Chapter 29

ODETTE

"What do you mean?" Anger flashed like a hot, searing beam of light against my vision, causing tears too well to ease the burn, "I haven't been gone for more than seventy-two hours and something bad has already happened?"

Gunnar's hard voice drifted into the receiver of the encrypted burner phone Ace had prohibited me from using. Shuffling sounded in the background before a string of muffled curses followed, "I'm at his apartment. He called me and I told him I'd meet him when I landed. He never answered any of my phone calls after that. I came straight here after I landed. Everything in his apartment is thoroughly destroyed."

My irritation fizzled and popped in my eardrums, like the pressure experienced at high altitude, while my blood thrummed and heart pounded like a war drum against my ribcage, "How long ago did you last speak to him?"

My tone may have seeped out of me leveled and cool but my hands quivered as they wiped away my silent tears. The scars caught and held my at