“I know. But will she with her family?”
I tilt my head to the ceiling. I hadn’t thought of it. I haven’t had time to think past any given day with as much as is being thrown at us. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I know you will. Now, go get your girl.” She returns her gaze to my goddaughter.
I’m through the doors, my mind tumbling around the idea of a wedding, of Lorien walking toward me on her dad’s arm,choosing me. Not in a tee over tacos, but in a gown, as my brother stands at my side calming nerves I shouldn’t have for the woman I’m already married to.
“Lorien?”
That’s weird. Total silence.
I peer back toward the hot tub and pool toward Ayla’s bedroom. Nothing. To the other side, is the outdoor kitchen. “Lorien?”
She must’ve gone back inside. There’s no one out here. The only thing that even remotely looks like this place is lived in is a piece of linen on the ground brick. I lean down, noticing stitching… RBB.
Striding through the sitting room door, I drop the fabric on the bar, and ask the women there, “Any idea whose this is?”
“That stinks,” Anni puts in, covering her nose and mouth.
“It does,” Ayla says, lifting it. “And no. It’s a monogram. That’s the big B in the middle, but I don’t know any RB. And I rarely hear middle names anymore. What if they don’t go by the R? What if it’s BB?” She lifts it to her nose. “Whoa. That’s… ugh.”
Briggs Barnett.
“Don’t. And wash your hands.” I swipe the fabric from her fingers and stalk to her pantry, searching until I find what I need. I place the fabric in the zip-top bag and wash my hands thoroughly. “I’d say get some fresh air, but?—”
“But what?” Christian exits the mouth of the hall.
“I need your cameras. Now.” I shove past him, heading to his office, him firmly on my heels.
“What is it and why does Ayla need fresh air?”
“Camera. Back deck. Last twenty minutes or so.”
Christian does what I request. Demand. Whatever. It’s semantics anyway.
And we see… nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“Back it up another twenty.”
That does it. There, bold as brass, and without a fuck in the world, Briggs Barnett slinks out of the shadows, looks straight into the camera and smiles, before—my blood runscold—before drugging my wife, and dragging her by her armpits out of view.
“The fuck.” Christian’s voice is icy. “Get here now. We need extra coverage for the women,” he says into what I assume to be his phone.
“Driveway,” I bark as I pull up Lorien’s phone for tracking, just to have my device shows me my wife’s phone is still in the fucking house.
The cameras pan to the driveway and a familiar SUV there. My father is in the driver’s seat of his own car. What a stupid motherfucker. Briggs slides into the passenger seat after shoving Lorien in through the liftgate.
It’s at that moment that glass shatters against the wall behind me. “That son of a bitch.”
Christian has lost control.
In contrast, I lock down everything in me that wants to buzz and vibrate until I’m nothing.
Chilled…
Lethal…
On autopilot.
