He sighed and ripped off a piece of tape. “That’s what they all say.” And he sealed it over my mouth. Two more followed before he gave up and wrapped the tape around my neck and hair, tangling it so I couldn’t get it off even with my fingers free.
My brain tried to shut down. It threw me back into memories I didn’t want to face and made everything so much worse. My whole body shook so hard it felt like I was in my own personal earthquake.
The third man held my legs while they taped them together. I had no leverage at all. I still tried. And fought. I moved my body and tried to make them drop me.
“Fuck me.” The big man put me down on my ass, grabbed me by the hair, and made me look at him. “It’s over. Stop fighting and accept it.”
He hit me so hard I was thrown to the ground. I tasted blood beneath the tape. My stomach churned, but I couldn’t throw up. Not with the tape. I went still. Fighting was good, but not if they beat me into a concussion.
Now the only hope I had was that my Alphas knew where I was and that they were coming for me. They had to be.
One of the cars they’d been loading had the back door open. They tossed me across the seat and slammed the door. Two taps on the roof. “Ready to go.”
The clanging of the giant magnet was deafening. I was thrown around as the car lifted into the air. They were putting me on the boat.
Please find me.
I curled up and sobbed because there was nothing more I could do to try.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
_____________
THEO
Fear was a funny thing.
I thought I knew what it felt like. Different moments in my life. As a kid, when I almost drowned. That moment made me want to conquer my fear and was ultimately why I became a swimmer. A bad car accident in my teens. An injury in college. Fear of failure.
Now I knew I’d never felt fear a day in my life.
This wastruefear. It tasted metallic and sharp. It made every breath last a hundred years and pass in a fucking second.
When Brooksshoutedfor us through the apartment, sounding like I’d never heard him before. Telling us that we needed to go because Trinity’d been taken. I didn’t know what to do. All my thoughts had been absent other than the paralyzing fear.
Logan drove, Aiden was in the passenger seat after picking us up while the car was still rolling. He had a laptop and was locked to the screen, doing everything he could to locate her or confirm where she was.
“Fuck,” he said.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward the back seat so we could see. Footage of Trinity walking on the sidewalk. A man followed her. She turned back like he spoke to her, and a couple seconds later she retreated. And ran. She didn’t let him take her, but he did anyway. He shoved a needle into her neck and she was limply dragged into an alley. Seconds later, a van that hadn’t been visible sped out of there.
“Can you track the plate?” Brooks asked.
“On it, but I already know where they’re going.”
I would never understand how all the computer shit he did worked. All I could do was be grateful he did. If—when—we saved our Omega, it would be entirely due to him. And the DuPonts, whose helicopter we were racing toward.
Bastian calmly taped his hands in the seat beside me. He hadn’t said a word, and didn’t need to. Whoever was between us and Trinity would fall beneath his fists, and there wasn’t a question about it.
“It’s already at the fucking port,” Aiden growled. “It?—”
He went silent. The kind of silence that preceded violence.
Then I saw why.
It was the same security camera he’d shown us the other day when Trinity had done her surveillance. This time she was running. Being chased.
