Adrenaline is pumping through my veins; you can feel the energy pouring off everyone. We had no choice but to bring Holden, so Alessa makes sure he’s tucked in the middle with her. But after him being with us yesterday, I feel he won’t stay home much anymore. He’s hooked.
We all pile into the basement and see Caden hanging from the chains in the middle. Alessa runs forward, and Dex hooks an arm around her waist. “You. Wait,” he growls in her ear. She narrows her eyes but jerks a nod, taking a step back.
Moving in our normal formation with Ryder, Dex, and Zane leading, Holden and Alessa in the middle, Gage and I bringing up the rear, we move toward Caden. We sweep the entire room before moving back to him. Zane and Ryder guard the main door against the house and Dex protects the other.
“Caden,” Alessa says softly. Blood is pouring from his bare chest, and he’s completely unconscious. “Caden,” Alessa says louder, patting the side of his face. “Get me one of my capsules.” Gage runs over and back, shoving it into her hand. She cracks it open and waves it under his nose. He jerks awake. “It’s just me,” she says gently when his eyes widen.
“Fuck” he groans.
“Help me get him down,” she says, going to the lever on the pulley to lower him.
Gage and I put our arms under him, so he won’t hit the floor when she lets the slack out. We gently lay him down. “You have to get out,” Caden gasps. “He’s here.”
“Who’s here?” Alessa asks, crouching down.
“Jay,” Caden groans in pain, “He left you a message.” He slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded paper.
Alessa looks at it like Jay’s going to jump off the page, so I slowly take it and unfold it. My heart hits the floor. “You didn’t listen. Time for Plan B,” I read out loud. “What the fuck is Plan B?”
“Boss, I don’t like this,” Ryder says from his post. “We need to go.”
“Where’s everyone else?” Alessa asks Caden.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. There were too many of them,” he groans again. “A bunch of them swarmed me and brought me down here. I didn’t tell them anything, I swear.”
“Shhh,” Alessa pushes his blue hair out of his eyes, “I know you didn’t. You can’t tell what you don’t know.”
I look down at Caden’s chest, realizing Jay was torturing him trying to find Alessa. Now that the blood is starting to clot off, you can see he was intentionally cut that way. “That says something,” Gage mutters, noticing the same time as me.
“I don’t know,” Caden whispers, halfway passed out again.
“We need to get him out of here,” Alessa says, standing up. “Can you guys take him outside?” She turns to Ryder and Zane. “Where’s Micah?”
“We’ll find him. But we need to go,” Zane says.
She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving until we know he’s not here.”
Commotion from the back has us all drawing our weapons, then dropping them when we see Ghost and a couple of his guys walking toward us. Other than dirt on their clothes, they looked fine. “Are you guys okay?” Alessa asks.
“Yeah,” Ghost answers, squatting down beside Caden. “They pinned us down, but they’re gone.” He looks up at her. “They have Micah.”
Chapter 38
Ryder
Iwatch every emotion pass over Les’ face. Fear, panic, sadness. The one that wins out in the end…anger.
“Who has him?” Les grits out.
“Russians,” Ghost answers.
“This was because he couldn’t get to my businesses.” Les rakes her hand through her hair.
“Let’s fucking go,” I declare, stepping away from the door.
“We don’t even know where to go yet,” Zane answers.
“We can hit any place we can,” I argue. “Ghost, you got him?” Ghost nods.
