Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
QUENTIN
E very time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Anora’s lifeless ones staring back at me.
It was my worst fear come to life and felt like losing my sister all over again. I was too late to save them, and it would haunt me until the day I took my final breath.
That’s what I kept telling myself I would feel like if I didn’t figure something out and get Anora back home safely to me.
All those years ago, I’d failed the one person I loved and had sworn to protect, and I refused to do it again.
“What is taking so fucking long?” I barked at Brendan as his fingers whirled over the keyboard faster than I’d seen before.
Well, faster than I’d ever heard before.
Throughout our acquaintance, I’d met him in person only a handful of times. This marked the first occasion I witnessed him working his hacker magic. He was a reclusive creature and preferred digital communication.
But desperate times called for desperate measures, and I needed everyone at full capacity to find Anora.
It had already been a week since we had gotten any scent of a trail. Someone had wiped the mall cameras clean, and Rory couldn’t remember anything or anyone who seemed out of the ordinary. She had turned her back for a second and Anora was gone.
I had never seen Brendan struggle so hard to get information and a lead, which just meant Angel had someone on his end who was doing everything he could to keep us in the dark. It was incredibly fucking infuriating, but I couldn’t be pissed at Brendan. He was doing the best he could, and I had to just hope that this guy working against us fucked up soon.
It gutted me because I should have been with her. I had known that one day someone would find out who I was and retaliate. I just hadn’t figured it would be so soon or involve her.
Everything I had done was to keep her safe, but it had done the complete opposite and only made my enemies close in faster.
“I’m sorry that the mall cops just got back to me with the footage after it just so happened to be tampered with. I’m rebuilding a whole damn video feed, Quentin. I’m a hacking genius, not a god,” Brendan snapped. It was the first time he’d ever shown backbone when speaking to me.
I didn’t say anything more, just nodded my head. He had a fair point.
All the cameras surrounding Rory and Anora at the mall had conveniently gone down at the time of her capture. Brendan was doing something I’d never seen before, but it was the only lead we had, and I needed something . Anything.
I needed an inkling of where she’d gone so I could plan my next steps and bring her back home to me.
For all my years tracking down the scum of the earth, whoever had taken her had thrown me for the biggest loop I’d ever experienced.
I had paced back and forth so hard and long that it surprised me my feet hadn’t burned a path in the carpet. But I couldn’t sit still until I knew something, and this mind-fuck ended.
“I got something,” Brendan said suddenly. I could have kissed him full on the mouth for his skill and sheer determination.
“Show me,” I said, putting one of my hands on his chair and the other on his desk so my nose was practically touching the computer screen.
“Stand back, old man—I know your vision isn’t that bad,” Brendan grumbled, adjusting himself in the chair and pulling up the newly built video.
The quality wasn’t the best, the video fairly grainy, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know who had taken my girl. Especially when he looked dead into the cameras and gave me a devilish smile. Like he knew I would be able to bring the feed up one way or another and he wanted there to be no question about who had fucked me over.
Nico Santino’s son Angel had finally come out to play.
* * *
A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed anything—or anyone—could come between me and my relentless quest for justice.
Even when I met Anora, I didn’t think my craving for her would be enough to make me stop. But getting to truly know the girl was more meaningful than I ever expected to experience in my lifetime.
She was everything I had hoped for and more, and I wasn’t done loving her yet.
I refused to let anything, or anyone pull us apart, not even the life mission I had started all that time ago to avenge my sister. I knew I couldn’t keep at this forever. I knew Leila would be looking down on us and be infinitely proud of where I’d ended up.
Well, maybe not in this very moment, as I decked my body out from head to toe in tactical gear and loaded my pistols.
Maybe you should turn your head away from what happens next, baby sister.
Brendan and I had wasted no time after we saw Angel on that video feed, tracking him down and pinning his location. I should have known that the little prick was going to retaliate against me, especially with how things ended at Chop Suey. We also wasted no time calling in backup to cover us as we prepared to go into an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city. Bile had crept up my throat when I realized I recognized that warehouse, and that Angel knew exactly who I was.
It made my stomach turn thinking of Anora’s current condition. I started praying to a god I hadn’t thought of in a long time, hoping she was still alive.
When I opened my eyes from my silent prayer, the last person I expected to see was Joey standing before me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I barked, side-eyeing Brendan, who just shrugged.
Brendan already knew who Joey was, that much I was aware of, but the look of familiarity they shared threw me for a loop.
“Do you two know each other or something?” I asked, still not over my initial shock at Joey’s presence.
“We went to college together back in the day,” he replied, as if that was enough of an explanation.
“But you dropped out your sophomore year,” I said questioningly.
Joey merely shrugged in response.
I filed this away for later, prepared to force answers out of him if I had to, but the more pressing matter was the fact that he was here.
“Why are you here? How the hell did you even know we were here?” I tried again, hoping this time he finally cracked and gave me what I wanted.
We were at Brendan’s underground garage, which hid in plain sight yet should have been next to impossible to find. Leave it to Joey to somehow have found a way.
“I can look the other way when you’re playing Batman at night, but not when I know that the woman you love is in danger.” Hearing him say that made me realize just how much I underestimated Joey’s and my friendship, which was incredibly foolish. He was and had always been my best friend, my ride or die who would help me bury a dead body in the middle of the night if I asked him. He had always kept my secrets, being blissfully ignorant and pretending to be just as shocked as the rest of the people we knew when one of my victims showed up on the news.
“As for how I’m here, I tailed you out of the apartment parking lot. You’re not the only one who’s good at sneaking around,” Joey explained. “So, what’s going on? How can I help?”
“To make a long story short, I killed a guy whose son is after me for retribution and has taken Anora captive,” I said. “We know where she’s at, and we’re getting ready to get her the fuck out of there. I don’t expect you to come along if you don’t want to.”
He took a pistol from the table and cocked it, tucking it into his waistband and stunning me into silence.
“Let’s go get your girl.”