Runaway Wolfes of Manhattan Three - Helen Hardt Page 0,43

Let’s bolt.”

We drove the hour to Billings without saying much. I was lost in thought, and Luke seemed to understand.

When he dropped me off, he said, “Go get her, man.”

I opened my mouth to protest that I was only going there to offer support, but then closed it and simply nodded as I grabbed my duffel and shut the door.

Go get her, man.

A man didn’t hop on a redeye to offer support to a woman he just met.

No.

A man jumped on a redeye because he was in love.

Fuck me.

I’d fallen in love with Riley Wolfe.

And Luke was right.

I was going to go get her.

27

Riley

I sat, numb, as my brother described what he’d learned about his buried memory.

A woman with cuts above her breasts had escaped from a dark place where my father and our parish priest had been hunting her.

Hunting her.

She was the prey.

“Do you remember her name?” I asked.

“No. I don’t think I asked her. Somehow we got the elevator to go up, and as soon as it opened—I don’t even know which floor we were on—she ran out.”

“Naked?” I said.

“As far as I remember. I never…” Roy closed his eyes. “I never saw her again.”

“This was over a decade ago,” Reid said. “We’ll never find her.”

“Probably not,” Lacey agreed. “We’ll have to concentrate on Zinnia. The times don’t match up, so the woman Roy saw can’t be Zinnia.”

“Unless she came back and threatened to expose them,” I offered.

Lacey widened her eyes. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I know my father,” I said. “I had no idea this shit was going on, but I can guarantee you that if one woman managed to escape, he never let another escape. He would have taken precautions.”

“I suppose it’s possible he stopped the hunting games,” Reid said.

“More likely he just upped the security,” I said. “Like I said, one of the benefits of the life I led was that I knew him better than anyone. I knew how his mind worked. He got what he wanted, no matter what.”

“Whether he stopped or continued,” Lacey said, “Riley makes a good point. Zinnia could very well be the woman Roy encountered in the elevator.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie offered. “If you’d been hunted by Derek Wolfe, would you ever go near him again? Even for a huge settlement? You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to face him.”

“Charlie makes a good point too,” Lacey said.

“Only one way to find out,” Rock said. “We need to find this Zinnia.”

Our server entered the banquet room then. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but your amuse-bouche is ready.” Two others followed him in, carrying trays.

“Chef Gabriel has prepared sashimi salmon on a rye toast point with a touch of garlic wasabi.”

The servers distributed the small dishes.

“What’s an amuse-bouche?” Rock asked.

“A pre-appetizer,” Reid said. “It’s French. It means something to amuse your mouth while you wait for your actual appetizer.”

Rock rolled his eyes. “You want me to eat raw fish.”

“Try it.” Lacey smiled. “Salmon sashimi melts in your mouth.”

“Only for you.” Rock popped the salmon into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “My mouth isn’t amused.”

“Bro,” Reid said, “you need a lesson in the finer things in life.”

Lacey patted her lips with her napkin after swallowing hers. “I think it’s delicious.”

I shoved mine across the table to her. “You can have mine, then. I’m with Rock. I don’t eat raw fish.”

“You don’t?” Reid looked shocked.

“Have you ever, in your life, seen me consume raw fish?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Our esteemed father made me try sushi once. Once. I threw up in the ladies room. Never again.”

Roy, Charlie, and Reid agreed with Lacey that it was delicious. Whatever. Good for them.

“Now that we’re done with raw meat,” Roy said, “we need to discuss finding a way into this underground hunting arena our father had.”

“If it still exists,” Lacey reminded him.

“All I can tell you is that the elevator dropped,” Roy said. “I seemed to be underneath what I thought was the lowest floor of our building.”

“I’ve taken a look at the master blueprints.” Reid took a sip of his cocktail. “There’s a level reachable only by a special elevator, but it’s the mechanical floor. Since our building is so tall, we also have mechanical rooms on higher levels.”

“I wasn’t in a special elevator,” Roy said. “It was one of the normal elevators accessible from the lobby.”

“Right,” Reid said, “and I’ve gotten confirmation that our mechanical floor houses nothing but mechanics.”

“He couldn’t have been playing his game on the mechanical floor anyway,” I