Chapter 1
Chapter One
Sixteen years later
MALCOLM
She’s gone.
Snow crunches under my boots as I walk down the quiet sidewalk. There’s black tire marks on the street from where a vehicle must have screeched away, and blood in the snow.
“I found her knife,” Felix says softly, gazing down at the half hidden knife on the ground.
The only reason we’re here is because whoever took Hollis threw her purse out the window, and Felix was able to track her to downtown. Her purchases from today are strewn all over the ground, the bags trampled from the struggle.
My omega fought. It looks like she put up a big fight, yet no one witnessed it, because she’s gone. Surely, someone would have helped if they’d seen her?
“Where is she?!” Caleb screams, slamming out of his vehicle with Lars.
I have to tell her best friends in the world that she’s gone. When the screaming started in our heads through the bond, they were our first call.
Breathe. In and out. Don’t stop.
“It’s my fault,” Nova whispers, tears rolling and freezing on her face as she looks down at the blood. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think…”
“Think what, Nova?” Lars growls, stomping into her space with Caleb. I want to tell them to lay off, but I’m frozen in despair.
“That they’d take the wrong person,” she says. “I stayed away from the video cameras, having no real connection to this city outside of my clients. I didn’t think they’d take her!”
“Nova,” I rasp, forcing the ice around my heart to thaw. If she’s Hollis’ twin, the person that she’s sacrificed her entire fucking life for, then I need to be nice. Even though it feels like I’m dying. “It’s not your fault they took the wrong sister.”
Caleb drops his head back as he closes his eyes, his chest heaving.
“We’ll find her,” he growls. “She’s a fighter. Lars, call Cian. This will not go unpunished. They’re all dead.”
Brice is a sea of quiet desolation, but his blue eyes swing toward Caleb. Punishment sounds like music to my ears too.
“I can’t hear her screaming anymore,” Remy rasps. “Can you?”
“No,” I respond. “That doesn’t mean anything, though. If they knocked her out, we wouldn’t hear her. Add the distance, it makes sense. Who do you think took her?”
“My father,” she says, her gray-blue eyes desolate and stormy. “He’s been calling me, and I’ve been hiding in Minneapolis.”
“Why are you hiding?” Caleb growls, sending off a text to someone.
This means help. Hollis is important to more people than just us. Help is coming.
“He hurts me,” she says, shaking her head. “I have to be perfect, or he hurts me.”
“Fuck,” I say, though I don’t mean to. “If you’re Hollis’ sister, then he’s not your father, Nova.”
“Which means all the times that I’ve wished someone would save me from my life aren’t because I was being overdramatic,” she mutters.
My heart clenches for the girl who should have had a different life, but we have so many more things to worry about.
“How long until he realizes that Hollis isn’t you?” I ask.
“I’m constantly changing my appearance,” Nova explains. “Growing up, I had to wear contacts to cover my natural eye color, and they dyed my hair blonde as soon as they could. I never… I didn’t realize that it was because they needed to hide a stolen girl.”
“Nova, you’re Hollis’ sister. The eyes don’t lie. You could change everything else, but I would still know who you are,” Caleb says. “Shaw wants to come check the area. Is she wearing any type of tracking device that you know of?”
The conversation is directed at me, and I wish that I’d thought to give her something else to track her location. As soon as I get her back, I’m getting something designed. If they can put GPS in a goddamned toy, they can do it in jewelry.
Fuck, is it too psychotic to simply inject a tracker under her skin? The mafia must be rubbing off on me, but if it means I never have to go through this clawing, mind numbing terror, then so be it.
“No,” Felix replies in a clipped tone. “I found her purse back there. It has her phone in it, which has her location turned on and shared with me so I can track her. It looks like it was tossed out the window as an afterthought.”
Felix lifts his clenched hand to show the purse, and Caleb nods curtly.
“She said your name through the bond,” I remember, turning to Nova. “Her entire life has revolved around finding you.”
“It has,” Lars grunts. “Today, she spent the day grieving you.”
“What?” Nova sobs, shoving her fist against her mouth to attempt to hold them back.
“One day a year, she disappears and does things with you in mind,” Caleb says, a tear falling from his eye. “She never lets any of us forget you. Hollis has always been your champion, even if you thought you were alone.”
“Now we have to find her,” I murmur.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Nova says, her fingers moving to her hair to pull sharply on it. I recognize it as a grounding technique, but my fingers still spasm because I want to make her stop.
“Tell her when she’s back, not us,” Caleb grunts, turning as an SUV joins us. “Hollis will probably tell you to stop being stupid though.”
“Excuse me?” she asks, wide eyed.
Caleb and Lars aren’t pulling a single punch. They are both giving her a lot of tough love at the moment.
“Hollis is trained to be kidnapped,” Caleb sighs. “We’ve been teaching her self defense since she was a teen. I wouldn’t be surprised if she asks us why we took so long when we get there.”
A tiny, hysterical giggle escapes from Nova’s mouth before she clamps her hand down over it. I really hope she’s able to keep her shit together.
So much is starting to fall into place, including her panic attack about not being able to get through the gate.
“Those people kept you trapped, didn’t they?” I ask.
Nova’s eyes grow wide as she takes a breath, and I can see her thinking of things to keep her calm. Slowly, she removes her hand as she nods.
“The doors were locked sometimes, but typically the gates were why I couldn’t leave,” she says. “They insisted that there were bad people who would try to take me away from them, so I had to stay at home. I studied as much as I could for my doulaship online until I was able to leave.”
“How old were you when you left?” Lars asks, watching as two large men lumber over to us.
“Sixteen,” she whispers. Lars’ face whips back so quickly, he winces, and Caleb growls.
“Fuck,” Remy mutters. “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I hope Hollis kills them both,” she says.
“There’s blood,” one of the men joining us grunts, his eyes on the ground.
“I don’t think it’s hers, Shaw,” Caleb says. “I’m in fact about ninety-nine percent sure that she defended herself when they attacked her and it’s not her blood.”
Shaw glares at the ground again before nodding. “Hollis is a bad bitch. It’s clear she fought based on the snow disturbance and her bags. Thoughts on who did this?”
“John and Louise Taylor,” Nova says, pushing her voice to be louder than the meekness she’s been showing. “Apparently my kidnappers as well.”
Shaw’s eyes move up to look at Nova and squints his eyes.
“Excuse me?” the man next to him asks.
“I heard her, Evan,” Shaw grunts. I recognize the name as the beta that occasionally drives Hollis to mafia meetings, which means he also works for Cian.
I’m slowly becoming more aware of the different connections Hollis has, and who they are. I still have a long way to go though.
“I’ve heard about you,” Shaw says. “You’re the new midwife that some of the family packs are using right? No, don’t look away. Your eyes…”
“I’m glad to know we’re not the only one who sees it,” Caleb grumbles.
“Mr. Sullivan is going to shit a brick,” Shaw mutters. “Let’s go, we’re going to attract attention otherwise and find ourselves in jail with all of this blood everywhere. Let’s head to my house. I’ll have everyone necessary meet us there. It’s closer than Mr. Sullivan’s and will give us privacy.”
That’s all that’s said as Evan and Shaw turn and walk away.
“Follow us over,” Caleb says, his hand firmly around the back of Nova’s neck as he begins to walk away.
“Woah, Caleb. No,” I bark out. “You can’t drag her away like that. She’ll stay with us or not at all.”
“If she wasn’t my scent match, I’d let you,” Caleb says over his shoulder. Nova flinches as if she was shot, and something tells me this is the first she’s hearing about this.
I’m not sure how she didn’t know, but this is a shit way to find out.
“You’re a dick, Caleb,” Brice calls out, shaking his head as we hustle to our vehicle.
“I know,” the fucker says as he pushes Nova into the back of his SUV and Lars climbs into the passenger seat.
“This is such a mess,” Remy says, jogging to keep up with us. “Fuck, should we pick up the bags on the ground?”
“Please,” Felix says, rubbing between his eyes. “If Hollis bought it, she’ll want it when she’s with us again. It feels like a waste to leave it.”
Remy twists around and quickly goes back to pick up Hollis’ purchases before hauling ass to get into the car with us.
“We need to find her,” he says, his hazel eyes hard and intent. “Anything else is unacceptable.”
“We also need to keep eyes on Nova,” I grunt, starting the car and staying on Caleb’s ass as he drives. “Otherwise, I’ll line us all up to get stabbed voluntarily by Hollis. That’s her twin, the entire reason our omega has been taken.”
“Let’s not say that out loud in front of Nova though,” Brice mutters.
The four of us nod, and that’s as good as a blood oath for us.
NOVA
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I scream, chest heaving. “Why do I have assholes for scent matches? My sinuses are always congested around you two so I didn’t know until now, and the other one treats me like shit.”
“Other one?” Caleb and Lars growl at the same time. Apparently, they have no other way to communicate but to grunt and growl.
I have cavemen for scent matches. How lovely.
“Yes,” I reply back. “It’s clear that biology and the universe hate me.”
“Who is this other scent match?” Lars asks. “Only we’re allowed to push you around.”