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“Linc put Xander on it,” Dalton answered from his place at the bar, hunched over his laptop. “He caught something on one of the cameras from a business right across the street from the daycare center. He’s sending it through now.”
In that very moment, I was grateful that Xander Caine was our resident techie at Alpha Omega. There wasn’t a computer or camera in existence he couldn’t hack.
I moved in behind him, leaning forward to get a better view of the video that had just started playing. My heart wedged itself in my throat as I watched the scene play out. It showed a man running from the building with Renee tucked in one arm and a gun in the other hand. The image was grainy, and there was only a flash of his face before he climbed into the backseat of a dark-colored sedan that had been idling in the parking lot. The car peeled out before the guy’s door was even fully shut.
“Two people,” I grunted, fire coursing through my veins. I didn’t recognize either of them, but that wasn’t going to stop me from make them pay in the most painful ways for daring to touch my girl.
“The gunman and a driver,” Dalton confirmed. “From the looks of it, neither was Knightly.”
I stood tall, raking my hands through my hair in agitation. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. With each second that passed, anxiety and fear clawed my insides to shreds. “Of course not. That motherfucker never gets his hands dirty. We got facial recognition on that son of a bitch yet?”
“Nothing that’ll tie back to Knightly. Just like that prick back in Hope Valley that came after Charlotte, there’s nothing that links either of these guys to him. He’s good at keeping his nose clean.”
“It doesn’t matter.” At the new voice in the room, Dalton and I spun around. Cheyanne was standing at the mouth of the hall with Charlotte beside her, and the whole family she’d created for herself and Renee here in Whitecap at her back. My woman was looking at me with sheer determination setting those fall-leaf eyes on fire. She might have broken down for a bit, but she was strong as hell, and I could see it written all over her hard face now, she was ready to fight.
“What do you mean, baby?”
“We don’t need to know who those guys are to Graham, because he reached out.”
She held out her arm, her cellphone resting in her palm.
I moved to her and took it, looking down at the text chain she had open on the screen.
There was a message from an unknown number that read ‘You didn’t really think you could hide from me, did you?’ accompanied by a video. I clicked play and felt all the blood drain from my face while acid churned in my gut.
“What is this?” Dalton asked, watching the short clip over my shoulder.
“It’s from the Harvest Festival,” Cheyanne answered. “That’s how he found me. Someone must have been live streaming on their phone.”
The person holding the phone was panning around, showing all the different booths that lined the street. The video paused on Cheyanne’s booth. She was standing right there behind her table, a smile full of happiness and light on her face as she held Renee in her arms.
Through the haze of red coating my vision, I was able to read the message that had come in right after the video.
Trade. Her for you.
My eyes shot to Cheyanne’s, and the determination staring back at me coated my throat in fire.
“No fucking way.”
* * *
Cheyanne
I feltlike my spine go hard, like it had just been coated in steel. My bones and muscles rigid, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “I’m doing it, Trent.”
“Not a goddamn chance,” he barked as all the color bleached from his face. “No, Cheyanne. I’m not letting you do that.”
“It’s not your call!” I cried out, snatching my phone back. “He has my baby!Mydaughter. If you think I’m just going to sit here and do nothing, you’re out of your fucking mind and you clearly don’t know me at all.”
“There has to be another way,” he mumbled to himself, pacing the floor like a caged lion. I’d never seen him like this before. There was something feral in his eyes, something positively wild and filled with terror. He was a man on the edge, terrified of losing something he had come to love.
“Just give Dalton and me some time. We can come up with a plan.”
“There’s no way for any plan to work that doesn’t involve me. That’s my little girl.” My voice broke and I had to swallow down the tears that wanted to break free. I didn’t have time to fall apart. I didn’t have time to curl up in a ball and cry, no matter how badly I wanted to. Not when that monster had my child.
“I’ve sworn to protect her since the moment I found out she was growing inside me. That’s why I took her from him in the first goddamn place! I’m going to get her back. There is no plan without me, so I suggest you figure out a way to keep me safe so I can get my baby and bring her home.”
His gaze darted frantically around the room looking for someone who would agree with him. “You guys can’t be okay with this,” he said, his voice pleading. “This is insane.”
