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I ignored their unhappy growls and sprinted back down the stairs and to my computer I’d left in Dad’s office.
* * *
I’d been hunched over the screen for over an hour when Gunner walked in, looking fresh and not like he’d been woken up in the middle of the night. His clothes didn’t have a single wrinkle, and his eyes were alert.
“We found her.”
My frantic gaze snapped to Gunner. “What? How?”
“She has a tracker implanted. And Carter just hacked it.”
Fuck. That’s how Gladius knew where she and Lenny were.“Where is she?”
“At city hall.”
Everyone moved at once. We were getting my woman and her brother back.
23
ARIEL
“There she is.”
His voice caused my body to tense and my shoulders to hunch forward.
My wrist throbbed from where I’d hit someone with the cast when they’d snatched me. I’d lost my gun when they hit me over the head.
They had tied my hands behind my back and to the chair I sat in, my shoulders bent at an awkward angle. My leg was bleeding, at least a few if not all the stitches having come out.
Carnifax walked around me, careful not to step on any blood splatters or wet patches on the basement floor. Who knew city hall had a whole other level that housed interrogation rooms and cells?
He clicked his tongue. “You had so much promise.”
“Where’s Lenny?” My voice was croaky, my throat dry and my lips cracked.
“This is why we teach you to not form any relationships with anyone outside of Gladius. It always becomes a weakness. One that’s too easy to exploit.”
“He was my brother before I became part of Gladius. I’d never abandon him.”
He swirled his hand in the air like he was doing a presentation. “You should have. I heard his mom wants him back. You should have just given him to her. Then he’d be safe right now instead of locked in a cell.”
His words hit their intended target, the guilt and doubt if I was doing the right thing a constant companion. The thought of my sweet brother locked up down here ripped my soul in half. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to protect him. Keep him away from this part of my life.
“What do you want?”
I was tired, and there wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t hurt. Thoughts of what would happen to my brother made me sick with fear.
“Call off the Olysseses. This can stay between us. And once they back off, I’ll let Lenny go.”
There was no way he would let my little brother go. He’d seen and probably heard way too much.
Tears streamed down my face. I didn’t care anymore if I died. I believed Jude when he promised to take care of Lenny.
But for that to happen, I had to find a way to get him out of here first.
“You said you’d trade him for me.”
But when I met him in the alley where he’d told me the exchange would happen, I’d been overpowered and bound and gagged, then thrown into a car and dragged to this room.
