The thought of Evie alone with Asher didn’t exactly calm my nerves, either. But it wasn’t like she knew where she was, which meant she could get lost, or taken, and none of us would know.
I picked up my pace, heading back toward our seats and down a different hallway that led to Asher’s private rooms. My stomach churned. What if she was gone? They could have taken her and I would never see her again. She might not even be down here. Someone could have her out in the parking lot, dead already.
I should get Rook or the others, but I couldn’t even stop to track them down.
Evie.
I needed to find Evie.
I’d let her out of my sight for less than five minutes, and now she was gone. And for the first time in years, I felt the kind of terror that promised blood if I didn’t find her.
Chapter 31
Evie
Everyone in the crowd looked the same—young, hungry, dangerous. No one looked like the kind of man who might’ve once had dinner with my parents.
Or possibly might’ve once betrayed my parents.
If Jack Anderson was here, he was doing a hell of a job blending in.
But it didn’t matter, I would find him. I stepped into the hallway, already pulling out the tablet I had hid in my jacket. It took me five minutes to break into Asher’s camera system, and two more to start a recognition search with a rough age range.
The seconds ticked by until I heard a set of footsteps. I held my breath until I realized they were coming this way. I swung to the door to my right, trying the handle and giving a silent thank you to the universe when it opened. I still didn’t want anyone else in the pack to know I was trying to find Anderson first and talk to him before they did.
I pushed the door shut with a quiet click, listening until the footsteps passed. The screen blinked again—one match—but I already knew the face. One of Asher’s bodyguards. Not worth my time. I kept the scan going, flipping through the next stretch of camera footage.
My hand wrapped around the handle again, giving it a pull, only to find it didn’t budge.
“What the hell?” I muttered, twisting harder.
Still locked.
A spike of panic slid in under my ribs, cold and sudden. I cursed myself for not being more careful, for getting myself cornered in a dusty little closet in the middle of a warehouse where no one would hear me if—well, if anything. The air already felt tighter. My chest felt tighter.
I slapped along the wall for a light switch, but the tablet’s glow barely cut through the shadows. Dropping it carefully to the floor, I dug out my phone and typed fast.
Evie:I’m in the closet down the hallway opposite of the exit. Don’t ask. Come quick.
Evie:Please.
I turned on the flashlight, relief starting to trickle in—until my foot snagged on a bucket.
I stumbled hard, slamming into a metal shelf that groaned like it had been waiting years for this moment. Then everything came down—buckets, cans, bottles—clattering and bouncing off my head and shoulders.
Something cold and thick splashed over me, oozing down my cheek. The smell hit me a second later.
Not paint. Not water.
Oh God.
What the hell had dumped all over me?
The tablet started beeping, but I scrambled for my phone, trying to open my camera. My fingers only slid across the screen, a red hue in the liquid making me freeze.
A strangled sound tore out of me—half gasp, half curse—as the door swung open, flooding the tiny space with light so bright it stabbed at my eyes. For the briefest, most pathetic moment, relief unfurled in my chest because I thought it was Aiden, but the shape in the doorway was shorter, not as broad, and not at all the man I wanted it to be.
I dropped down, grabbing the tablet, and stepped into the hallway as my eyes adjusted back to the light.
