The door hit the wall with a bang when I barged into the bathroom, but she wasn't there.
"Fuck," Connor muttered as he took in the empty room.
"Cameras." There were no cameras here, but there were plenty in the corridor and elsewhere. If she'd run away again, the cameras would have picked her up.
Why would she run away? It made no sense.
Then I realized. I'd upset her. Behaved no better than my brothers. No better than all the other bastards who took what they wanted from her without consideration of her feelings.
I really was a piece of shit.
Ash was already back in the main waiting area with his laptop when I stormed in. I spotted one of the crew heading our way, probably to remind us we needed to board, but I ignored him.
"Find her," I growled. She couldn't have gone far. It hadn't been longer than 15 minutes max.
Ash frowned. "The cameras show nothing. She enters the bathroom but never leaves. That's impossible unless there's a portal to another dimension in there and we somehow missed it." My heart sank as he cursed. "Someone's hacked the security system and looped the feed."
Verity hadn't run away.
She'd been taken.
That changed everything.
50
Conal
God, it was fucking hot in this country. The scent of ozone and rain still lingered in the air as we stepped out of the terminal building. The humidity made my shirt stick to my skin like glue. That and all the sweating I’d done while soothing angry airport security personnel who wanted to arrest our asses, thanks to the fucking Karen-bitch Ronan had pissed off.
Our trip had been a waste of time. We both knew Declan wouldn't hang around once he tracked Verity down, but even for him, flying straight out without letting us see her was a dick move.
Ronan was one step away from going full psycho on his ass. He'd been losing his shit ever since we found out she'd done a runner. Naturally, he blamed me. Said it was my fault for not dealing with our unhinged sister.
In his opinion, if I'd shut down Saoirse's bullshit and reminded her of the problematic things she'd kept from Verity, none of this would have happened. Instead, I'd allowed our sister to act like a spoiled brat when, in truth, none of us had done anything wrong.
Maybe Iwasat fault for not de-escalating things. I usually played the peacekeeper in our house, acting as a mediator when my siblings fought. But not this time.
Instead of appeasing my sister, I'd walked out.
Only I'd forgotten how much Verity hated conflict. Running away was her default mechanism when she couldn't handle shit. It was why she'd left after Ronan dragged her from the sea, the night she nearly drowned.
One day soon, I'd take her to a psychotherapist, kicking and screaming if necessary. She and Ronan could have counseling together. Both of them needed help, albeit for different reasons. Him, because he was a certifiable lunatic, and her, because she needed to talk to someone about her fucked up childhood.
"We need to get to the private jet terminal," Ronan snapped, stating the bloody obvious as per usual.
"I know. It's two miles away." Or so Google said.
"We can run that." Ronan hefted his bag and looked at me. "Which way?"
"I'm not fucking sprinting in this heat!" I pointed at the waiting cabs. Had our ma dropped him on his head as a baby? "Come on."
I jumped into the first cab and explained in my rusty Italian where we wanted to go. Just as the crappy pile of shit car pulled away from the curb, my phone rang.
"Let me guess, you're about to taxi down the runway," I huffed with a sigh.
"No. We're in the terminal building. Verity's gone."
"Gone?" How the fuck had he lost heragain?
