Page 101 of Declan

“No one’s coddling you. I’m concerned.”

“I appreciate your concern. But I’m fine. And again, I know what I’m doing and all of you will be there to have my back.”

The elevator doors slid open and I was assaulted with chaos.

Brooks walked by and tossed a vest in my direction. I grabbed it before it fell. Then I noticed more men now filled the office space.

“That’s Blue Team. Gabe, Owen, Kevin, and Myles.”

My eyes went directly to the man named Owen. He looked no less angry than the last time I saw him. As a matter of fact, he looked more agitated.

“What’s going on?” Thad asked Dec as he made his way to us. “Any word?”

“Garrett picked up the car northbound over the Francis Scott Key Bridge.”

“Dundalk?” Thad weirdly asked.

“Doubtful. If she’s looking for privacy, she won’t find it there.”

“Sparrows Point,” Thad returned.

“That’d be my guess, but we’ll wait and see if she exits.”

“What’s Sparrows Point?”

“A large industrial area. It was owned by Bethlehem Steel. Now Amazon has a distribution center there,” Dec explained.

“Too busy. A distribution center would have employees around the clock. Trucks in and out. What else is around there? More privacy.”

“There’s a cement factory and coal plant on the south side. If she waited until after closing, she’d have all the privacy she wanted,” Thad added.

“That’s hours away,” I noted, and held out the 300 blackout rifle I was holding. Declan took it and I put on the heavy bulletproof vest and kept talking but lowered my voice so Owen wouldn’t hear. “Ash is patient to extract the information she wants but impatient to start. She wouldn’t drive around with this woman in her car all day.”

An ugly nagging started in my stomach and crawled its way up to my heart. How was it possible to know someone so well but not know anything about them? I still couldn’t believe my friend had lied to me. Why wouldn’t she just tell me her father was involved with Pollaski? It didn’t make what happened to her mother any less horrific. I was missing something. Tex and Beth were missing something.

“We’re missing something,” I voiced my concerns.

“Hold that thought,” Dec told me. “We’re ready to roll, we’ll talk it out on the way.”

Zane started in our direction, with Owen and the other three men following behind him.

“Gold, you take point.” Zane made eye contact with Declan. “I called the Baltimore County Mayor and explained we’re running drills in the area. That means you have a cunt hair of leeway, but this is not the wild wild west and I’d prefer my night not be spent getting you out of lockup.” Then Zane’s gaze moved to Owen. “And you, lock your shit down. You were taking a shower for fuck's sake. You didn’t miss anything because there was nothing to miss. No threats were made.” Zane’s eyes came to mine and they narrowed. “Don’t get dead, don’t get hurt, don’t even get a motherfucking scratch. You’re already a supreme pain in my ass. If I have to deal with a gonzo Declan and Thad, which means Emerson, Violet, and Jaxon will be breathing down my neck, too, I’ll be seriously fucking pissed.”

“Your concern warms my heart.” My snarky comeback earned me a growl from Zane and snort from Brooks.

“Christ. Pain in the ass,” Zane grunted and walked away.

“Takes one to know one,” I called to Zane’s back.

“Can we go?” Owen barked.

I looked up at the man and barely held back my flinch. Open pain, stark fear, extreme anger. Owen seriously cared about Natasha.

“We’ll find her,” I gently told him.

“Right, but will she be breathing when we do?”

That was a question I didn’t want to answer.