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“No.”
For a split second, her chin wobbles, but then she grits her teeth and steadies it. “Okay. Let’s figure it out. Let’s find her.”
I nod and call my people back, directing them to regroup at our vehicles. Riley turns to head back that way too once I get through to the whole crew, but before she can move I give in to the impulse to drag her back against me and kiss her hard and fast, just once.
It’s a promise.
Once we all make it back, I gather them close. The street is quiet, but it’s got eyes and ears. That’s how we got our sighting in the first place. I’m not gonna waste time bringing everyone back to the house before we move on this though, so I herd them into a tight knot and keep my voice low.
“McKenna got Chloe.”
“Motherfuck,” Dante spits out, a curse echoed by half the group.
“You’re sure it was them?” Logan asks, his eyes shards of ice as he skips the outburst and cuts to the action step.
“I recognized the players, but if you want to verify, it was a black Benz Sprinter. Plate number 8FCV723.”
He nods, his phone already out as he moves to verify.
Kieran looks at me, eyes hard. “You want me to take Greg and Amari and head over to Cliffton, boss?”
West Point territory.
I shake my head, grinding my teeth. It’s not the answer I want to give, but it’s the right one. “We can’t just bust into their territory.”
“Someone will end up dead if we try to get her back that way,” Dante adds.
“Sounds good to me, as long as the dead are all fucking weasels,” Kyle spits out.
I give him a grim smile. “If I could guarantee that would be the case, we’d already be moving out. We need to be smart about this, though. A full frontal assault is McKenna’s fucking wet dream.”
And we all know he’s too well fortified to risk it.
“So what then?” Kieran pipes up. “Where do you want us, boss?”
Riley leans into my side, her body so tense I can practically feel her thrumming, and I wrap an arm around her as I trade looks with my brothers. I trust their judgment and rely on their strengths, and it only takes me a minute to organize my thoughts.
I hand out assignments, making sure we’ll have people in place once we figure out where the fuck we need to go, then get behind the wheel of the Escalade to head back to the house while Logan and Dante reach out to put pressure on everyone we know who has information about McKenna’s business.
Riley stays focused but silent, even when we get back to the house and bust out a map of the city. It’s the one I’ve got specifically marked up with all West Point’s holdings, known safe houses, and the establishments under their “protection.” The map is knowledge, which is leverage, which is the key to staying one step ahead of them at all fucking times.
“We can rule the cannery out,” Dante says as we start to pore over the map, drawing a fat “X” over the spot as he explains his reasoning. Logan nods and makes a suggestion of his own, and Riley bites her lip, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows as we start working through it block by block, narrowing in on where to plan the extraction.
This isn’t the same as when Riley was working with Logan to hunt for her sister, and I can see that she’s battling a feeling of hopelessness as we go over what we know about McKenna’s activities to work out where he would have stashed her.
“This is the club he had her dancing at, right?” Riley asks, stabbing at the map as her frustration bleeds through. “How about I go checkthere?”
Logan launches into one of his too-fucking-detailed explanations about why there’s no way in hell McKenna would be dumb enough to hold Chloe at Club Prestige, and when he draws another “X” over it, Riley makes an inarticulate sound of rage, her frustration bleeding through.
Dante wraps his arms around her from behind. “Settle, princess,” he murmurs in her ear. “This ain’t a setback. It’s progress. The more locations we can eliminate, the tighter our extraction plan will be.”
Her eyes jump to mine, and when I nod in agreement, she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders again, staring down at the map with a look of determination. “What about this bodega?” she asks. “West Point has some connection to it, right?”
Wrong, but it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know how McKenna’s fucked-up head works the way we do, or much about his gang activities. I still want her here. I want her to see progress being made. I want her to know we’re not gonna stand by with our thumbs up our asses while she’s hurting.
We work late into the night, Logan verifying shit online as we continue narrowing it down and hacking into city-wide cameras where he can, and Dante coordinating with our crew for on-site surveillance wherever we can manage it.
“We got enough to make a move yet, Madd?” Dante asks as Riley stifles a yawn, his face uncharacteristically grim. “I’ve got Shae over near The Barrows, but if we keep him there all night he’s gonna get spotted.”
