“Okay,” I say more to myself as I back out of the room and move to the last door at the end of the hall.
Please let her be in here. Please.
Twisting the handle, I push it open, and I’m hit with the unmistakable smell of death. Instantly, my hand goes up, and I cover my nose. “Jesus,” I hiss, but that’s when I see her.
The body of a young girl is on the bed, lying at an awkward angle with her eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Digging my phone out of my pocket, I check the photo Cyber gave us one more time to confirm.
“No,” I whisper, driving my fist through the drywall. “FUCK!”
“What?” Bash asks from behind me.
“It’s Heather.” Pushing off the doorframe, I move past him down the hall and out the front door.
Fuck, fuck, FUCK!
I swing wildly at thin air as rage flows through my veins. She was just a fucking kid.
Strong arms wrap around me from behind. “Bane! Bane! Calm the fuck down.”
“Get off me!” I try to shrug my brother off me, but he’s too strong.
“I’m sorry, Cooper. I know you wanted to find her.”
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“Pull it together, brother. We need to get these women out of here,” he says, releasing me as headlights appear on the dirt road that leads up to the house.
The white, nondescript van pulls up and Foxy hops out, hurrying over to us. “Did you find her?” she asks, her eyes bouncing between Tacoma and me.
My brother shakes his head. “We were too late.”
Foxy’s face falls. She’s just as devastated as we all are.
Tacoma pats me on the shoulder. “Head on back to the clubhouse. We’ve got this.”
I nod, my head still spinning from all I’ve seen. How the fuck am I going to tell Frankie that we were too late? That all her work, all those hours she spent trying to find this girl were for nothing?
The ride back to the compound is a blur, my mind racing with how I’m going to break the news to her.
Fuck.
I pull into my spot and climb off my bike, my body aching from the night’s events. When I walk through the door, I spot Frankie at a table, waiting. One look at her face—the anger, the hurt, the betrayal—and I know.
She knows.
Somehow, she fucking knows.
“Frankie—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Don’t,” she hisses, her eyes blazing with fury as she stands up. “Don’t you dare say a word to me.”
“Baby, let me explain?—”
“Explain?” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Explain what? How the Kings covered up my father’s murder? How you let me believe he abandoned me? How you’ve been lying to me this whole time?”
Her voice rises with each question, every head in the room turning our way. This isn’t how I wanted this to go down.
“It’s not what you think,” I try again, taking a step toward her.
