Step one: Find the location of the auction. Figure out where these fuckers gathered to buy and sell human beings.
Step two: Find someone who could get in. Someone with the right credentials, the right look, the right combination of money and moral flexibility to walk into that room without raising alarms.
It needed to be someone wealthy enough that their presence wouldn’t be questioned. Someone ruthless enough to play the part convincingly. Someone who looked like they belonged in a room full of predators.
My father would be an obvious choice if he weren’t the damn enemy and he and Rusty weren’t connected.
No one came to mind, but someone who might have the answers and connections did. The perfect person for the job, someone who moved easily within the circle of old money and corruption.
Brock. Fucking. Taylor.
He also happened to be Kaylor’s cousin, making his stake in her rescue vital. His drive to find her would rival anyone else’s. Anyone’s but mine, thatwas.
My hands clenched against the steering wheel…prep school god turned corporate shark. He would know an asshole who had everything I needed: family money, social status, a last name that carried weight in rooms where normal people weren’t allowed to breathe.
More importantly, a closet stuffed with skeletons, of buried secrets that made a man malleable when you knew where to apply pressure. Cocaine habits. Insider trading. Incidents hushed with enough money. He brushed shoulders with the type of privileged predator who could slip into that world and play their role without anyone batting an eye.
Brock owed me nothing. Less than nothing. If anything, the ledger between us was written in red ink and bad blood.
But Kaylor?
She was worth swallowing my pride. Worth making deals with devils. Worth crawling through hell on broken glass if that was what it took.
She was worth everything.
6
KREED
Now I had a starting point and a loose plan, I just had to get her cousin on board, which meant I had to be the one to tell him Kaylor was missing, a task I was fucking dreading.
If he blamed me, I wouldn’t fault him. He could take all the shots he wanted at me once I got Kaylor back, but until then…our energies needed to be focused on infiltrating Rusty’s corrupt operation. With the Elite, there was no way we failed.
I was putting a lot of faith into four guys I rarely knew and trusted less, but because she was family, I had to believe their conviction aligned with mine.
I sent Brock a text, letting him know I was on my way to him, that we needed to talk, and I’d rather do it in person. His response was as predicted. Short. And to the point. Basically telling me I’d better not be wasting his time.
He was in for quite a shock. And not a pleasant one.
I found him outside Kingsley University, where he went to school, his silhouette carved against the building’s limestone facade. He leaned against the hood of a black Range Rover, his scowlgleaming under the streetlights. His phone glowed blue against his face as he scrolled.
“You better have a damn good reason for pulling me out of bed,” he said without lifting his eyes from the screen, his thumb continuing its lazy swipe across the glass, completely dismissive of my presence. “I left a very cozy girl to stand out here in the cold.”
Josie. I didn’t know his history with his girl, but from what I’d seen, he loved with a dedication I hadn’t expected from someone like him.
“I do.” I stopped a few feet away from him, close enough to see the flecks of irritation in his aqua eyes but far enough to hopefully avoid Brock’s immediate temptation to grab me and knock me out senseless for losing his cousin. “It’s Kaylor.”
The transformation was instant. I had his full attention now. “What the fuck about her?”
I braced myself. This wouldn’t be pretty, and I found it harder than I imagined admitting what I had to say. I felt like I failed. Him. Her. Myself. “She’s gone.”
He straightened from his casual lean, his spine going rigid. “What the fuck do you meangone? Where did she go? And I’d choose your words carefully.”
I met his glare head-on, refusing to flinch from the fury building behind his eyes. “She gave herself up to save Kenny.”
“You’re telling me,” Brock growled as he took a step forward, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating from his body, “that my cousin is gone. Andyou”—he poked me in the chest—“let that happen?”
“I didn’tletshit happen.” I held my ground, my fingers curling into fists.
