Jax orchestrated all of this. He waited until tonight, when everyone would be distracted and identities concealed behind masks.
When I was blind to the real threat and kept my eyes on him.
My phone vibrates with successive messages as I stride toward the security room. Penn appears at my side, materializing from the crowd like a ghost, his eyes sharp despite the champagne I know he’s been drinking all night.
“Grayson’s accessing traffic cams. Blaze is getting together a team.” His voice is clipped, efficient. The Playboy persona is gone, replaced by cool determination. “What do you need?”
“Everything. Now.” The security room door opens before we reach it. Blaze stands in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the entrance until he recognizes us.
“Fifteen men,” Blaze reports as we enter. “Two vehicles. They disabled the exterior cameras but missed one on the neighboring building.” His scarred knuckles tap the screen, pointing to grainy footage of black SUVs pulling away. “I have a team of twelve ready to move.”
Grayson hunches over another monitor, fingers flying across the keyboard. He doesn’t look up when we enter. “I’ve got the vehicles heading north on Madison, then east on 63rd. Working on tracking them.”
Ari enters behind us, his color returning, but his eyes still unfocused from whatever they drugged him with. “I’ve called our contacts in traffic control. They’re redirecting the cameras.”
No hesitation. No questions. Just immediate, coordinated action.
“This is Jax,” I say, my voice deadly calm despite the rage boiling inside me. “He did this.”
A heavy silence falls. Going against Jax means going against the Vipers themselves.
“Fuck Jax,” Penn says. “Where do we start?”
“You understand what this means,” I warn them. “If you help me, you’re marking yourselves as targets.”
Blaze snorts. “As if we’d be anywhere else.”
Grayson finally looks up from his screen. “We’ve followed you since boarding school. That’s not changing today.”
Ari straightens his tie. “Our friendship existed before Jax approached us and made it something entirely different. It can exist after him.”
These men—my brothers in everything but blood—stand ready to risk everything. For me.
“Then let’s go get Aurora and her sister back,” I say.
I check my watch. Fifteen minutes since Aurora was taken. Every second feels like a knife twisting deeper.
“I want options. Now.” My voice cuts through the room as Grayson pulls up a satellite view of the city on the main screen.
“Traffic cameras tracked them to this warehouse district,” he says, zooming in on an industrial area. “But they’re smart and keep avoiding major intersections.”
“Fuck!” I slam my fist against the console desk, making the screens jump. “They’re avoiding main streets deliberately. They know our surveillance capabilities.”
Grayson types frantically. “I’ve got partial plates from one camera. Running them now, but they’re probably stolen.”
My mind races through possibilities, each worse than the last. Aurora could be anywhere. The worst part is when my mind races with all the things Jax might do to Aurora and Olivia.
“We’ve lost them in the industrial district,” Blaze reports, pointing at four different warehouse complexes highlighted on the map. “Could be any of these locations. Or none of them.”
“Split up?” Penn suggests, pulling a gun from his holster.
“No.” I force my breathing to slow, channeling the rage into focus. “That’s what Jax wants. Divide us, make us vulnerable.” I stare at the blinking dots on the screen. “He’s playing chess while we’re scrambling to catch up.”
“Hunter.” Ari’s voice is steadier now. “Jax owns properties under shell companies. We need to cross-reference?—”
“He wouldn’t use anything traceable back to him,” I cut him off. “He’s too smart for that.”
My phone vibrates. Unknown number. I answer immediately, putting it on speaker.
