My pulse triples as I search the crews. Police. EMTs. Firefighters. Officials. News. Trucks, cars, and vans are everywhere. It’s chaos and the perfect cover as it hits me…
All instinct.
No proof.
Alena is… gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
LOCH
“What did you do?”I dangle Paul upside down from his ankles over the cliff. “What the fuck did you do with Alena?”
“Please, please!” Paul squirms like a worm on a hook, begging for his life.
“Best tell ’em,” Wilder shouts. “Or you ain’t gonna be our national mascot, Smokey the Bear. You’ll be Smokey, who smashed his brains out on the rocks below.”
“He’s threatening my daughters,” Paul yelps. “Please, I had no choice.”
“Tell me where she is, and you’ll live to see them.”
I knew it.I fucking knew he was up to something. Paul might not have a criminal heart, but he’s complicit. Compromised. And cramping my damn hands. Fuck, he’s heavier than he looks.
“Hurry up!” I bark. “My hands are sweating.”
“He… he wanted confirmation on where she’d be,” he squawks. “Time and place. So, I sent her to the accident site and told him it was done. He could take her if he swore he wouldn’t touch my girls, and… aw, shit!” Piss floods his pants. “Don’t drop me!”
I glance around. These are remote cliffs, and it’s cold as fuck. No one’s coming up here. I thought the hike with a gun to his head would get Paul to fess up. But I had to resort to death by dangling.
A trick I learned from Sire when a brother would borrow hisGirls Gone WildDVD, and he found our third-story deck very useful.
I snarl, “Where would he take her?”
The sun is ticking down, so is the clock.
“I… I don’t know. I swear.”
“Bullshit.” Wilder spits off the cliff. “All that blood rushing to your brain and you got nothing?”
“I… I guess check the RVs in the campgrounds.” He’s bawling. “That’s how he works.”
I shake his ankles, wanting to shatter the world into rubble to fucking find my woman. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay nearby. Where else?”
“I don’t know!” His wail echoes down the ravine.
Wilder tsks. “Don’t know either. Ain’t that how some of the smartest ones do it? Hiding in plain sight?”
Fuck, he means me. Us. My brothers and a host of famous mobsters it took the Feds years to find.
I yank Paul up. Wilder shoves him to his knees. With my Glock pressed to Paul’s temple, I vow, “You’re playing for my team now. Understand? Because shit stains like Sheremetev don’t keep their word, but I do. Don’t make me make those girls bury their father.”
“Where is she?”An hour later, Nash storms into my cabin with Grant and Nick on his heels. “Where’s Alena?”
I clip the leash to Mutt’s collar. “We wouldn’t be searching if we fucking knew.” I grab Alena’s tank top from our bed, holding it to Mutt’s muzzle.
“Find her,” I command. He barks, tugging toward the door.
“Come on,” I order Nash. “We’ll use Mutt to search the campgrounds. We have intel she’s there.”
