Unaware she’d drifted back into sleep, the thundering click of a bolt unlocking jolted Addis awake and had her springing to her feet, clutching the hunting knife in both hands as she prepared to fight for her life.

In the doorway, Tony froze with his hands in the air. Speaking softly, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. You can put the knife down – or hold onto it if you feel safer.’ Though he moved farther into the room, he was careful to keep his distance.

But it wasn’t his words or his movement that Addis focused on. It was the fact that he’d returned – without Emerson. Without warning, the knife tumbled from her hands, and her knees buckled as an avalanche of guilt threatened to bury her.

In her efforts to save her best friend, had she inadvertently gotten her killed instead?

Unable to live with the thought, Addis curled herself into a tight ball on the floor as her cries echoed off the walls around her.

Chapter Forty-One

Wednesday, October 9

Had Adam been standing in front of her when he confessed yesterday that a hunter had located the girls, Alex would’ve wasted no time in impaling him through the throat with the scissors she’d been gripping in her hand.

Only when no news came of the girls being rescued overnight did her fury descend from a full boil to a slow simmer. From the beginning, Adam had always known the price for crossing her, and from the moment he made that disastrous decision to return to the Kensingtons, everything he’d done to ‘rectify it’ had been nothing but one giant recipe of failure. And she was tired of cleaning up his messes.

From afar, she watched the officers pounding on his door. They could knock as long and as loudly as they wanted. Adam wouldn’t be answering. No, they might not find Adam – not yet anyway – but she’d made sure they’d find something else.

When a locksmith van parked in the driveway, and the door was finally kicked in, Alex left. There were still several things to do to ensure Adam took the fall. But she had no intention of ending it there. Failure chewed at the edges of her mind, and if there was one thing she wouldn’t abide, it was that.

There was only one remedy. Addis Kensington, Emerson Childress, and now their hunter savior had to die. And she’d take pleasure in being the one to do it. It was just a small matter of hunting them down. But she could be patient. To a point.