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Because more than anything during those years we spent apart, all I wanted was a hug from my best friend, from the boy that fought the monsters under my bed when we were kids and beat up the first guy to ever disrespect me at school.

And even if I die down here, even if I say goodbye to him and the other men that hold my heart, I’ll die understanding why he turned on me all those years ago.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KINGSTON

NOW

Mikayla Vega.

Mafia princess.

Socialite.

And most recently, criminal mastermind.

It took more than an hour to track down Terrance Vega, a feat that should not have been difficult given I have all of his direct lines, including those that connect to his most trusted underbosses and his wife.

But it made sense when I found out he’s been missing for the last three months.

No one’s seen or heard from him, as if he disappeared in the middle of the night.

At first I thought he just left the country. He wouldn’t be the first mafia boss to skip town when shit got heavy, and given the deals he’s made over the years, I wouldn’t be surprised.

But that possibility was ruled out when I realized none of his accounts have been touched. The ones offshore, the ones stateside. None of them have had even a dollar withdrawn since the day he disappeared.

There’s no way Sebastian is running the family, because not only is he an idiot, he can’t keep his dick in his pants and his nose away from the blow for long enough to make it through an hour-long meeting, let alone to run the family.

Which leaves Mikayla.

Once I figured out Terrance was out of the picture, it was easy to put the pieces together and follow the bouncing ball to the person responsible for our current predicament, and I can’t help but feel guilty.

I’ll never regret saving Damon from a marriage he didn’t want, but I am the reason they’re missing right now.

Sebastian has filled in some of the gaps while his eyes shifted between Ryker and the kettle of boiling water he hovered over fresh wounds, and while we don’t have all the information, things are far more complicated than I first thought.

For a long time, there have been rumblings of an underground market for anything and everything. There doesn’t seem to be one single person or group responsible for it, but there’s a puppet master behind the scenes pulling the strings.

In the years since they surfaced, we’ve taken out several men who were providing women for this market with the promise of a significant payday, but they were given such little information that even after weeks of torture, they couldn’t give us anything.

The drop-off was always in the middle of nowhere. They weren’t given names and they never saw faces, making them useless.

Mikayla working with them is the first solid lead we’ve ever had.

Corbin does a satellite search of the coordinates Sebastian gave, and there is a farmhouse there. It’s abandoned and doesn’t appear to have a current owner, making it the perfect place to hide out if you wanted to fly under the radar, but that doesn’t guarantee that’s where they’re keeping Chloe and Damon.

“What do you want to do, boss?” Corbin asks as I pace back and forth across the front of the cabin. No one has been here in years, and I haven’t bothered to maintain the place because it gives the impression that someone owns it, but I’m starting to think some landscaping might be necessary after hitting my head on the same branch five times since I stepped outside earlier.

Ryker and Ronan stand with their backs against the door, while Rocco and Remy are keeping Sebastian company.

I’ve always been good at making hard decisions, but the stakes have never been quite this high.

The only thing I know for sure is that time is of the essence because one, or both, of them are injured.

My stomach rolls at the thought of Chloe being hurt, but I shove it to the back of my mind. She needs me to be strong right now. She needs me to be decisive.

“I want a team to check the place out,” I tell him, tugging my phone away from my ear to check the time. “Ronan and Rocco will meet whoever you can organize a mile out from the farmhouse in an hour.”