Giving it a push, the button released the small blade that had been hidden within the belt’s thick leather strap. She palmed the weapon in her balled-up fist, but she didn’t make her move right away.
Instead, Shadow leaned up and pressed her lips to her father’s forehead. Tears fell from her eyes onto his paling skin below, and it took everything in her not to howl out in anguish.
“I love you, Dad,” she whispered softy.
Their eyes met, and she knew he knew. Her father loved her, too. There had never been a day she’d ever doubted that fact. And just as he’d spent his life protecting her, Shadow knew it was time to risk hers in order to save them both.
Shadow pushed herself to her feet, the small knife still concealed in her bloodied fist. She turned and faced the man who wanted her dead and then…
She smiled.
CHAPTER15
Slade stoodin the apartment’s entrance, his heart feeling as though it were slowly being ripped in two. The place was trashed with clear signs of one hell of a struggle. Toppled lamps, shattered glass, and splatters of blood marring the formerly pristine space.
I left her here.
His gut churned with nausea as he battled against the rush of bile racing toward his throat. Not only had he left her there, but he’d also ordered her to stay.
And now…
She and Rafe are gone.
His boss and the man’s daughter. A woman Slade had fallen in love with in the blink of an eye. But even as he thought it, he knew that wasn’t true. Part of him had loved her ever since the team’s very first mission. He’d fallen in love with a voice that had been filled with equal amounts of sugar and sass.
Shadow was always there, doing everything she could to keep him and the rest of his team safe. She worked tirelessly from behind the scenes to help them rescue the innocent while also ridding the world of evil.
Only evil had won this round of life’s twisted game. And if Slade and the others didn’t figure out where she and her father were, they were going to lose them both forever.
“She’s still alive.” Apollo rumbled as he came to Slade’s side. “If Reiner wanted them dead, we’d be staring at their bodies instead of an empty apartment.”
He blinked as the other man’s point sank deep, doing his damnedest not to let Apollo and the others see how close he was to breaking.
She’s gone. They’re both fucking gone!
And they had no idea where they were.
“We have to figure out where they were taken,” he finally spoke his first words since arriving on scene. “We need to access the building’s security cams, and?—”
“I hate to be a Debbie Downer,” Bones interrupted. “But isn’t that the kind of stuff Shadow usually does? I mean, unless one of you guys knows how to do that sort of thing. ’Cause I sure the hell don’t.”
“He’s right.” Falcon was the next to join in on the conversation. “None of us have the kind of technical skills required to do what’s needed to find them. We need help. Big time help.”
And Slade knew exactly who to call.
“Rawlins.” The man’s name came out as a deep grumble.
As the other men in the room started to turn his way, he was already pulling out his phone. Slade tapped the number he was damn glad that he’d saved, putting the call on speaker so everyone could hear.
The man who’d helped him when he’d first been ordered to find an MIA Shadow answered after the third ring.
“Rawlins.”
“It’s Garrison,” Slade identified himself. “We need your help.”
The man’s tone was almost deadly when he responded with a curt, “Tell me.”
Slade stuck to the highlights of what they knew up to that point, and then he all but begged the man when he asked, “Can you help us?”
