Chapter Nineteen

Xavier

The first thing he noticed as he began to regain consciousness was the silence. It was too quiet, especially with as many guys as Colby had with him. He knew enough about these guys to know that they were only ever quiet while on a job, and this wasn’t a job. Not a sanctioned one anyway. Rodrigo’s place had never been this quiet because, when guys like them got together in one place, fights were inevitable.

The next thing he noticed was the intense and excruciating pain, causing him to take account of his injuries. It felt as though every bone in his body had been shattered and was slowly fusing themselves back together, particularly in his head. It had been a very long time since he’d felt pain this severe, but he would heal. He had done it before and was clearly doing so now.

It took him a few moments, but he managed to pry both of his eyes open. They felt like sandpaper, and one was still swollen, but his shifter healing was seemingly working overtime. The last he remembered, he couldn’t open one eye at all.

Xavier blinked against the brightness of the room, willing his eyes to adjust as quickly as possible. He needed to figure out where they were holding him so that he could come up with a plan. However, he wasn’t expecting to discover that he was in his own room. Nor did he expect to see the familiar head of red hair standing over by the window.

“Isabelle?” he croaked, his throat hoarse and sore.

Isabelle turned from the window and gave him a bright smile as she crossed the room. She sat on the edge of the bed. “Hey, stranger. Welcome back.”

She reached forward and brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, causing his wolf to snarl at her boldness. He was still a bit feral and felt cornered due to the extent of his injuries.

“Don’t,” he warned with a growl.

If she heard him, she didn’t let on. “We thought we were going to lose you there for a bit. Thank God for that freaky healing ability of yours.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” he quipped back.

“It’s a figure of speech, Xavier. Don’t be an ass.”

Xavier winced as he shifted, trying to get into a more comfortable position. “How did I get here? And where is Colby?”

Isabelle sighed and ran a perfectly manicured finger through her hair. “We don’t know where he is,” she admitted. “We managed to track you guys down because Rodrigo told us where you’d most likely be. We got there just in time to see Colby take a bat to that big-ass dome of yours. We got as many as we could, but most of them got away. Colby included. And they seemed to have gone underground too. Since they know how we track people, they know how to stay under the radar. But we will find him. It’s just going to take a little more time.”

Xavier blinked. “A little more time? Isabelle, how long was I out?”

“About two weeks,” she said with a shrug as if it was no big deal.

But it was a big deal, a very big deal. Madelyn had been alone and unprotected for two whole weeks with Colby still out there. Colby was the only person, apart from Rodrigo, who knew how important she was to him. If he was going to do something to get to him, going after Madelyn was the most logical choice.

Gritting his teeth to keep himself from roaring in pain, Xavier pushed himself out of bed. He needed to find his phone, and then he needed to get back to Madelyn’s place. Both he and his wolf needed to make sure that she was okay. It was the only thing he could think about, the only thing going through his mind.

“Whoa, hey!” Isabelle suddenly exclaimed, rushing around to his side of the bed to try to push him back down. “You can’t be up and walking right now.”

He snarled at her when she tried to touch his arm. It didn’t go unnoticed that he was still very naked, and no one was allowed to touch him but Madelyn. No one.

“Back off, Isabelle. I have to get out of here.”

Isabelle blinked at him in surprise but recovered quickly. “No, you need to focus on healing. You can’t take on Colby like this, shifter or not. Besides, we don’t even know where he is.”

Pain coursed through his entire body as he limped his way to his dresser to grab some clothes. “I’m not going after Colby,” he hissed through his teeth. “I’m going to get Madelyn. I have to protect her.”

“Your fucking booty call?” Isabelle exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Jesus Christ, Xavier. Now is not the time to?—”

Xavier was on her before he realized what he was doing. His eyes were blazing, and he had Isabelle pinned to the wall by her throat, his claws piercing the soft flesh of her neck until tiny beads of blood rolled down her neck.

It would be so easy to puncture her carotid or snap her neck for saying such a thing about his mate. He could end her life in an instant, and she seemed to have enough sense to realize that too as her eyes widened and her body went still. He could smell the acrid stench of her fear permeating the air around them, and it fueled him further.

“I am only going to say this once, Isabelle. You watch your fucking mouth when you talk about Madelyn. Friend or not, I won’t hesitate to kill you if you disrespect her like that in front of me again. You got it?”

Isabelle nodded quickly. “Y-yeah. Yeah, I got it.”

Retracting his claws from her skin, he pushed himself away from her and moved back to the dresser. He dressed quickly while Isabelle rubbed her neck behind him. But he couldn’t be bothered with her right now, not when there was something more important he needed to do. Once he was dressed, he stormed from the room as quickly as was possible in his current condition, and Isabelle wasn’t too far behind him.

Xavier found his cell phone charging on the kitchen island and snatched it up. He pulled up Madelyn’s number and punched the call button. When the call just continued to ring, he realized that she must have blocked him. It didn’t surprise him since he essentially ghosted her for two weeks, but it pissed him off too. While she may be pissed at him, she had just made it impossible for him to explain and to check on her. His disappearance had not been his choice, and he had thought that she would have realized that. Apparently, he had been wrong.

Moving to the bedroom, he flipped on the switch that awakened his computer system. He winced as he took a seat in the chair and pulled up the cameras at Madelyn’s place. It didn’t take long to figure out she wasn’t at home, even though the tracker on her car had it parked in the driveway. And after a quick scan of the station”s cameras, to see if she had cut her leave short and gotten a ride into work, he discovered she wasn’t there either. He growled in frustration and slammed his hand down on the desk, sending another wave of pain shooting up his arm.

“She called yesterday, you know,” Isabelle said softly, causing him to turn around. She was leaning against the doorway, still rubbing her neck and clearly trying to keep her distance. Good. “She called a lot while you were out, in fact. It was kind of annoying.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously as he slowly rose to his feet. “What did you do, Isabelle?”

“Nothing, I swear. I answered the phone and had every intention of telling her that you were hurt, but she hung up before I got the chance.”

His jaw clenched as he struggled to maintain his composure. He had a pretty good idea why she had hung up on Isabelle like that, and that just pissed him off even more. Madelyn probably assumed he had gone back to Isabelle, even though he had never given her any reason to doubt him.

Turning back to the computer screen, he sat down and began doing what he usually did when he was looking for someone; he started a search. He began searching for any activity on her credit cards and checking hotel records to see if she had checked in somewhere. However, he was surprised when he got a hit from the Cedarwood Police Department.

According to the report, Madelyn had been labeled as ‘missing’ after she had disappeared from the parking lot of the local medical clinic yesterday afternoon. Her purse and cell phone were found next to the dead body of CPD Detective Bernie Slopes, who was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. It was quick, clean, and there were no witnesses.

“Colby,” he sneered, rage bubbling in his chest as his vision became tinged with red.

“What?” Isabelle asked curiously.

Xavier glanced at who the lead detective was on the case and rolled his eyes before he rose from his seat. The anger, fear, and adrenaline were masking the pain from his injuries, which was good. He was going to need every ounce of strength he had to get through what he had to do.

“Colby has Madelyn,” he stated, scrolling through his phone and exiting the room.

Once again, Isabelle was behind him. “Oh, come on, Xavier. You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do.” He smashed his finger against the call button on his phone again and brought it to his ear. “Unlike you, Colby understands how important she is to me. And since he hasn’t been able to get to me, going after Madelyn is the next best thing.”

There was a click on the other end of the phone before a familiar but unwelcome voice filled his ear. “Hello?”

“Melanie,” he ground out, grabbing his keys and stuff off the entry table and heading out the front door with Isabelle on his heels. “We need to talk. I know who has Madelyn.”

He was taking a huge risk, going to Melanie, but he didn’t have any other option. He needed to know what she knew and what leads, if any, she had. He also needed to warn her because, when he found Madelyn, and he would find her, she was going to need her best friend. Melanie couldn’t go after Colby, but he could. It didn’t matter what happened to him as long as Madelyn was safe.