“You don’t get paid not to know. I want to know what happened here and fast,” I bark. The composure on my control is hanging by the thinnest of hairs.
Giggles sound. “Oh look, your pet reject has finally recognized her betters and left before she lost. Here I thought she was stupid,” Samantha’s smarmy voice announces her arrival.Not today, Satan.
My shoulders stiffen at her words. I know if I look in her direction, I’ll tear her vocal cords out. Instead, I turn to the only reason she’d be down here at all.
“Wes, if you don’t get your cum catcher out of here, I won’t be responsible for her joining the ranks of the other dearly departed Selected girls.”
His face flushes with anger. Whether it’s at her words or mine, I’m not sure. Nor do I care as long as he gets rid of her.
Before he can react, our fathers are walking into the clearing, shouting orders and clearing everyone but the bodyguards and us from the area.
“Who would like to tell me how the fuck a girl was taken from under our noses?” Mr. Edgewood’s tone is lethal as he walks up to where Tony is standing next to Erik.
“Sir… Mr. Edgewood, the camera feeds and security were compromised. We’re still doing a detailed analysis, but from what we can see, someone looped the feed showing Miss Bishop still out by the gazebo. Whoever took her was let in. There have been no unauthorized entrances detected,” Erik reports.
“Well, Erik, that’s obvious bullshit, or Miss Bishop would still be on the premises. Wouldn’t she?” My father snaps.
“Yes Sir. We’re currently looking into it,” Erik continues, but I stop listening. He’s not telling me anything I want to hear right now. His mouth isn’t stating, ‘We have her location and are currently en route to kill any fucker that has her.’ Those are the only damn words I want to hear out of his mouth.
Turning to Lev, whose color has finally returned to normal, I command, “Locate her chip.”
Nodding, our earlier dispute not solved but not as crucial as locating Ariah, he pulls out his phone, and his fingers fly away on the screen.
“You chipped her?” Sebastian asks, a sly smile of approval appearing on his face.
“Of course we chipped her. You don’t think Wy and I would let our little angel only have one line of defense, do you?” Owen responds.
“I chipped her. You just co-signed the idea,” I remind him. I momentarily think back and enjoy the night I made her come on my fingers in her sleep. She was so high off her climax that she didn’t recognize the pinch to her skin when I was embedding the tracker.Thank fuck for that.She’ll have my balls for it when she finds out, and I can’t wait for that fight. First, we have to get her home.
“Find out what happened here and find Ariah Bishop or else,” I hear Wes’s dad bark before walking in our direction.
“Wesley, I want this handled and I want her found immediately. Drop everything else. This is priority number one. Do I make myself clear, boys?” Mr. Edgewood commands, staring as his brown eyes appear almost black.
We all grunt our agreement, but he didn’t need to make that statement at all. I’ll burn this whole fucking planet down to get my Riri back. There isn’t a hole deep enough or a security measure secure enough to keep me out.
“Have you found anything, Lev? Where’s the signal say she is?” Owen asks. Lola flips between his fingers— he’s itching to cut his way to answers.
“The signal can’t be located. The last ping was right outside the town line, and then it disappeared,” Lev grits through clenched teeth, his hands still moving a mile a second.
The last shred of control I have evaporates. “What the fuck do you mean ‘disappeared’? How is that possible?” I start pacing. My fear is palpable with the thought that someone has taken my girl and they’re untraceable. I need to hit something— more preferably, someone.Where the fuck is she?
I run my hands through my now unruly hair, trying to find something, anything, to keep me from snapping the closest person in half. If Lev doesn’t answer me, I might ignore my earlier decision to not cut Samantha’s lifeline short.Stupid bitch.
Lev answers, cutting off my spiraling thoughts. “It means they either found the chip or they’ve gone somewhere out of signal range. I won’t know until I run my diagnostics.”
His comments set my teeth on edge. My gums begin to throb, pulsing to the same tempo as my anger.
“There’s no fucking way they found that chip. It’s fucking untraceable. Those were your words to me-.” My sentence is cut short by the commotion to our left.
“We’ve got something,” Erik shouts, and I’m over to the car before he can utter his next words.
Stopping once I’m at Erik’s side, I take in the iPad in his hand. What I see makes my vision blink out, then blur before righting itself. It can’t be. The rage that fills my blood vows retribution.
With nothing around to punch, I shout, “What the fuck?”
2
WES
