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Kieran’s only response was a slight lift of his chin just as Dare’s car came to a screeching stop behind the van, warning the rest of us that he didn’t have good news.
Maverick stole from the passenger seat as soon as the car settled and stormed over to Einstein, already speaking to her in hushed voices before he managed to pull her away.
Dare hesitated once he was out of the car. One hand gripping his door and the other fisted in his hair as he rocked like he was about to follow Maverick before he stalked toward Kieran and me instead, slamming the door as he went.
“Need you to find someone.”
My eyebrows lifted at his tone, all agitation and fear and barely concealed rage. “Else?” I clarified as my gaze snapped to the open side door of the van. “You need me to find someone else?”
His dark eyes shifted to me, narrowing in answer before he explained, “Einstein ran through all the locations we have any ownership in. An employee at the flower shop didn’t show today.”
“That where you went?” Kieran asked.
“To her apartment,” Dare confirmed. “Identical note and setup as the other apartment. Find her,” he bit out with a cold look at me.
“Tell me where she lives,” I said with a jerky dip of my head, my blood already racing and my body a mess of restless movements as I waited for my starting location.
Before Dare could respond, Kieran hissed a curse and pointed at the van with the knife he’d pressed to me earlier. “They had her in there.” He spared me a look that I would’ve said bordered on respect if this wasn’t Kieran and added, “When I got the call, Dare told me you were surprised you only found one person in the van because they had a second set of cuffs set up on the opposite side.”
“Right.” I cut a knowing look at Dare, my hands slowly curling into fists. “Which means I’ve just been standing here, wasting time.”
“Find her,” Dare ground out.
I stalked past him and toward the van, knowing that Dare’s urgency wasn’t because he expected the girl to still be alive but because we couldn’t afford to have anyone else find these people.
We would take care of the victims, making it as gentle for the families as possible when they found out their loved ones were gone.
They didn’t need to know the people closest to them had been brutally murdered. More than that, the public didn’t need to see the messages left with the victims. That would only bring unwanted attention onto us that we’d successfully avoided for a long damn time.
That earlier restlessness was now all twitching muscles and jerky movements as I stepped into the white, windowless van and took another look around. Searching for anything I might’ve missed the first time.
After leaving Tree’s apartment earlier, I’d gone straight to the address Maverick had texted me. All I’d known before arriving was another symbol had been left for us, and a person was missing.
It had ended up being one of the night waitresses from Brooks Street Café. When she hadn’t shown for her second shift in a row, Lily had gotten worried.
The girl’s car had still been in front of her tidy apartment with no signs of forced entry. The only thing out of place had been the chair positioned just inside the entryway.
Handcuffs had still been hanging from the spindles. But even though the scene was entirely different from the massacred restaurant owners, the note on her front door—our symbol, written in paint—had been all I’d needed to know we were dealing with the same person.
People.
Whoever.
It hadn’t been hard to find her—to find the van. Even though they’d kept a clean scene, they’d killed her in the apartment, and blood was one of those scents that always seemed to overpower everything else to me.
Guess we could thank war for that.
But it was almost as if these assholes had known I would be the one looking for her. Because I could’ve sworn I’d followed the scent of blood all too easily to where they’d stashed the van on a seedy little road.
Not that they’d left a trail. I’d looked.
But almost as if they’d left the front windows or back doors open while driving to the location to ensure I’d find her.
Like I’d been saying...it was fucking personal.
With one last glance at the empty handcuffs, ensuring I hadn’t missed anything else, I turned to leave the van and stopped to look at the waitress, still handcuffed to the opposite side of the van.
Bullet holes riddled her chest. Drying blood covered her Brooks Street Café shirt. Our symbol was carved into her forehead.
