Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Spike nods once. “I’ll put eyes on the property first. Drones, if we can get them up fast enough.”
“Thermal,” Foster says, his ear to his phone. “I’ll see if we can get heat signatures. I’ll also have my team check what kind of satellite hits we can pull from that location.”
“Luca,” I say.
He steps closer. “Don.”
“Go home. Update the guards. No one leaves the estate. No one enters without my approval. I want the women and children moved to the basement”
“Yes, Don.”
“Send two men here to watch Stefano.”
His eyes flick toward the surgery doors.
The smallest crack opens in his expression.
Stefano is not only my brother.
He is loved by all of us.
“And three more to my location,” I continue.
“Yes, Don.”
“If Stefano comes out of surgery before I get back, I’m the first call.”
“Of course.”
I step closer to him. “Not the second. Not after the doctor finishes explaining. Not after someone thinks I need to stay focused. The first.”
Luca’s throat works.
“The first,” he says.
I nod once.
He leaves immediately.
Spike watches him go, then turns back to me.
“I’ll send a few of my men to cover the hospital too.”
“I told Luca to send two.”
“I heard you.” Spike’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m adding Shadows.”
For one second, I almost argue.
Spike doesn’t have half the number of men I do.
But I don’t.
Because at the end of the day, Palm Springs belongs to the Shadows. People see their cuts and turn the other way. They can move through this city in ways my men can’t.
And because Stefano is lying behind those doors with a bullet in his chest, and I can’t protect him and hunt for my girls at the same time.
“That’s your brother in there,” Spike says, his voice rougher now. “Which makes him one of ours.”
My throat tightens.
Stefano would probably make some ridiculous joke about becoming an honorary biker while wearing silk pajamas and drinking espresso.
But he’s not here to make it.
He’s behind those doors fighting for his life.
Alive only because God and stubborn Moretti blood have not finished arguing over him yet.
I nod once.
“Thank you.”
Spike dips his chin.
“Always.”
Foster lowers his phone to his chest. “The rental is still quiet. No visible movement from the satellite pass I can access, but it’s not live. Drone will tell us more.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes before we have eyes close enough to matter.”
“Too long.”
“I know. My men are going as fast as possible.”
My hand curls at my side.
Stefano’s blood has dried into the lines of my palm.
I can still feel the weight of him beneath my hands. The wet, broken sound of his breathing. His mouth trying to shape a name he couldn’t get out.
He saw who did this.
I know he did.
If Victor wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, then I’ll find the bastard working for him who did.
Spike steps into my line of sight.
“Mav.”
I lift my eyes to his.
“We’re going to get them.”
The words are meant to steady me.
They don’t.
“I know,” I say anyway.
Foster’s phone chimes.
He glances down, then frowns.
“Um, guys.”
Every head turns toward him.
“What?” I ask.
“Apparently, Nico and Marco have been trying to call you.”
I curse and pull my phone from my pocket.
The screen is black.
Dead.
“Damn it.”
Between the hospital, Stefano, Amelia, Olivia, and everything else, I never realized it died.
Foster looks from his phone to me. “You sent them out yesterday to search for Victor?”
“Yes.” The memory slams back into place. “I sent them to check possible local connections. Rentals. Private properties. Any place a man could hide while watching me.”
“Well,” Foster says slowly, “they found him half an hour ago.”
“Where?”
“They’re on their way to Patch’s.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They didn’t want to bring him to the estate with everything locked down, and they couldn’t reach you. Patch’s was the closest secure location.”
“Amelia and Olivia?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“They didn’t say.”
“Go,” Spike says. “I’ll stay here until more men arrive. Stefano will have Shadows and Moretti’s on every door. The second Luca shows, I’ll meet you at Patch’s.”
I look toward the surgery doors.
My brother is behind them.
My girls are missing.
For one second, every part of me pulls in a different direction hard enough to tear bone from bone.
Then Spike grips the back of my neck and forces my eyes to his.
“Go get your girls, Outlaw. If that brother of ours wakes and finds out you hesitated for him, he won’t be happy.”
My throat locks.
If Stefano dies while I am gone… No.
I can’t think like that.
“Call me the second the surgeon comes out,” I say.
“First call,” Spike promises.
I look at Foster. “With me.”
He nods, already moving.
Bones steps forward. “I’m coming too.”
“No,” Spike says. “You’re with me until relief gets here.”
Bones looks like he wants to argue.
“He has the twins,” Spike reminds him. “They’ll be fine until we get there.”
I turn toward the exit.
Every step away from the surgery doors feels wrong.
Every step toward Victor feels necessary.
By the time we reach the SUV, Foster’s phone beeps.
“Nico’s last message says they have Victor secured and breathing.”
“Breathing is only temporary.”
Foster gets behind the wheel while I jump in the passenger seat.
Foster’s phone beeps again.
“What now?” I ask.
“Marco says Victor was alone.”
The words steal my breath.
“Could he have already moved them?” Foster asks.
“Yes.”
“Could this be a trap?”
“Yes.”
“Could he not have them?”
I look at him.
Foster goes quiet.
Because we both know what happens if Victor doesn’t have them.
It means I have been looking at the wrong monster.
It means Stefano saw someone else.
It means my girls are somewhere no one is searching.
“Victor threatened them,” I say.
“I know.”
“He did this.”
Foster’s voice drops. “Then we make him tell us where they are.”
I stare out the window as the hospital disappears behind us.
“Yes,” I say.
And if Victor Dane doesn’t have my family, then God help whoever does.
Because by the time I find them, there will be nothing left in me that remembers mercy.