3. Logan
“Where, where, where,”I mutter, my fingers flying over the keyboard as my eyes jump from screen to screen, scanning the security footage I’ve got pulled up.
The multi-monitor computer setup I’ve got here in my room is extensive for a reason. If something happens in Halston, I want access to it, and by now there isn’t a single public camera in the city that I haven’t tapped into. And not just the public ones.
Unfortunately, the area that West Point took Riley in has shitty security coverage.
It took me longer than it should have to find an image of McKenna’s car speeding away from that fucking alley, and so far, I’ve only been able to trace it up to a point before the sightings start falling off. And the last image I’ve been able to confirm makes it look like McKenna was running parallel to the border of his territory.
“Were you stupid enough to veer north, you piece of shit?” I ask, widening the radius of my search.
I don’t think he did. North would have taken him into Cliffton, and as I said to my brothers earlier, my guess is that McKenna won’t try to stash Riley in West Point’s territory.
So… fucking where, then?
My hands go still on the keyboard as I close my eyes, reviewing a mental map of the area around that final sighting of McKenna’s car that I picked up. It was a shot of the silver Dodge Charger’s rear license plate, captured by an ATM machine’s camera about three miles from the alley.
I’ve already done a street-by-street surveillance search in a twelve block radius around the location and come up with nothing. The longer it takes for me to pick up the trail, the colder it grows. It’s like that bastard drove her into a fucking vacuum, leaving me with nothing but a black hole of information.
“Unacceptable,” I bite out, keeping a tight rein on the emotions that threaten to distract me so I can focus—again—on sorting through every sighting of McKenna’s car, cross-referencing maps of the city as I build up a picture of the route he took as it correlates with all the known connections West Point has in the city.
It gives me a probable direction… if McKenna was acting logically.
I start searching block by block through all surveillance systems along my predicted route. Again.
And come up with nothing.
Again.
I press my lips together tightly, breathing in through my nose to the count of six, then breathing out for the count of eight. I repeat it over and over to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, desperately needing to eliminate the unsettled feeling that keeps intruding on my concentration.
I fail.
I feel… out of control.
When a thing happens, there is a record of it. When a car travels through Halston, it leaves a trail. This is simply another puzzle to solve, and not being able to do that makes me feel off balance and out of control, a feeling I hate.
But it’s more than that. It’s not having Riley here. That’s making me feel off balance and out of control too. It’s… wrong.
I know it was the plan all along.
She was going to leave even before West Point took her.
It made sense and was safest for her and her sister, but that was wrong too. I can see it clearly now. She should never have gone anywhere. She belongs here with us.
Once we get her back, I’ll need to tell Maddoc that.
And… I should have told Riley.
I want her here. I want more of what we had before she left. Not just the sex. She’s important. She’s necessary. For as much as I hated how disruptive her presence was when she first burst into our lives, now the house—my life—feels wrong without her in it.
If McKenna hurts her…
I grit my teeth and forcefully shove the thought aside, then get back to searching. If he does, it’s a given that he’ll die. But letting myself imagine it now isn’t going to bring Riley home, and right now, that’s my only priority.
I pull up a satellite view of the city and zoom in on the location of the ATM machine where I last caught sight of McKenna’s car. I’m about to input new search parameters into my surveillance mapping program when a soft noise from behind me freezes my hands on the keyboard.
I spin my chair around to face my bedroom door, the door I always keep closed whether I’m in here or not.
It’s open.
Ileft it open.
That should bother me. It’s another sign of how much today’s events have thrown me off-kilter. But Chloe is standing there, no doubt responsible for the noise that caught my attention, and a soft, unfamiliar feeling comes over me, muting the reaction I would normally have to someone intruding on my space uninvited this way.
But Chloe isn’t just “someone,” she’s Riley’s family. Her little sister. And if Riley belongs here, then Chloe does too.
But there’s a lost, defeated look in Chloe’s eyes that I don’t like. It awakens memories of my own little sister, along with the feelings of fierce protectiveness I had when faced with the monster I failed to save Emma from.
Riley didn’t fail, though. Riley was able to save her little sister.
And until we get Riley back, someone else needs to look after Chloe.
“Sorry,” she says, the nervous hesitation in her voice making me suspect that she finds my silent regard unnerving. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just…” She trails off, her shoulders slumping. “I’ll leave.”
Maddoc and Dante are undoubtedly as focused as I am on getting Riley back, so Chloe has most likely been left to her own devices ever since we got back to the house. If she’s anything like her sister—which it’s clear from the way she survived out on the streets that she is—she’ll want to help get Riley back too.
She starts to turn away, and I blink, realizing I haven’t done that since discovering her in my doorway.
“No.”
She turns back to face me, her eyes widening. “No?”
“Come in.”
The words come out stilted, but surprisingly, I mean them. It feels weird to allow another person in my room—no, to invite someone in—but in a completely illogical way, Chloe’s presence also soothes some of that feeling of wrongness inside me from not having Riley here.
“Um, Maddoc said you had a way to track Austin McKenna’s car?” she says, approaching my desk hesitantly. “Is that what you’re working on?”
I pull out the second chair that I brought into my room when Riley was here helping me search the city for Chloe. The synchronicity gives me an uncomfortable pang in my chest.
“Sit,” I tell Chloe.
She does it, and I surprise myself again by how much it helps me quiet and focus my mind—exactly what I was reaching for earlier and failed to accomplish on my own—when I start to explain what I’m doing.
“You can see through the traffic cameras?” she asks, leaning forward with a look of fascination on her face.
“I can access them,” I say, because “seeing through them” is both imprecise and incorrect. “Depending on the model, some only take still photographs when their sensors are activated, while others live stream but don’t record.” I switch views and bring up an image of the intersection at Broad and Leavenworth, using my cursor to circle the camera prominently mounted next to the traffic lights. “Other locations use dummy cameras to deter drivers.”
“You mean, that one does nothing?”
I grimace, annoyed because yes, it does nothing. “Correct. But as you can see, I’m still able to monitor that particular location by accessing another camera. In this case, it’s part of the security system for the pawn shop on the corner of Broad.”
Chloe’s breath hitches, her eyes turning glassy as she covers her mouth over a little sob.
I frown. “What is it?”
She smiles at me, dashing the wetness from her eyes. “So you will be able to find her. When Austin drove off with her I thought... I thought…”
“We will find her,” I confirm quickly before she can become even more emotional. It makes me uncomfortable, but at the same time, I’m also overcome with a strange feeling of satisfaction over having changed her previous look of despair to this more hopeful one.
I turn back to the monitors and walk her through the details of the various surveillance systems I’ve tapped into around the city, explaining the logic I’ve applied in searching for traces of McKenna’s route. Talking through it gives me a clearer perspective, and Chloe murmurs quiet, insightful questions as I redefine the most probable search area and explain some of the rivalry between the Reapers and West Point and the resources we’ll use to get Riley back.
“We’ll also tap our allies for help—” I cut myself off abruptly when Chloe makes a small, pained sound. “What?” I ask sharply, wondering if she has information that I don’t about the other gangs we’ve forged relationships with. It’s possible she overheard something while West Point held her captive, but it’s equally likely that she saw or heard something while she was hiding out on the streets. I narrow my eyes as dozens of unsavory possibilities for betrayal flip rapidly through my head. “Tell me.”
“Sorry,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “It’s just... I can’t believe Riley gave herself up like that.”
I blink, recalibrating my thought process. Chloe wasn’t having a reaction to the information I provided. She was having an… an emotional reaction.
Before I can determine if it requires me to comfort her, she huffs out a watery laugh.
“What am I saying? Of course I can believe it,” she says. “Riley would do anything to protect the people she loves.”
I stiffen. People. The word sends a visceral reaction through me, not unlike the painful awakening of blood rushing back into a limb that’s fallen asleep.
But this isn’t a limb. This is a deeper part of me.
Riley loves Chloe the way I loved my sister Emma, and yes, Riley would do anything for her. She already has. But Chloe said “people.” Chloe thinks that Riley sacrificed herself to protect… people.
People whom Riley loves.
Chloe puts her hand on my arm, cocking her head to the side. “Logan?” she says, searching my face in a way that should feel intrusive, but doesn’t. “I don’t know exactly what’s happening between my sister and you, all three of you, but it’s something, isn’t it? Something real?”
I hesitate, then give her a stiff nod, still reeling from the casual way she used that word.
I am not… lovable.
Other than my brothers, who would die for me, people do not love me.
Chloe gives me a tentative smile, squeezing my arm one more time—a touch that should repel me, but that, strangely, I find comforts me instead—and then pulls her hand back. “I wasn’t sure about you guys at first. I mean, come on, the Reapers? Your gang has a reputation and the three of you are pretty intimidating, but Riley was different after you guys got me back from West Point the last time. Different around you and Maddoc and Dante, I mean. Different in a good way.”
“We… are different too,” I admit.
She nods, then sniffles before scrubbing at her cheeks with a self-deprecating laugh. “Good. That’s… that’s good. I never thought I’d see the day she actually fell for someone after all the losers she’s dated. But I’m glad, you know? She deserves a guy—um, guys who will kick some ass for her.”
There it is again. She’s talking about Riley falling for me and my brothers. Caring for us.
Loving us.
Chloe smiles. “It really means a lot to see how hard you’re all working to get her back. Thank you.”
I go still, her gratitude and everything she’s just implied sending me into a tailspin, completely out of my element.
I want to rub at my chest, thick and tight with emotions that feel too big to fit inside it. But I don’t. Hiding that sort of weakness, learning not to display feelings that I don’t understand and have no strategy for dealing with, is a self-preservation strategy I internalized at a very young age. Instead, I give Chloe a stiff nod.
Then, belatedly remembering certain social niceties, I force my tongue to unlock from the roof of my mouth. “You’re… welcome.”
Chloe grins. Then, thankfully, she stops emoting and turns back to my monitors.
“Let’s find her,” she says with a renewed determination in her voice that bolsters mine. “Where else can we look? There are a ton of places near the plaza here, the one with the fountain, that have security systems, right? Can you hack all their cameras, too?”
“I already have access,” I confirm, refocusing on the search and grateful for the chance to let the bewildering swirl of emotions inside me settle into the background again as Chloe and I pour ourselves into the only thing that matters right now.
If she’s right, if Riley… loves me, there’s nothing to be done about it until we get her back.
So we will. We have to.
I won’t accept anything else.