Despite the fact I know very little about the details of her troubled past, it didn’t take me long to figure out whatever happened must’ve been really fucked up. At twenty-two, with no living family and starting over in a brand new city where she knows not a single person, Blake possesses courage very few people have, and it’s my goal to provide her the safety and security to be the bright, beautiful, fun-loving young woman she sometimes gives me glimpses of when we’re alone. I want that for her all the time. I want that for us.

It’s seven fifteen once I scrub the grime of the day off my skin and settle into a comfortable t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and she’s still not here. Checking my phone, the same blank screen stares back at me. I want to grab another beer, the first having done little to soothe my anxiety, but the nagging thought I may need to get back out on the roads to look for her steers me otherwise.

At eight o’clock, I start to freak out. I’ve walked the hardwood floors in my study so many times over the last forty-five minutes, I’m surprised the bottoms of my bare feet aren’t stained and varnished. I can’t sit here any longer and do nothing. My gut says something is definitely not right, and my gut is rarely wrong.

Grabbing my keys and wallet, I’m concerned she may have broken down on the side of the road, so I choose to drive the route from my house to her Woodland Hills’ apartment. The car ride is silent, my nerves so shot I can’t even stand to listen to music on the radio, and with each dark mile eaten up by the rubber of the tires, I lose a little more of my steadfast composure. I need to see her. I need to know she’s okay.

With no sign of her or her car at her home, I continue on to her workplace in Burbank in another twenty minutes of dead silence. When I find a dark, locked-up office building and her silver Jetta parked in an otherwise vacant employee lot, a thousand alarms go off in my head. “Fuuuuccckkkk!” I scream, slamming the heel of my hands on the steering wheel.

Throwing the transmission into park, I jump out of my car and sprint to her base-model sedan, inspecting it bumper-to-bumper for any indication as to where she could be. I drop to my knees, my desperate eyes searching the asphalt next to and under the car. But unfortunately, there’s nothing. Not a single fucking clue.

Fear washes over me. Fear, and something that feels a lot like out-of-control panic. But before I succumb to the weakness of both emotions, I take a deep breath in through my nose and blow it out through my pursed lips, hoping to clear my chaotic thoughts. I have to stay in control, keep my wits about me, if I want to find her. I need a plan.

After retrieving Jae’s cell number from one of the work emails she’d sent me earlier this week, I call, hoping since she’s Blake’s closest friend and coworker, she’ll know what’s going on. Even though I’ll be pissed as shit Blake didn’t call or show up at my house like she’s supposed to, I’ll breathe easier just knowing she’s safe and sound.

“Hello, this is Jae,” she answers after only one ring.

Clearing my throat, I attempt to keep my composure as I speak. “Hey, Jae, it’s Madden Decker. I’m sorry to bother you on a Friday night, but I’m calling you about Blake.”

“Blake?” she asks, obviously concerned. “Is she okay? What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could answer that for me. I’m currently standing in the parking lot at your office building where her car is, but it’s nearly nine-thirty, and I haven’t seen or heard from her this evening,” I reply curtly.

“I don’t understand. She said you were picking her up after work today,” she claims, the worry quickly morphing into panic. “She got a text from you this afternoon and said you had a surprise for her . . . that you were gonna send a car to pick her up at six.”

My stomach contracts with a sickening lurch. What in the fuck is going on? “No!” I snap, my mind whirring. “I couldn’t have sent her a text this afternoon; I lost my phone earlier today!”

“Oh shit,” she mutters. “We’ve got a serious problem. What do you need me to do?”

I give her my home address and instruct her to meet me there as soon as possible before hanging up. Then, dropping my head back, I stare up into the starless night’s sky as I force back the suffocating fear. There’s no time for that right now. Blake’s in danger. I know it as certain as I know the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Every minute is crucial.

Opening my car door, I slide onto the driver’s seat and start the car then dial my brother’s number. I hope to God he’s not involved with this, but once again, my gut is pointing unwaveringly in his direction.

As soon as he answers, my voice drops to a low, deadly tone. “I swear to God, Easton, if anything happens to her, I will fucking kill you myself.”

“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” he replies with obvious confusion.

“Blake!” I shout. “Where is she?”

“I have no idea where your little girlfriend is. I’ve been at the track all day trying to win back some of the money I owe Kabinov—the money you refused to loan me, I might add—and I just sat down for dinner. Alone.”

Baffled by his logic to continue gambling to payback gambling debts, I shake my head to myself and sit there quietly, choking on the panic building inside me. “Madden, are you still there?” he asks, his voice softening with a tinge of concern. “What’s going on?”

“I . . . uh, I don’t know,” I stammer. “She was supposed to come over tonight, like she does every Friday, but when she never showed and never answered my calls or texts, I came looking for her. I found her car parked outside her office, and her coworker told me I had contacted Blake earlier today and told her I would pick her up for a big surprise.”

“And you never contacted her?”

“No. I lost my phone earlier today,” I huff, my mind shifting into overdrive as things begin to make sense. “At least, I thought I did.” The car heaves forward as I pull out of the parking lot mid-sentence.

Easton asks someone where he is for his check and then returns his attention to our conversation. “I’ll help you find her, bro. There’s gotta be an explanation. I can be at your place in thirty minutes.”

Already entering the highway, I agree. “Okay, see you then. Use your key if you beat me there, and don’t say a word to anyone, not even Emerson. I have a bad fucking feeling about this, and I don’t want anyone to know anything until we can piece together a timeline.”

Easton’s flashy Maserati and an unfamiliar Infiniti SUV—presumably Jae’s—are both parked in the driveway when I pull up to my house. The abundance of lights on inside casts a warm glow around the property, but the unsettling feeling inside me is anything but.

Throughout the entire drive home, numerous scenarios of what may have happened run through my head, and I don’t like where any of them lead. So many mysteries still surround her—questions about her ex-husband and what she meant when she said he’s gone now, questions about how her mom and brother died, questions about why she looks so different from the pictures I’d found of her. A shitload of questions, zero answers, and now the girl I love has disappeared. I slam my fist against the steering wheel, the sharp honk from the horn shattering the stillness of the night.

Springing from my car, I rush inside, where my brother and Jae are waiting at the kitchen island. Their heads pop up as I fly through the back door, hoping I’ve heard something, but with one look at my expression, their faces fall.

“The first thing I need to do is pull my phone records from today,” I announce authoritatively. “I thought I forgot it in my office before my one o’clock meeting, but when I had Caroline check for it, she couldn’t find it anywhere, so I went straight to the store and had them turn the old one off and hook up a new one to my number. I didn’t even think for them to run one of those phone locator searches; it was under warranty and I was in a hurry to get home.”