in his eyes. “Yeah, there was.”

Slowly, the pieces of the story seamed themselves together. “So, if you’re here, and Dylan’s here, and neither of you have been shot…”

André simply watched me, expressionless, while Dylan grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “I told you,” he said. “Your boyfriend’s a badass.”

My head whipped back to André. Ouch, bad idea. “You shot him?”

He only nodded. “I did.”

It was then that I realized—not a single police officer had been in to talk to me since I woke up, and no one had mentioned Regan at all.

“I-Is he…”

“No.” André squeezed my hand and forced a smile. “God knows I wanted to, but I didn’t. My daddy taught me better than that.”