Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thayer
I check the time and watch the seconds tick by. I said ten minutes. Time’s up.
I’m walking toward my room to see if she’s okay when I hear my name.
“Thayer!” I turn to find Cosette in the lobby flagging me down. “Lyam says he needs you in the break room.”
Her widened eyes tell me something’s wrong.
“Is everything okay?”
Her brows draw together, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
Dammit. I send Savannah a text.
Me:
I went to check on you, but Lyam called. I’ll be there in a few minutes.
She doesn’t respond.
I walk quickly to the break room, located behind the lobby. Lyam’s with our head of security and a few of our other guards. They have a tablet in front of them.
Lyam’s uncharacteristically grim. “Thayer, there’s been another security breach. You know we never discovered who it was last time and chalked it up to being a glitch in the system.” He scowls. “But it’s clear someone’s bypassed our security measures.”
“So someone’s in the club unannounced?” I ask, making a quick mental tally of the weapons I have on hand.
Lyam’s gaze darkens. He’s as ruthless as I am, only Lyam has much more creative methods than I do.
I shake my head. “Lock down all community rooms.”
“Already done.”
“I want a list of every guest we have on the premises as well as their partners, and every staff member who’s checked in today. If they’re here to cut the grass or dust the goddamn chandeliers, I want their names.”
“On it.”
Lyam flicks his finger across a tablet, and it springs to life. He taps and scrolls, pinches and pulls. Seconds later, my phone dings with a text.
“That was fast.”
“I was already on it before you arrived.”
Savannah.
“I need to check on Savannah.” I jerk my chin to our head of security and his chief operator. “You sweep the first quadrant, Lyam and I will sweep the second through fourth.”
“Yessir.”
They quickly rise, weapons drawn. This is no conventional club where I make everyone keep weapons secured. If we need them, we use them, which is partly why we rarely need to.
“Do we have any leads at all? Anything out of place?”
Lyam shakes his head. “That’s the bitch of it, nothing at all.”
Fuck it. I’m getting Savannah before we do any sweep at all.
There’s a tentative knock at the door. I stand and flick on the overhead security camera. Cosette stands there, wringing her hands. “Sir?”
“Yes?” Lyam and I both say in unison. I give him a sharp look then blow out a breath. He’s not allowed to consort with our employees, so I wonder what’s going on, but we have no time to talk about it.
“May I come in?”
I open the door to let her in, even while I’m ready to burst out of here and check on Savannah.
I don’t like feeling like I’m being held back from locating her.
Cosette comes in, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she says. Something’s off.
I can’t put my finger on it, but something isn’t quite right.
“What is it?” I want to shake her to get her to say what’s on her mind so I can get out of here.
“The girls’ dressing room,” she says. “There were various outfits out of place, sir.” She looks as if she’s going to be sick.
My phone buzzes with a text and I want to whip it against the wall.
“Look into that,” I snap at Lyam as the two of them head out.
I won’t investigate another damn thing until I have her safely beside me. The fear I had from the very beginning rears its ugly head. I don’t want to leave anything to chance. I don’t want to lose the woman I love.
I make it back to our room and yank open the door. “Savannah!”
No answer. My heart threatens to pound out of my chest as I quickly scan the room. No sign of a struggle or an intrusion, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
“Savannah!”
I call her phone and it goes to voicemail. I’m pacing, racking my brain to see if I can remember which camera will show me where she went, when I see a folded piece of paper on the small entryway table next to my keys. When I pick it up, I see the broken, mangled collar.
No.
A cold feeling of dread washes through me. I pick it up and unfold it.
Thayer,
I found out about the collar. You can keep it.
I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me.
But I can’t stay here hiding any longer.
If you had your way, I’d be under lock and key for the rest of my life, and I can’t do that anymore.
I’m not an animal to be locked up and tracked.
I’m a human being with a will of her own.
It’s probably fruitless to ask, but I’m going to anyway.
Please don’t look for me.
Savannah
I wad up the paper and whip it against the wall.
Where did she go?
What the fuck is she thinking?
Earlier today, she started pushing back against my insistence that she stay safe and secure. I know she’s sick of being here and wants more, but she hasn’t seen what I have. She doesn’t know how vindictive our enemies are. I can’t let her go until I know they’re no longer a threat.
I pick up my phone to have Lyam scan footage when a text comes through.
Nicolette:
I picked Savannah up and I’m taking her to the spa for the day. I promise she’s in good hands
Me:
Not yet, I want to see her first
There’s no reply. What the fuck is going on here?
The spa. They’re at the spa? She hasn’t left, then?
I walk through the hotel lobby, and everything seems normal, nothing out of place. Heading into the weekend, we have more guests than we do on weekdays, so it’s busy, but we have staff that handles everything from bags to check-in to guest room services.
The spa. I have to get to the spa, if that’s where she’s gone.
I blow out a breath, trying to calm my nerves. I’m not normally a nervous person, but this time… Why does it feel like I’m on a wild goose chase?
I call her, but it goes to her voicemail.
I’m practically running by the time I get to the spa and haven’t even checked my quadrant yet. My phone buzzes with texts from our security men and Lyam. Nothing out of place.
Where is she?
The very thing I feared feels as if it’s looming, a wild animal with bared fangs, ready to pounce.
I’ve been in this position before with people I love being threatened or in danger. I can still see the flames leaping from the building, the roof collapsing. I can still imagine my father’s screams before he died.
I can still feel the way I held his broken body when I finally got to him.
I need to find her. I need to keep her safe. I’ll do whatever it takes.
I call Fabien, who answers on the first ring.
“Why the fuck is your wife taking Savannah out without my permission, and why the fuck isn’t she answering her phone? And was she the one that told her about that fucking collar?”
There’s a brief pause. “Excuse me?”
“Fabien.” I blow out a breath. “Nicolette texted me that she was taking Savannah to the spa. I didn’t give Savannah permission to leave the room, and we’ve got a suspected security breach here. I left her for ten goddamn minutes. No fucking way am I okay with Nicolette sauntering in here and just—”
“Thayer.” Fabien’s voice cuts through my ranting. I pause.
“What?”
“Nicolette’s phone broke last night. She dropped it in the bath, and we ordered another one. She’s here, right next to me. We’re in Paris.”
My vision swims in sudden rage.
“What?”
“Thayer?” Nicolette’s panicked voice screams on the other end of the phone. “Is my sister okay? Thayer, tell me Savannah’s okay!”
I hang up the phone and run to the spa. I know what I’ll find before I get there.
I reach the spa, yank open the door, and nearly scare the shit out of clients in robes drinking tea in the waiting room. I march to the desk. The hostess stares at me, her mouth open.
“Sir? Is everything okay?”
I already know the answer before I ask the question.
“Show me your guest list.”
“We only have four guests at the moment, sir, and they’re in our waiting room.”
Someone set me up. Someone’s breached our security and entered the club and set me up.
Savannah’s gone.
The sudden wailing of sirens makes everyone sit up straighter. I clench my jaw.
I need to find Savannah.
I need to find the security breach.
I need to find out why the fuck we have police here.
Fucking hell.
I leave the spa and head to the lobby as an entire rash of armed police officers swarms the lobby. Guests stand, frozen in place. We’ve never had officers in here before, and we keep our location secured.
“Thayer Gerard?”
I nod, guarded and on edge.
No. They can’t be here for me. Not here, not now, not when I need to secure Savannah.
Six officers come at me at once, like I’m a goddamned threat. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Officer Charlemont Laguerre.” My head swims with questions.
They’re framing me for the murder? Of fucking course they are. Frame me. Have me taken away, where I can’t come after them and murder them with my bare hands for even looking at my woman.
I quickly run through my options of escape but know immediately that if I fight them now, I’ll never find Savannah. With every fiber of my being screaming against me, I grit my teeth when they cuff me.
Lyam enters the lobby. He stares, unblinking.
I yell over my shoulder as they take me out, “I’m innocent. Take over in my stead. Fucking find Savannah and call our lawyer, in that order.”