Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Are you sure?” I asked Cara, looking around the room now packed full of kids.
Jasmin and Linc’s twins, Robbie and Asher and their cousin Eric were the first to run into the conference room with Jaxon and Violet’s son Mason in tow, loaded down with Nerf guns and asking her to play.
At first Cara didn’t budge, even with the boys jumping around telling her how much fun it was to run around the office.
But when Giorgia Gillonardo quietly slipped in holding her sister Francesca’s hand and sweetly asked Cara if she wanted to play tag with them, she finally lifted her head off my chest. From there it took minimal coaxing.
But now that she was inching off my lap, I wasn’t so sure I wanted her to leave the room.
The stupidity wasn’t lost on me. The office was secured with the latest and greatest in biometrics.
No one was getting in or out. But tag was dangerous, wasn’t it?
Cara could trip and hurt herself, maybe smack her head on the corner of a desk and give herself a concussion.
Or one of the boys could shoot her with a Nerf dart.
Cara nodded and wiggled off my lap.
“Okay.” But before I let her go, I couldn’t help but to tack on, “Be careful. No running too close to the desks.”
She rolled her little-girl eyes. “You sound like Lolo.”
I waited for the sadness to creep back in, but when Cara did nothing but stare at me with impatience, I nodded. “Have fun.”
“Boys,” Zane boomed. “Take care of them.”
All three boys looked at Zane but it was Eric who answered, “With my life.”
Zane gave his son an approving dip of his chin.
Christ, the kid hadn’t even hit double digits, and he was already a mini-Viper.
Once the kids ran out of the room and I was free to look over the files, I glanced at Easton.
“Slide those down.” I was interested in seeing what kind of jobs Lore had worked with Michael.
But before Easton could comply Garrett walked into the room, open laptop in hand.
His downturned lips and grim expression didn’t bode well.
“I need the big screen.” A second later the image of a young Stella was gone. Garrett did something on his laptop and the screen mirrored his device and without explanation a video played.
Stella and Cara in the living room. Both of them sitting on the floor—colored pencils scattered around the coffee table.
A coloring book open. Cara filling in the left side of the book.
Stella the right. They weren’t speaking, both in deep concentration.
Until an alert on Stella’s phone broke the silence.
The way she snatched the phone off the table and her accompanying frown spoke volumes—she already knew what she’d find.
Sure enough she leaned over and said something into Cara’s ear before she swept her up and ran out of the room.
Garrett had obviously spliced together the footage because without having to switch to the other camera angle, the video continued seamlessly.
Lore set Cara down in front of the pantry door.
“Remember what we practiced?” she asked.
Cara nodded.
Lore went to the correct shelf immediately, pressing the locking mechanism that I’d only found by luck. She quickly maneuvered the unit, shoved—albeit gently—Cara through and disappeared. A few moments later she reappeared alone.
My gut roiled at the tension in her body. I’d never seen Lore display a moment of fear. But when she lifted her gaze and stared directly into the camera I found I was wrong; it wasn’t fear I saw in the lines of her body—it was panic. That didn’t hit my gut; it felt more like a kick to the balls.
Lore didn’t panic.
She didn’t show fear.
She was strong, capable, and outspoken.
After the brief hesitation she turned, hopped up on the counter, got to her feet, and reached for the top of the cabinet. A second later she jumped down with gun in hand.
But it was too late.
Three men rounded the corner, M4’s at the ready. Lore swiveled, took aim, but before she could take a shot, a fourth man entered through the same door I did. Two strides and a heartbeat later he had the barrel of his handgun to the back of her head.
A film of red-hazed fury tinted my vision.
Lore’s shoulders stiffened. Her eyes darted back to the camera and for a split second I couldn’t read her look—extreme anger but there was indecision mixed in. The crazy woman was calculating her odds.
My heartrate ticked up to a pounding, hoping like fuck I wasn’t about to witness Lore’s murder.
I couldn’t say it was relief when Lore opened her hand and the gun fell to the floor and the man behind her holstered his weapon.
It wasn’t relief when he yanked her arms behind her back and zip-tied them.
And it certainly wasn’t relief when the fucker placed what looked like a black pillowcase over her head and I lost my visual of her pleading blue eyes.
What it did was give me hope. Any good operator knew when to fight and when to yield.
My back teeth clamped tight as the fucker not-so-gently yanked Lore out of the house using the same door he’d used to enter.
Not a word was exchanged.
“He took her through the backyard,” Garrett said, breaking the silence. “Lost them when they hit the trees.”
For the next ten minutes we watched three men tear Lore’s house apart. They weren’t looking for anything specific, just completely demolishing it. Setting the scene of a home invasion.
“They’re pros,” Kira muttered.
She wasn’t wrong. From the ski masks pulled down and tucked into the top of their long-sleeved black shirts, to their tactical gloves, down to the old-school black Bates boots. Not an inch of skin showing. No verbal communication.
No way to identify any of them.
“Clean in. Clean out,” Theo added. “Any luck with neighbor’s cameras?”
“No neighbors across the street. And no one on either side of her has doorbell cameras. The school’s a bust. It doesn’t have security in the parking lot or facing the side of the building leading into the woods.”
That was a huge oversight. A kid could be snatched off the playground and taken through the woods. I’d be having a conversation with Lore about Cara continuing to attend a school with such shitty safety protocols.
“So that’s it?” Smith inquired. “Nothing else on Lore’s feeds?”
“Nothing that’ll help.”
There was something in Garrett’s tone that snagged my attention. When I glanced in his direction he was already staring at me. “I need to see you in my office.”
Garrett’s office was a large glass enclosure in the main office space. More often than not, the glass was smoked so no one could see in, but he could see out. Meaning I could see Cara but she still wouldn’t be able to see me.
“Cara—”
Before I could finish, Nebraska interjected, “If she comes in looking, I’ll bring her to you.”
I made it to the door but halted when Zane called my name.
“Yeah?”
“You good?”
Not even a little bit.
Instead of lying to my boss, I simply held his stare.
“Right,” he mumbled. “We’ll work on your girl getting comfortable—”
“She stays with me,” I cut him off. “Until it’s time to get Lore. There were three numbers in her phone. Three people Lore told her she could trust—me, you, and Nebraska. When the time comes it’ll be up to Cara who she stays with—you or Nebraska. But until then, she doesn’t leave my side.”
There was a minute change in Zane’s gaze. Something that looked a lot like pride. Though I couldn’t be sure because I’d never seen it directed at me. But I had seen him look at the others with the same glint.
“You’re heard.”
I followed Garrett out of the conference room and down the hall into the large open space. There were private offices lining the perimeter. Desks were strategically placed throughout the room, with Garrett’s workstation in the middle already smoked out.
Robbie and Asher were at the far end of the room, Nerf guns up shooting each other with darts. Eric was on the opposite side of the room watching the girls huddled close, whispering.
Zane loved to give his brother, Linc a hard time about the twins.
He had all sorts of outrageous nicknames for them.
But the truth was it was Eric who was the brains behind the chaos.
Out of the three boys he was the most intense.
He watched and planned. DNA or the lessons and values Zane was teaching his son, Eric was fiercely protective over his older cousins, sister, and the rest of the kids.
Hell, the kid was even a spitting image of his father.
I had no doubt one day he’d be running Z Corps.
I slowed my steps, taking in Cara with Gia and Frankie. Whatever they’d said made her smile. And fuck, that tiny grin hit me straight in the heart.
“You coming?” Garrett asked, waiting for me at the door.
No. I wanted to stand there and soak in Cara’s smile. I wanted to see if it would get bigger. I wanted to watch and make sure she was having fun. But Garrett wouldn’t have asked to speak to me in private if it wasn’t important.
“Yeah.” I stepped into his office and blinked at the mess that never failed to shock me. “Dude, how the fuck do you—”
“Save it. I know where everything is.” He pointed to a chair in front of a monitor. “You need to watch something.”
I pulled the chair out and sat. “What is it?”
He moved the mouse to wake up the screen. A handful of thumbnails were on the screen. “Start with the first one,” he said, and moved back to the door. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
Privacy?
What the fuck?
“Garrett—”
“Just watch them.”
The door clicked behind Garrett.
I pulled up the first file. Lore’s bedroom came into view.
A second later she walked out of the bathroom in a pair of light pink cotton shorts that showed off a hell of a lot of leg.
The matching pink top strained against her breasts.
Her brown hair piled on top of her head in one of those messy buns women wore.
Ready for bed.
Irritation surged.
Irrational jealousy.