Page 8 of Plain Sight

He smirks, and I wish I had a way to wipe that expression off his face without touching him. I wish I had a way to wipe his face off without touching him. Or just trap him in some sort of cage. A closet. Anything so I don’t have to look at it for another second.

Then the smirk disappears. He looks at me again, and my stomach drops at the total lack of emotion in his eyes.

“You might be the prettiest person I’ve ever killed,” he muses. “Give me a minute to decide.”

Fuck you, I don’t say. I’m not giving him the satisfaction.

And I’m not giving him the satisfaction of killing me like it’s just an annoying errand on his to-do list.

He’s going to have to work for it.

3

JAMESON

I register the words that come out of the man’s mouth—shakily, because I’m shaking the fuck out of him—but not what they mean. I’m the last one in our group to understand that he’s given an address.

A pair of addresses.

Because apparently the motherfucker who took Lily—and who this guy is going to suffer for—had a couple of places ready just in case.

Someone takes him out of my hands. Poseidon, I think. Somebody strong enough to lift him with two hands on his arms, like you’d lift a statue that had turned into Jell-O.

That’s good, because I had no plan for him. Bring him along as a punching bag, maybe, but I’m not interested in touching him. I’m interested in getting to Lily.

So I’m taking the initiative of pulling one of our security guys—we have to be firing all these people, because there’s no way they can work for us ever again—out of the nearest black SUV. I don’t care where he goes next, or what he does. I just want the car.

The sound of raised voices catches my attention. Julien, talking forcefully to August, who signs back like he’s yelling, too. Mason has come out of the cathedral, and he and Gabriel are arguing with one another. Hades and Poseidon aren’t shouting, but it hits me like they are.

“I’m leaving,” I snap at all of them. “Get in the fucking car.”

Mason drives, his face set. I’d have fought him on it if I had any time to spare. His knee still hurts when he’s under stress, and it hurts more when he’s driving. I should be the one behind the wheel.

Except my heart is beating so hard that I can feel my pulse pushing at my neck and my chest and my toes. I’ve driven plenty of times under pressure.

This time’s different.

This time, it’s Lily.

Half of me splits off and hovers above the car. Half of me wants to be in my body as much as I can be so I can be ready for⁠—

For whatever happens next.

Hades sits in the passenger seat, watching the map on Mason’s phone. August and Julien have taken over the back row. Julien has stopped talking out loud to August, but I can hear them signing. No point in looking. I won’t know what they’re saying. It won’t matter.

I focus on staying in the car.

There’s traffic, because of course there fucking is. This is Manhattan. It takes more than one kidnapped woman to shut down the city.

It takes more than two dead parents and a critically injured brother, too. Nothing stopped for us. Not ever.

Not that I expected it to.

The first address is the one closer to the cathedral. A matter of blocks. That can’t be where Lily was taken. It’s too easy. But there’s no other choice. We have to know if she’s there.

I could get there faster on foot.

Mason would lose his mind if I got out of the car right now. I know he’s not happy that we’re in two separate groups—three, if Lily and whoever took her count as a group. Gabriel and Remy are at the cathedral with Sunshine and Elise and her sisters and the rest of the wedding party. Both Hades’s brothers. If they work as a team, they’ll probably be able to keep everyone from finding out that the ceremony has gone to hell and one of us might not come back.