Chapter 69
“Where is she!?” Jace shouts, jumping out of his car and running towards me, Riggs, and Onyx. Sophia follows him, slamming the car door.
A second later, another car pulls up, and a tall man who looks like Jace exits the back of the vehicle.
Fuck. It’s Cam’s older brother. I see the resemblance, and I recognize his military training in the way his eyes scan the group, scrutinizing everything.
He limps our way. It indicates he’s been injured.
Now I’ll have to deal with two angry brothers.
Riggs’s muttered, “Fuck,” is the only response to Jace’s question.
Before Jace can say another word, Dru and Silas pull up with Jacqueline exiting a luxury SUV.
Then another car pulls in, and Camryn’s other friends, Meela and Tate, leave a sleek sedan and head our way.
It takes only minutes to be surrounded by her crowd of friends.
Everyone talks at once, demanding to know where their friend is. Phrases like “Call the police,” start.
The man, Julian, was determined to call the police, and I had to threaten his life, explaining that if the people who took his sister and Camryn found out, they could kill them before we found them.
Moments after I calmed down, Julian and Xiomara, the bartender, showed up and saw the broken champagne bottle and the bloody symbol on the door.
She was on the phone before I could stop her, calling Sophia.
Xiomara recognized the symbol, telling Sophia that she needed to get to Camryn’s studio immediately.
I wondered about her connection to the gang.
She knew about the Mestizos. She was sweaty and trembling after she hung up the phone. Fear stamped over her pinched features.
Julian walks into the fray, his face pale and his eyes filled with devastation. He’s the first to say what no one else has. “Someone took them. They took my sister, Camryn, and another woman named Kamilah.”
Jacqueline’s anguished bellow echoes in the lot. “No! Kami? Please god no!”
Riggs has already informed me about the woman who was with Camryn. Kamilah is Jacqueline’s 21-year-old cousin. Riggs reaches out, holding her, turning her body into his much bigger one. Her cries pierce my soul. Adding to the guilt and rage swirling inside me.
“Who took them?” Jace’s voice is guttural and harsh. Sophia stands next to him, holding his hand.
Onyx answers. “The Mestizos.”
“Who the fuck are they?” Jacqueline lifts her tear-stained face, looking at Onyx.
“They’re a group. Organized crime.”
“The mafia?” Silas asks, raising a brow.
“Similar,” Riggs responds. He wants to add what both Onyx and I know. That this group is so much worse. Rapid dogs unleashing carnage.
“What the hell? Why?” Jacqueline pulls out of Riggs’s arms and whips out her phone. “I’m calling the police.”
“If you do that they are as good as dead,” Onyx states.
Jace spins around and pins me with his laser stare. “Who the fuck are these people, Stone? I know damn well you know.”
I knew this moment was coming. The moment when I would have to acknowledge what I’ve been doing with his sister. Acknowledge that I’ve betrayed our friendship. And worse now, that I’ve led the woman he warned me away from, his precious sister, right to the slaughter.
The moment I saw the blood on the wall, I contacted Riggs and Onyx, who were not far. They arrived minutes later, and it wasn’t long before Riggs took the choice away from me and contacted Jace, forcing me to calm down and think.
“He needs to fucking know. Stop being selfish. It’s too late to hide it anymore. As much as you might think otherwise, you can’t get her on your own, Stef.”
“Watch me,” I growled. I didn’t need much. My knife. My gun. Fuck, my bare hands would do just fine. Killing before was for penance. Killing them now is a pledge, a promise. They took what’s mine, and they are all going to be obliterated from the earth.
Riggs continued, pushing me back when I attempted to get back on my bike.
“I know you want her back, but we need to play this right. They planned this. They knew she was here and not at the high rise. They didn’t go through the front.
They knew. That means they have been watching.
You can’t risk it tipping them off. We may never find her if you do. We need to strategize.”
My rage was too strong, too all-consuming to think about a plan.
I wanted to ignore Riggs’s warnings. Tell him to go fuck himself and find Camryn.
Hunt down every person involved. I couldn’t think about the possibilities of not finding Camryn.
I couldn’t fathom the reality that she would get hurt, possibly murdered.
Every scenario in my head wasn’t good. She could be anywhere, and my impulse was to search, not to strategize.
It took his and Onyx’s powerful bodies and the removal of my keys to keep me from leaving.
They wanted me to wait for reinforcements.
To wait for her brother. To me, it’s just wasting time. But now I’m here facing him.
“And why do they want Camryn or any of the women? They’re not part of the gang world.” Sophia’s question gets right to the heart of the matter.
Riggs and Onyx both look at me, waiting. The three of us know the answer, and I can’t hide it any longer. “They took the women as collateral.”
The man Julian questions. “Collateral for what?”
“For me.” I stare at Jace. “Because Camryn is mine.”
Jace freezes and steps toward me, his body full of rage. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“You heard me,” I reply, looking him in the eyes.
“My sister!? You’ve been fucking my sister?
You son of a bitch! I told you to stay away from her!
” When he charges toward me, I let him. I let him punch me.
I let the hit snap my head back. I spit the blood from my lip and look at Jace being held back by Silas and Sloane.
“I warned you!” He points in my direction, trying to shove the two 6-foot plus men away.
The man, Adam, gets closer; his body is controlled anger, but he doesn’t hit me. “Camryn was the target?”
I look at him, realizing his question is more of a statement. “Yes.”
Jace curses. “I swear to God, Stone, if anything happens to her, I’m going to fucking kill you! I trusted you! Of all the women! Her? I fucking told you! You knew this could happen and you still dragged her into this bullshit!”
“Jace, stop it!” Sophia shouts at him. “Cool down!”
“The fuck I will, Sparta! The shit he’s involved in—” Jace grits his teeth, snarling and turning away, pacing in the parking lot.
His statement has all eyes turning to me.
His words left questions that they wouldn’t be ready to hear.
The shit I’m into. Murder. Necrophilia. Torture.
Sadism. Haematophilia. As much as I’ve grown to like all of them, the part of me that is psychopathic is kept under lock and key.
The only one who knows the levels of my darkness are Onyx, Riggs, and, on a much smaller scale, Camryn.
Jace continues to rage, and worry radiates off him; I understand it. Fear eats at me, too, because the Mestizos and I are equals in our atrocities. I close my eyes, refusing to think about what Camryn is suffering at their hands while I stand here.
“Will they hurt them?” Sophia asks, wringing her hands.
The women crowd around her. Tears run down all their faces.
It feels like everyone is holding their breath.
Dru and Meela cuddle Jacqueline close, rubbing her back.
Their men are comforting them as they comfort her.
Riggs stands like a sentinel behind Jacqueline, too.
I feel his judgment, his recrimination of my choices.
He hasn’t told me as much, but he cares for Jacqueline.
I can see it in the way he stands close to her.
My choice not to tell Jace. Maybe even my choice to keep fucking Camryn.
I can’t answer them, I don’t know how to voice my own terror, but Riggs does.
“Yes. They have no morals and no conscience.”
Julian curses. “Jesus. Jacinda needs her insulin. She won’t survive.”
“Does she have a monitor?” Tate steps forward, “My mother took care of a patient a few months back who had a monitor that was connected to GPS.”
Julian quickly pulls out his phone and taps frantically. “Fuck, her glucose levels are trending down.”
“What about her location?” Sophia leans over his arm, looking at his phone.
Julian taps more; he looks up, confused when he stares at the screen. “It says she’s traveling north. I don’t know where this is. Something about Tuxedo, NY.” Tatum takes the phone and looks at us. “They’re near your lake house, Jace.”
My heart squeezes. Jace’s lake house is twenty minutes from my cabin. It feels intentional. A mocking ‘fuck you’ from the Mestizos. They took my woman and are driving right near where many of their dead members are housed in a forested tomb.
“Why the fuck are they heading there?” Jace pulls out his cell. “Fuck this shit. We need the police.” I grab for his phone, and he yanks at my hold, shouting. “Back the fuck up!”
“No police,” I growl, not letting his arm go. I can’t risk them killing Camryn or the others.
“Fuck that!” Jace barks in my face, but I don’t release him. This is too important. “Take your hands off me, Stone! I mean it.”
I release him, but refuse to back down on this. His points in my direction. “You don’t have any goddamn say in what I do. You forfeited that right the moment you fucked my sister. You! You put her in danger!”
I want to kill him for thinking it’s just fucking between his sister and me. He believes what I feel for his sister is cavalier. Simple. It’s not. She’s my world. I don’t know how I’ll breathe if they kill her.
“If you call the police, she’s dead. They all are,” I utter, needing Jace to understand the seriousness.
Jace inhales and bends at the waist, cursing under his breath. When he lifts his head, he ignores me and turns to Silas. “Can you get Caleb involved? Caleb can find her. This is what he did before—”
“It’s our responsibility, Park,” I interrupt him.
“Right now I don’t give a fuck about your responsibilities! You had a responsibility! To leave her alone! To not touch her! You failed motherfucker! I trusted you! You put her in harm’s way by association and now some animals have her!”
He’s right. Every accusation. Every indictment is valid, and the acid in my chest burns hotter.
I knew the risks I was taking when I touched Camryn, when I marked her, fucking every chance I could without thought.
I knew people were watching me. I knew they had their eyes on me, and I drew her into my web anyway.
But none of that matters anymore. It’s too late.
She belongs to me, even if in the end I can’t keep her.
For now, my only concern is finding her. Jace and everyone else can help behind the scenes, but the war, the war is mine.
Silas pulls out this phone, stepping away from the group. I watch him dial before speaking quietly into the mouthpiece. I’m itching to move. Desperate to get Camryn.
Riggs approaches me. “What do you want us to do?”
I hate how helpless I feel, but I owe it to Jace and to Camryn to include him. “We work with them.”
“Are you sure?”
Am I sure? Fuck no. The only thing I’m sure about is that I’m going to enjoy killing the bastards who hurt her. El Jefe has what’s mine. His blood will soak into the ground when I’m done with him.
Silas’s calm voice cuts through the thick tension. “Caleb is going to work on it. Quinten and Zeke are going to be called in as well. We need to meet him to plan.”