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Oh no.
It was rage.
I clenched my jaw tight as his eyes flicked to mine. He stilled, brow furrowing for a second, when I didn’t look away. He didn’t expect that…and it concerned him. He pushed to stand, never once taking his focus from mine.
He left me then, stepping back into the shadows.
I clutched the bottle of water, drew my legs tight, and clung to that taste of venom as I watched him. Silence stretched between us in the dark, silence and hate, as I rubbed my shoulders and lowered my body to the floor once more. Pain throbbed in my side from his fist. I curled my knees close and slid my hands under my head. Silence and darkness stretched out to me. In the emptiness, I heard them murmuring words I couldn’t catch, and after a while, I stopped caring. It’d been hours…hours since 'd been taken.
Hours since I'd been brought here.
My mind drifted to Lazarus, and I closed my eyes.
Tears welled in the corners. He’d be frantic, enraged. He’d do things…things I was grateful for. If there was anyone who’d find me—it was him. That knowing lingered inside me like a fever. He’d find me…he’d find me…he’d find me.
44
Lazarus
“Take a good fucking look!”I shoved the picture into the ugly motherfucker’s face.“Who the fuck are they?”
One hand gripped his open, grimy, floral shirt. The other was a fist, the knuckles split and bloody, throbbing with pain and need. Just like the rest of me.
Hard breaths were consuming as I shoved the asshole against the worn corrugated sheeting, and the walls bowed under the force. It was just a hovel. A foul, diseased fucking hole in the ground that served homemade rum in filthy glasses from wooden drums out back. Just a shanty. One of many I’d torn through tonight like a goddamn hurricane. So many I’d lost count.
“Laz,” Logan growled, drawing my attention.
The brother just looked at the poor bastard in my grip, then met my gaze and shook his head. He gripped the semi-automatic assault rifle across his vest. The rest of his vest was laden with spare clips, knives, a pack of supplies. But it was his gaze that held me. A gaze filled with retribution and rage.
That I’d cling to.
That I’d unleash like a weapon of my own.
I’d use Logan, like he used his gun. Use him to find her…use him to hunt those goddamn bastards down.Whoever they were.But they weren’t here. Not here…
I shoved the bastard away, letting him stumble with his eyes-wide, his hands palm up in front of him as he stuttered. “Don’t know…don’t know…don’t know.”That’s all he kept saying, over and over…and over again.
Forty-nine.
That’s what I held onto as I turned and strode after my brother, shoving aside the ruined blue tarpaulin. Forty-nine islands in Mauritius. Forty-nine islands just like this one, filled with seedy fuckers that’d only be too willing to abduct a woman like Kat.
Only too willing to do things to her.
The kinds of things that made my gut roll.
I stumbled, slinging my arm out to brace myself.
“Whoa there,” Logan muttered, grabbing my arm. “Laz?” His voice was etched with concern.
“I’m fine,” I snarled, meeting his gaze.
I shoved away from him, stumbled along the dirty street, and sloshed through a puddle. I didn’t feel the water seep into my boots, didn’t feel anything. “Find the next one, Logan,” I commanded.
His stare was heavy on the back of my neck. But he didn't argue. He knew that was pointless, almost as pointless as chasing after a ghost. I lowered my gaze and, in the silver spill of moonlight, stared at the image in my hand.
The image of two men hurtling away from the Institute’s island in a special forces dinghy. Men we didn’t even know had Kat. But we had nothing else to go on. So this is what we clung to. This is what we could use. I stepped closer to the Jeep and climbed into the open back. Logan and Freddy climbed in, one in the driver’s side, the other in the passenger’s.
A shadow neared from the opposite side before the bastard gripped the roll bar and heaved himself into the seat next to me. I turned my gaze, finding the hard, unflinching stare of Finley Salvatore, and gave a nod.
