Free Unleashed: Volume 3 (Unleashed #3) by Callie Harper

look
of someone who didn’t know where his next meal was coming from.
Once you’d been like that, you never forgot the feeling. It stayed
with you the rest of your life. I’d learned how to cover it up,
tamp it down so well no one around me now would have guessed. But
Kara knew.
    I’d devoted so much
time to divorcing myself from my past, leaping out and away from it
into the stratosphere of success, you’d think I’d cringe at the
thought of taking someone from that past into my present world.
Instead, I couldn’t wait. I wanted Kara by my side. I wanted to
show her what I was able to do now with my money. I didn’t harbor
any illusions about playing superman. At most, I figured maybe I
could save a few kids some of the worst kinds of suffering. But even
that felt pretty damn good, and I bet Kara would understand.
    The traffic light
turned green and we started onto the city block of our hotel.
    “Finally,” I
exhaled.
    “New York traffic.”
Vladimir shook his head.
    Kara would be up there
waiting for me. “Good to be home,” I murmured.
    Where had that come
from? Home? Why had I called it that? This was a hotel, not even the
one I usually stayed at when I visited the city.
    I rode up the elevator,
still wondering at my choice of words. Home. What did I know about
that? My father had left town before I was born, never even stuck
around to meet me. My mother had been a junkie her whole life, her
addiction leading her to prison and an early grave. I’d been twelve
when I’d entered my first but sure-as-hell-not-last foster home.
You got so you didn’t even unpack your bag. It was easier to sneak
out at night if things got rough, or simply shrug it over your
shoulder when they told you it was time to move on. Either way, one
bag worked best.
    I headed to our suite,
trying to shake off my thoughts. Why was I thinking about that time
in my life? Next thing you knew I’d start in on thinking about that
little girl Shelly from my last foster home, worrying over what ever
became of her, knowing deep in my heart it wasn’t good.
    It didn’t make sense
to dwell on any of it. And I definitely didn’t open up to anyone
about it, ever. No one in my life now knew about my childhood. No one
even guessed at it. I was great at evasion, so smooth most didn’t
even realize I was doing it. The trick was simple: get people talking
about themselves. People ate that shit up. All you had to do was give
them a vague line or two and let them believe what they wanted.
    “You go to U
Montana?” a guy might ask.
    “Go Grizzlies,” I
could reply, then ask where they’d gone to college. Then all I had
to do was sit back, relax and listen to their stories about undergrad
hijinks.
    And most of the time,
it was enough. It was more than enough. What were the odds on a kid
like me making it into the top 1%? Without being a pro athlete. Slim
to none. I had it good. So why was I dwelling on the past?
    I wouldn’t do it. Not
anymore. Not when I had Kara Brooks waiting for me in my hotel room.
    “Kara!” I opened
the door. No response. Not in the bedroom or bathroom. She wasn’t
there.
    Where was she? I’d
been counting down the minutes until I got to see her again, itching
at my skin to feel her, kiss her, wrap her up in my arms. But where
was she? Out somewhere. My heart pounded and I could hear myself
breathing hard as I battled feelings I never let come to the surface.
Disappointment. Vulnerability. That ache of wanting and not having. I
didn’t do those emotions, not anymore.
    I took off my jacket,
loosened my tie and started to pace the floor. She’d probably run
off with someone in Times Square. Maybe the naked cowboy. Or maybe
she’d met someone there, made plans, had a whole hidden agenda I
knew nothing about.
    That was crazy. Even
while I roamed the hotel room like a jealous animal, I knew I was
thinking like a maniac.
    But something could
have happened to her. She had the street smarts of a teddy bear.
Someone could have