Chapter Nine #10
Kenai shrugged, like that was the whole point. “Call it what you want. Sometimes it’s the only way to get your body to stop acting like there’s a fire in the living room.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Only if you’re human.” Kenai waggled his eyebrows. “Which you’re not.” He nudged Kevin with the can. “Try it. I promise on my maned wolf’s honor it won’t kill you.”
Kevin eyed the can one more time then frowned. He looked at the stairs leading to Rio’s office, but there was no sign of movement. Why not? If anybody needed something to blunt his edges, it was Kevin.
“Okay,” he said. “But if my organs liquefy, I want you to lie and say I died in a knife fight.”
“Deal,” Kenai said. “Let’s drink it in my car. No reason to sit in here with the smell of floor cleaner. Besides, I got snacks. Sweet and salty.”
Kenai chucked a thumb at the side door. “You coming?”
“Yeah.” Kevin followed him toward the door.
The hallway was cold compared to the kitchen, the air sharp and tinged with citrus cleaner he’d used to mop the floor. As he walked, a flicker of worry made him glance backward. The upstairs light was still on. How much longer was Rio gonna take?
Kevin paused with his hand on the doorknob, talking himself into going outside. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He didn’t need approval to hang out with a new friend after closing.
You’re my mate, not my prisoner.
Exactly. Kevin was with Kenai. They weren’t going to be outside long, and they would be inside a car.
The parking lot was empty, except for Kenai’s car and Rio’s truck. Kevin scented the air and sniffed in a lungful of bleach. Maybe Rio was cleaning something.
“Damn, Rio’s going to knock himself out if he doesn’t cut back on the bleach,” Kenai said. “You didn’t drop food on the floor, did you?”
“That floor is spotless,” Kevin argued. “I even scrubbed the baseboards.”
Kenai held up his hands, lips twitching. “Sorry I ever doubted you’re next-level cleaning skills.”
They crossed the strip of cracked pavement and stopped at the driver’s door of the car. An economical white sedan. There were a few dents in the back panel and a large crack on the back window in the shape of a lightning bolt.
Kevin gazed at second floor, watching Rio’s silhouette cross the room. “Maybe we could chill in the dining area or at the bar.”
Kenai didn’t answer. Frowning, Kevin turned but didn’t see the guy anywhere. Did he have to use the bathroom?
“Kenai?” A sense of wrongness gnawed at Kevin. The night was so quiet it was eerie. There should’ve been a reply, some kind of sound when Kenai had walked away.
More importantly, he should’ve told Kevin he needed to use the bathroom instead of leaving him out here, every sound spooking the shit out of him.
“Just head back inside. Don’t stand out here like a willing victim, dumbass.” Kevin hurried toward the door, but froze when something in the shadows moved. “Kenai?”
Maybe he’d used the bushes instead heading back inside.
You are totally acting like a horror-movie idiot. People who investigate are always the ones who die.
Although Kevin wholeheartedly agreed with his mind, what if Kenai was in some sort of trouble?
Oh my god! If he was in trouble, he wouldn’t be quietly attacked. Get your ass back inside the restaurant!
Kevin moved quickly toward the side door.
A white van shot up the driveway, blocking Kevin’s escape. He started to scream, but a hand clamped over his mouth.
The person hadn’t gotten out of the van. They’d been waiting in the bushes. Why hadn’t Kevin smelled them?
The bleach.
He was yanked off his feet as the side door whispered open. Then the stranger climbed in, his arm gripped tightly around Kevin’s waist. No sooner had the side door slid shut, than Kevin was tossed to the floor of the van His knee banged against something hard, sending pain shooting up his leg.
“Ow!” Kevin turned over and grabbed his knee, gasping when he saw Kenai lying in an unconscious heap three feet away.
Chapter Seven
Rio scrolled lazily through the kitchen inventory on his phone as he descended the office stairs.
The night’s receipts had taken longer than normal to get through.
Two had been torn right through the total amount, and his laptop had decided to update while Rio had been filling out the miscellaneous spread sheet.
Luckily, the spreadsheet had saved seconds before.
The quietness downstairs made Rio lower his phone. Even if Kevin and Kanei weren’t engaged in conversation, there should’ve been some kind of noise—fork clinking, chair scraping, or a bored sigh.
Rio had been running Glass Oak for far too long and knew when something was off. He paused and listened, but only heard the low hum of the refrigerator.
The phone screen reflected his own frown back at him.
He walked into the kitchen anyway, absently spinning the phone with his fingers.
The kitchen had been clean. Exceptionally cleaned. Even the baseboards had been scrubbed. He smelled the citrus-scented of floor cleaner, and the lingering remnants of tonight’s special—roasted chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, and yeast from the dinner rolls Rio always made from scratch.
Kevin had eaten two helpings, chatting with the kitchen staff, and pitching in to help before anyone asked. The entire time Rio had been in the room with Kevin, his mate had worn a happy little smile.
So where were Kevin and Kenai? Rio tried to call his mate, but it went straight to voicemail. The same happened with Kenai’s.
Both dish racks sat dry, and empty. The towel Kenai always left flopped over the faucet was gone, and so were the half-spoiled sodas he used to bribe new hires.
Even the energy drink can Kenai had been raving about was missing, and if he’d left the building without it, that meant something had thrown him.
Rio performed a quick check of the dining area and bar. Empty. Chairs turned up on tables, the bar dark, nothing out of place.
Pivoting, Rio headed back toward the kitchen, slowing when he noticed the side door slightly ajar.
As he reached for the handle, a scent curled up from under the door. Wolf.
Underneath, just at the edge of it, a faint trace of impala.
Rio’s hands clenched.
A quick check of the side lot told him nothing. Night air breezed past him and slipped through the trees behind restaurant. Kenai’s car was parked toward the back, Rio’s truck two spaces down.
He circled once, searching for any sign of movement. No laughter. No shouting. Just more silence.
Rio pivoted, returning to the restaurant, then took the back stairs up to the office two at a time.
Security cameras. There had to be something. He jabbed the screen and pulled up four angles installed in the exits and the alley.
The screen flickered. The first view showed an empty kitchen. He switched to another camera, moving slowly through the footage.
There.
Motion in the alley. A tall silhouette, bigger than Rio, moving with intent. The figure kept to the shadows, just outside the streetlight’s reach. Then he turned and leaned against the van. For a brief second, the camera angle caught the bastard’s face.
Ameer.
That unhurried tilt to his head. The way he glanced at the camera and smiled, all teeth and cockiness. He looked amused, as if abducting people at midnight was his favorite pastime.
Rio’s pulse hammered in his ears.
He watched, helpless to do anything about it. Two minutes passed. The side door of the van eased open. Kenai stepped into the alley, keys in one hand and that usual can in the other. Kevin followed, hoodie zipped high despite the warm night.
Ameer lunged, catching Kenai by the neck and yanking him backward out of the cameras frame. Kevin spun around, clearly panicked. Another split second passed, and then Kevin vanished, too, dragged to the right by an arm that looked thick enough to bend pipes.
Rio gritted his teeth. The rest was over in seconds. The doors had slammed, and the van had peeled away. Then nothing but empty pavement where two people he cared deeply for had been standing.
A burning pulse of anger wound through Rio’s gut.
He could watch the footage on a loop, but it wouldn’t change anything. His mate had been thrown into a van by a psycho who’d walked into Glass Oak just hours before.
The urge to shift and hunt was so fierce he nearly gave in.
Instead, Rio dialed the alpha while releasing a breath.
Zeppelin answered in less than a ring. “What’s going on?”
“They’re gone. Kenai and Kevin. Grabbed in the lot behind Glass Oak. Ameer has them. It was fast. I’ve got it on footage.”
A low growl. “You sure it was Ameer?”
“Camera captured his face. He wanted me to know it was him.”
“I’m heading toward you. The footage show their direction?”
“Headed west from the alley but they could have doubled back to throw me off. They kept their headlights off.” He didn’t want to imagine the worst, but the image of Kevin’s terrified face was stuck in Rio’s head.
“We’ll find them,” Zeppelin said. “We’re ten minutes away.”
The call ended. Rio pocketed his phone and braced both hands on the desktop, knuckles whitening against the wood. His worst fear had just come to life. He hadn’t kept Kevin safe as promised, now his mate was out there somewhere, in the hands of a narcissistic psychopath.
Rio couldn’t hold still. He paced the length of the office, every instinct in him screaming to get his mate back as quickly as possible. His snow leopard demanded violence. There was no other word for it. He wanted to carve out Ameer’s black heart.
He told himself it wasn’t just about Kevin.
But that was a lie.
He checked the footage again and memorized every detail—the scuff mark on the rear bumper, the dent over the left wheel well, the way the taillights blinked as it rounded the corner. If he got close, he could track it by scent, but he wasn’t taking any chances.