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Our clothes are still damp, but not soaked, and we hurriedly get dressed. “You still have the SD card?” I ask and she nods, patting her pocket.
“It’s safe in a waterproof case from Ryan.”
“Good. Okay, let’s get outta here.”
I’m expecting the coast to be clear and assume the thugs and their boss left hours ago. We take the elevator down to the lobby and walk out the main revolving door. My thoughts are consumed with all of the naughty things I’m planning to do to Ivy when we return to the bungalow and I’m not on high alert like I should be. I’m being too cocky and patting myself on the back for what I view as a damn smart move—sneaking into a hotel room and staying at the scene of the crime.
Until Ivy asks, “I meant to ask, how did you find me?”
“What?” A cold dread washes through me as we start down the stairs and head toward my bike.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I tracked your phone.” Suddenly, the significance of that statement hits me hard and our earlier conversation comes back to haunt me.
“I dropped my tote bag when we slammed into that guy in the bar.”
“What was in it?”
“Some extra memory cards, a small notebook with client information, my business cards and my wallet. Oh, God, Finn. They have my name and address.”
And her phone number.
I just fucked up. The moment the words pass through my head, a blunt object slams down between my shoulder blades. I drop to my knees, trying not to black out, and reach for Ivy who screams as one of the thugs from earlier grabs her around the waist.
The object hits me hard again on the back of my head and I slump forward, my cheek hitting the cement and my world going dark. The last thing I hear is Ivy frantically calling my name.
???
I failed her.
The thought slices through me as the scent of bubblegum fills my nose. My eyes snap open. I’m lying on a couch, long legs hanging off the end, and it takes me a moment to comprehend I’m back at my bungalow and there are a bunch of people here.
“He’s waking up,” a familiar voice says, but my brain is still too scattered for it to make sense. I blink several times before Sailor finally comes into focus, hovering over me, her face lined in concern. She’s chomping her gum, as usual, big blue eyes on me. “Are you okay?”
An image of Ivy being ripped away and crying out for me sends me bolting upright. Panic and fear overriding the pain and dizziness. “Where is she?” I demand, trying to get up.
“Take it easy, Finn,” Dash says, his hand firmly pushing me back down and forcing me to sit. “It’s a good thing you called me before you passed out again. The hotel bellman thought you might have a concussion.”
“You took a pretty good hit,” Maddox states. “Lucky for you, you got a wicked hard head.”
“They took Ivy,” I say, panic lacing my voice. “We need to get her back.”
“We will,” Dash assures me calmly. Not much ruffles my boss and I want to tap into his strength, but it’s damn hard. In fact, I’m getting annoyed because we’re sitting here wasting time when we need to be finding Ivy.
Nearby, I see Kennedy wrapped up in Aidan’s embrace. “We saw the hotel footage,” she says. “It was Anthony Vitello.”
I hate the worry I hear in her voice. And how closely it mirrors my own. “They tracked her. Through her phone number,” I explain. She told me they’d texted her.I can’t believe I didn’t connect that earlier. I’m so damn mad at myself, I want to throw shit. Break everything into a million little pieces. Because if anything bad happens to Ivy, that’s what’s going to be left of my heart.
Jagged, broken fragments that will never find their way back together again.
“We figured as much,” Eden says.
Ryan nods. “There are several different ways they could’ve done it. If they got her phone number like you said, all they had to do was go to any number of websites, set up an account, enter her number and they could see her real-time location. A 7-year-old could do it.”
“That’s scary,” Fallon murmurs.
“But she needs to have her cell on her for it to work,” Ryan says, tapping away on his laptop. “I’m checking now.”
