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37
RILEY
It’sall I can do to keep my mouth closed as Logan navigates through the streets of Halston. I want to tell him to hurry, but he already is. Even though he’s driving with as much precision and care as he does everything else, he’s breaking just about every speed limit the city has in place… and he’s good enough to get away with it too.
It still doesn’t feel like enough, though. Not when there’s no way of knowing whether Chloe will still be where she was spotted by the time we get there, or if it was even really her in the first place.
“We’ll find her, princess,” Dante murmurs from the backseat.
I nod on autopilot.
“Breathe,” he adds with a low chuckle.
I let out an explosive breath, one I didn’t even realize I was holding until he pointed it out. It doesn’t do a damn thing to make me feel any less antsy, though. I don’t even realize my leg is jittering until Logan reaches over without taking his eyes off the road and rests a hand on my thigh, steadying me.
The unexpected gesture of comfort surprises me enough that I manage to tear my eyes off the road ahead of us for a second to look over at him. His eyes are still straight ahead, a look of total concentration on his face.
It almost makes me smile. Maybe it wasn’t so much comfort as that the frantic motion of my leg was driving him crazy. Either way, I’ll take it. Both of these men are reminding me in their own ways that I’m not alone in this. That they care too.
Logan rounds a corner at a speed that the Escalade shouldn’t be able to handle, and I see a couple of vehicles parked in the street that I think I recognize as belonging to the Reapers. I’m not all that familiar with this part of the city and have no idea which gang claims it. In other circumstances, that might have put my guard up, but with Maddoc standing on the sidewalk in front of a storefront with bars on the windows talking to a small cluster of people I’m pretty sure are part of his organization, I don’t worry about it. I’m not sure when I started associating one of Halston’s most ruthless gangs with a feeling of safety and protection, but that’s what the Reapers have become for me.
Now, I only hope they can be that for Chloe too.
“Is this it?” I ask as Logan pulls to a smooth stop next to the small group, my voice tight from the sudden constriction in my throat. “Is this where they saw her?”
“Yes,” he answers succinctly as Maddoc looks up and meets my eyes.
I fumble with my seatbelt, hands shaking again, then hurry to his side as if drawn by a magnet.
“Where?” I ask, interrupting whatever he was saying to his crew mid-sentence. “Where is she?”
He takes the interruption in stride, holding a hand out to me and pulling me against him without a word of censure. “We heard someone who fits her description was seen ducking down that alley.”
He nods toward it, and it’s all I can do not to break away from him and race down there to check myself. I know better, though. He got here first. He would have already done that.
“Where do we look?”
“We’ve already checked with the businesses on this street. She didn’t enter any of them, but the owner of the pawn shop says he thinks he saw her walking past his windows.”
“Is he your…”What did Logan call it?“Your street informant?”
“No,” Maddoc says, which makes Dante break into a grim smile.
“So that’s two confirmed sightings then,” he says, getting an answering nod from Maddoc. “Sounds legit. Which direction was she going?”
“North,” Maddoc says, jerking his chin up the street in that direction. “Levi’s working his way up Grande, and I sent Kieran down Forty-Eighth. Take Greg and Amari and work the side streets to the west.”
Dante nods and peels off with two of the Reapers.
“Logan, I want you, Kyle, and Jack to work your way east. It starts turning residential three blocks down.” Maddoc looks at me. “Does she know anyone who lives around here?”
“I don’t, um, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
But it’s hard to think at all. I just want tomove. I want to find her already.
But I also trust that Maddoc knows what he’s doing, so I wait and let him call the shots.
“Go,” he says to Logan and the other two, gripping my elbow. “Riley, come with me.”
