Chapter 13
Victor
Panic is not a feeling I’m used to, but I’m overwhelmed with it now as I stare at the hospital emergency entrance with rage and worry bubbling through me.
“Where the fuck are they?” I snap at Owen.
Lili was supposed to come out of the emergency room exit of the hospital forty-five minutes ago. Trinity said she left and heard her talking to the bodyguard. But there’s been no sign of her, and we have no clue where they went.
“I’m working on it, mate. Something is funky with this surveillance footage. Like someone hacked into it and put it on a loop. I’m doing what I can to override it and see if the actual footage was captured anywhere, but I’m not having much luck.”
“Work faster,” I snap.
We’re pacing the emergency room parking lot, and I want to crawl out of my own skin.
“Son of a bitch,” Owen swears as he leans against the hood of his car, tapping buttons on a tablet.
“What is it?”
He hands me the tablet, and I see three guards pull out their radios and walk away from their posts. A fourth man, who isn’t one of ours and probably isn’t one of Novak’s, takes their place.
Lili comes out of Trinity’s room and another strange guard steps into place. When the three original guards return, they shake hands with the man standing watch. They have no fucking clue he’s not part of the team, and that error alone makes me want to slit all their throats.
“Goddamn it. I have to make sure Trinity is OK and fire some people.” Owen is already on his cell phone and stalking into the hospital before I can say anything.
“What about Lili?” I shout.
He turns and points at the tablet he’s left on the hood. “It’s scanning for footage of her in the parking lot. It will buzz when it’s done. Flip through it. I won’t be gone long.”
I can’t just sit here and watch a screen.
We’re certain they didn’t leave through the ER exit. That means they probably used the main entrance around the other side of the building. And whoever took her could be long gone.
If she was taken.
Stop that, Victor. But my lack of trust in most humans is rearing its head, and there is a part of me that wonders if she went back to her husband willingly. It would be virtually impossible for her to have communicated with him or coordinated this, but I still don’t like it.
My phone lights up with Grace’s name.
“Is everything OK? I thought you would be done by now,” she says when I answer.
“Everything is fine, butterfly.” I see no reason to cause her panic if I don’t have to.
“How’s the paper?” My voice gives nothing away, despite the storm of anger and worry raging inside me.
She groans. “Terrible. My headspace is just not there, and I wish you were both home already.”
That she refers to my place as home for all of us is one part heartwarming and several parts terrifying.
“Me too, Grace. But you’re going to do great. Now focus for me, because if you haven’t made progress by the time I get home, you’re going to be in front of the computer on your bare butt after I’ve welted it.”
Dominating her calms my panic, and her breath catching with a little gasp at my threat is a little bonus.
“Yes, Sir,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
“Is that what you needed, butterfly? A little encouragement?”
She giggles. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“It sounds exactly like what you need. Maybe we’ll just start each study session with a trip over my knee, so you remember to focus. How does that sound?”
“I think I’m supposed to say it sounds terrible. It doesn’t, but it seems like that’s what a sane person would say.”
I laugh as I stare at the tablet on the car, willing it to do something.
“If you thought it sounded terrible, I don’t think you and I would do very well together. But we work because you like the way I challenge you with pain and pleasure. Don’t you, Grace?”
“Yes, Sir. Very much.”
“Good girl. Now, go work on your paper. I want to see progress when I get home.”
The tablet buzzes and I snatch it up. “I’ve got to go.”
“Go. Go. I’m getting back to work.”
I end the call as I scroll through footage from the various cameras Owen was able to tap into.
Lili willingly gets into the back of an SUV, but she looks around and I can tell she’s suspicious of something. That makes me feel better.
We lose the SUV for a minute, but it comes back into view when it drives around the building and stops less than a hundred yards from where we are now.
God-fucking-damn it. They were right next to us. I watch as a man gets out of the car next to the SUV and slides into the passenger seat with Lili.
I have to rewind it several times, and it takes way too long to find the zoom function, but when I successfully enlarge the figure on screen, I recognize exactly who it is despite the graininess of his face.
Fucking Phineas Draven has kidnapped his own wife.
Somehow, the tablet screen shatters. Probably because I slam it on the hood of the car, but everything is a blur.
Owen is yelling in my ear, but he sounds miles away in a tunnel. I’m aware I’m outside, but mentally I’m trapped in a box that keeps getting smaller.
A hand lands across my cheek and everything comes crashing back.
“Victor! Snap the fuck out of it and tell me what happened. You shattered my screen.”
“He has her.” I rub my cheek where Owen slapped me.
“Who? I need names, proper nouns. Something I can bloody work with, mate.”
I suck in a deep breath, and it burns. “Draven. The guard who walked Lili out must be one of his. He put her in an SUV, and they were right there.” I point in the direction I saw the vehicle. “They were right fucking there, and I didn’t see them.”
“How do you know it was Draven?” Owen shakes my shoulders.
“He got out of that car.”
I take off running until I’m in front of the silver Tesla that Phineas climbed out of.
Behind me, I hear Owen shouting as he runs after me. But I beat him to the car, and I slam my fist into the window. It doesn’t break, and I only get that one shot in before Owen grabs me from behind and stops me from taking another swing.
“You keep doing this, and you’re going to be bleeding out in the ER. Cut it out and get yourself together. We’re going after them. Hunter is with Trinity. Grace is at home safely. Let’s go get Lili and kill her husband.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”
I follow him back to his car and we climb in.
He reaches into a tech bag sitting in his backseat and pulls out a backup tablet and logs into a storage file somewhere. When he pulls up the footage of Draven he whistles. “God damn. He looks unhinged. Where would he take her?”
A knock on the window startles us. Hunter Novak is there, and Owen rolls down the window.
“Go to the mayor’s office.” He yanks on the back passenger seat door until Owen unlocks it.
“Why the mayor’s office, boss?” Owen asks as Hunter slides into the car.
“Drive. If Victor is going to get Lili back, you’ll fucking drive, Owen.”
Owen starts the car and heads toward the exit of the parking lot.
“Why are you here? What’s going on?” I demand.
“I’ve been filled in. And Trinity has made it clear I’m to do everything I can to get Lili back. Apparently, they’re best friends now.”
Hunter doesn’t sound so happy about the friendship, but I don’t care about that right now. He’s on board to help us, and apparently that means him riding in the cramped back seat of Owen’s tiny car to the mayor’s office. What we’ll do when we get there, I have no idea.
“Do we have any clue where he took her?”
Owen glances in the rearview mirror. “No, sir. Software is scrubbing footage for the SUV or signs that they switched vehicles, but we just started that.”[
“Let me drive,” Hunter says. “You watch the footage, and I’ll drive. In fact, drive around to the front. Aurora is parked there. We’ll take her.”
“I can drive,” I insist.
Owen snorts and makes a left instead of exiting the hospital parking lot. “You just shattered a two-thousand-dollar tablet. You’re not in any condition to drive. Especially not my car.”
“Who the fuck is Aurora?” I ask as Owen stops the car.
Hunter points out the window at a pink sports car. “That is Aurora.”
I forget that many of the vehicles in Hunter’s exotic car collection are named for Disney princesses. It’s pointless to argue, so I follow Owen’s lead and get out of the car.
When we are settled with me in the back seat, and Owen in the front passenger seat of the ridiculously pink car scrolling through video footage, Hunter peels out of the parking lot in the direction of the mayor’s office.
“How can we be sure the mayor is in?” I ask.
“I’m sure,” Hunter says, flicking his gaze to the rear-view mirror.
My phone buzzes. It’s a picture of Grace in front of her laptop, cleavage on full display.
I feel like an ass for keeping this and everything else from her. My chances of forgiveness are stronger if I bring Lili home with me, though, so I tuck the phone away and focus on that goal.
At city hall, we walk in with Hunter in the lead, and people immediately jump to pay attention.
He’s caused quite a stir in the last few days since his wife was shot, and half the office is pissed at him, and the other half is terrified.
I’m hoping the mayor is on the second list, but I doubt it if what Lili has told me about the woman is to be believed.
“The mayor is in a meeting and won’t be free for several hours,” a receptionist tells Hunter after several minutes on the phone.
“Bullshit,” Hunter says in an icy tone. “Tell her if she doesn’t want me holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall announcing my own candidacy for mayor, she’ll cut that meeting short and take mine.”
“I’ll relay your message, Mr. Novak,” the staffer says primly.
We stand behind him, and it takes all I have not to snatch the phone from the receptionist to give the mayor a piece of my mind. But this is not a place for me to lose my head. I have to think about Lili and keeping her safe.
“Mr. Novak, I am a busy woman, and despite your egotistical beliefs, the world doesn’t come to a screeching halt when you snap your fingers.”