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With a manic grin, she wiggles her brows. “We’re gonna let somebody buy us.”
ChapterThirty-One
COPS AND ROBBERS
Kaspian
An hour earlier
“Do y’all remember when we were kids and we would play cops and robbers and we’d constantly talk about being real cops one day?” Kai asks. We all nod at him, curious about where he’s going with this.
“I don’t think I could chase a robber in all this gear.”
That earns a small chuckle out of most of us, but tensions have been high since we got word on Blake’s location early this morning.
“Shut the fuck up, the phone is ringing,” Hades snaps at us all as he answers.
Blake has been missing for five long days. We’re all suffering without her here, but Hades is taking personal responsibility since he couldn’t stop the kidnappers. We’ve tried to tell him countless times it wasn’t his fault, but until we have her back, he’s going to continue to spiral.
He’s quiet, listening to whoever is on the phone until his jaw drops in shock at the same time he drops his phone.
“Get me a fucking laptop NOW!” he shouts, sprinting to the living room. I pick up his phone, intending to continue the call, but the other person must have hung up because the only thing on the screen is a text with a link.
“Kas! Send that link to menow,” he growls, his Alpha bark washing over me uncomfortably. Other Alphas can choose not to listen to an Alpha bark, but the compulsion still feels like needles under your skin. Normally I’d be a little annoyed if he tried to use his bark on me, but it’s obviously urgent, so I’ll let it slide. Sitting down next to him, I do as he asked, and he’s clicking the link only seconds later.
When the screen loads, the air escapes from my lungs. “No. Jesus fucking christ. No, no, no! We promised her this would never happen again. God damnit!”
The room is silent around me as we watch the screen in horror. There, in high-definition night vision, Blake is curled up in a ball, passed out in a fuckingdog cratein what looks like a fully concrete basement. The camera is focused only on her, so we can’t tell if there are other people in the room, but I’m willing to guess there are. She’s shivering so hard the camera is able to pick it up, but she’s still blank down the bond, so hopefully she’s not awake.
Suddenly a large man appears on screen. He walks to Blake’s cage, kicking it hard enough the whole thing shakes, but she doesn’t move. When he opens it up and slaps her across the face, the room fills with menacing growls and death threats. This fucker won’t be getting out alive if anyone in this room gets ahold of him before the police do.
“She’s at a fucking human auction house,” Rook spits out. We send confused looks his way. “Roman is on assignment and has been working on infiltrating this place for years,” he grunts. “I recognize that bastard as one of the main enforcers. I need to call Ro’s supervisor again and tell them what’s going on. Lee, you get the jet on standby, everybody else? Pack up, we’re headed back to Asheville.”
All the men in the room hop up when we do, and Theo, one of the twins’ dads, scoffs at us before smirking. “If you think we’re letting y’all run off to save the day without us, you’ve got another thing coming. Slow your roll and accept the help so you can focus on your girl when we get there. We’ve got your backs.”
So now we wait. We arrived in Asheville an hour ago and made the twenty-minute drive into the suburbs, where all five of us have been squished into a surveillance van ever since. Our fathers are in a trailer behind us, with Benson.
“Ouch!Can you keep your elbows to yourself, you dick? I swear I haven’t been this close to you since we were in the womb,” Kai whines from my right side.
I smile, growling playfully at my twin. “Nope,” I say, popping the p obnoxiously. “Welcome back, womb-mate.”
Rolling his eyes, Achilles looks back with a glare and smacks us both upside the head. “Will y’all shut the fuck up andfocus? We’re minutes away from getting our girl back and we have no idea what she’s been through in the last week. We’re all nervous, but let’s put all that extra energy towards the staying safe, yeah?”
We both shoot contrite looks at our Beta and mumble simultaneous apologies.
“I swear, sometimes I wonder if all y’all lost all the good sense Mama Sparrow tried to grace you with,” he grumbles.
Rook chuckles quietly. “You’re preachin’ to the choir, Ace.”
The passenger door opening pulls me from my grumbling about our hard ass Beta as Detective Benson pokes his head in. “It’s time to go,” he says gruffly. As we follow him to the house, I set a reminder on my phone to ask Lee to open a college fund for Benson’s kids. He’s been helping us look for Blake at every turn for more than a decade, and we owe him big.
Walking up, the place looks strangely deserted. My gut tightens, and I know something isn’t right. Grabbing Kai’s arm, I pull him roughly to a stop. He’s always been good at reading me, so while he looks concerned, he doesn’t ask questions. As the guys get closer to the house, the feeling gets more intense.
“Guys!” I shout. They all go quiet and turn to look at me and that’s when I hear it. A quiet ticking.
“IT’S A TRAP! GET THE FUCK BACK! GET DOWN!”I scream.
The world explodes around us.
