Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
PABLO
God, I really want off this ride, please.
My eyes heat uncomfortably as Nico’s body heaves as he throws up into a garbage can. He’s not doing so hot, and Nina’s mate keeps glancing at him worriedly as I rub my alpha’s back as his body expels bile.
Rosa has been gone for four hours, and Nico has felt like he's drowning, electrocuted, and screamed from blinding pain. I’m fucking terrified of what they’re doing to Rosa if this is what Nico is experiencing.
We’re outside in Pack Mayor’s backyard because there’s more ventilation, and it helps Nico while he fights against something no one can see without breaking anything.
“I’m fine,” Nico wheezes insistently, breathing hard. “My men lost the signal to Rosalia’s ring. What could do that? One of my hands hurt, but I don’t feel like I’m missing a finger.”
For some reason, the person who took Rosa drove in circles around the city, giving our men a run for their money as they chased them before disappearing. I followed the signal, searched through the security camera footage around the city, but it didn’t do any good.
There’s absolutely no trace of my girl. Not from the traffic cameras or businesses nearby, and no one has seen shit.
The police don't want to help us, and I can feel the weight of searching for a needle in a haystack at the moment. When I go back through the footage, I’m finding that it’s all been erased. It doesn’t make any fucking sense!
The signal from Rosa’s ring simply stops in an area full of dilapidated warehouses, where many of them are empty. Nico’s men also report that others are being used by the homeless to sleep or get high in. Either way, they’re on foot searching the area as we speak.
They haven’t found shit.
God, the fact that Nico believes the only reason Rosa would no longer wear the ring we presented her when we were happy is because they cut it off is horrifying.
Though, knowing Rosa, she’d fight to keep something we gave her. Even if she’s not wearing it anymore, the signal would still project with the location of wherever the ring was. None of this is natural and shouldn’t be possible.
“I’ve never seen bond sickness like this before,” Silas breathes, his skin pale.
“It’s gotten much worse since we bonded,” Nico admits, his voice unrecognizable from what I’m used to.
“Jesus,” Easton grunts.
Our allies have gotten more and more somber with each passing hour, and Cassidy kept rubbing her arms as she shivers from a cold that doesn’t exist. The shadows were deep in her eyes as the memories haunted her, the scars no one else can see but her pack raising unbidden to torture her.
From what I can piece together, Avery almost killed her, and she’s still suffering from repercussions of those events.
Abbott sent her home twenty minutes ago, and I don’t blame him.
The Five Packs believe this is the same person they’ve been having problems with for months, an omega who left Minnesota in an effort to continue her business here. Drugs and the selling of humans for profit isn’t someone we should be entangled with, but here we are.
Cassidy is having trouble with the memories of the hell she recently went through with Avery, and her alphas keep muttering about how they should have made certain Avery was dead.
Everything is a mess, and from the stories I’ve been told, if this is Avery, she’s a fucking psychopath.
The problem is we don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with because Pack Mayor only saw the men who were attacking Rosa and nothing else.
The only thing I can do is continue to throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks.
“There could be a signal blocker,” Ansel grunts, his voice low and gravelly. “There’s no way there’s anything underground in the part of town the signal dropped off at. We’re going to need to join your guys, Nico, and beat down doors.”
The only reason we haven’t joined them yet is because I’m still hoping technology will be able to do us a solid. Shiloh has his computer open and is working as well, trying to pull a rabbit out of a damn hat.
“I’m going to call in a favor, Lyle,” Easton announces. “Do whatever you need to do, but it’ll be illegal as fuck.”
“Don’t care,” Lyle mutters. “I stopped caring about legalities when the police dispatcher refused to help and someone cloned my phone to lure Rosa out. Do it. Nico, take this. Drink some water.”
My alpha’s trembling fingers wrap around the bottle handed to him, and I twist off the cap so he can take a tentative sip before I return to my computer.
“Do you feel everything Rosa does?” Nina asks, eyes wide. They tried to keep her home, but she threw a fit. Rosa made an impression on her, and she refuses to stay out of things.
That’s the thing. My soul match has a way of impressing people without realizing it.
“Yes. I can feel the emotions, but Rosa processes pain at a different level than most people. I could be feeling a fourth of the pain she is in,” Nico growls, wincing. “Sorry. I bet I looked insane while I couldn’t breathe earlier, but that’s because neither could Rosalia.”
“Don’t be,” Riley murmurs for her. “She knows you’re not growling at her. I have to say, I’m concerned about you.”
“I’m not going to be locked up like a goddamned dog,” he snarls. “I just need her. We need to find Rosa.”
“Andy!” Easton says loudly, pulling our attention as he begins to pace the backyard. “Hey, I need a favor.”
Nico spits one last time into the bucket after rinsing his mouth out, while Silas silently takes it from him to clean it out.
Thankfully, the October breeze pulls the sour scent away from us as it cleanses the area. I can’t enjoy anything about the impending fall weather without Rosa.
I doubt I’ll be able to appreciate anything beautiful again without her.
“I can do that,” Dario says helplessly, but Silas is already walking toward the hose around the side of the house without a word.
It’s just as well, Dario doesn’t like to be around puke as it is.
The last thing I need is to hear him gag.
Nico pops a piece of gum into his mouth, leaning forward to close his eyes and rub his temples as he tries to lessen its pounding.
I can feel residual pain through our bond, and know it’s definitely thumping. Dario hands over pain medication to help him, and Nico swallows it down in an effort not to sink into the pain.
“This person is getting help,” I rasp softly as I continue to come up empty handed.
My quiet words still command attention, and Verona’s gaze raises to meet mine.
Her blue eyes are rimmed with red along with a light brown, signaling both that she's bonded to two omegas, as well as that she just stopped crying.
I have her scrolling through on-line classified ads because Lyle said human traffickers have begun selling people through there. It’s all written in code, but it’s worth a search and gives her a distraction.
Everyone needs to feel needed, especially when we’re stuck in a holding pattern.
My fingers move over the keyboard as Easton puts his phone on speaker as he prowls, and Abbott raises his hand in the air so we’ll all be quiet.
“Andy, you’re not making sense,” Easton coos, making my eyes widen. The words are sweet and sultry, but I’ve never heard that tone before from him. Silas glares at Easton as he returns to his seat, and I realize Easton is setting up a trap.
Shiloh gets up and comes over to sit beside me as I open the dark web server, convinced that if Avery is behind this then she is going to want to sell Rosa to someone.
It sounds like one last ‘fuck you’ from her father, especially since the man we found dead on the ground was a guard that escaped the night of the charity event.
Abbott had to call someone for a body retrieval since the police are completely ignoring our existence. Hopefully, Easton’s honeyed tones can change that narrative.
“I said no,” the man on the phone growls.
“Fine, fine, Andy. I have your sex tape still from your bachelor party. I know you’re trying to run for office soon, and it sure would be a shame for that to come out,” Easton drawls. “What was her name again? Katrina? Suzy? Have you been to the Pussy Cat Parlor recently to see her?”
Lyle shakes his head and covers his face, because this is not only petty, but also blackmail. Silas shoves Lyle with a grin, clearly enjoying the moment. If you play with fire with the people Pack Mayor cares about, you’re going to get burned.
“You son of a bitch! Is this kidnapped girl really that important? She’s some mafia brat who’s probably better off sold and killed.
All I keep hearing about is how her squabble with her father is causing the city a headache,” Andy grumbles.
“Bodies keep popping up everywhere, and we can’t make any arrests because the police commissioner doesn’t want to deal with it. ”
“The police commissioner was letting her clean the mess up herself,” Easton says, revealing a new piece of information to me. “She wants to live in peace with her pack, Andy. That’s what she was doing when she was kidnapped. How fucked is that?
“I’m not backing down, and I have the video queued up to all of my favorite news channels. Tell me, do you want the news of your sex tape broken to the public in a classy or raunchy way? Dealer’s choice, Andy.”
“Are you fucking her?” Andy asks. Growls fill the area, and he gulps loudly. It’s not even just our pack that’s offended by this, but the entirety of the backyard.
Carter rolls his eyes in disgust, while one of his pack members shakes his head in annoyance. It’s pretty bad when a fellow police officer also thinks you’re a piece of shit.
“I forget that there’s a line for what I can get away with,” Andy grumbles. “You really want me to canvas that warehouse district? That’s a five block radius.”