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“Her phone is being blocked.” He furiously scrolls through the logs and data. “It’s like the spyware has been tampered with, but I can see there’s activity happening. There’s data incoming. Someone is trying to fuck with her.”
Shit.
“What about her tracker?” I peer over his shoulder, but none of it makes any sense to me. I’m not good with tech stuff like Ven is, and right now, I feel useless.
“Fuck. FUCK.” He digs one hand into his hair. “That’s offline, too. What the hell is going on?”
Think. We need to goddamn think.
“Where’s Thorne?” I dig out my phone and try dialing him, but his number goes straight to voicemail. Usually he turns it off while he’s working with Hawke just in case someone tries to interfere—preventing anyone from listening in who shouldn’t be.
“Check the club live feed,” I grunt, fisting my phone tight. My heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest. There’s not only a fear for Fox in this, but it brings back all my nightmares from when I was younger that something would take Thorne away from me, too.
I can’t lose either of them.
“I don’t have access to recorded footage…” Ven’s teeth are gritted tight. “I’ve told Thorne we need to get remote access to more than just the live cameras.” He jabs at the keyboard and brings up panels showing different camera angles covering Noire House at the main entrance and the club levels.
“Their vehicle is there.” I stab at the screen. Parked up outside is one of our vehicles, which sends a wash of relief through me that they’ve at least made it to the mansion.
“He shouldn’t have taken her on his own.” Ven is vibrating with barely leashed rage. I’m right there with him. He’s right, we all should have gone, and the fact we didn’t sits like a stone in my gut.
“There. Stop.” On one of the camera feeds in the bottom corner of the screen, I see her. It’s grainy and dark, and hard to make out exactly where she is—maybe one of the upper-level corridors? “What part of the mansion is that? The fuck is she doing there?”
But as I say those words, that’s not what makes my blood start to boil over.
It’s the sight of someone in the shadows beside her. They’ve got a hand wrapped around her upper arm. We both watch as she tries to wrench free of their grip, and fails. In her other hand, she’s holding her phone, which makes me think she was either just reading whatever had been sent to her, or was trying to call one of us for help.
She’s being forced—cornered in whatever darkened part of the club this is—against her will.
“Whoever that is. They’re already dead.” Ven is a coil of fury. He goes to stand up, and I shove him back down in his seat by the shoulder.
“What are you gonna do, huh? Kill yourself in the process of driving there? By the time you reach Noire House, she might be long gone if whoever that is takes her.”
“I don’t fucking care,” he snaps at me. “She’s already been hurt, and that’s one time too many.”
I see all my own fears for our girl reflected in his troubled eyes.
“Thorne is in the building. He can get to her quicker than either of us can. We need to be fucking smart about this, and you can murder whoever you want later. Keep your eyes on Fox.” I have to take a deep breath because my fingers are itching to hammer a hole through the skull of whoever this is, and it’s taking every inch of my own self-control to keep Ven from racing over there and blowing up Noire House.
He shifts in his seat, but at least remains fixated on the silent images on screen.
“How much of a delay in the footage?” I try dialing Thorne again. Still nothing.
“A minute, tops.” Ven keeps the sight of Fox in the main part of the laptop, but starts pulling up a few other browser windows. We can see Poe is on a different floor entirely, dealing with some clients in the main foyer. The rest of the club seems to be empty, considering the time of day. But as our eyes scan the footage for a possible sighting of Thorne, we both still.
The footage shows their bodies shift around in another tussle, and we finally catch a glimpse of a face emerging from the shadows beside Fox.
“That slimy prick.”
“Motherfucker.”
Miles Crane. He’s unmistakable. The very same asshole who tried to openly paw her on the dance floor weeks ago at the Anguis ball right before Thorne stepped in and put a stop to it.
“Can’t we get any goddamn audio? Anything?” My hand is wrapped so tight around my phone, I might shatter the screen. All I can focus on is the way his hand is bruising her upper arm and how he’s getting right in her face. It’s clear that he’s threatening her in some way, and while Fox is trying to wrench free of his hold, she’s not fighting him off either.
Ven curses, flying through multiple levels of data and coding and all kinds of shit I don’t understand. It’s a blur on the screen as he works, and finally, there’s a crackle in the laptop speakers, and some audio bursts through.
It’s from her phone. At least that part of the spyware must still be working.
