“Blow it up?” I asked.
“Hell yeah. Depending on where they’ve hidden it, it might do the job. Then their whole plan goes to shit. We’ll see. I won’tuse it unless I’m certain of the location. I won’t detonate until after it closes. I’m not trying to kill a bunch of innocent tourists.”
I nodded and looked out the window again. The castle stood in the distance, looming like something out of a horror movie. Knowing Maddy was in there made my chest ache and my heart pain. So close I could almost touch her, yet here I was. Free while she was a captive. It pissed me the fuck off. I didn’t know how I’d be able to sleep knowing she was so close.
“What are you thinking about?” Luis asked.
“Huh?”
“You look like you want to beat someone’s ass.”
I gestured toward the castle. “I do. The royals. I don’t hit women, but if I get my hands on Viola, I’m going to kick the shit out of her. Or, better yet, let Maddy beat her brains in.”
Luis chuckled. “I wish Felipe and Sebastian were here.”
I got it. Being here without our friends felt strange. I’d had them stay behind because I needed people I trusted to help Dad watch over and protect Maddy’s parents and Abi. There was no telling what the royals might do. If we were successful, their agents in Florida might retaliate. There was no one I trusted more than those two and Luis. Between them, my brothers, and Javi’s crew, I was one hundred percent certain my pack was safe. It was what I needed to focus on this mission.
“I miss them,” I said.
“Those Alabama guys are pretty cool, though,” Luis said.
I nodded. “Yeah. They are,” I said. It was the truth, but they still didn’t hold a candle to our friends.
After dinner, we all went to bed, and I spent a few hours tossing and turning. My anxiety about the next day made getting any rest almost impossible. In the morning, it was clear I hadn’t been the only one who’d struggled to sleep. Everyone looked tired and on edge.
We drove to the castle, and on the way, Luis donned a hat and sunglasses. It was a pretty garbage disguise, but they wouldn’t think either of us would be in one of the tour groups. After all, they’d put us on the no-fly list and probably expected we were stuck in the States. The disguise was only an extra layer of protection. Marcus, Darren, and I were going to scout the outer edges of the estate. One of the lizard shifters would get even closer after shifting. While Luis was scoping out inside, we’d do the best we could on the outside.
After dropping Luis at the ticket booth and letting Marcus scurry out of the car in his lizard form, Darren and I drove to the outer gate, parked, and began to stroll along the outer perimeter. Fifteen minutes into our walk, Luis texted, letting me know he was inside. Five minutes later, he let me know he’d successfully broken away from the group.
“We’re right on schedule,” I said to Darren. He nodded and kept glancing through the ten-foot-tall wrought-iron fence that surrounded most of the estate.
Darren glanced toward me and pointed at the castle. “Got a lot of security.”
Even from this distance, it was easy to see the men patrolling the grounds. Several were up on the parapets of the building itself, while others were out walking the woods and surrounding footpaths. We did our best to look like oblivious tourists enjoying a brisk stroll on the walking path.
My phone rang a minute or two later. It was Marcus.
“Hello? Marcus?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” He sounded out of breath and excited.
“What’s up?”
“Okay, so there’s more to this place than just the castle. I was going to do a quick circuit of the perimeter and then go inside like we planned. But there’s this big-ass house behind the castle that you can’t see from the visitor’s parking. I decided to takea peek around there. It kinda looked like where they might be housing their guards or something.”
“And?” I asked, wanting him to get to the point.
“Well, the place isn’t some barracks. It’s an actual house. I went through the whole place and went downstairs. That’s where I found it. They’ve got fucking prison cells in there.”
My heart started beating, threatening to break free of my chest, and an icy chill ran down my spine. “Are you saying you found Maddy?”
“I think so, man. I couldn’t see into her room, but I found a surveillance room. They had the video feed of her room going. It was all I could do to see the screen without the guard guy seeing my slithery green ass in the corner. She looks like she’s in a lot of pain, bent over and sweating. There was fur sprouting on her arms and face, but it vanished a second later. She looked at the camera once, and I could see her eyes. They were red like an alpha’s. Whatever she was going through looked rough.”
I cursed under my breath. In my haste to get here and save her, I hadn’t given a second thought to her first shift. There was no way her wolf wouldn’t come out during the super moon that night. Ihadto be by her side for her first shift. It was a promise I’d made to her, and by God, I was going to follow through on it.
“How do we get in there, Marcus?”
“There are no windows. It looks like there’s an underground garage. There are a ton of guards. I’m not sure what the best option is. She’s really well-guarded, and the place is like a fortress.”
