A roar ripped from somewhere deep in my chest. She’d been right there. Alive. And calling for me, yet I couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t protect her. Couldn’t do a goddamn thing but listen to her world crumble.
I braced both hands against the table’s surface, my arms trembling with the effort of holding myself upright. The taste of copper flooded my mouth. I’d bitten down so hard my lip had split.
“They touched her.” The words came out as barely more than a whisper, but they landed with the heavy inevitability of a deathsentence. Rage quaked through my bones. “They fucking touched her.”
Turning, I bolted out of the room, my sneakers squeaking against the floor. I didn’t slow down. Couldn’t. Kaylor’s terrified voice screaming my name echoed in my ears, driving me forward like a man possessed. I wasn’t sure the sound would ever stop, not until I found her.
Maddox materialized in my peripheral vision, his broad shoulders filling the door frame of the interrogation room. His arms were crossed over his chest, one foot propped against the wall. He had the hoodie of his sweatshirt pulled over his head, shielding part of his eyes.
“Stay out of my way,” I snarled, not bothering to slow my stride.
Maddox’s frown carved deep lines across his forehead. “Kreed?—”
The rest of his words disappeared as I shoved past him, my palm slamming against the heavy door, sending it flying inward until it crashed against the interior wall. Jesse sat slumped in the metal chair at the room’s center, his wrists zip-tied behind his back. His head hung forward, dirty-blond hair falling across his face. Purple and blue bruises bloomed across his cheekbones and around both eyes, the swelling so bad his left eye was completely sealed shut.
He managed to lift his chin maybe an inch before my fist connected with it.
The crack of knuckle against bone shot off the walls. His head snapped back so violently I heard his neck pop, a spray of fresh blood painting the wall behind him.
“Where the fuck is it?” I bellowed. My fist drew back and drove forward again, this time catching him square in the nose. The cartilage gave way with a wet crunch, and his head whipped to the side. Blood immediately began streaming from his nostrils, dripping onto his torn shirt in crimson drops. He had no fight left in him, but I was beyond seeing or caring. “Where’s the auction?”
Jesse’s mouth moved, but only a wet gurgling emerged. Bloodfrothed at the corners of his lips. I couldn’t make out a single coherent syllable through the mess.
My hands shot out, fists tangling in the front of his filthy shirt. The fabric tore as I got in his face. “If you don’t start talking, you’re useless to me. Do you know what I do with trash? I toss it out.” I drove my fist into his ribs.
The hit landed with a hollow thud I felt all the way up to my shoulder. His body convulsed, a whoosh of air escaping his lungs in a strangled gasp. I pulled back and hit him again, putting every ounce of rage behind the blow. Again. This time lower, just above his kidney. His back arched, mouth opening in a silent scream that never quite made it past his throat. Every punch was fueled by the time Kaylor had been gone. Every fear-soaked second. Every minute she’d been in their hands. Every heartbeat I’d wasted not knowing where she was.
“Give me a name!” The demand tore out of my throat, raw and desperate. “Someone who knows when and where!”
Jesse’s head lolled to one side, his good eye rolling back until only the whites showed. A low moan escaped him, barely human, more like the sound a wounded animal makes when it knows death is coming.
I drew back for another hit.
A hand clamped down on my wrist mid-swing, fingers digging into the tendons until my fist opened involuntarily. “The fuck are you doing?” Maddox’s voice cut through the red haze clouding my vision.
I spun toward him, muscles coiled and ready to strike, but he didn’t back down. “Let me go!” I barked, trying to wrench my arm free from his grip. My other hand was still tangled in Jesse’s shirt, holding his unconscious form upright. Blood dripped steadily from his chin to pool on the concrete between his feet. “He knows something. He has to.”
“He’s out cold, Kreed!” Maddox’s free hand pressed against my chest, shoving me backward with enough force to make me release Jesse entirely. The man collapsed back into the chair like a sack ofbroken bones, his head tilting at an unnatural angle. “He isn’t good to us if he can’t fucking talk!”
I stood there, chest rising and falling, my fists throbbing where the skin had split across my knuckles, fresh blood, mine and Jesse’s, painting my hands crimson. The rage still burned in my veins, demanding more violence, more pain, more of anything that might bring me closer to her.
“She tried to call me,” I whispered. I flexed my aching fingers, watching the blood well up in the fresh cuts. “She had a phone. I don’t know how she got it or what it cost her before they took it from her. They hurt her.”
Maddox’s expression shifted, the hard lines around his eyes softening just a fraction. “Shit,” he hissed, his features hardening. “What did she say?”
“Nothing.” I spat. “They cut her off before she could. But I know enough.” My gaze drifted back to Jesse’s battered form. “They put their hands on her.”
Maddox blew out a slow breath, one hand scrubbing down his face from forehead to chin. When he looked up, his eyes were green flames of understanding. “I get it. I do. But you’ve got to stop letting your emotions run the show.” He reached behind his back, pulling out a folded piece of paper, which he pressed against my chest. “Here.”
I snatched the paper from his hand, crumpling the edges in my grip. “What the fuck is this? I don’t need your busywork.”
“Look at it.”
My fingers fumbled with the creased paper, unfolding it. The page was covered in Maddox’s careful handwriting, and my eyes scanned the names, addresses, and phone numbers. A dozen entries, maybe more. All connected by thin pencil lines that mapped out relationships and hierarchies.
Vipers. Associates. People connected to Rusty.
I blinked, scanning the list again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. “Where the hell did you get this?”
