CHAPTER FOUR
TY
T hree fucking days since I’ve seen her, and my head is stuck in an endless loop.
Part nightmare. That’s nothing new—been going on for over a month, and it’s a familiar voyage. One that provides both excruciating pain and a comforting punishment. Sometimes, a lashing soothes.
But the other part is new territory—forbidden fantasy.
That’s an expedition I never venture into. I don’t do off-limits. Not even in my thoughts. Well, never for more than a minute or two. I’m human. My imagination strays to places it shouldn’t—one place it shouldn’t—but I always quickly rein it in.
My self-control seems to be in stark depletion lately.
One second, I’m immersed in carnage, reliving my horrific failures.
The next, I’m drowning in butterscotch.
That’s Rena’s scent—the sweet waffle aroma. I knew it the second she tossed that candy into Wells’s lap .
It seeps out of her skin.
Like a virus.
Infecting me and making me lose my goddamn mind. Maybe she’s been ailing me for years. But it was an invisible illness that I could ignore.
Not anymore. The moment I saw her panic-stricken face, watched her hand claw at her throat, and heard the plea leaving her breathless mouth, she broke me.
What kind of a dick have I been that she’d have to ask if I’d be there for her? I’ve kept my distance for the sake of her brothers, for her, but I’ve always taken care of that family. It was a punch to the gut.
There’s another concern that’s been wrecking me even more though, siphoning the air from my lungs whenever I drift to it.
What the hell happened to lead her to ask?
Something had scared her. I thought maybe she’d overheard the meeting her brothers were in with Wells—which, during the time I was in there, touched upon her birth father being Balzano—but when I subtly poked around, Ivy mentioned that she’d found Rena walking through the front door after it was over.
Nothing is quite adding up, but probing any further is a bad idea. I already overstepped by telling her she hadn’t imagined anything. Calling her Little Moon. But the hurt she’d exhibited in the hallway when she thought I was denying our heated encounter was more than I could bear. It grated on me. Especially as I witnessed her work so hard to hide it, laughing and carrying on, like always. Illuminating the room with her vibrance as though she hadn’t been crumbling into a panic attack—a performance I understand all too well.
So, in a moment of weakness, I made it worse. For both of us.
Every time I close my eyes, her face is there—the pain, the innocence, the plea. It’s a far more beautiful beratement than the other images that creep in, but just as damaging. Learning more will make it worse, and I promised my family I’d try to get myself straight .
They’re intent on holding me accountable for that promise.
Case in point, my current situation is enduring a ten-mile run with the guys. The air is a comfortable sixty-two degrees, but the sun is a glowering bully at this early hour—glaring me directly in the eyes for a morning browbeating.
Wells is trucking along effortlessly.
Fucker.
Liam is leering at me like I’m public enemy number one.
Not my fault you smoked two packs a day for years, asshole.
And Gage. Who the hell knows where his head is at? He’s drenched in sweat and has a lethal scowl, but that’s no different than any other a.m. workout.
We’ve been at this for hours—the conditioning, not just the run. Thankfully, this is the tail end. So, when we veer onto the path that leads back to the house, I sigh in relief.
Wells believes physical exertion and exhaustion lead to superior mind control. He’s not wrong. It’s a method that has always worked for us. Whether it be erasing a client; searching for someone who’s missing; data mining for the Cabrinis—the specialty Wells offers to KORT through the Mafia he commands; or scouring for damning evidence on a politician or government official for the O’Reilly Mafia—the family Ivy heads and the KORT chair I am second-in-command for. When Wells is stressed or anxious or we have too many loose ends in a case, this is his approach.
It’s also his go-to fix when one of us is flailing. Kicking our asses until our heads are back in the game. Good times.
When we enter the house through the garage, the four of us spill into the kitchen and are greeted by our three girls. Ivy is flipping protein pancakes to please her husband. Celeste is frying bacon to tempt hers. And Felicity is babbling in her swing. While Ivy and Celeste silently acknowledge us, our itty-bitty F-bomb bats at the air and coos.
But it’s the sound of Ryker’s voice emanating from a phone on the countertop that beckons my attention. “It’s rare that my little pest makes herself useful with me in the kitchen. I’m not sure what the occasion is.”
His little pest is Rena, so I suppose that means she’s there with him. Despite the unflattering nickname, she’s the apple of his eye. All five of her brothers adore her.
A familiar ache seeps into my bones at the thought.
Ivy laughs as she pours more batter on the griddle. “Since we’re all cooking, this analogy should resonate. You’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Ryker. If your goal is to entice Rena to help more often, you need to work on your term of endearment.”
Rena’s sweet giggle fills my kitchen as the guys encircle the island, Gage picking at the muffins he helped bake in the wee hours of the morning while Liam and Wells kiss their girls. “Never gonna happen, Ivy. He’s been calling me that for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure the grump even knows my name.”
She seems to be in better spirits. Maybe I misread things.
I’m a sweaty mess, but I beeline to the baby anyway. I need to hold her. She calms me, and hearing Rena’s voice has my heart thumping worse than it was on that god-awful run.
I’ve always responded to her melodic canter, but now that I’ve smelled her and touched her, my whole body is possessed by a craving to taste her. Fuck me. She’s got my head spinning more than it already was.
Liam wraps an arm around Celeste’s waist and sweeps her dark brown hair off her shoulder, nipping at her neck as he tosses out a goading remark. “Sounds like you’re going soft, Noire, letting Ryker off the hook. If someone tagged me a little pest, I’d be damn sure I was living up to it.”
That has the room erupting in agreement because Liam has always proudly been our pest.
“Do not encourage her, Graves,” Ryker snipes, but there’s a hint of humor threaded through it.
“I’m not going soft,” Rena interjects. “It’s simply a momentary reprieve because I wanted him to teach me how to make my mother’s biscuits, which turned out fantastic, so I think the carbs are outshining his crabbiness. I’m sure by nightfall, he’ll be cursing his little pest again.”
“No doubt,” Ryker chimes, and I’m guessing she swats him or something because it’s followed quickly by a chuckled, “Hey, watch it.”
“So, I guess the menfolk are back from their workout. You had your women cooking up a storm, huh, guys?” she teases, and everything inside me aches to shoo everyone out of this room, to be the only one gifted that sweet, raspy warble and those canorous giggles.
I’m losing my mind.
“Hey now, I was baking at four a.m.,” Gage growls before demolishing the last of his muffin.
“That he was,” Celeste agrees. “And to be candid, cooking isn’t my favorite, but I hate working out more. So, it’s a fair trade. I only run when entertainment is provided.”
Gage points at her, bobbing his head. “We’re starting The Crown today, right?”
Ivy beams, jumping in before Celeste can. “That’s the plan. I’ve got it on the schedule for this morning at ten thirty. I’m getting in on this too.”
Wells takes over the pancake flipping, nudging his wife to the side. The man always needs to be in charge. “That doesn’t mean you girls aren’t training with me later.”
While Wells is always adamant about Ivy training—specifically in shooting, stamina, and self-defense tactics—he’s been insisting that Celeste join them too. We’ve all been harboring a lot of guilt about how things unfolded with the Skulls. Celeste wasn’t properly prepared to handle herself in that attack. That’s only one of the areas we dropped the ball, but one we can remedy for the future.
“All right, we don’t want to intrude on your morning any more than we have,” Ryker says. “But other than catching up, there was another reason for the early call. I was wondering if you’d heard the latest development. ”
By development, he means Mercy—his best friend, whom he’s clearly in love with—and the monster who beat her, Dalton Montgomery, who went down for the murder of another girl. There were a lot of holdups in the case. Delays in the trial and sentencing. Deep pockets will do that.
He’s been in prison for about six weeks now—the January sentencing date we were originally given got moved to late February. He was injured severely in his first week there and moved to the infirmary. Last I heard, his father was working on getting him moved to protective custody.
This all matters because Mercy and her baby are in hiding. And until we’re certain Dalton Montgomery can’t pull strings to retaliate against her, she has to stay hidden—a situation that’s killing Ryker.
“We haven’t,” Ivy answers, scrolling through her phone. “Oh, I see it now.”
She holds the screen up to me and Wells. Dalton was killed last night.
“So, how long?” Ryker asks in reference to when he can go get Mercy.
“We need to conduct a thorough follow-up,” I explain while bouncing Felicity and stroking her thick black hair. “Don’t jump the gun. I need to do prep work with the client.”
Since Ryker is without a doubt responsible for arranging Dalton’s murder, we can’t risk using any telling language on a phone line. We take extensive measures to be certain we aren’t bugged, but there’s always a chance. Even greater on his end since few people know who we are.
“I’m happy to prep the client for you.” His voice is stern and commanding. This may get ugly. “Provide the location, and I’ll get right on it.”
“Hey, guys,” Rena croons. “I’m heading out. Have fun with this discussion.”
We all chirp our goodbyes as Ryker starts grilling her in the background. “Where are you going today? ”
“Jax is taking me shopping. He owes me one,” she says with a bratty edge.
“Fine,” he growls. “Will you be back by dinner?”
Rena is twenty-three, so the third degree about her whereabouts might seem to be overkill. But the Noires deal in some shady shit. They have enemies still lingering from their father’s corrupt practices. And from what I understand, they have even more extensive reasons for needing to keep her safe.
That’s aside from the people who simply want to use her because she’s an heiress to a fortune. One of the reasons her brothers haven’t settled down either—very few people are interested in knowing who they are beyond the prosperity they offer.
Rena hums. “I’m not sure where I’ll land for dinner.” Her singsong reply has me wishing I could see her and know that whatever plagued her the other day has truly passed.
“I’ll check in with you later then.” Ryker clears his throat, returning to us with a clipped, “So, you’ll send me the client’s location?”
This case has been difficult from the beginning. Mercy struck a sensitive chord with me. All the abuse victims I hide do. But her bruises were so fresh when Ryker reached out to us. She was recovering but broken in every way imaginable. Desperate to do whatever necessary to protect her baby boy.
Ryker expected to be privy to every detail of her erasing—something we never do because crumbs left behind mean the client is eventually found. I’d already been on the fence about it. Despite our hard line, he was a friend and financially backing her escape.
But then she called me into her hospital room and begged me to take her on pro bono. Her reasoning was sound. She loved Ryker, trusted him, but her baby had to come first, and while the Noires could keep her safe, their life could also endanger her further.
I saw my sisters in her face that day. A silent petition, begging me to kill the man who was secretly raping them. A petition I ignored, deciding on a different route, which cost them and my mother their lives. Forever altering mine .
Crunch. Squeak. Blood. One wrong choice.
Ryker has never really forgiven me—or any of us—for how we handled Mercy. It’s not as though I didn’t know it was a no-turning-back crossroads. But after everything Mercy had been through, if something happened to her or her son because of her Noire association, I knew I’d never be able to live with myself. So, we erased her and refused to give Ryker any details.
She’s still terrified to return, even though she’s confessed to us that she misses Ryker terribly. It’s one of the messiest situations we’ve fielded. One that weighs on me a lot. I feel for them both.
Ivy must notice the heaviness cloaking me because she takes over. “Ryker, the client isn’t ready. She’s still fragile, and she’ll probably be quite shaken by recent developments. Let me dig into it and see if I can gently encourage an intervention. It will be a more favorable reunion that way.”
While Ryker acknowledges that all of us have moved mountains to help Mercy, Ivy is the only one in this room he trusts completely with her. That’s because Ivy uncovered the information that got Dalton arrested and risked a lot to relay it to Ryker.
He grunts in frustration. “I’m growing impatient. Please hurry.”
“I know.” Ivy’s voice cracks through her words, her blue eyes welling with emotion. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Great,” Ryker says before ending the call.
Ivy bites her lip, but she ambles toward me with a gentleness. “You’re doing everything you can. Do not let this be one more thing that—”
I cut off her warning with a kiss to the temple. “I’m okay today, Freckles. Thanks for handling that.”
She reaches for the baby, her gaze connecting with mine. “Eat. We made a feast.”
Petting Felicity’s head one more time, I smile as I walk to the island and grab a plate. “I can see that.”
“We’ve got the good stuff over here,” Celeste teases, lifting a piece of bacon for Liam to sample lewdly, to which Wells playfully sighs.
“I see that too, Lettie.” An authentic chuckle leaks out of me—there’s definitely something to the utter-exhaustion method of mind control. “But maybe less PDA while we’re eating.”
“Amen to that. Every damn corner of this fucking house,” Gage growls from the table, his plate already piled high. He builds himself an egg, cheese, and sausage biscuit. “At least Wells gives us some sort of heads-up. You two with your freaky exhibitionism.”
Liam busts up laughing. “We have never been anywhere you could actually see us, unless you’re a Peeping Tom, Big Guy.” He raises his hands in the air. “That’s not on me.”
“I’m not a fucking Peeping Tom,” Gage snarls. “But I’ve got ears, for Christ’s sake.”
“Soundproofing more rooms is on my agenda,” Wells adds, passing Ivy a plate, filled with protein pancakes, fruit, yogurt, and eggs.
Gage lifts his biscuit sandwich. “Thank fuck.”
I’m not sure what that’s about, but I can imagine. Celeste and Liam are still very much in the honeymoon stage. Not that Ivy and Wells have slowed down—even with Felicity.
Seeing them happy is … everything. The guys and I had been through unimaginable torment separately and together by the time we welcomed Ivy into our little circle. I don’t think any of us could have fathomed mornings like this. Ivy softened the jagged edges that had been spearing us. We’d been close before her, but she melded us into a true family. And when Lettie and Felicity came, that rocky past dulled even more.
I wish I could soak it all in. Bathe in it the way I had been. But even as their banter ensues around me, the morning light trickling into our vast kitchen, ricocheting off the stainless appliances with a glint of cheer and brightening the matte blacks and cherry wood, it’s like I’m on the ceiling, watching. Unable to reach them.
Maybe it’s the fear that they’ll be ripped from me, too, that has me paralyzed. Or the remembrance of how undeserving I am of this family when I failed the first one. Or the demons I can’t seem to fight anymore—how enraged I feel every time I think of all the motherfuckers in this world I’d like to kill, which makes me no less of a monster. And how good it feels when I surrender to the beast inside me.
Or maybe it all boils down to the girl I can’t stop seeing, whether my eyes are open or closed. In yet one more ironic twist of my fucked-up life, the one I’m not supposed to want is the only one plastered to this godforsaken lonely ceiling with me.
I attempted to lie low after breakfast, do some work, sulk in peace, and indulge in a few extra Kraken and Cokes. Unfortunately, Liam and Wells were up my ass all damn day, as they had been since my unraveling a few mornings ago.
They mean well. But sometimes, shattering is the only way to piece yourself back together.
Whenever the flashbacks return, I crave the breaking. The crumbling. The flogging.
It’s what I loved about the Navy. They tear you down so they can build you up. Every facet of who you once were is dismantled so they can reassemble you into the warrior they need.
I’m not sure how that applies now. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, I want to heed the pain of every last fucking scar I own.
And the campfire kumbaya retreat I’m currently enduring is not the setting for it. No ceiling to hide on. I’m floating into the inky night while the pool fountains gurgle a background beat to the laughter and teasing and crackling logs.
Wells is beside me, sucking on those goddamn butterscotch candies, so the smoky air is washed away by the scent of the Little Moon. How do I tell him his sugar addiction is going to send me to the grave?
I’ve managed to feign attentiveness all evening, murmuring responses in all the right places, which is good. With any luck, they’ll be onto some other crusade soon.
Ivy’s phone trills, the conversation dying while she digs into her hoodie pocket to retrieve it and glances at the screen. “It’s Ryker.”
That does garner my attention. I assume it’s further pressing about Mercy. “Tell him I reached out, but it’s going to take some time.”
She nods and answers. “Hey.” Pause. “No, I haven’t. Not since this morning …” Her posture jerks ramrod straight. “Hold on. I’ll put you on speaker.”
As soon as she does, Ryker’s agitated tone ruptures the quaintness of our firelit gathering. “Have any of you spoken or texted with Rena since this morning?”
My stomach wrenches as we all mutter negative responses.
Axel’s broken voice coils through the air like a venomous snake ready to strike. “She’s gone. She was … we can’t find her anywhere.”
Wells leans forward, elbows propped on his knees. “Tell us everything you know.”
“She found out her piercings were tracking devices,” Axel supplies. “We thought she was out shopping with Jax today, but—”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Ryker barks.
“You’re not going to kill him. You’re going to keep him from diving off a ledge,” Axel insists before coming back to us. “She pulled one over on Jax. Made him take her to this artsy music store downtown—Stereo Daze—and got him high beforehand. He passed out, waiting, and when he woke up, she was gone.”
Motherfucker.
I leap from my chair, pacing, my thrashing heart lodged in my throat. “And the trackers?”
“That’s where she fucked with us good,” Ryker provides. “She removed her piercings, sealed them in a package, and dropped it onto a UPS truck that had a route all over the city.”
“Oh my God,” Ivy wheezes at the same time Celeste hisses, “Shit. ”
“Any idea what time she deposited the trackers?” Gage asks, rising out of his chair as Liam douses the burning logs with water so we can all go inside.
“The best we can tell, it was before ten this morning.” Axel groans a little, a painful bleat because Rena has been MIA for thirteen hours. “The shop owner opened a little early for them. Jax said she went into one of the listening booths around nine or nine thirty. Once he realized she was gone, he checked the tracker and assumed she was blowing off steam and galivanting all over town to prove a point.”
Liam sidles up beside Ivy as we trek through our outdoor entertainment area. “I’m headed to my office. I’ll access every camera I can in the city and near the airport.”
I slide open the door, letting the girls pass through as I pose the question I’m stuck on. “Was she upset about anything other than the trackers? Or is this just a reaction to that?”
I’m not convinced that’s what had her riled up in the hallway with me. She was panicked, scared. Finding out she was being tracked probably would have evoked anger over fear. There are pieces amiss here.
A loud bang reverberates through the line before Ryker’s groan guides us inside—sounds as though he kicked something. “We think that’s it. Jax said she confronted him about it a few days ago and was really worked up.”
“Okay.” Wells rubs his thumb over a gold-wrapped butterscotch. “Any idea where she might head?”
“No, but Rena …” Axel hedges, plainly deciding if he should share something with us.
“Now’s not the time to hold back, Axel,” Wells warns, plucking one of the extra laptops off the tech table to help with infiltrating the cameras and dropping into one of Liam’s chairs as Gage and I select our own equipment and find seats.
“She’s never been alone,” Axel says, which is certainly not news, so I’m wondering where he’s headed until he elaborates. “She shouldn’t be. We watch her like hawks for various reasons. Beyond the obvious ones regarding our lifestyle, she can fall into depression, which often leads to her being impulsive. When that happens, keeping her safe is a full-time job.”
That tidbit only tangles my already-wrenched gut further. She’s always seemed so free. The thought of her suffering or endangering herself is tormenting.
“She isn’t weak,” Ryker snipes, almost defensively, “but when she’s in pain, she doesn’t think. She jumps.”
“We’ve got it,” Wells assures them. “We’ll find her.”
“I’m counting on it.” Axel hangs up, and the room erupts into a frenzy of orders and commotion.
While I’m attempting to access the cameras for the music store, I throw out my concerns. “There’s no way this is solely about being tracked.”
“I disagree,” Celeste says, her brown eyes wide with irritation. “That’s a creepy thing to discover. It at least warrants her fucking with them. I’d be losing it too. It was bad enough when Liam tracked my phone, but her piercings are even worse.”
Liam’s gaze flicks to mine, undecided. I was unaware that Celeste was still in the dark about her tracker. The silent pecking of keys tells me I’m not the only one.
This isn’t the time.
All of us must have flinched enough for Celeste to catch it though because she scoffs.
“Liam”—she draws out every syllable—“what don’t I fucking know?”
“Later, baby girl.” He flashes a smile over his screen at her. “Priorities. Let’s find Noire first.”
“What about Balzano?” I ask, steering us back on track. “Could she know about him?”
Wells’s head snaps up to me. “We should monitor his contacts and resorts in case.”
“I’ll be done with the music store quickly. Poor angles, and I’m guessing she knew where the cameras were, so I’ll take that,” I volunteer.
Celeste plops onto the couch beside me with another laptop. “Send me footage from the resorts, and I’ll comb through it too.”
Before I move on from the music store, a hooded figure, nearly out of the frame, grabs my attention. “This might be something. Nine thirty-eight time stamp. In the alley behind the store. Not much to see, but … it feels like her.”
“Give it to me,” Liam demands. “I’ll put anything that’s questionable on the wall monitors for comp images.”
We all search through our designated camera feeds until Celeste cuts through the silence again. “I have a fucking tracker inside me, don’t I?”
Liam nods, Celeste gasps, and Gage growls, ready to admonish any objection she poses, but I take it instead.
“We love you, Lettie. We do questionable things, but it’s always with the intention of keeping the people we care about safe. So, yes, your husband put a tracker in you. We all have one.”
There was a time when that felt like a violation, a line I was unwilling to cross. After Ivy was nearly killed, I caved. And once the girls were caught in the crossfire with the Skulls, I became a staunch advocate. It’s not a pretty reality, but it’s ours nonetheless.
“It was before the loyalty test,” Liam discloses without sparing her a glance. “While you were sleeping on the plane to Colorado. I told you we had a plan to get you out if you failed. That was part of it. Had to know if they moved you.”
“So something like this didn’t fucking happen,” Gage snarls, likely swarmed with the same unease we’re all stomaching as we realize our only lead is an out-of-focus hooded figure.
She didn’t just fucking disappear. Pain lances through my sternum, snaking through my lungs. This is what we do. We’ll find her. The question is when. We’re all aware that every minute missing is another mile into hiding. I can’t let my mind go there. I won’t .
“I called her,” Ivy says with a quaver, blasting into the office. “Over and over while I was checking on Felicity, but no answer.”
“That’s not surprising, Little Storm,” Wells responds in a soothing warble. “I’m sure she ditched her phone.”
“I gave her one,” she admits, and all of us flick our attention to her pallid face. “A burner. I wanted her to have a way to contact us in case … If she trusted us, she’d answer though. Right? This isn’t just rebelling. She’s been gone for fourteen hours now. She doesn’t want to be found or something went wrong. What if—”
And the wire finally snaps.
“Don’t fucking say it!” I yell. “No one does anything other than look for her. No one says anything negative. Not one goddamn word. We’re finding her. End of discussion.”