“KO! Dakoda’s sign!” Jaylen yelled from a few feet away. I stared at the crooked sign Dakoda had been holding all night, and it confirmed what I already knew to be true. They had been kidnapped, probably by the same people who wanted me to lose. I dropped to one knee beside Lyrius’s phone and picked it up. The screen was shattered, and the case was hanging on by one corner.
“Fuck.”
As I turned it over, something slipped halfway out of the broken case. A small folder card. I pulled it free and glanced at it. At first, I thought it was a receipt or something until I read it.
TRACK YOUR JEWELRY.
Then I saw the QR code, and my heart started pounding. Lyrius had left me a clue.
“Jaylen, look!” He stepped closer. “There’s a tracker in Dakoda’s earring.”
“I’m on it.” Jaylen was already pulling his phone out, and I ran both hands over my face, trying to think, breathe, or something, anything not to lose my damn mind.
“What if we’re too late, man?” I shook my head. “What if they already?—”
“Nah. Them motherfuckers ain’t stupid.” Jalen looked up from his phone. “If they wanted bodies, they’d have left bodies.”
“We gon’ find ’em,” Pops said, looking around the parking garage.
“I got the signal.” Jaylen turned his screen around so I could see it.
“Where?” A blinking dot moved across the map. It was still moving, and hopefully, that meant my family was still alive. My mind flashed to the note, Victoria, Cherry, and Lyrius trying to warn me before the fight, and everything started clicking together. A curse slipped under my breath, and Jaylen looked at me.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah.” I looked back at the tracker.
“Let’s move.”
As round two wound down, Dae-Dae started bouncing and wiggling in his seat. I already knew what that meant.
“Mama, I gotta pee.”
“Of course you do.” I laughed, and the security guard standing beside us glanced over.
“I can take y’all,” he said, and I looked toward the ring one last time. KO was circling his opponent, making that man work hard to catch him. The round was almost over, and if I hurried, we’d be back before the start of the next one. I’d watched enough of KO’s fights to know that he was going to stop playing with him in round three.
“Aight. Come on, baby.” I grabbed Dakoda’s hand, and he hopped down from his seat, being sure to grab that sign. Thecrowd roared behind us as we followed the security guards out of the section and down a long hallway toward the restrooms. The further we got from the arena floor, the quieter everything became. There were only a few workers and a few fans wandering through the hallway.
“I’ll take him into the men’s room,” the security guard said. I hesitated for a second. Normally, Dakoda came into the women’s restroom with me. But he was five. He was getting old enough to talk and yell if he needed something, and security was standing right there.
“Aight,” I said. “Don’t leave him.”
The guard nodded and took off behind Dakoda, who was already halfway to the men’s room.
“I’ll be right here, baby.”
“Okay, Mama.”
“I’ll wait at the end of the hall,” the other security guard said, and I nodded my head, suddenly feeling the urge to pee myself.
“Might as well go while we’re here,” I muttered as I pushed open the women’s restroom door and made my way inside. Two stalls were occupied, so I made my way to the only open one, stepping inside and locking the door behind me. I pushed up my dress and quickly released into the toilet. Dakoda and I needed to get back to the ring before we missed KO’s victory.
“Mama!” I heard Dakoda’s scream through the bathroom wall, and my heart damn near stopped from the fear in it. I was already standing before my brain caught up.
“Dakoda?” I yelled back just as the stalls next to me flew open. My eyes immediately hit the floor, and I watched as the footsteps crossed the floor in my direction.Shit. This is an ambush.Every instinct in my body started screaming. I yanked my phone out of my pocket and searched my purse for the tracking card, the one that came with stud earrings I’d bought Dae-Dae when he was two. My fingers fumbled with the case.Come on.Come on.I slid the card between the phone and the back of the case just as a shadow stopped outside my stall. If KO found my phone, he’d find the card. If he found the card, he’d know what it meant. I dropped my purse and slid my phone into my bra just as the stall door flew open.
“Chass?” My breath caught at the sight of Chassidy standing there. For a second, I thought I was seeing a damn ghost. “Chassidy?” I repeated, confused.
