Chapter Forty-Four

Snow

I knock on the door to Clemon's study room and he tells me to come in. He's on the computer, typing away, not acknowledging me. I sit in front of the desk, waiting for him to face me. He wanted to speak to me before we meet Lyrical at the gallery to support her on her big day.

I know she's pissed off at me, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to support her. It's hard sleeping in the room across from hers. Ever since she tried to leave me, she gave me the silent treatment, and she won't even acknowledge me at the dinner table. I still follow her, and I have guards to follow her around just in case my father hired someone to take her out. The hole in my chest is big enough to fill the ocean. I'm trying to respect her boundaries but it's hard. I have to tell myself that she will come around. I want to prove to her that I changed and I understand what she's saying.

She has never given me the silent treatment before. I have been still stalking her through the app on her phone and she hasn't contacted a divorce lawyer, so either she chose to heed my warning about me killing the fucker or she doesn't want a divorce. I'm hoping for the latter.

I'm going to continue to stalk her until I can prove to her that I'm sorry.

"You wanted to see me?" I ask, crossing my ankle over the other.

He sips from his mug before setting it down onto the desk. "Your father disappeared. I had my team of people to look for him, and Kyle and Julian informed me that they haven't heard from him. He hasn't been in the office in a week."

Kyle is Jameson's father and Julian is Keanu's.

I smooth out my tie, leaning forward in the chair. "That doesn't surprise me."

"Do you know where he would have gone?"

My father has enough resources to make himself disappear and not be found, but something isn't right because he doesn't back down from a fight, especially when his ego is bruised. He was so pissed that I chose not to get revenge on Lyrical.

I shake my head. "He could be anywhere—and I mean anywhere."

"Do you think your father backed off? Do you believe he's gone?"

I stretch out my legs. "No. He's biding his time for something. I don't know what."

Russell bursts through the study with a panicked look on his face.

"What?" Clemon asks.

"Lyrical is missing."

Rage clouds my thoughts and my hands shake. If the motherfucker lost my wife, I'm going to put a bullet through his head.

I jump up from the chair, walk up to him, and grab him by the shirt. "What the fuck do you mean she's missing."

"I went to the bathroom and when I got to Gogh Hall, she was gone, so I drove to the art gallery and wa—"

Before he can finish his sentence, Clemon shoots him in the head. Blood and brain matter splatter across my face. I let go of his limp body and it falls to the ground with a thud, and seconds later, a pool of blood surrounds his lifeless body.

My father must have taken her. He waited for an opportunity to grab her.

I fish my phone from my pocket, check her location, and find that she's out in the middle of nowhere. No one goes to that part of North Haven. It's nothing but open fields and trees.

Clemon makes a phone call asking someone to clean up the body.

"I found her location."

"How?"

"I put a tracking device inside of her body, just in case she went missing."

"You put a tracking device inside my daughter? What the fuck, Snow?"

"I told you my job is to keep your daughter safe and protected, and I'm a man of my word."

Clemon presses a button on his desk and the bookcase opens up, leading to a tunnel.

"We're going have a talk about your obsession with my daughter, but for now, we're going to fucking kill your father."

I follow him down the stairs to a room equipped with so many guns, it looks like a store. I grab an AK-47 and a 9mm revolver, tucking them in my holster.

My father is going to wish he hadn't fucked with Lyrical. He will be meeting his maker today.

I grab my phone again and post a message in the group chat with her location.

Me: Lyrical is here. My father kidnapped her.

Jameson: Your father has been to that location before. It's the mansion in the middle of nowhere where I can't look into because it's secured.

I dial his number and he answers on the first ring.

"Why does he go there?"

"That's where he's staying, and for some reason, he's working with Professor Carter and another guy with a scar across his face."

"We've got to go. Meet me there. Call Keanu and tell him to come."

When we make it to the front entrance, we find Lyrical's mother, placing fresh flowers on the table in the foyer. She eyes the guns strapped to our bodies.

"What's going on?" she asks.

Clemon leans down and kisses her on the forehead. "Go to your mother's and don't come back home until I tell you to."

"But I thought we're going to support Lyrical on her big day at the gallery? We have to be there in twenty minutes. If you miss this, she won't for—"

"Lyrical is missing, Nora," I state. "My father has her. You need to leave now, just in case he sends someone here to murder you while we go to get her back."

"Bu—"

"Please, Nora. My love. Do what we say." He kisses her lips. "We'll get our daughter back."

She nods as tears fall down her face. "You go get our baby and be safe. The both of you."

We leave and get into the car. Clemon pulls out of the driveway and takes the main road.

What if he's put his hands on her?

What if he is torturing her?

Why is my father hanging out with Carter? I knew something was wrong with Carter, and I should have known that he was after my girl, but I couldn't find shit on him—on his background. It's like he appeared out of thin air. I even followed him to his apartment, searched through it after Lyrical had dinner with him, but I couldn't find anything. I'll kill him too, and the other guy.

"Jameson told me that Professor Carter and another guy are at the location that Lyrical is at. Why would he be there?"

"I did a background check on all of Lyrical's professors." He rubs the back of his neck. "There was a rumor about Carter." When I don't respond, he continues, "For years, people said he was associated with the mafia, trafficking girls." He hits the gas pedal fast, bypassing a dump truck. "We couldn't prove it because there wasn't any evidence of it. So, the dean let it go.

"I believe he's still doing it. When Lyrical came to me months ago about the car accident, she said she believed it was staged, so I checked into everyone's backgrounds. Everyone who was close to her. I found nothing. If the rumors are true about Carter, your father is using him to get back at you by selling her to someone because he couldn't get the money for your sister. In my book, that is worse than death."