“What?” I roar, grabbing the phone from Cash. “Where the fuck is she? Let me speak to her.”
The line is silent for a moment before Roman sighs. “She’s not with us, sir. Someone met her at SeaTac and gave her a gun. We had to disarm ourselves to get on the plane in Vegas. She called us out of our hiding spots after her friends left. Then she pointed the gun at us and made us smash our phones on the ground before she took off in an SUV. The last thing she said to us was to have Luciano send a clean-up crew to her mother’s house.”
It’s almost as if all the air is sucked out of the room as I stare at Luciano. Everyone else watches us in silence as we process those words.
“She’s going to kill her mom,” I finally say, barely loud enough for even myself to hear.
“Jesus,” Luciano mutters.
Turning my rage toward the phone, I glare at the device. “You’re going to wish she had shot you two motherfuckers by the time I’m done with you. You let a tiny, glittery, sprite of a woman…” Nostrils flaring, I squeeze my fist together and roar, “My woman, goddammit! Who you outweigh by at least a hundred pounds, fly across the country, take a gun from a stranger, and then hold you up like you’re a couple of fucking amateurs?”
Luciano’s phone rings, and his eyebrows furrow as he looks at the screen, then slides his finger across to answer.
“Knox McCray,” Luciano says darkly. “I hope to hell you’re not calling me to tell meyouput a gun into my cousin’s hands because I will use that same gun to fucking kill you.”
The man on the other end of the line chuckles. “Would you rather she had found a gun off the streets, Ricci? At least with me giving it to her, we know it’s a safe firearm that she knows how to use. Besides, I have my brothers posted outside her mother’s house, ready to go in at any time.”
My mind reels. I’ve heard the name before.
Knox McCray. He’s a member of the Javier family in Seattle. Their father, Leo Javier, ran one of the largest underground fighting rings on the West Coast. He raked in millions over the years and is known worldwide as one of the most dangerous MMA fighters in underground history. Leo is retired now, but I’ve heard that Knox and his brothers are just as dangerous, and they do a lot of vigilante shit.
“Get my girl out of there,” I snap.
Luciano looks up at me, then down at his phone, silent.
“Knox McCray,” the voice on the phone introduces. “You must be Kian Savage.”
When I don’t answer right away, he adds, “Lacey and my wife are friends. Addie told me about you.”
“How the fuck could you give her a gun? She could hurt herself!” I shout, tearing my hands over my hair.
Fucking Christ.
“Lacey is highly skilled with pistols. My action might be questionable, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t have handed her a gun unless I was confident she knewexactlyhow to use it,” Knox explains.
Both Luciano and I look at each other in confusion. A second later, someone clears their throat on the other end of the phone. “I’m Addie. Lacey shopped at my boutique here in Seattle, and we became friends. She came to ladies’ nights at the shooting range with me whenever she could. Lacey was one of the best whenever she was there. Knox and his brothers taught her everything she needed to know.”
The thought of any other man, married or not, teaching my girl things, being close to her, touching her, makes me want to lose my fucking mind and hunt Knox McCray and his entire fucking family down. But first, I need to get to my girl before she does something she can’t take back. I don’t want that on her conscience. I’llgladlyhave it on mine, though.
Cash and Xander look like they’re about to follow us, but I turn and stop them. It means everything to me that they’re willing to leave Beckett to help me with the situation my girl is in, but Beckett needs them right now. And I need to be with my girl.
“Luciano and I can handle this. Stay with Beckett. And keep an eye on Caleb. This is hitting him hard,” I say to my brothers, and even though they look reluctant, they nod and step back.
“Let’s fucking go,” I mutter, throwing the door open and ignoring stares as I walk through the halls of the hospital wearing a blood-stained shirt.
The second we walk through the automatic doors, a black SUV rolls up. One of Luciano’s men. I’m in his territory now, and he wants me to know it.
We sit silently in the back seat as the driver moves through traffic with ease, even though there are cars and people everywhere.
“Who the fuck is Knox McCray, and why did my fucking girl go running to him?” I finally shout, my fists balled.
Luciano doesn’t say anything as he types away on his phone, then he gives me a sideways glance. “He’s one of the few good men left in the world. I can assure you he weighed up the danger in his mind. He is serious when he says he has men out there who will protect Lacey with their lives. like any of my men would. They’ll do whatever needs to be done to get her out of there if she decides to pull the trigger.”
In other words, they will make sure Ace doesn’t get arrested for killing her mother.
The bitch deserves it.
She deservesmorethan just a fucking bullet.
