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TWO
Parking the motorcycle in front of the marina less than twenty-four hours later, Angel forced herself to dismount slowly and wait as her foster brothers, Tracker and Chance, did the same.
It was nearly impossible when panic was searing her insides. The news that Bliss had nearly been abducted had shaken her to her core. Another hour and she would have been on the plane heading for Rio, away from the teenager. Away from her sister.
Bliss could have been taken, dead before Angel could get back to her.
Releasing her helmet and pulling it off, she looked around, matching the appearance of mild concern exhibited by her foster brothers, holding back her fear. It was the greatest test of her patience and training as she pushed back the instinctive need to run, to race, to hurry, and to make certain Bliss and her mother were safe.
Tracker led the way to the marina’s store, then to the office where the Mackay family had gathered. Angel stepped inside, her gaze locking on Natches and Chaya Mackay where they stood across the room with their daughter, Bliss.
Anger and suspicion immediately flared in Chaya’s already-hard expression and cold brown eyes as her husband merely stared back curiously, though his emerald gaze was flat.
Merciless. A Marine sniper’s eyes.
“Angel!” a voice shrieked, still filled with adrenaline. The teenager that called out to her drew her gaze from the couple. It was Rowdy’s daughter, Annie, who saw her first and announced her presence. “I thought you were leaving.”
Bliss swung away from her parents at Annie’s cry, her emerald green eyes widening with relief as she followed Annie and rushed to her.
“We were on our way to the plane when I heard the report that Bliss was in trouble, so I thought I’d come check on you first.” As she spoke, Annie, Laken, Bliss, and Erin were throwing their arms around her in one of those group hugs they’d perfected and Angel so enjoyed.
Touching their hair in a ghostly caress, she felt a surge of such overwhelming relief it was weakening. She fought, but knew she failed to hide her emotions, to hide the fear she’d felt until the moment she saw Bliss was indeed safe.
“How can we help?” she heard Tracker asking behind her.
“I don’t know if I can afford you and your group, Tracker,” Rowdy, the second eldest cousin, the one known as the most logical, answered wryly.
“There’s no charge, Mr. Mackay,” Angel stated without turning.
She’d pay Tracker’s and Chance’s parts herself if she had to. Her money just sat in the bank anyway, rarely used. They didn’t stop long enough to really buy much.
“Tell him, Tracker,” she commanded her foster brother.
Behind her, Tracker started to assure Rowdy there’d be no charge. Lifting her gaze again Angel found herself meeting Chaya’s suspicious one. Chaya was a DHS interrogator and an expert knife thrower, and she seemed to see right through her.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Angel kept her voice soft, as unthreatening as possible. She wanted to know who did this and why.
“A man in a ski mask grabbed Bliss and tried to pull her into a van,” Rowdy explained. “Luckily her cousins were close by and managed to delay the abduction long enough for me to hear their cries. When the kidnappers saw me, they ran. But that’s all we’ve got.”
That was all they had. No reason why. No way to identify who had made the attempt or why.
“I’m so glad you’re safe!” Angel said to Bliss. Then to her parents, she said, “I assume you’ll be keeping the girls together?” Angel couldn’t bear to be separated from Bliss again as she had been in the past weeks. Not now that Bliss was in danger. “If you do, I’d like to spend some time with them.”
If she was there and Bliss was endangered again, then she’d be able to help. The wound she’d taken on her thigh at the beginning of the week, during the two-day quick-rescue operation they’d been involved in, notwithstanding. She’d make certain no one took Bliss, that she wasn’t hurt, that nightmares didn’t come alive in her young life as they had in her own.
“Angel,” Tracker warned her quietly, so quietly she probably only heard it herself, a reminder that she was passing that invisible boundary the Mackays had placed between Bliss and Angel a year and a half ago when she’d helped the family in another matter. They’d been relegated to acquaintances and nothing more.
But she wasn’t just an acquaintance, Angel cried out silently. She was more, so much more. . . .
“Zoey.” Rowdy’s voice hardened. “Why don’t you and your sisters take the girls to the front of the store? Get them some drinks and snacks?”
Angel forced herself to show no reaction.
No regret. No pain.
Just as Tracker had been warning her, she’d pressed too close, too fast. But they would hide Bliss from her. She knew they would. She’d never know until it was too late if the teenager was abducted, or worse.
She would worry herself to death.
