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“I didn’t get a chance to tell her she’d be safe, that the fire couldn’t get to her.”
He gripped my shoulder, squeezing. “We’re going to find them.”
“Yeah, and the motherfucker is going to help us or so fucking help me God, I will kill every member of his family.”
Maddox jogged toward us. He’d already removed his jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves like I had. Soot covered his face from forcing himself into the destroyed space to try to obtain answers. “There is no doubt it was purposely set. No one was injured. There’s no one inside.”
“We need to get to the surveillance cameras,” I told him, already headed for the house.
“The firefighters don’t want anyone inside,” Maddox stated, as if that was going to stop me.
“Make certain the motherfucker stays on ice. Then we will find them.” I burst in through the front door, taking long strides toward my office, Francois trailing behind me.
“I made a call to Pops and to Louie. They’re all on their way.”
I stopped long enough to glance in his direction. “What the fuck is Louie going to do?”
“Anything he can. As he told me. No one from our family was going to get hurt. At minimum, he’ll handle the investigation.”
Huffing, I shook my head. Maybe it wasn’t too little, too late. I shifted to the camera equipment, pulling up the one close to the front door. In less than five minutes, I was able to see the SUV that had driven up, coming to a screeching halt. While the men were masked, it was obvious they’d purposely targeted the girls.
Raven. Why had she made contact with Carter? Because she’d thought she could help. Because she didn’t understand the level of danger. Because I hadn’t been honest with her. Fuck. I slammed my fist on the desk before raking half the items onto the floor. “This can’t be happening. I can’t lose them over revenge.”
In the hour plus on the plane, Ramsey had mentioned that Carter had taken his brother’s death the hardest, the big brother able to spend more time with the kid for several years. Then he’d been in love with Raven, her refusal to care about him altering his personality.
However, Travis Ramsey had denied that his kid was capable of turning against everything he’d been taught. Revenge was a dangerous emotion, one that had destroyed so many lives.
It had almost been too late for me to figure that out before shit got out of hand.
“What now?” Francois asked.
“We use Ramsey to lure the kid out of his lair. There’s no other choice.”
“And if he won’t give up his own son?”
I thought about all the methods I could use on the man to ensure he helped us all we needed. “Trust me, brother. He will. He. Will.”
CHAPTER25
Raven
Where we were being kept wasn’t a basement since there was no such thing in New Orleans. However, the space was disgusting nonetheless, the stench inside pushing visions of dead bodies and dried blood into the back of my mind. It was a storeroom of some kind, boxes of crap and garbage, leftover cans of paint and other chemicals stored inside. While there were windows, they’d been blocked off, which continued to fuel the nightmare that this was some kind of torture chamber.
God. Maybe I’d seen too many horror movies in the past few years.
“We’re never getting out of here,” Zoe said. We’d both committed to searching the room after being dumped and locked inside. I’d tried the handle, beating on the door but no one had given a shit. Since bags had been shoved over our heads, I had no clear understanding of where we were other than whoever was driving had spent at least twenty minutes on the road. I’d heard the rumble, had felt the acceleration, which in my mind meant we’d been taken on the highway.
Did that mean my timing was off and we’d been removed from the city? There was no way of knowing and no chance that we’d been found on a whim.
If Carter was behind this, he’d yet to show his face. If he did, I would fucking kill him with my bare hands. To abduct me was one thing. To take an underage girl was another. And I knew exactly what Arman would do to him or whoever was behind this.
They would die a horrible, bloody death and at this moment, I would stand by cheering.
“Like hell we aren’t. We keep looking for something that can help us.” I was just as exasperated as she was, the heat in the small space oppressive. Sweat was running down my back, sticking to the shirt. Neither one of us had shoes on, which would make escaping a bit more treacherous, but by God, I would not let her die here.
“Okay. I can do that. It’s better than waiting for the inevitable.” I returned to the door, studying the lock. If I could find something to use, it was possible I could pick it. However, there was no way of knowing how many guards were on the outside. I’d seen two in masks but had heard at least two more when we’d been dragged from the SUV to our prison. How long had we been trapped inside?
An hour? No, it had to be longer. That meant it was getting dark outside, making it more difficult for Arman to be able to find us.
