“Where the fuck is Jace?” I bark.
“Behind us,” Grimm replies as we wind up on a straightaway lined with trees, tire marks on the asphalt. Even with the fading sun, it’s clear something happened here.
Something bad.
My gaze sweeps from side to side like my head is on a swivel, and then I see it.
The car.
“She’s there.” I point. “Tell Jace and Ozzy to sweep the area.”
He nods, murmuring into his earpiece as I lock down every emotion I possess to keep her and my team safe.
The front bumper of her car kisses a hedgerow, the driver’s side absolutely beat to hell with damage, the rear light smashed, and the back bumper crushed.
And that’s just what I can see.
“Kat, can you hear me? We’re here. We’re coming to get you,” I tell her, driving the final distance across the intersection and into the grass as I throw the SUV in park.
Grimm and I exit in unison, both of us scanning the area looking for anyone still lurking around.
“Do you have her?” Royce asks, his voice no longer calm as he waits for the answer.
With Grimm on the other side of the vehicle, I approach the driver’s door and knock on the glass, “Kat, can you?—”
Wide eyes take only a second to focus before she’s scrambling out of her seat belt as I rip the door open, catching her as she jumps into my arms.
Fuck.
I hold her tighter as I stumble back a step, her face buried in my neck, my skin damp with her tears.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She says the words over and over, but now’s not the time.
“Dark paint transfer,” Grimm says as Jace and Ozzy circle back to us.
“Give me a minute,” I tell Grimm and he nods, heading the other two off as I walk with Kat still in my arms to the passenger side of my SUV. “I need you to sit,” I tell her as gently as I can, setting her on the seat and unlocking her arms from around me.
“I was so scared,” she whispers, her face red and splotchy from crying, and without thinking, I brush the wetness from her cheeks, cradling her head in my hands before pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You’re mad.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I?—”
“I know, Kitten,” I tell her because I do. I know she’d never have left if she’d thought this would be the result. “Are you hurt?”
She shakes her head. “No and it wasn’t Jace’s fault. I snuck out and?—”
“I know. But I need you to realize we have rules in place, Kat. You could have been taken”—I swallow hard—“or worse.”
“Tom.”
“Please stay in the car, okay?” It takes everything in me to keep my voice even as I spot the abrasion on her chest from the seat belt. She’ll probably be bruised, but it’s nothing compared to what it could have been.
“Promise.”
I drop another kiss to her forehead, my lips lingering on her skin for a beat before I straighten and close the door.
Three sets of eyes land on me as soon as I round the back of the SUV, and Jace is the first to open his mouth.
