Syndicate.
As I hit send on the text, I glance at the time on my phone. It’s almost seven, later than I realized. The men should be here to pick me up soon. They never let me drive myself over to the safe house, either sending me with a few mafia foot soldiers or dropping me off themselves.
I turn back to the guards at the door, about to ask them if they’ve heard from Hale when something catches my eye.
A bright red dot glows on the man’s chest, moving around just slightly like a butterfly searching for a place to land.
My stomach seems to drop out of my body.
“Look ou—”
I surge forward, my arm outstretched. But I’m too fucking late.
Two bullets pierce his chest, and another hits the guard on the other side of the door in the throat. They both go down, their bodies hitting the ground before I can even reach them.
My heart lodges in my throat as tires screech and a van careens up the driveway.
It skids to a stop as several men in black leap out. I’m already running for the safe house door, but strong arms wrap around me from behind, and a cold, wet cloth smothers my mouth and nose.
I’m still trying to fight as darkness drags me under.
20
Lucas
For the second time, Grace’s phone rings out before instructing me to leave a message. Fuck. Even though I know she’s probably just busy with one of the girls, an unpleasant knot forms in my stomach.
An instinct.
Something isn’t right.
“She’s not picking up,” I growl after trying a third time, fighting the urge to throw the phone out the window in frustration. “I don’t like it.”
“We’ll be there in a second,” Hale says calmly from behind the wheel, but I can see his jaw twitch. “She might not have heard it, or she was doing something.”
Two possibilities that have crossed my mind, but we’re slightly late on picking her up today.
For the past three days, she’s spent a good part of her time at the safehouse with the women, getting to know them and taking care of them. Then when we’re done with business at the Onyx Club, we’d pick her up and bring her back home. We all felt better having her travel with us than drive over on her own—not because we’re worried about her fleeing, but because we all want to look out for her.
That’s usually at seven. It’s fifteen minutes till eight right now. Grace should’ve been waiting and anticipating the routine call that would tell her we were on our way.
When we pull into the long driveway of the safe house, that feeling in my stomach grows.
Goddammit. I’m fucking sure of it. Something is off here.
“Fuck.”
Ciro’s harsh curse makes my head snap up, my gaze following his. The blood in my veins feels like it turns to ice as I take in the sight of the two men slumped on either side of the safe house door. Blood pools around them, and I’m suddenly certain that every guard Hale had stationed around the property has been brought down too.
I wrench the car door open, leaping out almost before Hale has come to a complete stop. He, Ciro, and Zaid are right behind me, all four of us charging toward the house, drawing our weapons as we go.
The front door isn’t locked, and when I shove it open, only silence greets us.
Using hand signals and quiet gestures, we fan out to cover the entire house, doing a silent sweep of the building. But we come up with nothing.
Nothing.
The house is absolutely fucking empty.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Hale rasps, and I can hear everything I’m feeling in his voice.
She’s gone. They’re all gone.
This was a quick in and out job, no struggle. Did they drug them? Use brute force? Grace wouldn’t have let herself be taken without a fight, so why the fuck aren’t there signs of a struggle? Did they hurt her?
Fury rises up in me so fast it makes my vision literally turn red for a second. I blink it back, fighting to keep my head on straight. Grace needs us right now, and she needs us clearheaded.
We need to fucking find her.
Storming down into the basement, I tear open the door to the security room. It’s fitted up with a monitor that shows the cameras’ security feeds, and it’s our only hope of seeing anything that happened here today.
“There are dishes in the sink. Water’s still warm,” Zaid says, stepping into the room