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Isaac nods. “He promised they’d keep their eye out for us.”
Sure they will. Mathis is a small organization with questionable loyalty, and even though I’ve marked their territory as an ally on the city map, I don’t have a hell of a lot of faith that loyalty will hold if they’re the first to find what we’re looking for. But Halston is a big city, and there’s no way to cover all of it on our own.
I turn to look out the window, trying not to let my frustration show, as Isaac, Levi, and Payton go on with their reports. Nothing but more fucking dead ends, but I nod to let them know I’m listening, pinching the bridge of my nose because this shit is giving me a fucking headache.
I’ve had every Reaper I can spare scouring the streets all night, and even though Riley’s…distractionlast night lost us some time, Chloe shouldn’t have been able to get ahead of us like she obviously has. She’s just a kid herself, younger than Levi even, and all alone out there with no resources, no one to turn to, and no fucking skills? There’s no way she could have gotten very far.
Then again, she’s Riley’s sister, and Riley’s not just a fighter, she’s also smart, savvy, and scrappy as hell. A survivor if there ever was one. So of course the girl she basically raised must have learned a thing or two about looking out for herself too.
I grit my teeth, but an irritated sigh escapes me anyway.
“Boss?” Isaac asks, jerking my attention back to the three of them.
I nod at him to go on, and he gives me a few more facts that boil down to no one’s seen any sign of the girl. But wewillfind her. We have to. West Point’s become a real problem lately, and we need her.
I turn to Payton. “Anything from the 17th Street Gang?”
She shakes her head. “They haven’t seen her, but I’ve passed her picture around.”
The picture of Chloe that I got off Riley’s phone.
That day she let me flip through her photos, it was easy to see how much love there is between the two sisters. The kind of love and loyalty that makes what Riley did not just understandable, but something a part of me fucking admires.
That doesn’t mean I can let it slide, though.
I scrub a hand down my face and shake off the unpleasant thought. I’m still too fucking pissed to go there. Right now, I need to stay focused on bringing Chloe in.
“Did you tell them her hair is different now?” I ask Payton, gesturing with my hand to show her the length as I picture the trembling, scared teenager we snatched from the middle of a drug deal last night.
Payton nods. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll still find her.”
Of course we will. It’s the only outcome I’ll settle for. Still, the hair isn’t the only difference between the girl we found last night and the smiling, happy little sister Riley had so many snaps of on her phone. I’ve got no doubt that Chloe has the same thread of strength running through her that makes Riley so fucking appealing, but remembering the way the girl clung to Riley when we brought her back here to the house gives me a twinge of guilt.
I shake it off. The dull, throbbing pain in my shoulder, the shoulder Riley fuckingshotme in, is all the reminder I need that there’s no place for that kind of sentimental shit. My loyalty lies only with those who’ve sworn allegiance to me, with the Reapers, and my only responsibility is to do what’s best for them.
Right now, that means strengthening the organization I built from the ground up. Doing whatever it takes to look out for my people. And if that includes making the hard calls—the ones that may or may not result in collateral damage—fine. That’s my job. It’s what a leader does.
Even when he doesn’t want to.
I refocus on the task at hand, pinning the three gang members in front of me with a hard stare. “What about sightings? Did that lead from Ruiz pan out?”
Levi’s the one who shakes his head this time. “It was a false start. Just a teen runaway.”
I narrow my eyes, wondering if Chloe could have played that off. But no. My people know what they’re looking for, even if she managed to change her appearance. If there’d been any doubt that the teen was her, they would have brought her in.
I look back at the map and mark off the areas we’ve already cleared, then give Levi, Isaac, and Payton new marching orders.
I know they’re tired—fuck, we all are—but they’re Reapers, they don’t bitch about being sent out to keep searching. They don’t question why I’m putting so many resources on this. They trust me.
Which is why I can’t let myself get fucking soft about this.
Levi and Isaac head out, but Payton lingers, resting her hand on my bicep. Stroking it a little.
“Did something happen?” she asks, swaying toward me. “It looked like you were wincing a little when you used this arm.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, brushing off her concern and taking a step back so her hand falls away. “A minor injury.”
It’s not nothing, though. No one outside the four of us who live here know that Riley shot me, and I’ve got years of fucking practice ignoring pain. If Payton caught on, it means I let it show.
