37. Riley
It’sall I can do to keep my mouth closed as Logan navigates through the streets of Halston. I want to tell him to hurry, but he already is. Even though he’s driving with as much precision and care as he does everything else, he’s breaking just about every speed limit the city has in place… and he’s good enough to get away with it too.
It still doesn’t feel like enough, though. Not when there’s no way of knowing whether Chloe will still be where she was spotted by the time we get there, or if it was even really her in the first place.
“We’ll find her, princess,” Dante murmurs from the backseat.
I nod on autopilot.
“Breathe,” he adds with a low chuckle.
I let out an explosive breath, one I didn’t even realize I was holding until he pointed it out. It doesn’t do a damn thing to make me feel any less antsy, though. I don’t even realize my leg is jittering until Logan reaches over without taking his eyes off the road and rests a hand on my thigh, steadying me.
The unexpected gesture of comfort surprises me enough that I manage to tear my eyes off the road ahead of us for a second to look over at him. His eyes are still straight ahead, a look of total concentration on his face.
It almost makes me smile. Maybe it wasn’t so much comfort as that the frantic motion of my leg was driving him crazy. Either way, I’ll take it. Both of these men are reminding me in their own ways that I’m not alone in this. That they care too.
Logan rounds a corner at a speed that the Escalade shouldn’t be able to handle, and I see a couple of vehicles parked in the street that I think I recognize as belonging to the Reapers. I’m not all that familiar with this part of the city and have no idea which gang claims it. In other circumstances, that might have put my guard up, but with Maddoc standing on the sidewalk in front of a storefront with bars on the windows talking to a small cluster of people I’m pretty sure are part of his organization, I don’t worry about it. I’m not sure when I started associating one of Halston’s most ruthless gangs with a feeling of safety and protection, but that’s what the Reapers have become for me.
Now, I only hope they can be that for Chloe too.
“Is this it?” I ask as Logan pulls to a smooth stop next to the small group, my voice tight from the sudden constriction in my throat. “Is this where they saw her?”
“Yes,” he answers succinctly as Maddoc looks up and meets my eyes.
I fumble with my seatbelt, hands shaking again, then hurry to his side as if drawn by a magnet.
“Where?” I ask, interrupting whatever he was saying to his crew mid-sentence. “Where is she?”
He takes the interruption in stride, holding a hand out to me and pulling me against him without a word of censure. “We heard someone who fits her description was seen ducking down that alley.”
He nods toward it, and it’s all I can do not to break away from him and race down there to check myself. I know better, though. He got here first. He would have already done that.
“Where do we look?”
“We’ve already checked with the businesses on this street. She didn’t enter any of them, but the owner of the pawn shop says he thinks he saw her walking past his windows.”
“Is he your…” What did Logan call it? “Your street informant?”
“No,” Maddoc says, which makes Dante break into a grim smile.
“So that’s two confirmed sightings then,” he says, getting an answering nod from Maddoc. “Sounds legit. Which direction was she going?”
“North,” Maddoc says, jerking his chin up the street in that direction. “Levi’s working his way up Grande, and I sent Kieran down Forty-Eighth. Take Greg and Amari and work the side streets to the west.”
Dante nods and peels off with two of the Reapers.
“Logan, I want you, Kyle, and Jack to work your way east. It starts turning residential three blocks down.” Maddoc looks at me. “Does she know anyone who lives around here?”
“I don’t, um, I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
But it’s hard to think at all. I just want to move. I want to find her already.
But I also trust that Maddoc knows what he’s doing, so I wait and let him call the shots.
“Go,” he says to Logan and the other two, gripping my elbow. “Riley, come with me.”
He sets off in the direction he indicated earlier—north—without letting go of me. I manage a small, grateful smile and get a long, steadying look in return. My heart is thundering in my ears and I feel so hyped up on adrenaline that his grip is the only thing grounding me, and I think he knows it.
“We looked up here earlier, but we’re gonna go again now that you’re here,” he tells me as we make our way down the street.
I nod, scared to get my hopes up but doing it anyway, because Maddoc’s right. Even though there’s no way Chloe could know about her inheritance yet, she knows enough to have stayed off the radar this long and to realize she’s in danger out here. She also thinks a big part of that danger is the Reapers themselves, based on the shit that went down when she ran.
So she’ll be hiding—hiding or running—especially if she sees the Reapers coming after her before she realizes that I’m here too.
We peer into alleys and check behind, under, and inside dozens of potential hiding spots that I hate picturing my little sister huddled in. I push those worries aside and focus, because that’s exactly why we’re here. So she doesn’t have to hide anymore.
“Chloe?” I call out softly as we veer into yet another narrow, dank alley. “It’s me. It’s safe to come out.”
There’s no response and no sign of her, but I refuse to think that we got here too late.
I shake Maddoc’s hand off and stomp to the end of the chain link fence blocking off the end of the alley, lacing my fingers through the rusty metal as I stare through it.
“Would she have gone over?” Maddoc murmurs, coming up behind me.
I blink, then shake my head. “No. Not unless she had to.”
“No one was chasing her,” Maddoc says. “It was just a sighting. Come on.”
He tries to pull me back the other way, but doubt creeps in and turns my feet to lead. “What if I’m wrong?”
Maddoc gives me a small smile. “Then Kieran will catch sight of her. I had him circle around that way before you got here.”
I nod jerkily and let him lead me out of the alley.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he says as we reach the end of the block. “We’ve got a lot of bodies out here, but you’re the only one she’s really gonna trust.”
I nod again, then freeze.
“Chloe?” I whisper, pointing at a figure in the distance. One too far away to really make out much detail about, and wearing clothes I don’t recognize—dark wash jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, head down and a baseball hat pulled low—but one that I recognize.
It’s my sister. I know it is. I don’t need to see her face to recognize the way she moves. It’s her.
“Chloe.” I yell it this time, breaking into a sprint, but she’s too far away and doesn’t seem to hear me. Or maybe she just can’t, not over the sound of an engine suddenly revving, loud enough that I can hear it from here as a sleek black van with tinted windows suddenly barrels out of a side street right next to her.
For a split second, Chloe freezes. Then she pivots and bolts in the opposite direction from the van, moving even farther away from me and Maddoc.
The van follows, and Maddoc is suddenly right next to me, grabbing my arm again. “Fuck,” he spits out, racing next to me as we try to close the distance. “That’s West Point.”
Two muscle-bound goons tumble out of the still-moving van and grab Chloe, bringing my worst nightmares to life.
“No,” I scream, my heart lurching as she struggles against them. “Chloe.”
I don’t remember shaking Maddoc off, but I’m running flat out and with single-minded determination as they drag her into the van.
It’s not enough. The door slams closed, and I don’t even know if she heard me; if she knew I was here for her.
One of the blacked-out windows rolls down as the van peels away, proving that those fucking West Point goons heard, though.
“No, god, fuck, no, you can’t have her.”
My feet pound against the pavement as I race after them, every step jolting through my entire body. My vision narrows until nothing else exists but the black metal beast taking her away from me and the West Point monsters inside it.
Then the barrel of a gun appears in the window that came down, and the muzzle flares with bright fire as the staccato thunder of gunshots echoes down the narrow street.
Maddoc tackles me, shoving me into an alley and out of the way of the bullets, and I beat at his chest with blind fury as the van skids around a corner and disappears, taking my sister with it.
Taking Chloe.
“Let me go,” I scream. “They can’t—”
“Riley.”
“We need to—”
“Riley.”
“I have to… have to…”
“I know,” he says as I struggle against the iron cage of his arms.
But he doesn’t know, or he wouldn’t have fucking stopped me.
“Maddoc.” I wrench my face away when he reaches up to wipe my tears, his other arm locked firmly around my waist. “I have to save her. Let me fucking go!”
Instead, he cups my face and holds me even tighter, so tight that I feel the thundering beat of his heart against mine. Tight enough that the pain ripping through me only shreds me on the inside instead of ripping me all the way apart when I finally face the truth and break down sobbing against his chest.
We were too late. We lost her.
My sister is in the hands of a monster now.