Chapter Thirty-Six
Malachi's POV
I didn't know how Alicia was doing, and it was eating me alive.
Three times I'd walked to her door. Three times I'd raised my hand to knock. Three times I'd stopped myself because I knew she wouldn't answer. Or worse—she would, and I'd see that haunted look in her eyes and be unable to do anything about it.
Not yet.
Not until I had solutions instead of just questions.
I poured myself another whiskey and stared at my phone. The information Maurice had pulled from her messages sat in my encrypted files like a loaded gun. Her father's threats. Sophie's photos. The impossible deadline.
Five days now.
Every hour that passed was an hour closer to that bastard selling a seventeen-year-old girl to a predator. Every minute I spent planning was a minute Sophie spent terrified.
But rushing in without preparation would get people killed. Possibly Sophie. Possibly Alicia.
And I couldn't live with that.
