Pay the Price: A Dark New Adult Romance

4. Drago

Imoved through the woods behind Neo — Rafe and his men at my back — and tried to get used to the Kevlar. It was a literal lead weight on my chest, but Neo was right: we couldn’t afford to take chances.

I thought about Willa, pictured her on the sofa with Rock.

Lucky bastard.

We’d drawn straws for who got to stay home. Rock had won, which meant while Neo and I were getting smacked in the face with tree branches and listening to Jace and Rafe engage in a pissing contest, Rock was probably fucking our girl and feeding her the parmesan-and-rosemary popcorn she loved while they watched a movie.

Basically, all of my favorite things.

I was jealous as hell, but all that mattered was that Willa was safe. We worked night and day to make sure that stayed true, which was why we never left her alone (even when she wanted us to) and why Neo and I were sandwiched between the fucking Beasts of Blackwell and big-dick Rafe Wilson and his merry band of rogue soldiers.

Because if girls were still being kidnapped in and around Blackwell Falls — and by all accounts, they were, especially since another one had gone missing last week — none of the women in our orbit were safe.

I slapped at a low-hanging branch and stalked through the woods behind Neo, keeping my eyes on his back through the dark as I turned over the mystery of the missing girls.

I didn’t get it. Neo had killed Roberto, and the other alumni from Aventine who’d been involved in the kidnapping of girls from Bellepoint were in prison.

We’d thought it was over.

But it wasn’t a coincidence that two girls had gone missing right next door, and that meant Roberto and the other Aventine alumni had been working with someone, someone who was still out there, snatching girls and doing god knew what to them.

And now Daisy Hammond had been taken, although she hadn’t disappeared into thin air like the other girls. Her car had been right at the end of Old Mountain Road, the driver’s side door open, purse still in the passenger seat. Someone had wanted her badly enough not to worry about covering their tracks.

And there was something else: Charles Hammond, Daisy’s father, hadn’t made a statement about her kidnapping.

Which was fucking weird.

Because even though our baby hadn’t been born yet, I already knew I’d do anything to keep him or her safe. I knew it because when I lay in bed with Willa — running my hand over her slightly swollen stomach, imagining our baby warm and safe inside her — my impulse to protect Willa was polished into something hard and bright, a diamond compressed over millions of years.

Undeniable. Indestructible.

I’d assumed that impulse came with the baby package, like it was something they handed you at the doctor’s office when they gave you the grainy ultrasound picture showing your baby’s heartbeat (there was already a heartbeat — a fucking miracle).

But Charles Hammond made me wonder. What kind of man didn’t issue a statement when his daughter went missing?

I was so lost in my thoughts I almost ran into Neo when he stopped short in front of me.

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

Behind me, Rafe and his men stopped easily and silently — like they’d done this before — and not for the first time, I wondered if they had, if they’d all served together in the military before Rafe (allegedly) got kicked out.

It was so dark it took me a few seconds to process our surroundings: the widening path, a faint glow coming from up ahead, and the sound of rushing water.

A lot of it.

We were here.