Chapter 52
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
LOCH
“What did you do?” I dangle Paul upside down from his ankles over the cliff. “What the fuck did you do with Alena?”
“Please, please!” Paul squirms like a worm on a hook, begging for his life.
“Best tell ’em,” Wilder shouts. “Or you ain’t gonna be our national mascot, Smokey the Bear. You’ll be Smokey, who smashed his brains out on the rocks below.”
“He’s threatening my daughters,” Paul yelps. “Please, I had no choice.”
“Tell me where she is, and you’ll live to see them.”
I knew it. I fucking knew he was up to something. Paul might not have a criminal heart, but he’s complicit. Compromised. And cramping my damn hands. Fuck, he’s heavier than he looks.
“Hurry up!” I bark. “My hands are sweating.”
“He… he wanted confirmation on where she’d be,” he squawks. “Time and place. So, I sent her to the accident site and told him it was done. He could take her if he swore he wouldn’t touch my girls, and… aw, shit!” Piss floods his pants. “Don’t drop me!”
I glance around. These are remote cliffs, and it’s cold as fuck. No one’s coming up here. I thought the hike with a gun to his head would get Paul to fess up. But I had to resort to death by dangling.
A trick I learned from Sire when a brother would borrow his Girls Gone Wild DVD, and he found our third-story deck very useful.
I snarl, “Where would he take her?”
The sun is ticking down, so is the clock.
“I… I don’t know. I swear.”
“Bullshit.” Wilder spits off the cliff. “All that blood rushing to your brain and you got nothing?”
“I… I guess check the RVs in the campgrounds.” He’s bawling. “That’s how he works.”
I shake his ankles, wanting to shatter the world into rubble to fucking find my woman. “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay nearby. Where else?”
“I don’t know!” His wail echoes down the ravine.
Wilder tsks. “Don’t know either. Ain’t that how some of the smartest ones do it? Hiding in plain sight?”
Fuck, he means me. Us. My brothers and a host of famous mobsters it took the Feds years to find.
I yank Paul up. Wilder shoves him to his knees. With my Glock pressed to Paul’s temple, I vow, “You’re playing for my team now. Understand? Because shit stains like Sheremetev don’t keep their word, but I do. Don’t make me make those girls bury their father.”
“Where is she?” An hour later, Nash storms into my cabin with Grant and Nick on his heels. “Where’s Alena?”
I clip the leash to Mutt’s collar. “We wouldn’t be searching if we fucking knew.” I grab Alena’s tank top from our bed, holding it to Mutt’s muzzle.
“Find her,” I command. He barks, tugging toward the door.
“Come on,” I order Nash. “We’ll use Mutt to search the campgrounds. We have intel she’s there.”
“The campgrounds?” Nick shakes his head. “Goddamn, Sheremetev’s so evil, he’s bold.”
“No shit.” I jut my chin. “Speaking of, where’s Sire?”
“Guarding the queens.” Nick adjusts his leather gloves. “They’re on the way.”
“Where’s our backup?” Grant unsnaps his side holster.
“Remi’s searching the parkway to see if she’s on the road,” I answer. “Wilder’s scoping from the ridge above, while we search the park. When Alena escapes, we’ll be there.”
When, not if, Alena escapes.
I’ll crack a thousand skulls to make it happen. And I won’t live another day if it doesn’t.
“How did this happen?” I’ve never seen Nash this worried. He roars, “How the fuck did Sheremetev take her!”
“Used a distraction,” I bark back. “Alena lives with her head on a swivel, but not during a rescue. She’s laser-focused. He must’ve hidden among the crews. Had a decoy truck. Used propofol to knock her out. Fuck! Don’t make me think about it. Let’s find her!”
We charge toward my door, outside to our trucks, when Jace pulls up in his. He jumps out with Axel beside him.
With the glares exchanged between Nash and Axel, there’s so much goddamn tension, mountains could crumble under its weight. Their silence is toxic, and I don’t have time for it.
“You two.” I point to them. “Get over this shit long enough to find her, or I’ll let Mutt rip your dicks off. Got it?”
“He’s right.” Jace jerks his chin. “Both of you. In my truck. Now.”
Mutt leaps onto my passenger seat with Nick, and Grant jumps in my cab before I lead the way down the mountain.
We start where it began. The campground where I knew Carter was up to some shit. Where he was working with Sheremetev.
Our trucks grind to a halt in the gravel parking lot. The sun is setting as I scan the familiar landscape. There aren’t many visitors here. It’s too cold and windy, but I exhale a lone breath of relief when I see Sue and Juliana.
They’re hardcore campers and anglers, cooking their day’s catch over the fire. Usually, we’d talk trout and lures, but when they see me stalking their way with my five massive, inked brothers looming behind me, they know crime kings when they see them.
We’re just the good kind.
Dressed in camo and missing our crowns.
Sue lifts her stare as Juliana lifts her rifle.
“They’ve got Alena.” It’s all I need to say.
Sue jerks her chin. “The Jayco, tenth spot down. Came in last night, smelling too new and not right.”
“Thanks.”
“Need backup?”
“Yeah,” I tell Sue and her wife. “Blast a fucking hole in the back of any man who runs out of here.”
Juliana racks her rifle. “Done.”
With my brothers’ weapons drawn over my shoulder, covering me, I lead the way to the gleaming, gray camper. Mutt sniffs the ground, searching for her scent. I hand his leash to Nick before I yank the camper’s door handle so damn hard, the door breaks off its hinges.
It falls open as I aim my gun. “Alena!”
No answer. Only a clatter while I crouch low, storming the camper. I don’t give a fuck if it’s a fatal funnel, I walk right into it, weapon aimed for the back bedroom.
“Alena! Sasha!” I shout.
But all I hear is a sniveling, dickish whimper when I kick the door open.
Carter. The fucker’s alone, gun raised, but I grab his wrist so fast, I shake it loose.
It falls to the floor as I seize a fistful of his hair and drag him, kicking, down the corridor, over the RV steps, and into the gravel lot.
He’s surrounded, guns aimed, while my left fist turns his face into a boxing ball. “Where? Is? She?”
“Witnesses,” Grant warns me.
So, I cock my fist, relishing the blood gushing from Carter’s broken nose as I vow, “Tell me where he’s taken Alena and Sasha, or I’ll peel your scalp off and choke you on it.”
“She wasn’t here,” Nick observes. “Look at Mutt. He can’t find her scent.”
Our dog frantically sniffs, searching for her. He’s like me, an animal with a primal instinct to find her.
“See?” Carter whines. “They’re not here yet, I swear.”
“What do you mean, yet?” Nash jabs his muzzle between Carter’s eyes.
“He took her.” Carter holds his hands up. “He has some sick plan for her and his wife before he said he’d bring ’em to—” He snaps his busted mouth shut.
“To what?” I crouch, snarling in his bloody face. The hunger to bite his nose off is overwhelming. “What the fuck did you think you were going to do with my queen?”
“And our sister.” Axel flashes his knife. “Because I believe in death by a hundred cuts for any woman.”
“Please don’t,” Jace huffs out. “It’s a fucking mess every time you do it.”
“I… I… I don’t know,” Carter stammers, obviously scared shitless he’s roused six lions.
“You little-dicked fucker.” I search his darting eyes. “You were the one at the club. The one following Alena. Or was it me?” They widen. “Oh, so you want a piece of me too? You wanna know who I am?”
I drop my gun so I can clutch his skull, ready to pound it into gravel, but he yelps, “The Devil’s Courthouse!”
“What?” Grant barks.
“It’s a mountain,” I grit, molars clenched.
“Where is it?” Nash demands.
“Over an hour from here and too fucking far.” I slam Carter’s skull into the gravel just because it feels good before I growl, “Let’s go!”
Jace drags Carter to his truck. Later, we’ll torture him for more intel in our bunker in Charleston, where there are fewer witnesses like Sue and Juliana.
But they’re unfazed. Back at our trucks, Sue commands, “Find her so we can go fishing on Edisto.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I jump in my truck with Mutt by my side and my brothers backing me up.
But, suddenly, I’m a little tyke again, eighteen again, twenty-six again, and a beast now with one instinct that’s fed my soul for as long as I’ve known…
Protect Alena.