Chapter 29
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Knox
I watched, horrified, as Lucio turned to Lina.
“You’re coming with me.”
No.
NO.
Every muscle in my body tensed, every instinct screaming at me to attack, to rip this man apart, to protect my mate. But my hands were literally bound in front of me and my daughter’s life was dangling by a thread, held hostage by the claws of a psychopath.
“No,” I snarled, the word tearing out of my throat with a ferocity that made even Lucio pause. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
I took a step forward, unable to stop myself despite knowing the danger.
Lucio made a tsking sound, slow and mocking, and moved his claws closer to Blake’s throat. My baby girl whimpered, her cries growing louder.
“Stay right where you are,” Lucio said, his voice cold and steady. “Unless you want to see what color your daughter’s blood is.”
I froze.
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my skull, could hear it drowning out everything else. Blake was crying, soft hiccupping sobs that broke something inside me. Lina was standing beside me, her body shaking, tears streaming down her face.
And there was nothing I could do.
No. That wasn’t true. There had to be something. There had to be a way out of this.
I looked at my father, lying in a pool of his own blood on the floor. He wasn’t moving. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. If we didn’t get help soon, he would die. If he wasn’t dead already.
Lucio had done that. Lucio had beaten my father, had drugged my mother and Sarah, had taken my baby hostage. And now he wanted to take my mate too.
Over my dead fucking body.
“Take me instead,” I said.
Lucio’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Excuse me?”
“Take me. Leave Lina here.” My mind was racing, grasping for any argument that might work, any angle that might convince this bastard. “I’m the one Mary wants. I’m the one who wronged her. If she wants revenge, she should take it out on me, not my mate.”
Lucio looked unimpressed. “Mary specifically asked for the Luna.”
“But think about it.” I was desperate now, saying anything, everything, hoping something would stick.
“If Mary wants revenge, she could force me to divorce Lina. To marry her. Maybe to pretend to be Thomas’s father.
Give her the life she always wanted.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but I kept going.
“And what better way to make Lina suffer than to take her mate from her? To make her watch as I build a life with another woman?”
Lina made a sound beside me, something between a gasp and a sob, but I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t let myself see the pain on her face or I would lose what little control I had left.
Lucio tilted his head, considering. “Interesting theory. But Mary was very clear about her instructions.”
“Fuck Mary’s instructions.” I was running out of options, running out of time. “Besides, you don’t want me on the loose, do you? If Lina gets taken, you know what I’ll do. I won’t sleep. Won’t eat. Won’t fucking shit until she’s right with me again.”
I held his gaze, letting him see the truth of my words. The absolute certainty.
“There’s no distance, place, or bars that could keep me away from my mate.
Nothing will stop me. I would burn down the entire fucking earth to find her.
I would tear through every pack, every territory, every person who stood in my way.
You think your little group could hide from me?
You think Mary and Mira could keep her safe from my wrath? ”
Something flickered in Lucio’s eyes. Interest, maybe. Or concern.
I pressed harder. “But what would Lina do if I got taken? She’s just a human. She’s powerless. Not like wolves. She can’t track me. Can’t fight her way through enemy territory. Can’t shift and run for hours without rest.”
My voice dropped, becoming almost conversational despite the rage burning in my chest.
“That will frustrate her. Make her suffer. She’ll be stuck here, helpless, knowing her mate is out there somewhere and she can’t do a damn thing about it. Isn’t that what Mary wants? To see Lina broken? To see her suffer?”
Lucio’s eyes lit up.
I had him.
“Fine,” Lucio said after a long moment. “You can tell Mary all your reasons and bear her fucking anger yourself.”
Relief and terror crashed through me simultaneously. Relief that Lina would be safe. Terror at what awaited me.
Lucio started walking toward us, Blake still clutched in his arms, those deadly claws still pressed against her throat. He stopped in front of Lina.
“You. Stay here.”
And then he was walking past her, past me, heading for the door. Expecting me to follow.
Lina’s legs gave out.
She collapsed to the floor, her bound hands unable to catch herself, landing hard on her knees. The sound that came out of her was something I never wanted to hear again. Raw. Broken. Desperate.
“No, no. Please, no. Lucio, please!” She was crying, sobbing, her whole body shaking with the force of her grief. “Don’t take him. Please. Take me instead. Take me. PLEASE!”
Every word was a knife in my heart. Every sob shattered another piece of my soul.
But I couldn’t let myself break. Not now. Not when Blake was still in danger. Not when Lina needed me to be strong.
I walked toward the door, forcing my legs to move, forcing myself to leave my mate crying on the floor of my parents’ bedroom while my father bled out beside her.
“Knox!” Lina screamed. “BLAKE!”
I didn’t look back.
If I looked back, I would break. I would try to fight. I would get Blake killed.
So I kept walking.
We went down the stairs. Past Serena and Sarah, still unconscious on the floor. Through the front door and out into the sunlight that felt obscenely bright after the horror of what we’d left behind.
The guards were waiting outside. A dozen of them, maybe more, weapons drawn, faces grim.
Three more joined the ones we’d brought, and I saw them bleeding and limping.
I recognized them. They were the other guards assigned to Sarah and Serena, and it seemed that Lucio had kicked their asses and left them unconscious.
They saw Lucio with Blake and their expressions shifted to fury.
They all looked ready to attack. Ready to tear Lucio apart and rescue their alpha’s daughter.
“Stand down,” I ordered, my voice carrying the full weight of my authority. “Don’t follow us.”
The guards looked at me with horror and confusion. Some of them opened their mouths to protest, to argue, to offer alternatives.
“That’s an order,” I said. “Stand. Down.”
They obeyed. They had no choice. I was their alpha, and my word was law.
But I could see the agony in their eyes. The helplessness. The desperate desire to do something, anything, to stop this.
I knew exactly how they felt.
Lucio guided me around the side of the house to the back entrance where a black SUV was parked. Nondescript. Forgettable. The perfect vehicle for a kidnapping.
“Get in the back,” Lucio said.
I climbed in, my movements awkward with my hands still bound. The interior smelled like new leather and something chemical. Cleaning products, maybe. Or the smell of whatever drugs they’d used on my mother and Sarah.
Lucio set Blake down in the passenger seat just long enough to grab something from the driver’s side. Handcuffs. He reached into the back and cuffed my bound wrists to a metal bar welded to the frame of the vehicle.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
Then he picked up Blake again, climbed into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
Fuck.
He was driving with my baby in his arms. One hand on the wheel, one arm cradling my daughter. If anything happened, if he lost control of the vehicle, if someone ran them off the road-
No. Nothing would happen. Nothing could happen. I had to believe that or I would lose my mind.
The SUV pulled out of the driveway and onto the road, leaving Ravenshollow behind.
I strained against the handcuffs, testing their strength, looking for any weakness. There was none. They were solid steel, bolted firmly to the frame.
My mind raced through possibilities. Lina would call for help. Noah and Ryder would mobilize the pack. They would find my father, get him medical attention. They would organize a rescue.
But how long would that take? And where the hell was Lucio taking us?
I watched out the window as familiar territory gave way to unfamiliar roads. We were heading south, away from Ravenshollow, away from safety.
I hoped Lina forgave me for what I’d done. I hoped she understood why I had to make this choice. And I really, really hoped she trusted me to keep Blake safe.
Because that was all I could do now. Protect our daughter until help arrived.
Thirty minutes passed in tense silence. Blake had stopped crying, lulled to sleep by the motion of the vehicle. She looked peaceful now, her tiny face relaxed, completely unaware of the danger she was in.
I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
Lucio’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. Now that we were away from Ravenshollow, away from the immediate danger of discovery, his personality had shifted. The cold, empty mask was gone, replaced by something smugger. More confident.
“Why am I doing this?” He repeated the question as if savoring it. “Because of love, alpha. Isn’t that always the reason?”
“Love?”
“The woman I love was taken from me.” His grip tightened on the steering wheel, old pain flickering across his features. “Shipped off to a fucking awful pack when we were very young. They brainwashed her. Made her think she liked the alpha there. Made her forget what we had.”
I watched him carefully, trying to understand. “What pack?”
“Doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that a year ago, she found me. And everything we’d lost came flooding back.”
“You’re talking about Mary?” I was confused. Mary had been obsessed with me, not with some tech specialist from Shadowcrest.
Lucio snorted. “The fuck? No. I’m talking about my Mira.”
Oh.
Everything clicked into place.