“We need to find his ass.” I don’t wait for them as I pivot and stride for the exit. Urgency and blind rage consume me. It could be a coincidence that Kareem is absent the same time as Ember, but every nerve in my body screams that it’s not.
Eli barks out orders to the Cross security team, ordering them to search the building and all the grounds to find Ember and Kareem via his commlink. Sam keeps stride with me as we push through the doors and step onto the courtyard. The soft, almost cheerful bubbling of the fountain is incongruent to the panic pounding in my ears and flooding through me. Matter of fact, the moonlit beauty of the arches, flowers, lush grass, and shadowed alcoves is an affront to the ugliness of my suspicions and rage roiling inside me.
I round the fountain, peering into the darkened stairs behind the stone columns.
“Nothing,” I murmur. “Fucking no—”
The moonlight hits something in the grass, and it glimmers. Breaking into a run, I reach the object in seconds and pick it up.
A shoe. A lone glass shoe.
Ember’s shoe.
CHAPTER FIFTEENEmber
The fuck?
I shift on my bed, groaning. My head iskillingme. What the hell did I drink at that ball, and how much? Gingerly, I roll over, but instead of sinking into my comfortable mattress, my elbow hits a hard-ass surface, propelling another groan from me.
I repeat, the fuck?
Sitting up with my eyes squeezed closed against the terrible pounding in my skull, I press my palms to my forehead. But the pain isn’t emanating from the front of my head but the back. Teeth sunk into my bottom lip, I move my hand and encounter a tender lump right above the base of my skull. I probe it, and another blast of pain damn near sends me into a fetal position and my stomach soaring for my throat. I swallow back bile and breathe in and out. In and out. In and out until the worst of it passes.
What the hell happened? Was I in a car accident? Am I in a hospital? That would explain the hard-as-bricks bed.
Slowly, I peel my eyelids open and…
Not a hospital.
A cage. I’m sitting on the floor of a muthafuckin’ cage.
As if just the sight of my jail unlocks the steel door in my mind, the memories flood in, worsening the ache and nausea.
The ball. The courtyard. Talking with Kareem. Feeling uneasy with the conversation and leaving. Then… nothing.
That muthafucka hit me. And apparently kidnapped me.
A huff of laughter escapes me as I stare out at theordinary-looking den, with a regular desk, boring leather couch, a couple of chairs, and a scratched coffee table, that stretches out beyond the black bars of the cage. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’m the one usually on the other side, but now I’m the subject, imprisoned, waiting for God knows what.
Son of a bitch.
I bow my head, the weight of my predicament pressing down on me. What the fuck does Kareem want with me? And does Asad even know that I’m gone? How long have I been locked… where here is?
This can’t be the end for me. There’s too much for me to do. Too much for me to say.
“What the fuck do you have going on, Kareem? You had one job. One damn job, and you fucked that up.”
My head snaps up at the familiar voice, and I instantly regret the abrupt motion. The explosion of agony has me swaying, and I allow it to take me back to the floor of the cage. I curl in on myself, body half twisted to face the door as it opens and reveals Michelle, wearing the same dress from the ball, stalking into the room behind her son. Her steps are agitated, jerky, a contradiction to her elegant appearance.
Rage fills me, battling back the pain, shooting adrenaline through my veins and clearing my head. These two? I should’ve guessed it, but I didn’t. This bitch tried to have me killed by execution. Of course she’s in on my kidnapping.
“Plans changed, Mom,” Kareem says, casually striding into the room and over to his side bar. Still wearing his dress shirt and pants, he doesn’t appear like someone who just committed about four felonies. He grabs a decanter and pours a couple of fingers of alcohol into a tumbler. “I changed the plans. You wanted me to take out Asad so you could take over—”
“That’s not true! I wanted this foryou, Kareem. Soyoucould run House of Cross and the Cross organization.”
I almost gasp, nearly giving away I’m not asleep. The hell? What did I just hear? She and Kareem are plotting on Asad, notme? They’re the ones who’re working with Xavier and Deacon? My heart slams against my chest, causing an echo chamber in my head.
“Bullshit.” He chuckles and takes a sip from his glass. Who is this person? The Kareem I know has never stood up to his mother, has always been obsequious.ThisKareem is a stranger. And apparently, not just to me either, judging by the jerk of Michelle’s chin. “You want me to take over Cross because you think I’m easier to manipulate. Since women can’t sit on the throne, you’ll do second best—rule through me. There’s no way in hell you could do that with Prince. C’mon, Mom, give me some credit.”
