Theo glances around, then turns back to me and grins. At least, I think he does. Everything’s softer now. Dimmer. His voice sounds different too. Slower. Deeper. “Time to go, street rat. Next stop? A world of pain.”
Falling. Acrid smells. Something hard against my back. A swath of light getting smaller, then a loud bang. Then nothing at all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ronan
What the fuckis taking so long? I gave Zephyr five minutes. Then another three. The old man isn’t a threat to her, and he opened the door wide enough for me to see the whole living room. Sparse. But with a handful of feminine touches. A lace slipcover over the couch. Pictures on a bookcase. A single painting of a beach sunset on the far wall.
At nine minutes on the dot, I’m past caring if Zephyr’s mad at me for interrupting her reunion with her friend.
Two steps inside, I catch my first whiff of blood. My world grinds to a halt. Zephyr’s gone. Martín’s body lies on the floor, his eyes open and staring, a small pool of blood behind his head.
Drawing my gun, I force myself to clear the entire house, even though it’s painfully obvious Zephyr isn’t here. The back door is unlocked, and I check the alley, running to one end, then the other, but she’s gone.
How could I have been so stupid?
Because you’re in love with her. Because she wasn’t worried. Because you wanted her to have this final moment with Martín.
Returning to the house, I kneel next to the body and close the old man’s eyes. A glint of silver draws my gaze. Zephyr’s ring. It’s tucked halfway under Martín’s arm, somewhere it wouldn’t have landed accidentally. She left it for me.
Sliding it onto my pinky, I get to my feet, take a quick video of the scene, set the back deadbolt and exit the way I came in, depressing the button on the front door handle so it locks behind me.
As soon as I start my car, I connect my phone to the handsfree. “Call Dax.”
“Ronan, you better be on your way here with Zephyr,” he says the moment he answers.
“The cartel has her.” Saying the words destroys me, but I have to hold it together if I have any hope of finding her alive. “I need…fuck. They took her…and I was twenty feet away. I should haveknown. Done somethin’.”
“Stop.” His order echoes through the car. “Where are you right now?”
Jabbing the button on my dashboard that activates my GPS unit, I gun the engine to make it through a traffic light before it turns red. “Ten minutes from Second Sight.”
“Get here. Where was she taken from? I’ll call Wren and have her start hacking the cameras in the area.”
My voice cracks as I give him Martín’s address. They haven’t had her long enough to seriously hurt her. Yet. But they will. Shit. Dax is saying something.
“…if you get into a wreck, you’ll be no use finding her. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah. Don’t die. Got it.”
* * *
The office is almost completelyquiet when I enter. What the fuck?
Marjorie hurries down the hall toward me. “Everyone’s in the conference room. They’re all waiting for you, and food is on the way.”
“Food?” Eating is the last thing I care about. Images flash through my mind on a loop. Zephyr’s face twisted in pain. Theo using God-knows-what to whip her back, torturing her with a car battery, locking her in a small, dark box where she can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t escape.
Taking my arm and jerking me back to the present, Marjorie leads me to Second Sight’s main conference room. “If you don’t eat, you won’t be able to think, hon.Thisis why I’m here. I’m not one to fight. Or hack. I don’t have friends in governments all over the world or any tactical experience. That’s your specialty. It’s my job to take care of everyone. You go in there and do your job. I’ll do mine.”
She opens the door to chaos. A large video screen with Wren in the top left and a street view of Martín’s house in the top right draws my attention until Trevor looks up from his seat next to Tank. “Ronan. Are you hurt? Did the cartel—”
“They didn’t touch me. Hell, I never saw them. But Martín Levi—he left the cartel before Zephyr did—is dead. Someone shot him once in the back of the head. Whoever did it used a silencer, because I didn’t hear a fuckin’ thing.”
Dax rises, bracing his hands on the conference table. “I’m goin’ to ask you this once. Are you sure Zephyr didn’t kill him?”
I have my boss pinned to the wall—rage stealing what little rational thought I had left—before I even register I’ve moved. “Theytook her! Zephyr wouldn’t have left me, and she sure as shit wouldn’t have shot a sixty-five-year-old man in the back of the head!”
