Chapter 28 #2
Lucio was with them. Lucio, who I had suspected. Lucio, who Hunt had seen meeting with Mira. Lucio, who had been embedded in our pack for weeks, learning our routines, our weaknesses, our secrets.
Lucio was with my baby.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Felt my knees threaten to buckle. The world tilted dangerously and I might have fallen if Knox hadn’t grabbed my arm, steadying me.
“Did you...” My voice came out as a whisper, thin and reedy. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Did you just say Lucio? Shadowcrest Lucio?”
The guard nodded, confusion evident on his face. He didn’t understand. How could he? He didn’t know what we knew. “Yes, Luna. He volunteered for the assignment this morning. Said he wanted to help protect your family.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat.
Help protect our family. The man who had been working with our enemies this whole time had volunteered to guard the most vulnerable members of our pack.
And we had let him. We had trusted the background check.
We had trusted Jackson Bennett’s recommendation.
I thought I might throw up.
Knox was already moving, his hand closing around the front of the guard’s shirt, lifting him off his feet. The guard’s eyes went wide with terror.
“Send an alert everywhere,” Knox snarled, his voice more wolf than man. “Lucio is NOT to be trusted. He is to be brought into custody on sight. Tell every guard to stay alert. Contact Noah, Ryder, Cole. Tell them what’s happening. Tell them to mobilize everyone. NOW.”
The guard’s head bobbed frantically. “Yes, Alpha. Right away, Alpha.”
Knox dropped him and the man stumbled, nearly falling before catching himself. He scrambled for his radio, barking orders into it with a voice that shook only slightly.
“Which direction did they go?” Knox asked the other guard, his tone brooking no argument.
“I heard them say they wanted to have tea at Serena’s house once they were done shopping,” the guard said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to be helpful. “They left about two hours ago.”
Two hours.
Two hours that Lucio had been with our families.
Knox and I looked at each other. The same horrified understanding passed between us, reflected in his gray eyes that had gone nearly black with rage and fear.
We ran again.
Knox’s parents’ house was on the other side of the territory. Every step felt like wading through quicksand, time stretching and distorting around us. My lungs were on fire. My legs screamed for rest. I ignored it all, pushed harder, faster, terror giving me strength I didn’t know I had.
Please let them be okay. Please let Blake be okay. Please please please.
The prayer ran through my head on repeat, a desperate mantra that I clung to like a lifeline. If something had happened to our baby, if Lucio had hurt her-
I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t let myself go there. Because if I did, I would shatter completely, and I couldn’t afford to break right now.
Knox was running beside me, his breath harsh and ragged, his face a mask of controlled fury. I knew he was thinking the same things I was. Knew he was fighting the same battle against despair.
The house came into view.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
No movement in the windows. No sounds from inside. The front door was slightly ajar, swinging gently in the breeze.
My stomach dropped.
Knox held up a hand, signaling me to slow down. We approached carefully, every sense on high alert. The guards who had followed us fanned out around the perimeter, weapons drawn, faces grim.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. I could feel it in the air, a heaviness that pressed against my chest and made it hard to breathe.
Knox pushed the door open.
“Mother?” he called out, his voice echoing through the silent house.
“Sarah?” I added, my own voice cracking on the name.
No response.
We stepped inside, our eyes scanning every corner, every shadow. The entryway looked normal. Coats hanging on hooks. Shoes lined up by the door. A vase of flowers on the side table.
But there was a smell in the air. Something metallic and wrong.
Blood.
The word flashed through my mind and I felt my heart stutter. Blood. Someone was bleeding. Someone was hurt.
We moved deeper into the house, following the scent that Knox’s wolf could track better than my human nose. Through the foyer. Past the living room. Toward the kitchen.
I saw her first.
Serena was lying on the floor near the kitchen doorway, crumpled on her side like a discarded doll, her eyes closed.
Shopping bags were scattered around her, their contents spilled across the hardwood.
Baby clothes and toys and packages of diapers, all the things she and Sarah had gone to buy for Blake, now strewn carelessly across the floor.
“Serena!” I dropped to my knees beside her, my fingers finding her pulse with desperate urgency.
It was there. Steady. Strong.
Relief crashed through me so hard I almost sobbed. She was breathing normally, her chest rising and falling in an even rhythm. No visible injuries. No blood. She was alive.
“She’s alive,” I said, my voice breaking. “She’s unconscious, but she’s alive.”
Knox nodded once, sharply, but he was already moving past me, his eyes fixed on something in the next room. I followed his gaze and saw a foot peeking out from the dining room doorway. A small foot in a sensible shoe.
Sarah.
We ran to her together, nearly tripping over each other in our haste. She was in the same state as Serena. Unconscious but alive, her pulse strong, her breathing normal. No visible injuries. They had been drugged, probably. Knocked out so they couldn’t fight back or call for help.
But where was Blake?
Where was our baby?
“Father?” Knox called out, his voice echoing through the silent house. “Father, where are you?”
No answer.
But then we heard it.
A whimper. High pitched and plaintive. A baby’s cry.
Blake.
My heart seized in my chest. She was here. She was alive. She was crying, which meant she was scared or hungry or uncomfortable, but she was alive.
We sprinted for the stairs, taking them two at a time. The crying was coming from the master bedroom at the end of the hall. We ran toward it, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat, could hear it in my ears.
Knox reached the door first and threw it open.
The sight that greeted us stopped me cold.
Lucio stood in the center of the room.
He looked nothing like the polished, professional tech specialist who had smiled at us in meetings and offered to help protect our family.
His face was battered and bloody, scratches across his cheeks, a bruise forming on his jaw.
His shirt was torn and stained red, evidence of a fight that had been brutal.
He’d been in a struggle. And from the looks of it, someone had given him hell before going down.
At his feet lay Marcus.
Knox’s father was sprawled on the floor, motionless, a pool of blood spreading beneath him. His face was pale, too pale, waxen in a way that made my stomach turn. I couldn’t tell from where I stood if he was breathing.
But I barely registered any of that.
Because all I could see, all I could focus on, was what Lucio held in his arms.
Blake.
My baby girl. My newborn daughter. My tiny, helpless child who had done nothing wrong, who didn’t understand any of this, who just wanted to be fed and held and loved.
She was crying in terror, her tiny face red and scrunched, her little fists waving in distress. The sound of her wails tore at something deep inside me, a primal part of my soul that screamed at me to go to her, to hold her, to protect her.
And at her throat, pressed against that impossibly soft skin, were Lucio’s shifted claws. One wrong move and my daughter would be dead.
“One step,” Lucio said, his voice cold and steady, completely at odds with his battered appearance, “and I’m silencing your baby. Forever.”
The world tilted.
I couldn’t do anything except stare at those claws pressed against my daughter’s neck, my lungs frozen, my mind refusing to process what I was seeing.
Knox made a sound beside me. Something between a growl and a sob, torn from the deepest part of his chest. I had never heard him make a noise like that before.
It was the sound of a father watching his child in mortal danger, helpless to save her.
The sound of a man whose entire world was balanced on a claw’s edge.
“Please.” The word tore itself from my throat, raw and desperate. “Please, no. We’ll give you everything. Everything you want. It’s yours. Money, territory, whatever you need. Just please, please don’t hurt our baby.”
My voice broke on the last word. Tears were streaming down my face, hot and uncontrollable. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop any of this.
Blake cried harder, her wails echoing off the walls, filling the room with her terror. She was so scared. So small. So helpless.
And there was nothing I could do.
Lucio smiled. It was a cold smile. Empty. The polite mask he’d worn for weeks was completely gone now, replaced by something cruel and calculating. This was the real Lucio. The one who had been hiding behind friendly words and helpful gestures.
“You weren’t supposed to arrive so soon,” he said conversationally, as if we were discussing the weather and not the life of a newborn. “But it’s fine. We can improvise.”
“What do you want?” Knox’s voice was rough with barely contained rage. I could see him trembling with the effort of holding himself back. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to attack, to rip Lucio apart, to save his daughter. But he couldn’t. One wrong move and Blake would die.
“What I want is very simple.” Lucio tilted his head, studying us with those cold, empty eyes. “You, Luna. Pick up that rope.” He jerked his chin toward a coil of rope lying on the floor near the window. “Tie your mate up. Hands behind his back. Make sure it’s fucking tight.”
I looked at Knox. His gray eyes met mine, filled with anguish and fury and something else. Love. Trust. A silent message that I understood without words.
Do it. Do whatever he says. Keep our daughter alive.
I moved slowly, carefully, picking up the rope with shaking hands. Every step felt like walking through water, heavy and surreal. I walked to Knox and he turned around, presenting his wrists to me.
“Tight,” Lucio reminded me. “I’ll know if you’re trying to leave slack.”
I wrapped the rope around Knox’s wrists. My fingers were trembling so badly I could barely make the knots. I pulled them tight, wincing when I saw the rope dig into his skin, leaving red marks against his tanned flesh. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t make a sound.
“Good girl,” Lucio said mockingly. “Now you.” He reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a zip tie, tossing it to Knox. “Put that around her wrists.”
Knox caught it with bound hands, his movements awkward but determined. I held out my wrists and he secured the zip tie, the plastic biting into my skin as he pulled it closed.
We were restrained now. Helpless. Completely at Lucio’s mercy.
Blake was still crying. The sound was like a knife in my heart, twisting with every sob.
“What now?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “What happens now?”
Lucio’s smile widened.
“Time to go.”