37. Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Gage
It was a struggle to force myself into the confined space of Levi’s Mercedes. My muscles quaked, body vibrating as I held on by a thread. I should have seen this coming. I did see it coming. I saw it and I let myself get so distracted by my insecurities about the bond that I forgot Abby was in danger.
If I’d just told her the truth to begin with, given in to the bond and let it grow, this wouldn’t have happened. If the bond was stronger, I would know where she was. I would know if she was okay.
This was my fault. Dallas took Abby, and it was my fault. None of us realized Dallas was alive, and that was my fucking fault too.
Enough! I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.
“We need to tap into the footage from the lobby immediately. One of Kai’s contacts said they already called in the feds. Because of the proximity to our office and witnesses that saw you on the street, they’re considering this a shifter crime.”
Levi offered a welcome distraction as he started the engine and merged carefully into traffic. Now wasn’t the time to speed through downtown Seattle. We had to go unnoticed, make it quietly to the established meeting place I kept in case shit hit the fan.
“That’s worst-case scenario.” Shifter crimes were always handled by the federal government, and they weren’t handled kindly. Humans were innocent until proven guilty. Shifters were guilty no matter what.
“I know,” Levi said grimly. “We need to stay as far off the radar as we can until we find Abby. After that, I’ll deal with it.”
“We’ll deal with it,” I promised him. “I’m not letting them lock you up on bogus charges.” No member of my pack would ever see the inside of a cell again.
Levi’s jaw flexed, but he said nothing. If he wasn’t my brother, working with me to find my mate, I would either be pissing my pants or fighting him to the death. The dominance and ferocity rolling off him was palpable, a suffocating cloud of alpha power. It was easy to forget who my brother was.
Levi was kind, patient, mostly subtle in his command. He chose those traits though, carefully crafting the face he revealed to the world. An alpha couldn’t afford to show weakness of any kind, even to his family. Levi understood that on an instinctive level. He was always a rank above me, once removed from his peers because of the power he inherited from his father.
An alpha was born, not made, and many shifters resented that. A brazen beta could take on an alpha. Hell, my wolf was dominant enough that with the right motivation he just might win against Levi. But he would never hold a pack together. He didn’t have the fortitude for it. The bonds that wove between pack and alpha were heavy, a burden that some alphas crumbled under.
That was why Levi was here, playing at CEO in the city instead of running territory borders in Alaska. He saw his parents crushed beneath that weight and didn’t want to suffer the same fate. And maybe being responsible for that many people just fucking sucked. I didn’t blame my brother for denying his birthright. I wouldn’t take his place even if he begged me.
“None of this is adding up,” Levi broke the silence again. “I’ve run through it six different ways and I can’t make sense of it.”
“Dallas probably thinks we left him to die.” I drummed my finger on my leg, trying to sort out the details.
“I felt him die,” Levi murmured. “I know you’re pissed that I didn’t know he was alive but the moment he went down, his pack bond disappeared. I couldn’t feel him anymore.”
“Maybe he did die…” I considered. “We don’t know what happens to a bond if someone dies temporarily.”
“I can’t fathom how he survived. That much silver…”
It could drive a shifter crazy, if it didn’t outright kill them. That wasn’t a reassuring thought at all.
Levi parked his Mercedes eight blocks from the storage unit that was about to become home base. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t even drive it through a neighborhood like this but now wasn’t the time to worry about someone smashing the windows. At least he was driving one of his less showy cars today.
I fumbled the code on the security system twice. The tremble in my hands was constant, growing worse as the minutes ticked by. Logically I knew Levi was right. I had to be human to figure this out.
There wasn’t much logic left in my brain at that moment.
Levi reached past me, punching in the security code and urging me inside. The unit was freezing, and I welcomed the cold, using it to clear my head.
The guys were already here. Mason and Kai were prepping gear. Ezra was seated at the folding table, my laptop open in front of him. Thank fuck he thought to grab it.
“I can’t access the lobby footage,” Ezra told me, not bothering with a greeting.
“I’ll do it,” I said, sliding the computer around the table and leaning over it.
I had the footage up in seconds, playing it back on triple speed. The screen allowed me to play all six camera angles at once, so I did.
Ezra and Levi crowded behind me, watching the other angles while I fixated on the entrance to the building. The light on the metal detector flashed red and I paused, glaring down at Dallas’s warped face as he smiled directly into the camera, a gun held carelessly in his hand.
“Holy shit, it really is him,” Levi breathed.
“But what the fuck does he want with my mate?” I growled, playing the footage again.
We watched as Dallas charged the front desk, leaping easily over it. Surprisingly, he pocketed his gun, using a simple chokehold to knock the weekend receptionist out. He was careful as he lowered the man to the ground, setting his head gingerly on the marble.
“I thought you said he killed the receptionist. I can see him breathing.”
“By the time you left the lobby,” Levi explained, “that man was very dead.”
The elevator door opened moments later, and my lungs became paralyzed. Abby stepped into the lobby, her head swiveling nervously. What was she doing? Why would she go down there alone?
She knew something was off, her gaze flitting from the desk to the stairwell across from her. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the senses to scent Dallas. Her human hearing wasn’t keen enough to catch the quiet footfalls as he crept up behind her.
I gripped the plastic folding table so hard my fingers left indentations, watching in absolute horror as Abby ran for the staircase and didn’t make it. Dallas had her in a chokehold, squeezing her so tight I feared he would break her neck. She was limp in seconds, flopping in his arms as he hoisted her over his shoulder and ran from the building.
I tore myself from the laptop, pacing to the end of the unit and punching the nearest shelf. The metal bent under the force, slicing a layer of skin off my knuckle as it warped.
“Hold it together,” Levi demanded, still staring at the computer screen. “There’s more.”
I forced myself back to the table, moving mechanically. Levi replayed the clip of Dallas leaving with Abby. Seconds later three men dressed in black slipped through the double doors. Their faces were covered with black fabric, but it was obvious by the way they moved that they were shifters.
At the same time the elevator door opened, two well-dressed men stepping off. The first shifter lifted a gun, dropping the men in seconds. A second leaned over the desk, aiming at the receptionist.
There was a brief and aggressive exchange between them before they left too, hurrying in the same direction Dallas fled.
I appeared at the bottom of the stairs as they were still within range of the door camera. Ten seconds earlier and I would have caught them in the act.
“I didn’t scent them in the lobby.” I was out of my mind but there was no way I wouldn’t have noticed three unknown shifters.
“I didn’t either,” Levi said. “None of us did.”
“Dallas was blocking his scent.” Why hadn’t he when he took Abby? Unless he wanted us to know it was him.
“These shifters were too.”
“It’s got to be Manchini,” Ezra added. “They’ve been here for a year, and we never caught wind of them because they were hiding their scents.”
“That’s an enormous investment just to keep an eye on us.” Levi rubbed his jaw.
“Right now, I don’t fucking care what Manchini is doing unless it’s going to help me find Abby. They came to the lobby for her. That’s why they left without confronting us.”
“Why does Manchini want Abby?”
“The same reason Dallas wants Abby,” I said. “To get to me. To get to us.”
A familiar chime went off, and I whirled, watching Levi remove a cracked cell phone from his pocket. I recognized the pink case immediately, snatching it from his hand and swiping my thumb across the screen.
It took several tries to answer the call, the cracks in the screen so deep that more than half of it was black. I only saw a sliver of the face on the screen as a video call initiated, but I knew immediately who it was.
“Where the hell is she, Dallas?”
“The secretary is your mate?” Dallas asked, holding the camera closer to his face. “I thought you were just screwing her—but mates? That makes this so much more exciting.”
“Where’s my fucking mate?”
“Relax,” Dallas said. “I’ll give you the address. We have some unfinished business.”
He held the phone away from his face, fingers tapping loudly. A notification pinged across the screen, but I couldn’t fucking see it through the cracks.
“Meet me there. Don’t forget to bring your besties.”
“Let me see her!” He was going to hang up, and I didn’t even know if he had Abby with him.
“Damn. Just about forgot my hostage etiquette. Here she is.” Dallas flipped the camera around, panning across a concrete floor and landing on Abby’s leg. I couldn’t see her face through the blackened screen, only a strand of her hair hanging down over her chest. “She’s just taking a little rest. Woke up twice on the drive but I helped her get back to sleep. Poor baby looked tired.”
“You piece of fucking—"
“Dallas.” Levi took the phone from me. “You don’t have to do this. Bring Abby back and we’ll get you whatever you need.”
“Everyone keeps promising to give me what I need but only when there’s something you need first.” Dallas snorted. “My good friend Manchini made a similar promise. My needs in exchange for your secretary. I told him that whoever gets here first can have her. Better hurry!”
The phone beeped to signal the end of the call. I took it back from Levi, scrolling through the messages and desperately trying to read the address. There was just enough room between cracks for me to copy the message, dropping it into a new text to my phone.
Shit, except I didn’t have my phone.
Levi reached into his pocket again, removing a second cell phone and passing it to me.
“That’s almost thirty minutes away. We need to go. Now!”
I was never more grateful for our training than in that moment. Mason had us strapped into body armor before I could finish my sentence. Kai had five rifles loaded and ready to go.
He was extra cautious as he laid out our handguns. “Two mags of silver each. That’s all we’ve got.”
I accepted the extra magazine for my gun, sliding it into place on my belt.
“I’ve got the Explorer parked around back,” Ezra informed us as we headed for the door.
“I’m driving.”
“Not a chance,” Levi said, taking the keys from Ezra. “You’ll direct me.”
In less than five minutes we were packed into a plain black SUV, fully geared up and ready for war. I looked into the rear-view mirror, meeting the eyes of each of my pack brothers.
They were about to risk their lives for my mate.
“Whatever it takes,” Levi said softly as he pulled away from the unit. “We’ll do whatever it takes to bring her back.”