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“It’s not insanity,” Georgia stated firmly. “It’s a mother willing to risk everything for her child. There’s nothing stronger on the face of the earth than that.”
Clearly he wasn’t going to be getting any help from her, so he tried a new tactic. “Charlotte, you know she can’t do this. We’ll get Renee. Dalton and me, you know we will. You have to make her see reason.”
“She’s my twin,” my sister said in a way I knew meant she’d be backing whatever play I made. “We’re one and the same, Trent. If you weren’t able to stop me from getting in the middle of a bunch of dirty cops, what makes you think you have any chance of stopping her when it’s her own child’s safety on the line?”
Trent rocked back on his heels, so off balance it looked like he could have been knocked over with a feather.
Closing the distance between us, I stepped up to him and lifted my hands, the scruff coating his jawline abrading my palms as I cupped his cheeks. “Trent, I trust you,” I whispered, the sincerity of that statement dripping from my words, because it was the God’s honest truth. There had been no one in my life for the past twenty years that I trusted the way I trusted Trent. “I know you would never let anything happen to me or Renee. You’d protect us with your life. I believe that down in my soul. And I know you’ll protect me. So help me, please. Come up with a plan that will keep me safe and get my daughter back. If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you.”
He stared down at me, love so strong it overrode everything else shining in his eyes. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I waited with bated breath for him to say something,anything. And when he finally did, I felt a glimmer of hope for the first time since Renee was taken.
“All right. But if we’re doing this, you have to doexactlywhat I tell you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Trent
I couldn’t fucking believeI’d agreed to this. My heart was lodged in my throat, taking up so much space it was nearly impossible to breathe.
Dalton clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s got this, brother. Don’t worry. She’s a Belmont, just like her sister. No stronger women in the world.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with what he was saying. I knew he was right. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t burn the fucking world to the ground if something happened to Cheyanne or Renee. There were no lengths I wouldn’t go to in order to make those who harmed them pay in the most brutally painful ways.
After I let her talk me into this insanity, we’d sat down to form a plan. She texted back, agreeing to the exchange, and within five minutes that son of a bitch had responded with the location and orders not to tell the cops or he’d kill Renee.
The one thing we had going for us in all of this was the fact that the man’s ego was so big he hadn’t bothered to do his due diligence. He didn’t know anything about Dalton or myself, and we planned to take full advantage of that.
I’d left her place only long enough to run back to my rental to grab my gear. When I returned to her house and started pulling everything out, she’s looked at me with wide, shock-filled eyes.
“I can’t believe you have all this,” she’d said on a breath. “I mean, who has thermal vision and recording and listening devices? This isn’t normal everyday stuff you’d find around your house.”
I wasn’t feeling it, but in an attempt to put her at ease, I’d given her a wink, a sly smile pulling up my lips and pressing my dimples deep. “I was a Boy Scout, remember? We’re always prepared.”
“You were kicked out!” she exclaimed nervously.
“Yeah, but not before they taught me that.”
Once we’d gotten the location, with Xander’s remote help, we’d been able to pull up the blueprints of the building, as well as a satellite view of the area.
It looked to be some sort of abandoned industrial warehouse in a remote location in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles outside of town.
Cheyanne, Dalton, Charlotte—because she refused to stay behind, goddamn Belmont women—and myself had arrived an hour before the scheduled meet time, taking two cars and parking a mile up the road to stay out of sight. Dalton and I went ahead to scope the place out and decided on the perfect vantage point for him to set up. He’d been an expert marksman back when he was a Ranger, so he’d provide eyes on the outside as well as cover if it came to it, and I’d take my place near the rear entrance we’d spotted.
According to Xander, who’d hacked into God knew what, there’d been four heat signatures in the building. One was substantially smaller than all the rest and had to be Renee. She was located in a room at the very back of the building, only a few yards from the rear exit.
“She’s five minutes out,” Dalton said, pulling me back to the rescue. “Get into position.”
“I’m going with you,” Charlotte stated, pushing up determinedly from her crouch.
“Not a fucking chance—” I started, but I should have known it was pointless to argue.
“That’s my sister, down there. I onlyjustgot her back, and I promised her there wasn’t anything or anyone who’d keep us apart ever again. I intend to keep that promise.”
I turned to look back at Dalton, who was staring at his woman with fierce pride. With one quick nod, he reached around and pulled out the handgun that had been tucked into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back and passed it to her.
After Charlotte had been shot and nearly killed, she’d developed a fear of guns. Dalton had worked with her for a while to teach her there was nothing to be scared of if you respected the weapon in your hand and were properly trained to use it. Now the little firecracker was a crack shot.
“You remember everything I’ve taught you?” he asked as she took it from him and checked the safety before tucking it into her own pants.
