But all I hear is a sniveling, dickish whimper when I kick the door open.Carter.The fucker’s alone, gun raised, but I grab his wrist so fast, I shake it loose. It falls to the floor as I seize a fistful of his hair and drag him, kicking, down the corridor, over the RV steps, and into the gravel lot.
He’s surrounded, guns aimed, while my left fist turns his face into a boxing ball. “Where? Is? She?”
“Witnesses,” Grant warns me.
So, I cock my fist, relishing the blood gushing from Carter’s broken nose as I vow, “Tell me where he’s taken Alena and Sasha, or I’ll peel your scalp off and choke you on it.”
“She wasn’t here,” Nick observes. “Look at Mutt. He can’t find her scent.”
Our dog frantically sniffs, searching for her. He’s like me, an animal with a primal instinct to find her.
“See?” Carter whines. “They’re not here yet, I swear.”
“What do you mean,yet?” Nash jabs his muzzle between Carter’s eyes.
“He took her.” Carter holds his hands up. “He has some sick plan for her and his wife before he said he’d bring ’em to—” He snaps his busted mouth shut.
“Towhat?” I crouch, snarling in his bloody face. The hunger to bite his nose off is overwhelming. “What the fuck did you think you were going to do withmyqueen?”
“And our sister.” Axel flashes his knife. “Because I believe in death by a hundred cuts for any woman.”
“Please don’t,” Jace huffs out. “It’s a fucking mess every time you do it.”
“I… I… I don’t know,” Carter stammers, obviously scared shitless he’s roused six lions.
“You little-dicked fucker.” I search his darting eyes. “You were the one at the club. The one following Alena. Or was it me?” They widen. “Oh, so you want a piece of me too? You wanna know who I am?”
I drop my gun so I can clutch his skull, ready to pound it into gravel, but he yelps, “The Devil’s Courthouse!”
“What?” Grant barks.
“It’s a mountain,” I grit, molars clenched.
“Where is it?” Nash demands.
“Over an hour from here and too fucking far.” I slam Carter’s skull into the gravel just because it feels good before I growl, “Let’s go!”
Jace drags Carter to his truck. Later, we’ll torture him for more intel in our bunker in Charleston, where there are fewer witnesses like Sue and Juliana.
But they’re unfazed. Back at our trucks, Sue commands, “Find her so we can go fishing on Edisto.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I jump in my truck with Mutt by my side and my brothers backing me up.
But, suddenly, I’m a little tyke again, eighteen again, twenty-six again, and a beast now with one instinct that’s fed my soul for as long as I’ve known…
Protect Alena.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
ALENA
“Prosnut'sya. Prosnut'sya.”
A gentle pleading voice awakens me with a soft touch caressing my pounding forehead. My eyelids crack open to darkness and a lithe silhouette kneeling beside me. “Wake.” She speaks English. “Please. Wake.”
It takes me a minute or ten to crawl back to consciousness. “Where… where am I?”
