Emerson chuckled.
“I want to go home with you and spend the rest of the night in your arms, but Ihaveto find Jaye.”
“I know,” Emerson murmured. “And it’s okay. I get it. You’ve already lost too much time as it is.”
Dash rose on his toes and kissed Emerson again. “I’ll text you when I leave… and when I get home.Promise.”
Emerson grinned. “You’d better.”
Dash ran back inside, offering a smile and a wave before he disappeared through the front door. Emerson couldn’t stop smiling even after he was gone.
He’d gotten all he needed and then some.
30
Returning to his office, Dash walked among the clouds, but as soon as he re-entered his office, his feet landed on solid ground. He sighed at the state they’d left it in. While he’d tried to keep everything together, he’d failed. How was he supposed to maintain order when all he’d thought about for months was fucking Emerson over his desk?
He’d had an order to his chaos, but after moving things and his mate sending a few askew, he’d lost his flow. First things first, he needed to spread the sheets out again, in the right order, before reading the final pages and getting the hell out of there. How he was going to do that when all he saw in his head was the smile on Emerson’s face after his admission, he wasn’t sure.
He set about putting it right, which took a little longer than he’d hoped. When he came to the last page in his hands, he reviewed it to determine its home.
And something clicked.
Dash was almost positive he’d seen that email address in the file Jackson had brought him. But this was a page fromRandall’sfile. After sorting through the Jackson pages for what felt like forever, he finally found the one he was looking for.
The addresses matched—and were written within days of one another.
The first had been sent to Randall’s captain.
Six-three. Lean with muscles. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Twenty-six.
There was nothing else but that, which seemed strange. No hello, no question or comment, and no sign off—just a bare bones description ofsomeone.In Randall’s script near the bottom of the page, he’d written a question.
‘Is this person reporting a sighting of Gage Howard?’
Before looking over the second email, he checked his notes. Gage Howard had been twenty-six when he’d gone missing a week before that email had been sent. All the other stats lined up, too. Blue eyes, blond hair… all of it.
He slid the other email from Jackson’s research over. Dated two days after the first email, it was another odd, brief description—but with one additional line of text.
Short frame. Fresh body work. Yellow paint. Blue windows. Few miles.
Bidding begins soon.
Dash re-read them again.
Yellow paint… Blue windows…
Blond hair. Blue eyes
A shiver raced up Dash’s spine, cold tingles spreading over his arms and legs. Without more proof, he couldn’t be sure, but his gut told him that Gage Howard was the one being described in both of those emails. But for what purpose.
Bidding begins soon.
Were the alphas being abducted, trafficked, and sold? Had the emails been a sick, twisted promotion of the next on the auction block? The thought made Dash ill.
Whoever had sent those emails would have the answers he needed—if they weren’t the one running the whole illegal operation. Dash opened his laptop. A rush of adrenaline kicked in as he took the tiny bit of data and did what he did best. After hacking a mail server based in Blacksburg, he was able to locate an IP address overseas. Whoever it was—he was pinging IPs all over the globe, trying to hide himself. Eventually, he reached the final IP.
Right there, somewhere in Fort Seattle.
