Unleashed #4 Read Online Free PDF Page A

again.

CHAPTER 3
    Declan
    Driving to the Brooks’
family ranch, everything felt surreal. I’d thought about driving
that road about a million times. When I’d left it six years ago, I
hadn’t moved that far away. About two and a half hours if you drove
it fast, and many times I’d thought about doing exactly that.
    Now there I was,
speeding down the Montana highway toward Kara at 85 miles an hour. I
recognized what I passed, the dilapidated Shell station and the
abandoned church. The railroad tracks I’d never seen a train use,
not once. It all looked familiar yet strange and I felt nearly
disembodied, like I was watching myself hurtle toward Kara instead of
just doing it.
    It might be because I
was going on 60 hours with no sleep. That was definitely contributing
to things.
    I hadn’t slept
Saturday night. After the club I’d paced the hotel room like a
caged panther. Then, Sunday, I hadn’t been able to fly right out.
I’d forgotten I had a couple of commitments in New York, drinks and
dinner meetings, all of the bullshit that used to matter to me more
than anything else. Now, I could barely pay attention while a guy
agreed to sign on the dotted line, victoriously culminating months of
work to persuade him into a deal.
    At six a.m. Monday
morning I’d finally gotten myself on a plane. Normally, I would
have used the time to catch up on work, read through some fine print,
plan my next steps. Today I nearly chewed off my own arm with
frustration, anticipation, anger and impatience. I didn’t know what
the fuck was happening with Kara and I was a man who damn well needed
to know what the fuck was happening. The more I thought about it—and
I thought about nothing else—the more my brain reeled with
extremes.
    She’d been kidnapped.
That one I decided around two a.m. Monday morning. That was the
explanation. My sweet, trusting, naïve Kara had been kidnapped and
her captors had forged that note. As much as I wanted to pull out a
fucking gun at the idea of someone harming Kara, it did in a way
present a more palatable alternative. It wasn’t her decision. There
was someone else to blame.
    By three a.m. I’d
discarded that idea. It made no sense. I wanted to think that it did.
But, no, there’d be a ransom note if she’d been kidnapped. They’d
want my money and they’d have left a note with demands. There was
no getting around it, she’d packed up her belongings and left of
her own accord.
    It really pissed me off
that she didn’t take any of her new things. I’d bought them for
her. They belonged to her, the clothes, the jewelry, all of it. But
she’d cast them off, unneeded, unwanted. The delight she’d
pretended earlier that week shed like a snake’s old skin, lying on
the bathroom floor alongside that designer ball gown.
    She’d even left the
apple charm necklace. That one I was sure she’d loved. It was so
like her, simple, understated, perfect. I’d ripped the chain in two
in my impotent rage.
    She’d played me.
She’d had another deal worked out from the start, was just taking
me for what I’d give her, a trip to New York. She’d been waiting
the whole time to see how much I’d write her in a check. I’d
taken too long to put pen to paper, so she’d split.
    At four a.m. I decided
she’d been in love. With someone else. It wasn’t like Kara to
turn mercenary, to care about nothing but the Benjamins. But love? I
could see her doing crazy things. Maybe she’d been pretending with
me to save the ranch while the real man she loved scrambled to get
together cash. They were like Romeo and Juliet, forced apart by
financial need. Then he’d finally come through, figured out some
way for a happy ending. I was the bad guy who got out-maneuvered.
When I finally got jilted so she could go be with her one, true love,
the audience cheered.
    Any way it went down, I
had to figure it out. That was why I was back in Montana, unshaven
with bloodshot eyes behind my mirrored sunglasses. On my way