This was my fault. And he knew it.
Roman growled. “Crying will get us nowhere, Vanessa.” He snapped at her, his teeth already lengthened into canines.
Derek ran into the room and sighed in relief when his eyes met mine, but I looked away. He pulled me into a hug, and I barely had enough energy to hug him back. My stomach was twisting with uneasiness. Why take Jane? She wasn’t an alpha. Neither was Raj.
If these rogues were after the alphas… she shouldn’t have been taken.
This was not the rogues’ original plan. This might’ve been the heat of the moment after hearing that seven of them were killed at the Night Raider’s Full Moon party. They might’ve left clues or forgotten to hide their tracks.
Ryker gazed up from his phone and nodded to me. “Yeah, she’s fine. I’ll talk to you later.”
When he shut off the phone, I stood up. “Let’s go,” I said. “We need to find them before something happens.” I pursed my lips. “Because of me.”
Roman snatched my wrist. “You’re not going. You’re not leaving this house.”
Ryker growled at him. “She’s going. This is her job.”
I rolled my eyes. Not this again. They were about to waste another fifteen minutes growling at each other and getting nothing done. I gazed at the warriors in the room. “Can we have a bit of privacy?” I asked, nodding to Roman.
Ryker eyed us for a moment. “Two minutes.” He looked back at his phone and tapped on it. “Then we have to go.”
Once everyone left, I shut the door and pressed my hands against Roman’s chest, resting my forehead against his. “I have to go, Roman,” I whispered.
He grabbed my hands. “No.”
“I do.”
“They’ll take you too,” he said, a sudden sadness in his voice. It was like everyone hehad ever loved was taken from him. Over and over and over and he could do nothing about it. He squeezed my hands. “They can’t take you. I’ve waited too long.”
“Nobody will take me, Roman.” I smiled. “I hope you have enough confidence in my abilities to believe that.”
“I do.” He shook his head and leaned back against the oak desk, pulling me into his taut chest. “I’m sorry that I didn’t put you on the warriors. I really am. I regret that decision every single day of my life, and now I’m paying for it.”
I pushed a stray piece of hair out of his face and gently caressed his cheek. This man.
“But you can’t go.”
I clenched my jaw lightly. Why couldn’t it be easy? Why couldn’t he let me protect him and his family?
“I’m going whether you like it or not,” I said.
“They’ll take you. They took Jane to get at me, what makes you think they won’t take you too?”
“Why do you think they took Jane?” I asked, trying to claw at any piece of information that I could.
He paused for a moment. “To weaken me. Just like they took Mom to weaken Dad.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and shook my head. “They haven’t done this with anyone else in the past five years. No other pack. What makes you so special?”
Of course, he was very special to me, but why was he special to these rogues? His parents died years ago, and if these rogues were a new group like Ryker had told me, then they shouldn’t have any information about that.
Roman quickly gazed at the closed door, clenched his jaw, and growled lowly. “I don’t know.”
I gently patted his chest. I didn’t know either, but I knew that something wasn’t right, and I would out what that was before things turned from bad to worse.
Chapter 46
Isabella
