Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mason
F rom the moment Colin ended the video call, I didn’t stop moving. Hayden was in trouble. He needed me. My omega and my child needed me. That feeling pulsed through every cell in my body, giving me a single-minded focus as I headed back into the hotel.
I called Det. Shirley, not even questioning whether she would answer the call or be able to drop everything and come straight to the Grand Hotel. She would.
She did.
“I’m already on my way,” she said as we ended the call. I hadn’t had to explain much more than that Colin was holding Hayden prisoner somewhere nearby for her to take action.
And Hayden was nearby. I could feel him, though the sensation was vague and strangely empty. I didn’t have anything near to the pinpoint precision that I’d heard some long-term bonded couples had when it came to knowing where their mate was, but at least I knew Colin hadn’t bundled Hayden into a vehicle and driven him far away.
I almost found humor in the situation. Almost. I’d grabbed Hayden, bound him, and thrown him in the trunk of my car to drive him from his conference hotel to my play apartment nine months ago. At least Hayden had experience with being held against his will.
Except this time wasn’t a fantasy.
“Mr. Canton, have you found your omega?” Mr. Harvey called out to me as I stormed back through the ballroom.
The dinner portion of the evening had begun, and most of Mr. Harvey’s guests were seated at the table, having innocent, chummy conversations while my world threatened to fall apart.
I’d completely forgotten that Mr. Harvey had said he’d search for Hayden as well.
“No,” I said, barely pausing to speak to him on my way across the room. “But I received a call from Colin Gregory, who is holding him prisoner somewhere nearby.”
Mr. Harvey looked shocked and scandalized. “Is Victory Holdings involved? Have you called the police?”
“I don’t know, and yes,” I said, continuing on toward the door that would lead to the lobby, Mr. Harvey following.
“I don’t know what to say,” Mr. Harvey said with a scowl. “This is unprecedented. You have my full support in doing whatever it takes to find your omega. Just let me know what you need from me.”
I paused in the doorway, turning back to the dinner. My expertise was in preventing things like this from happening. I didn’t know how to ask for help once the worst had already happened.
“I suppose it would be best to keep everyone distracted until the police arrive and a search can be done,” I said, feeling horrifically helpless. “I’m about to alert the hotel staff.”
“Whatever you need,” Mr. Harvey said. He reached out to close a hand around my arm. “If I have any part in this, I’m sorry. I never should have believed hearsay from an unreliable source. I’m only glad my rash actions didn’t harm any working relationship we might have.”
The intent in Mr. Harvey’s eyes told me I had a very good chance of winning the contract with the Harvey Corporation after all, but he could have told me the walls were painted beige for all the impact the good news had on me.
I nodded to him all the same, then rushed out to the hotel’s front desk to have a word with the manager.
The first few police officers had already arrived by the time I made it to the desk.
“Is something the matter, Mr. Canton?” the manager, Mrs. Elgar, a highly competent female beta in her early fifties who I’d actually spoken to before when I’d stayed at the Grand on one of my initial visits to Barrington, asked.
“You’re Mason Canton?” one of the police officers, a tall, thin alpha asked, approaching me along with the manager.
“I am,” I answered the officer, then turned to Mrs. Elgar to continue. “My omega, Mr. Hayden Kipling, has been kidnapped by my former business associate, Mr. Colin Gregory, and is being held somewhere nearby, I don’t know where. All I know is that Hayden has been drugged and is unconscious, and in the video call I had with Colin, it looked like they were in a mostly empty room with white concrete blocks for walls and a plain concrete floor.”
“You received a video call?” the officer asked, already adjusting his stance like he was settling in for a long question and answer session. “Does this Colin Gregory person?—”
“I don’t have time to answer your questions,” I snapped, not even regretting it. I turned to the manager. “Are there places inside the hotel that fit that description? Anyplace nearby?”
“Now just a minute, Mr. Canton,” the officer said, stiffening. “The police department can handle this?—”
“Is there anyplace like that?” I asked again, cutting the officer off.
Mrs. Elgar looked askance at the officer, took a breath, then faced me and said, “This is a huge hotel. There are all sorts of rooms like that, both on this level and levels below us.”
“Then we need to search,” I said, moving forward.
Mrs. Elgar was more than happy to lead me on toward a small staff corridor. The officer wasn’t happy about it, though.
“You can’t take matters into your own hands,” he tried to say, following us. “This is an official police investigation now and we?—”
I rounded on the man, rage most likely making me look bigger than I already was. “Are you standing in the way of me finding and rescuing my pregnant omega?” I demanded in a booming voice.
The officer must have had some idea of what that felt like. He blew out a breath, standing down. “I’ll call for backup.”
“Det. Shirley is already on her way,” I said, turning and marching on.
The staff corridor quickly opened into a series of halls and utilitarian rooms. It was clearly the heart and lungs of the hotel’s operations. The problem was, not only was the entire area a warren of different rooms and corridors, all designed so that the hotel staff could take care of business for the guests without getting in their way, word had already spread that something unusual was happening, and our way was blocked by everyone from the bellboy to the floor managers stopping to ask Mrs. Elgar what was going on.
“This is taking too long,” I huffed, half to myself and half in the hope it would make people move out of the way, after we’d been searching in vain for about ten minutes.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Canton,” Mrs. Elgar said as yet another staff member approached her. “Feel free to go on ahead of me.”
I nodded in thanks and marched on.
After about two steps, I sucked in a breath, my eyes going wide. It was almost like I’d walked straight into a brick wall that I hadn’t seen, the feeling was so strong. All of a sudden, the other end of whatever bond tied me and Hayden together was no longer blank. Instead, I felt Hayden’s presence so acutely that I could almost smell his fizzy soda scent.
“He’s not here,” I said, growling with panic and frustration. “He’s not in the hotel.”
I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but a passing housekeeper heard me and stopped what they were doing.
“I can go tell the police,” he offered.
I nodded, amazed at how fast word had gotten around the hotel, then pushed myself forward, following the bond like it was Hayden sending out a homing signal.
Following that instinct took me through one corridor after another until I found myself at an emergency door. I didn’t even care that an alarm sounded as I pushed through it and out into a parking lot. The more emergency personnel who showed up at the Grand the better.
The sun had set more than an hour before, but the parking lot still radiated early-summer heat. I paused to glance around for a moment, trying to figure out which direction the feeling I had about Hayden was coming from. We were in a busy part of the city, and there were several buildings nearby. Buildings I might have trouble accessing.
I ignored the potential problems and walked forward, trusting in the bond.
“I’m coming, sweetheart,” I said, scanning the area for any further clues. “Hold on.”
A second later, my phone rang in my pocket. Convinced it could be Hayden, I yanked my phone out and tapped to answer the call from a number I didn’t recognize.
“Hayden?”
“It’s Simon,” Simon answered, sounding desperate and terrified. He knew what was going on.
“Simon, do you know where Hayden is?” I asked, still walking forward, following my instinct.
“I don’t,” Simon answered, sounding every bit as terrified as I imagined Hayden was. “He called me just a second ago. He’s being held prisoner, but he doesn’t know where. He thinks it’s near the hotel, but he isn’t sure. It’s a plain room with white walls and shelves with toilet paper and paper towels.”
I nodded, even though Simon couldn’t see. The toilet paper and paper towels were a new detail. That made me think Hayden was in a storage room. That could be near the hotel.
“I can feel him,” I said, crossing the parking lot, but pausing when, for no reason I could make sense of, I felt like I’d gone too far. “I’m having trouble pinpointing him, but I can feel him.”
“He says it’s Colin, your business partner, who’s holding him prisoner,” Simon went on.
“Yep,” I snapped, not wanting to be rude to Hayden’s brother, but anxious to get off the call and on with my search. “He’s going to pay for this.”
“I called the police right after Hayden hung up to let them know, but I can call them again,” Simon said. “Or anyone else you need me to call.”
“Det. Shirley is already on her way and the cops are here, though they’re more of a nuisance than not,” I added as I stopped moving and turned in a circle, trying to get my bearings. “I need to go, Simon. I need to find him.”
“Go, go!” Simon urged me, then ended the call from his end.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket, frustrated that I felt so close, but still so clueless.
Then I saw him. Off in the far corner of the parking lot. There was a staircase that I hadn’t seen. Colin was rushing up the stairs.
“Stop!” I shouted at him, then broke into a run.
Colin jerked hard as he reached the top of the stairs, then turned to gape at me, his eyes wide. His shock didn’t last long, though. He started running for the railing that marked the edge of the parking lot, leaping over and down to the sandy grass.
I chased after him, noting briefly as I passed the stairs that the parking lot I’d walked out onto was actually the top level of what might have been an underground parking garage.
I hesitated for only a second. There must have been a room somewhere on a lower level of the garage, a storage room where Hayden was being held. Everything within me wanted to go to him, but logic knew that if I let Colin get away now, the problem would only continue.
I hated it, but instead of rushing down the stairs to find Hayden, I leapt over the railing and chased after Colin.
“Stop!” I shouted after Colin again as he scrambled down toward the beach. I knew anything I said was futile, but I wanted the bastard to know I was still after him, he hadn’t gotten away.
The upper part of the beach was all soft sand with driftwood and bits of grass poking through. It made running next to impossible, especially in dress shoes and a suit. Colin had the advantage over me in that he was wearing jeans and sneakers, but he’d never been very athletic. He scrambled on, shoving a few nighttime strollers out of his way as he continued to charge down the beach toward the boardwalk at the far end.
I grit my teeth as I ran after him, dodging around the increasingly stunned beachgoers as I did. Once I made it onto harder sand, it was easier to run. My dress shoes still slowed me down, but not enough that I wasn’t able to catch up to Colin.
“Where is he?” I demanded as I lunged toward Colin, tackling him.
“I—”
Whatever Colin had been about to say was cut off by the loud crack of a gun going off.
For a moment, panic overrode everything. The shot was so near that I wondered if I’d been shot. The impact of throwing Colin to the sand didn’t help either. I splayed atop him, too stunned to do anything for a moment, searching my body to see if I was in pain.
I wasn’t the one who had been shot, though. Colin cried out under me, like the wounded animal he was.
A different sort of instinct took over. I pulled back to a crouch, grasping the man who had once been my friend and partner and rolling him to his back. Colin wore an expression that was wild with fear, and his eyes refused to focus on anything as he thrashed. His mouth was open in a silent cry, but it was as if he were too stunned to make noise.
A second later, as dark wetness spread across the front of his jeans, I knew why. The handle of a gun stuck out from his waistband, and from its angle, I was reasonably certain Colin had shot himself in the thigh. By the amount and the speed with which blood soaked him, I had a bad feeling he’d hit a femoral artery.
“Colin, stay still,” I told him. “Don’t move or you’ll make the bleeding worse.”
“I just wanted to live the good life,” he managed to groan, writhing despite my insistence that he stay still. “Why couldn’t you just let me win for once?”
A horrific sense of finality spread over me. Part of me wanted to argue with Colin and remind him of how big a jerk he’d been for the last few years. Another part of me wanted to tell him that everything would be alright, that he was intelligent and could make a name for himself without me.
The greater part of me knew that none of that mattered. Colin wouldn’t get that chance.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I said, shifting and holding one of his hands. “You tried. You did the wrong thing, but you tried.”
It was way more than he deserved, but in honor of the good years we’d had before greed got the better of him, I couldn’t let Colin die alone and scared.
His thrashing slowed, and his gaze focused on me for a few seconds before everything vital and animated about him vanished from his eyes.
I felt sick. There was no way I could have imagined this when the two of us had started our company together. Worse still was the certainty that Colin had killed himself with his own foolishness, and not just because he chose to run with a loaded gun tucked into his jeans. It didn’t have to end that way.
Seconds later, my senses snapped back to full alertness. There were sirens in the distance, people on the beach screaming and panicking, and footsteps running across the sand. But that wasn’t what jerked me straight, like a hook caught around my navel pulling.
“Hayden.”
I stood, whipping back toward the parking garage. My omega was in pain, and he was scared.
“Mr. Canton, where do you think you’re going?” the police officer from inside the hotel shouted at me as I pushed away from Colin’s body and ran back toward the parking garage. “This is a murder investigation now,” he continued to call.
I ignored him. I even ignored Det. Shirley’s sudden arrival on the scene and her shout of, “It’s okay. Let him go find his omega.”
I would ask questions about how she got here and how she knew where I was headed later. Just then, the only thing I cared about was getting to Hayden.
I could see from the beach that the parking garage was recessed into the ground. There was an entrance close to the back of the beach, which saved me time. The more I ran, the more refined my sensations of Hayden were.
The good news was that I knew exactly where to run, down another flight of stairs and back toward the hotel, to a plain, slightly dented door in a shady corner. The bad news was that I could feel the pain that racked Hayden almost as distinctly as if it was my own pain.
All of that pain was centered in Hayden’s lower body. I could feel it in my balls, which was both exciting and disturbing. I knew that Colin hadn’t hurt Hayden, but my omega was in an exceedingly dangerous situation.
The door was locked when I reached it, but whether it was old and cheap or whether the powerful, alpha instinct running through me gave me supernatural strength, I was able to slam into it with my shoulder a few times and break the hinges, tearing it open.
“Hayden!” I shouted as I dashed into the room.
“Mace?” Hayden’s small, shaky voice answered me from the far end of the room.
I rushed across the room to the mattress where Hayden lay. I would have torn the metal shelves apart with my bare hands if I’d needed to. Nothing was going to stop me from reaching my omega.
“Thank God, Mace!” Hayden cried out, almost feral with pain, as I reached him and nearly threw myself down onto the mattress with him.
He was on his hands and knees, rocking subtly, and he’d shoved his trousers and underwear down around his knees. His face was contorted with fear and pain, but relief and joy joined those emotions as he saw me.
A moment later, he burst into tears and cried out, “I don’t want to have our baby like this!”