Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
WEST
Placing the camera in my lap after snapping a few pictures of our current client’s husband enjoying a late breakfast with his new flavor of the week, I let out a sigh and twisted from side to side to work out the muscles in my back.
“Man, I hate these surveillance gigs,” Bryce complained from the passenger seat beside me.
“You and me both, brother.” They were tedious and boring, and I’d seen way more shriveled man ass than I was comfortable with.
“I just don’t get it,” he continued. “If you suspect your spouse of cheating, just confront them. Half our clients already have the proof they need to divorce these assholes, but they still pay us through the nose for pictures that should never see the light of day.”
I didn’t get it either. Then again, I had a woman I’d never in a million years imagine stepping out on, so I didn’t understand how these men operated. If they didn’t want to be tied to one woman for the rest of their lives, they shouldn’t get married, seemed like a simple enough concept to me.
“It is what it is,” I lamented. We staked out the restaurant in silence for a few more minutes before I chanced asking something that had been weighing on me. “You get Hunter to tell you what’s been wrong the past couple weeks?”
Bryce let out a sigh and scrubbed at his face. “It’s not really my story to tell, man. If he wants to open up, he will. I’ll just say, it involves a woman.”
“An ex or something?”
Another sigh. “Not exactly. Someone he’s been pining after for a good, long while now.”
“Why doesn’t he just make a move?” I asked as I snapped a pic of our targets necking on the sidewalk.
“Because it’s a long fucking story ending with him just receiving her wedding invitation in the mail.”
Well, fuck.
Seeing the look on my face, Bryce nodded. “Yeah. And needless to say, if you mention a word of this or tell anyone I told you, I’ll beat you so bloody your new girl won’t be able to recognize you.”
“I won’t say a word,” I assured him. After all, it wasn’t my place. But I couldn’t imagine what he was going through. If something were to happen between me and Stella, and I found out she was moving on with another man, I’d tear the fucking world apart.
It was on that thought that my phone pinged with a notification. Shifting my weight to pull it out of my back pocket, I frowned down at the screen.
“What is it?”
“I just got an alert that my front door’s been left open.
” Pulling up my recent calls, I tapped on Stella’s name and brought the phone to my ear, willing her to answer as I listened to it ring.
When her voicemail came on, I disconnected and tried again to the same results.
“She’s not answering,” I said, my stomach sinking deep.
Bryce reached to the side and grabbed hold of the seatbelt, pulling it around his torso and clicking it into place. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but let’s swing by and check it out just in case. We got everything we need here, anyway.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. Starting my truck, I threw it into gear and headed in the direction of home, telling myself that the knot forming in my gut was all for nothing.
Adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream the moment I whipped into my driveway and saw the front door hanging open.
My whole body began to shake as I threw my door open and jumped out of the truck.
Rollie was right there to greet me the moment I crossed the threshold, his whine alerting me that something was seriously off.
“Call the rest of the guys,” I ordered Bryce. “Tell them to get their asses over here now.”
My heart was threatening to beat out of my chest as I pulled the Glock from the holster on my waistband and started inching my way deeper into the house. “Stella?” I called, praying she’d answer, but I got nothing. “Stella, baby, you here?”
I cleared the entryway and the office on the first floor before making it to the kitchen and living space at the back of the house. The coffee pot lay shattered on the kitchen floor, and just a few feet from it, in a puddle of cold coffee, was Stella’s phone.
“Fuck me,” I grunted as I holstered my gun and rushed to pick it up. I dried it off on my jeans and tapped the screen, feeling a hint of relief when it came to life and my recent calls popped up, front and center.
“They’re on the way,” Bryce announced. “I checked upstairs, there’s nothing there.”
“She’s not here,” I growled as I swiped through her call log for the last incoming call before me. It was her sister, but when I hit the green button to connect, it went straight to Serenity’s voicemail.
After the third time, I dropped the phone onto the counter and pulled out my own, scrolling through to Joe Ryan’s number. He answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Joe, do you know where Serenity is?”
There was a brief pause, but it was still long enough that I felt like my head would explode. “I’m assuming she’s still in bed.”
“You haven’t talked to her?”
“No. Serenity’s always been a bit of a night owl. Usually doesn’t wake up until ten or so. Why? What’s going on?” he asked, the panic in his tone mirroring what I felt inside.
“She called Stella’s phone a little before eight, but now I can’t reach her, and Stella’s not at home.”
“What do you mean Stella’s not home?” the man barked through the line.
That pit in my stomach grew wider and deeper, threatening to swallow me whole. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be fucking happening. “Got an alert that the front door had been left open. When I got here to check there were signs of a struggle, and she’s not here.”
“Oh God,” he breathed through the line, the anguish in his voice sounding like his world was ending. I knew the feeling. “I’m on my way.”
The call disconnected a second later, and I turned back to find Bryce standing right behind me. “What do you need, brother?”
“To find my fucking woman,” I said on a growl as my chest threatened to cave in.
“And we will. I swear it.”
“That motherfucker,” I seethed, my voice coming from somewhere deep and dangerous inside my chest.
I replayed the security footage from the cameras I had set up around the outside of my house, and nearly saw red when that fucker cupped Stella’s breasts before cuffing her and shoving her into the back of his car with a goddamn bag over her head.
“That’s one of O’Brien’s men,” I growled to Linc.
“You sure about that?”
I turned to my boss. I knew he was only trying to make absolutely certain, but I was a second away from ripping his head off.
“Fucking positive. And the only way she’d willingly get into that car was if someone she loved was in danger.
Serenity’s the only one unaccounted for.
That son of a bitch broke our agreement and took them both. ”
“And we’ll get them back,” Lincoln assured me. “I swear, West, we’re going to get them back. I’m calling Byrne now.”
He moved off out of my home office, the phone to his ear, as I began to pace, feeling something I’d never felt before in my life. Abject fear and complete helplessness.
It had been thirty minutes since I got home and discovered Stella missing, and each one of those minutes was like a shard of jagged glass to my heart.
“West.”
At the sound of Stella’s mom’s voice, I turned and found her standing in the open doorway.
The Ryans had broken every traffic law known to man to get to my house in record time.
They’d been sequestered in the living room while my guys and I worked, being taken care of by the wives who had come over to offer their help in any way.
“Honey, I know you’re worried, but everything’s going to be okay.”
I couldn’t speak over the lump that had formed in my throat. This woman had both daughters taken from her, and here she was, comforting me.
“Liza—”
“She’s coming home. They both are. I’m certain of it,” she said fiercely.
I felt the backs of my eyes begin to burn as I choked out, “How do you know?”
She smiled, it was sad and scared, but it was also strong. Her delicate hand came up to rest on my shoulder. “Because God isn’t so cruel as to give her the life and the man she’s always dreamed of, only to take her away from him before they can really start to live.”
I swallowed around the knot in my throat. “She’s my dream too.”
“I know that, honey, and that’s why I also know you’re going to get her back.” She reached up and cupped my face in her hands as a single tear broke from her eye and trickled down her cheek. “Have faith in yourself, because I sure do. I know you’re going to bring my babies back to me.”
“Thank you,” I croaked, coming undone.
“And when you get them back, I’m making everyone my famous pot roast. It’s Stella’s favorite, you’re going to love it.”
God, this family. No wonder my woman turned out as amazing as she did.
I was in the passenger seat of Linc’s truck as he floored it for the truck stop we’d tracked the black sedan to, the rest of the guys following behind us in a long convoy.
We’d lost their trail on the cameras but we were on our way there to see if there was anything that would lead us to Stella and Serenity’s location.
Lincoln had put in a call so Seamus Byrne before leaving my place, but we still hadn’t heard anything back. Just then, my cell began to ring.
Pulling it from the pocket, I read the screen, Unknown Number, and swiped to answer. Pushing the button to put the call on speaker, I snarled, “You broke your word, motherfucker. Now it’s war.”
“I understand your anger,” Byrne quickly spewed, “But I swear, this wasn’t me. My nephew is acting of his own volition.”
I squeezed the phone so tightly it was a wonder it didn’t break in my hand. “Then you’ll suffer the consequences for not keeping your nephew on a tighter leash.”
“What if I were to tell you I know where she is?” At that, the air in the cab of the truck felt like it froze. For a single moment, time stood still.
“Talk,” I barked.
“Grady’s gotten it into his head it’s time for the new generation to step up and run things. Unfortunately for him, he’s one of only very few who share that belief. I’ve been monitoring his activity for some time now, and I know he’s attempting to branch out on his own. He thinks I’m unaware, but—”
I barked through the line, cutting him off, “I don’t give a fuck about your family history, Byrne. I want a goddamn location.”
“I’m texting you the address now. After this, our agreement still stands, correct?”
“Only if she’s alive and healthy. Anything else, and I swear to God, I’m going to rain hell down on your entire fucking world. You hear me?”
There was a brief pause. “Understood.”
“And Byrne? You better pray she comes out of this okay.”