But he's shirtless. I think Emmaleen is wearing his shirt.
And right there, in plain sight, are tattoos. Very identifiable tattoos.
Celtic tattoos.
Black ink. Intricate knotwork. Distinctive enough that there's no mistaking them.
Jino goes very still beside me.
"Holy shit," he breathes.
I don't say the name.
I don't have to.
We both know exactly who has Celtic tattoos like that. Who moves like a ghost through security systems. Who has the skills, the access, and the history with me to pull off a breach this clean.
Jino's hand is already moving, grabbing his phone from me, fingers flying across the screen. "We line up backup anyway. Track the car. Find the location. Go in quiet, extract her, no casualties?—"
I take the phone again.
Jino rounds on me, anger flashing hot in his eyes. "Giovanni, what thefuck?—"
"Wecannotretaliate," I stress, each word deliberate and final.
"He tookher," Jino snaps. "He broke into your house, shut down your security, and kidnapped your—" He stops himself, searching for the right word. "—yourslave. And you don't want to fucking massacre this guy? G! Comeon!"
I turn back to the screen.
To the footage of Lorcan Ó Fearghail pushing Emmaleen Rourke into the trunk of a stolen Buick.
"No," I say quietly. "I can't."
There is only one man who could do this to me and get away with it.
One man on this whole planet who I have a blood oath with.
Lorcan has taken Emmaleen.
Why? I have no fucking clue.
But there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
4
I'm kneeling on a stranger's floor somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, and the weirdest part isn't that I was just kidnapped.
It's that I'mcalm.
Not shock-calm. Not dissociation-calm. Not even that floaty post-orgasmic calm Jino engineers by edging me into oblivion.
This is different.
This is the kind of calm that settles over you when your nervous system recognizes a pattern and decides, without consulting your conscious mind, that everything's fine. You're safe. No need to panic.
Way to go, Emmaleen! Your Pavlovian conditioning is so thorough that kidnapping now registers as a minor scheduling inconvenience rather than a life-threatening crisis! Side effects may include Stockholm syndrome, complete loss of survival instinct, and an inexplicable fondness for men who put their hands on your throat!
I should be screaming. Planning escape routes. Cataloguing exits, and weapons, and whether I can get to that fireplace poker before he stops me.
