Herman rushed Sandra to the hospital. She had fainted from shock, and the medical staff swarmed around her the moment they arrived.
But Herman's mind wasn't on Sandra. Not even close. A nameless agitation clawed at him, and no matter how hard he tried to shake it, the same image kept replaying behind his eyes: the look on Marian's face as that one-eyed man dragged her into the car. The last look she'd given him before the door slammed shut.
Cold. Hopeless. And a stillness so vast it swallowed everything……
His chest seized without warning, as though an invisible fist had closed around his heart and was squeezing the air from his lungs.
“Get the car.”
Herman wrenched his tie loose, gasping for breath.
“Send everyone. Every last person we have. Turn all of Harbor City upside down if you have to, but find Marian Pruitt and bring her back to me!”
His assistant flinched and scrambled to respond.
“Yes, Mr. James. I'll arrange it right away!”
He stole a glance at Herman before hurrying out.
In all the years he'd worked for the man, he had never seen Herman James lose his composure like this. Not even when Sandra was held at knifepoint had the man looked so unraveled.
Herman stood by the window, his fingertips pressed white against the sill.
He told himself he simply didn't want Marian to die so easily. She owed him. She owed Sandra. Those debts hadn't been paid.
But the dread rising in his chest, thick and suffocating, wasn't something logic could explain away.
Hours crawled past. The sky turned black.
His assistant burst through the door, face drained of color, voice shaking.
“Mr.……Mr. James……we found it”the vehicle. Only the vehicle!”
Herman spun around. His eyes were bloodshot.
“Where is she?!”
“In……in an abandoned warehouse at the bottom of the cliff”
Herman didn't stop for his coat. He was out the door before the sentence ended.
The car screamed up the mountain road, tires shrieking around every bend.
The warehouse was a wreck. Vincent lay crumpled on the floor in the middle of it, beaten to a pulp, barely breathing, ringed by bodyguards.
Herman kicked the door open and swept the room with his gaze. No sign of Marian anywhere.
The violence rolling off him thickened.
“Where is she?!”
Vincent lifted his head, slow and deliberate. He split his bloody mouth into a grin, his one good eye glinting with malice.
“Why does the young Master James still care about that woman?”
He coughed up a mouthful of blood, and his grin turned vicious.
“She really was something, though. Your woman. Finest piece I've ever had in my life.”
“I asked you where she is!”
Herman seized him by the collar and hauled him up, fist cocked back, trembling. One swing and the man's skull would cave in.
Vincent wheezed under the chokehold, but the deranged laughter wouldn't stop.
“Ha ha ha Haha! Dead……she's been dead for hours!”
“Ungrateful little thing tried to fight back, so I put her down right then and there! The body? Dumped it in the ocean. By now……there probably isn't even bone left!”
“You're lying!”
Herman's vision flooded red. His fist connected with Vincent's face full force, the impact flipping the man across the concrete.
“She's not dead! She can't be dead!”
The words tore out of him raw.
But his heart felt like it was being ripped in two with bare hands, blood rushing through the wound, and the pain drove tremors through every muscle in his body.
She hadn't finished paying for what she'd done. How dare she die.
How dare she just die like that.
Vincent lay facedown on the ground, coughing blood, twisting the knife on purpose.
“Why would I lie……? Didn't you say she meant nothing to you? That she was nobody? So what's with the heartbroken act now?”
“Right before she died, she was still calling your name. Too bad you were busy holding your precious little beauty. Couldn't hear a thing. Ha ha ha Haha! ”
Every word landed like a poisoned blade, buried to the hilt in Herman's chest.
Herman staggered back a step, slammed his palm against the wall to keep from falling, and tasted copper rising in his throat. A mouthful of blood spilled past his lips.
His assistant went white and rushed forward to steady him.
“Mr. James! Are you all right?!”
“Search……”
Herman's voice was wrecked, barely a rasp.
“Search everywhere……tear apart every inch of this city if you have to. I want her found. Alive or dead, I need proof!”
He refused to believe it.
He refused to believe that Marian Pruitt was gone.
