: Chapter 68

I place my bowl of cereal on my desk and fire up my laptop, ready to work through the hundreds of emails awaiting my attention.

Right as I open my inbox, West calls. “Have you checked your email?”

“Just doing it now. Why?”

“There’s an email from Lily.” The panic in his voice has my hand shaking as I move the mouse to the email that came through six minutes ago. The subject line says I love you.

My finger hovers over the button, but I can’t bring myself to press it. Once I do, it can’t be undone. I can’t unsee whatever she wrote. Anything that makes West sound like he’s been sucker punched in the gut is nothing to joke about. “What does it say?”

“She’s fucking gone, Xander.”

I blink at the screen. “No. What. Where?”

“To see her father, I think. I dropped her at work three hours ago. I watched her walk into the building. She was safe. She was …” He wheezes. “He’ll fucking kill her.”

Fuck, I’ve never heard him like this. “Relax, buddy,” I say as calmly as I can with blood screaming in my ears. “Zeke, get the fuck in here,” I shout. “West, come home. We’ll take the jet and go to her. We can fix this. I promise.”

“Xander, what if he …” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

Being the one to hold him together for a change is completely alien to me, but the fact that he needs me to keep my head calms me. “We’ll get her. Come home.”

Zeke runs into my office. “What is it?”

I nod to my laptop, and he comes to stand beside me. I still haven’t opened her email. “West?”

“I’m on my way.” The line goes dead, and I’m left with a confused-looking Zeke. I turn back to the screen and click on her message.

Hi guys.

Have I ever told you how much I love you? I’m pretty sure I have, but I’ll say it here, in black and white for all eternity, I love you! All of you. Like I could never choose between any of you, and I’m super glad (and lucky) that I don’t have to. You have made me feel a happiness that I never could have dreamed possible for myself. You made me envision a future that I never could before. I had one goal, and that was to be a writer, but now I have so many dreams and goals, and they all involve you.

That is why I can’t allow you to go up against Carmine for me. There are still some things you don’t know. Things that would put you in too much danger if you did. So let me deal with this, and then I can come back home to you all and tell you the whole truth. Every single secret. The ones that I’ve kept for far too long, the reason I’ve been a target for Carmine’s hatred since the day I was born.

Please don’t worry about me. I have more allies than you know, and I have a pretty solid right hook. I’ll be home soon. I need to do this alone, so please don’t come after me. I’ll be back before you even have a chance to miss me. And if I’m not, know that you three are the only men who will ever have my heart. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but you’ve always known the most important truth I possess—I love you.

Always and forever, your Lily xxx

My heart drops to the ground.

Zeke lets out an animalistic howl. “She went after him?”

I can only nod. Glancing between him and the email, I wonder what the hell she was thinking. Although I want to be angry with her for doing it, I should have known that she’d never let West and Zeke put themselves at risk for her. She’s the most selfless person I’ve ever met in my life.

Zeke sums up the situation with one succinct sentence. “Goddamn it all to hell.”