Chapter 8
Black Knights Inc.
Four goddamned hours!
That’s how long it’d been since the ransom call came in.
Hew scraped both hands down his face and blew out a breath that didn’t do jack shit to lessen the pressure building in his chest. The air in the War Room on the second floor felt thick and sticky, like aged maple syrup, only without the sweetness.
His boots stomped heavily across the space in ragged, restless strides. And the longer he paced, the more he wanted to shoot something.
No. Not something. Someone. That bitch who made the ransom call.
He’d start with her.
And, ayuh, despite the voice modulator, it’d still been clear that the one making the demands was a woman. Sabrina had confirmed as much when she’d screamed, Don’t give her anything! They won’t—
What? They won’t what?
Screwing his eyes shut, he heard the echo of her cry, as clear now as it had been then. I’m here! I’m alive!
The memory felt like shrapnel in his brain.
He should’ve been with her on that damned drive. Should’ve stopped her from going in the first place. But he’d swallowed his objections, pushed aside his worry, and done neither. Now, the woman he…
What?
What exactly did he feel for Sabrina? Affection, sure.
Respect and fondness and tenderness and understanding, of course.
But…was there more? Was that fire that filled his heart whenever he heard her bright, babbling brook laugh indicative of something bigger?
Was that ache low in his belly whenever she gifted him with one of her mile-wide smiles proof that he—
Don’t go there. It’s not the time!
Time…
Every tick of the clock on the wall was a hammer blow against his skull. Every second that slipped by was a new inch in the ever-widening gulf of fear opening up inside his chest.
Time…
Just bleedin’ away.
“Damnit,” Ozzie muttered, pulling out his earbuds and tossing them beside the mousepad.
“I can’t trace the ransom call. They rerouted it through so many proxies that it could’ve come from Brazil, Bangkok, or the Taco Bell down the block.
I was able to track it through two darknet relays, then a tower in Iowa that’s supposedly been offline for a month. But that’s where the trail ends.”
Hew clenched his fists so tight he could feel his blunt nails biting into his palms. If Ozzie, the best damn hacker Hew had ever met in real life, couldn’t trace the call, then the call couldn’t be traced. It was as simple as that.
From his office, Boss’s voice boomed. “—don’t care if it’s unorthodox. We need the cash now, not tomorrow.”
Becky’s voice came next, sharp with urgency. “That’s not good enough. We need to make this happen today. Can’t we find someone who—”
Hew tuned them out.
He loved them both. Loved their optimism that they could somehow mortgage the shop to get the money needed. But banks didn’t fork over millions without paperwork, protocols, and red tape.
And that took time.
Time they didn’t have. Time Sabrina didn’t have.
And so that left…
Fuck, he had no clue what that left. No one did. But everyone was scrambling to find out.
Grace Jackson paced by the railing, thumbs flying on her phone. Julia O’Toole sat at the end of the conference table, laptop open, typing like her fingers were on fire.
Both were FBI agents. And both had come running to help the instant their BKI partners had put out the call.
As for Hew? Well, his forte was flying and fighting. And for now, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to further their cause of finding Sabrina by taking to the air or greasing his gun.
So, instead, he paced.
And he worried.
And he tried not to let his sense of helplessness and rage grow into an all-consuming apoplectic fit.
Forcing himself to drag in a ragged breath, he vaguely noted the scents of metal grit and polished chrome. They were familiar smells. Solid smells. Generally comforting smells.
He found no relief in them now.
Black Knights Inc. wasn’t home, it wasn’t whole, without Sabrina. And he couldn’t help but remember that well-known little nugget that said the first twenty-four hours after an abduction were the most critical. After that, the chances of recovery decreased significantly.
We’ve wasted too much time, he thought bitterly. Precious goddamn time.
Time waiting for the highway patrol to do their wellness check. Time bringing the team up to speed. Time debating options. Time trying to convince the president and Eliza’s coldhearted father to help.
And all the while she’s been stuck out there. Stuck with fucksticks doin’ who knows what to—
No.
He couldn’t let his mind wander to what she might be suffering. If he did, that valley of fear opening up inside him would become the Grand Canyon. And that wouldn’t help anyone, least of all Sabrina.
He flipped his wrist and saw his watch read 10:57. He waited and waited and waited, but it felt like an eternity before the seven turned into an eight.
He was going to implode. Explode? He needed a course of action. He needed something because his inaction was killing him faster than any bullet ever could.
Grace shoved her phone into her hip pocket and turned to address the room.
“I had a buddy inside the bureau run the prints the local police took off Sabrina’s car.” When she saw the alarm on some of their faces, she quickly added, “This is strictly off books. So rest easy.”
Right. Because saving the world always came with an asterisk at BKI. Now, saving the girl came with an asterisk, too.
Instead of doing all this out in the open, they had to do their work where they always did it. In the shadows. They had to protect their covers. Protect the shop. Protect the motherfucking president and her chief of staff because—
“The only prints on the car are hers, yours”—Grace tilted her head toward Hew—“and Martin Massey’s.”
Hearing Martin’s name, knowing the too-pretty bastard had touched Sabrina’s Prius—maybe been inside at some point?—made Hew’s hands curl into tight fists.
Julia followed up Grace’s announcement with, “Paint from her rear bumper’s been sent to a friend of mine who works in the local lab.
She’s running an off-the-books analysis to see if she can narrow down the make and model of the vehicle that appears to have rear-ended Sabrina.
Says she’ll have something for us in two hours. ”
Two hours…
Fuck!
Even with the feds calling in favors, nothing was moving fast enough. Then, like a grenade exploding in his mind, the answer to all their problems suddenly presented itself. And he couldn’t believe it’d taken him this long to think of it.
He hated the idea. He hated everything about it. But it didn’t matter how he felt. Because it was Sabrina. It was for Sabrina.
Drawing in a slow breath, he released it on a windy sigh and pushed the name out of his mouth. “Martin.”
“Huh?” Samuel Harwood said from the rolling chair beside Ozzie.
Sam was a former Marine Raider, a native Chicagoan, and the biggest fan the White Sox could ever hope for.
He’d been scouring the files on the Charleston cartel responsible for killing Sabrina’s brother in the off chance they’d missed something that had led her to her abduction. But now he stared at Hew quizzically.
“Sabrina’s…” Hew’s gut turned sour at the thought of speaking aloud the next word. “Boyfriend. Or…would-be boyfriend. Or whatever the hell he is to her.”
Billionaire, savior, pain in my ever-lovin’ ass.
“He has money,” he finally ground out, noting how he said the phrase with the same distaste in his tone he might have used if he’d said he has mange.
Boss must’ve finished his call, because he stepped out of his office and announced coolly, “The more outside influences we bring into this thing, the less likely it is we’ll be able to keep the true nature of this place under wraps.”
“Ayuh, well…” Hew’s voice was low and tight, even to his own ears. “Sabrina’s life is on the line. Our Sabrina.” He didn’t say my Sabrina. He wanted to, but he didn’t. Because it wasn’t true. She wasn’t his. “So that’s a risk I’m willin’ to take,” he finished firmly. “Anyone disagree?”
There was a beat of silence. The kind that said a thousand things all at once.
“No one disagrees,” Fish assured him. “We’ll do whatever it takes. But first we need to—”
“Holy shit!” Ozzie’s voice suddenly sliced through the air like a thrown blade. Every head in the room snapped in his direction. “I think I may have something.”
Hew’s heart lurched violently. He was across the room without his boots touching the floor. Bracing his hands on the back of Ozzie’s chair, he asked, “What is it?”
Ozzie didn’t answer right away. He waited for the others to converge around the bank of computers. Then, “I fed the make, model, and color of Sabrina’s Prius into a program I wrote that scours the city’s CCTV footage. I asked it to pull all relevant images from last night.”
A grid of still photos bloomed to life on the screen. All grainy. All muted colors in the dark of night. And yet…
There she was. Sabrina. Inside her little Prius with its telltale dent on the back quarter panel from the day Hew had taken her to a Cubs game and she had tried to parallel park on a side street with all the grace of a blind moose.
For the first time in hours, something warmed inside his center. It was hope. Big and bright and burning.
“Oh-kay.” Sam’s voice was skeptical. “So what? We can see her leaving the compound, taking surface streets, and then turning onto Lake Shore Drive. But we already figured that’s the route she took out of the city.”
“No.” Ozzie shook his head, his sandy-colored mad scientist hair waving. “Look behind her.” He jabbed a blunt-tipped finger at the screen and quickly clicked through four photos.
In two of the images, tucked a car-length back, was a black van.
Unmarked. Unremarkable. Creepy as hell.
“Can you zoom in?” Boss’s deep voice was as grim as the expression on his face. “Clean up the images a bit?”