No Lily.
Where would the bastard have taken her?Where would they have gone?He wanted to find Lily.Hewouldfind Lily.
No tracker.He left her ring behind.I can’t trace her.She taunted the freak, dared him, and he saw…the bastard was there.Right there while I was hauling out Carl.So close.
And Lily was gone.
Footsteps rushed across the marble floor.The clatter of high heels.Automatically, his head lifted.His head turned toward the sound.“Lily?”He began to rise.
But it wasn’t his Lily.
Lily wore flats, not heels.Flats and the beautiful dress that had fluttered around her.
A woman with strawberry blonde hair and chocolate eyes rushed toward him.She’d been the one at the door.Tear tracks were on her face.Her heels clattered to a halt as she stopped just a few feet from him.“I’m Sloane.”
“I know.”He’d already recognized her from the pictures he’d obtained…back when he’d been making his Lily file.
Where are you, Lily?He needed the Feds out of his house.He needed to scorch the earth.He needed to crucify the bastard who’d taken her.
“He…has her?”Sloane asked as her lower lip trembled.
They’d known she was coming from the airport.Desmond had left orders for the guards to allow her access to the house.Unless you had a badge or you were Sloane Armstrong…everyone else was being kept at the edge of the property’s perimeter.
Gage turned to confront Sloane.“There was a bomb in the limo.My team thinks it was detonated using a remote, that the bastard was nearby.Watching, waiting…”
And while Atlas had been busy, he’d taken his target.“It wasn’t Hatch Davis or Westin Blanchard.”As Lily had thought.“They weren’t the next targets.He was here, waiting for her.He wanted her.”Lily had been the next victim.
Gage glanced back at him.“Hatch Davis has been missing for six days.Found that out right before I got news of Lily’s, ah, disappearance.”A grimace.
Disappearance?Screw that.Lily had been abducted.Kidnapped.Taken.
“Hatch went on a camping trip, so no one thought anything was even wrong at first.Until he didn’t come home.Until the Feds went looking for him—because you pulled more strings than I had and you got them moving in Oklahoma City, helluva fast.”
Desmond had been watching silently from his position near the fireplace.He stepped forward.Fast steps.“Is he dead?”
“Probably,” Sloane said.She swiped at her cheeks.“If it’s been six days, yeah, I’d say the poor bastard is dead by now.”
Atlas shook his head.He stood fully, stretching and moving away from the couch.“Lily’s files were onlyjusttaken.Justtaken,” he emphasized.“Not taken six days ago.Hatch can’t be dead.The killer shouldn’t have him.The kid doesn’t even know who his father is.Lily figured that out…” His words trailed off.
The kid couldn’t be taken, not unless the killer knew about him before the break-in at Lily’s place.And that would mean the killer had seen Lily’s filesbeforethe theft at her home.The killer would have needed to get access to the intel on Hatch Davis at least a week ago.
Atlas’s gaze sharpened on Gage.Gage had appeared on the scene of the limo fire so quickly.As if he’d been close by?
More than that, though, Gage had been in Dallas very fast, too.Right after Atlas and Lily’s abduction, he’d been there.Justwhenhad Gage first arrived in Dallas?
Atlas’s gaze raked Gage.He really didn’t like the bastard.Mostly because he suspected the jerk was still in love with Lily.
Get the fuck in line.
Atlas sucked in a breath.And then—he lunged at the Fed.He slammed his hands around the prick’s shoulders and threw Gage against the nearest wall.“If you’ve hurt Lily?—”
“Stop!I didn’t!Iwouldn’t!”
Like Atlas was gonna believe that.“Sheknewwho the killer was!She’d figured it out, and Lily was about to tell me.She knew, dammit, and he took her!We went back to the scene at the cabin, Lily talked to the inspector, and she—” Atlas broke off.
Gage glared at him.Gage, the Fed who’d let Lily slip through his fingers.
Atlas’s head turned.
