Chapter 39
Callum
Archer and Torin burst into the house five minutes before, demanding to know where Veronica was. From the concern stamped across their faces, it’s clear something was wrong.
I’d told them she’d gone out to get groceries, and they dragged me into the library and shut the door. Then they told me Juniper was missing. Archer and Torin’s news about Juniper is worrying, but I’m trying not to panic.
“Maybe she was having doubts about the movie and Chinese night, and left work early to go for a walk,” I say.
“You’re right. Leaving work early isn’t alarming.” Archer’s expression is stubborn. He sticks his hand into his pocket and pulls out something that jingles. He opens his palms flat to show me what it is. A gold bracelet. A familiar gold bracelet. Juniper’s. “But finding this is.”
“Her bracelet.” Frowning, I cross over to take it. It’s warm from Archer’s pocket. “It could have fallen off while she was working.”
“Yes, it could have,” Torin says. “But then why didn’t she go to look for it? Why did a maid say it looked like she rushed off, leaving her work half-finished?”
I give Archer the bracelet back. “She could have gone to run an errand.”
Torin shakes his head. “She wasn’t in her apartment, and we hung around there until five. There was no sign of her. When has she ever gotten home that late?”
“Never. That’s when.” Archer answers for him.
A cold sweat starts up on the back of my neck.
I’m trying not to panic yet. Just because she left for work in a hurry and her bracelet fell off her wrist doesn’t mean my dad has gotten their hands on her.
But it could.
I’m reaching for my cell phone when pounding starts up at the front door.
Torin is out of the library and across the entryway like a shot. He lets out a sigh of relief as he reaches to open the front door. “That has to be her. Maybe something scared her, and she ran, and she couldn’t find us, so she came here.”
Archer and I are a step behind him when he wrenches the door open and Lottie flings herself at him, talking so fast I can barely understand her.
Torin grasps the tops of her arms, catching her before she can fall.
“Lottie? What are you doing here?” His eyes dart over her shoulder, looking for her keeper, the big slab of muscle who accompanies her on the weekly visits my dad allows us to have.
Ian serves as a deterrent in case we use force to free her again. Veronica, his spy, is another.
Except Lottie is here alone. Behind her, a yellow cab sits feet from the driveway, engine running.
Lottie was babbling while I was looking for Ian, so I missed the first part of what she said. Archer and Torin didn’t.
“What do you mean he has her?” Torin’s voice is sharp.
Lottie sucks in a deep breath, releases it in a rush. “Juniper. Wilkes grabbed her. He bashed her over the head, I think. She had a lump, and it was bleeding. Then Wilkes came with a needle.” She winces.
Torin releases his tight hold on her, apologizing. “Sorry. Keep going.”
She nods and continues. “But I was pretending to be too weak to move, and when he was distracted, I shoved him to the floor and I grabbed Juniper. We ran.”
Again I look over her shoulder, but there’s no sign of Juniper. My unease grows.
“Wilkes chased after us, but Juniper pulled me out of the way, and he fell down the stairs, and I think he broke his neck. He wasn’t moving, and there was a lot of blood.
Juniper found more pills in his pocket. She gave them to me, and then we ran to the front door to leave.
She was right behind me, and then she wasn’t. ”
I share a worried glance with Torin and ask Lottie, “She’s still at the house?”
She nods. “Your dad’s house. Something must have happened. I ran until I found a cab, but I didn’t have any money to pay him, so—”
“I’ll go.” Archer steps around her and jogs over to the cab while I refocus on Lottie.
“How was she?”
“She was really dizzy before.” Lottie chews on her lip.
“Wilkes was going to trigger her heat and mate with her before he fell down the stairs. He said it was what he wanted in return for helping trick Juniper. Your dad won’t be happy, Callum.
I don’t know what he’s going to do with her, but he won’t be happy I’m gone. ”
That’s not true. The newspapers reported that June is our scent match. My dad will be thrilled to have a better hostage than Lottie. He knows we will do anything to save her.
Anything at all.
The cab driver rolls up his window, does a U-turn, and pulls away from the house as Archer returns after paying him. He closes the door and looks at me. “So?”
I shake my head. “Give me a minute to think.”
He’s not the only one looking at me. Torin and Lottie are too, because no one knows my dad like I do. He’s always been one step ahead of us, but this time, we have to out-think him. Juniper’s life is at stake.
My dad has Juniper, but he won’t be alone at that house. I don’t know if Ian is always with him when my dad keeps Lottie locked up, but there’s one person who will definitely be there now.
“Veronica isn’t out grocery shopping,” I say.
Archer makes a face. “Yeah, I figured as much.”
My dad would have called her and told her about the plan to grab Juniper. He wouldn’t want her anywhere near us in case we got the truth out of her.
“Ian might be there as well.” I’m not looking forward to going up against the big alpha who had an order to put a bullet in Lottie’s head if we ever tried to free her. “Lottie, did you see him?”
She shakes her head. “Wilkes brought me my pill, and Ian didn’t come running after Wilkes fell down the stairs. I don’t think he’s there.”
“We’re going after her.” Torin’s expression dares me to argue.
“No question,” I say, rubbing a hand over my mouth, distracted.
“You have a plan?” Archer asks.
“Not really. Just a desperate hope that I won’t get Juniper killed by flying by the seat of my pants.” I turn to Torin. “Do you still have the box your mom gave you?”
“You mean all that evidence that will put her away for a very long time? I do. Why?”
I point at Lottie. “Give it to her. We’re swinging by the police station to drop her off. Lottie can tell them everything. And she’ll have proof to back up everything they’ve been doing.”
A frown line forms between Archer’s brows. “But they have Juniper.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “Yes, but they don’t know Lottie is going to the cops, and they won’t know until after we’ve gotten Juniper away.
Dad will never expect us to go to the cops.
We have to do the unexpected, or he’ll stay two steps ahead of us the way he always has been.
It’s time to end this once and for all.”
“What about you?” Lottie glances between us. “You can’t go back there. He’ll be expecting you.”
“Us, yes,” Torin says slowly.
I struggle to read his expression. “You have an idea.”
He pulls his cell phone from his back pocket. “Not one guaranteed to work, but it’s something. I just need to make a call.”
“Don’t go,” Lottie warns us, her eyes pleading. “He will push you into doing something you don’t want to, or you’ll push him into hurting Juniper. Just come to the police station with me.”
My smile is bitter. “We’ve spent years pushing each other’s buttons. It’s time this ended.”
The front door of the house I grew up swings open easily under my hand.
An unlocked door is never a good sign, and if I weren’t already walking into this house braced for battle, it would have had all my alarm bells ringing.
There’s no sign of Veronica or Wilkes’s body at the bottom of the staircase that Lottie said he fell down.
There’s also no sign of any blood. Whoever cleaned up the mess did a good job.
Then again, my dad knows all about how to deal with bodies at the bottom of staircases.
How to make them look like an accidental fall, and how to clean up after them, apparently.
Behind me, Archer and Torin are quiet.
We dropped Lottie at the front door of the police station minutes before.
We had watched, engine running, as she walked up to the entrance, cradling a medium-size archive box in both hands.
Torin’s mom, along with my dad and several others, will be going to jail for a very long time once the cops have picked through the photographs and letters going back decades.
Lottie had hesitated at the entrance to the police station and peered over her shoulder, gnawing on her bottom lip, visibly worried.
“Go,” I’d mouthed, and finally, she’d released a soundless sigh, turned around and walked into the police station.
Lottie is safe. For the first time, she’s free from harm.
But our mate isn’t.
“We’re in the dining room,” my dad calls out before I can take one step into the entryway.
His voice is unaffected. Completely unworried.
I walk toward the dining room of a house I hate almost as much as the man it belongs to.
I see Juniper first.
Her eyes are wide, and terror is palpable.
She has a good reason to be afraid. My dad is standing behind her, holding a needle filled with a clear liquid to her throat.
“I was waiting for you to come after your scent match,” he says with a warm smile. “Sit. We have a lot to talk about.”