A second later, Jagger comes speeding around the corner, braking hard in front of us. Pete yanks open the door and climbs in, placing Sly in the chair behind the driver and buckling him in.
“Go!” Pete yells as he slams the door shut. I climb into the back, giving him room to sit behind Elias.
“What happened?” Elias asks, turning to look at Sly and wincing when he sees the bruise. “Damn, looks like someone knocked him out.”
“Do we have any ice?” Pete asks.
“I have this cold bottle of water,” I say, leaning forward and trying to hold it against Sky’s eye as Jagger speeds out of the parking lot and onto the highway.
“I don’t have her smartwatch on my phone. Thanks for telling me about that, by the way,” Elias grumbles, reaching a hand back to Pete, clearly wanting his phone.
Pete passes his up, allowing Elias to direct Jagger after the vehicle she must be in.
“I hope the watch is still on her wrist and they didn’t throw it in a vehicle going in the opposite direction,” Pete says worriedly. I hadn’t thought about that, but he’s right. We could be moving further from her.
I try to stop myself from punching the back of Sly’s seat in aggravation. “I can’t believe she was taken from us again!”
It’s silent for a few seconds before Elias’s eerily quiet voice asks, “What do you mean,again?”
Jagger’s eyes connect with mine in the rearview mirror, and I can see my own shame reflected there.
It’s Pete who answers for us. “Robert’s men took her from our hotel room. I think it was like our third night with her. We managed to catch up to them pretty quickly, though.”
“Fuck, I thought you guys would take better care of her than that!” he yells angrily.
“From where I’m sitting, you haven’t done any better. You’re here now, and yet she was taken,” Pete says with disdain etching his voice. I don’t blame him. I feel bad enough about losing her twice. I don’t need Elias acting like he’s any better at protecting her than we are.
“If Sly had protected her better?—”
“You know very well that could have been you laid out on the floor in the bathroom,” Pete throws back at him.
“I wouldn’t have let them get the drop on me.”
I snort in amusement. “Easy to say that now.”
“Besides, if it weren’t for us, we wouldn’t have a way to track her,” Pete tells him.
Elias grunts before mumbling something about rectifying that as soon as possible.
Jagger makes up some of the distance between us andthe vehicle that has her, but there’s too much traffic to figure out which one it is yet.
I rotate the drink and move it a little, hoping it gives Sly a little relief, and he groans. Pete spins to him as I move to my knees between their seats. I’m too big to fit, but I wedge myself in sideways so I can see his face.
I’m not sure why, exactly, but I sort of care about the prickly prude. Well, I guess I couldn’t call him a prude anymore. Just an ass then.A prickly ass.
Wren would be devastated if something bad happened to him, and my need to make her happy has me caring about him, I suppose. But I think I’m also starting to get used to him, toalmostenjoy his company.
“Why is the neanderthal staring at me like that?”
Annnnd there he goes, ruining it.
I move back to my seat, and Pete ignores his question to ask, “How’s your face?”
“What happened? I feel like I’ve been punched in the face.”
“You were,” Pete says. From behind them, I see Sly’s head turn toward Pete, a frown marring his features until a look of sheer panic covers his face. He spins around, looking everywhere in the SUV.
“Where is she?! Where’s Wren?!”
