“Did you tell them?—”
“That we suspect the yakuza’s involved?”
I swallow hard.
“We told the cops everything we could. Showed them the footage Jinx sent us. They ran the plates. Found nothing. It was another dead end.”
That’s not what I need to hear right now.
“Do you think you can turn their trackers back on remotely?” Dutch pleads. It’s my first time hearing him beg for anything.
“I tried. Their phones are dead.” I shake my head. “And whoever took them could have dumped their phones anywhere.”
“I should have planted that tracker inside her like I wanted to,” Dutch whispers.
He sounds so broken.
Something sharp pricks under my ribs.
I don’t know what it is yet, but I hate this feeling.
“How’s Zane?” I ask, bracing myself.
Dutch hesitates. He and Zane are twins. They look the same, but they couldn’t be more different. Zane is the life of the party, always smiling and messing around. Dutch is serious and intense.
Tragedy struck them the same way, and while Dutch lost Cadence—his entire world, Zane lost Grey—the only one who kept his hands off the self-destruct button.
If anything happens to my brother because of this…
An invisible noose tightens around my neck.
“Zane is....” Dutch struggles for words. That’s not good. “Zane will be fine when we find them.”
When. Not if.
I share the same optimism. But it’s kind of hard to keep believing when twenty-four hours have passed. According to the investigators, timing is key. Leads are the hottest within the first two days.
Forty-eight hours.
If we don’t get a proper lead soon, the chances of finding my sisters-in-law alive start dropping. Hard.
“You okay over there?”
“Fine.”
“You should have let us come with you.”
“You’d be shot out of the building.” I gaze at the hub of wires I plugged into the electric pan. “This is something I have to do alone.”
“Finn—”
“Dutch,” I interrupt him before he can start his usual spiel about not blaming myself. “The more I think about it, the more certain I am that Kurosaki’s involved.”
Dutch sounds exhausted. “I thought the same when the girls first went missing, but I’ve been thinking about it, and it doesn’t make sense. The Japanese mafia is too powerful. They don’t need to kidnap anyone to get what they want from us.”
“I know it’s him,” I say darkly.
“Then why haven’t they started bargaining with us yet?”
