Bianca shooed Grayson from the room when they finished eating, insisting she was fine and would clean the kitchen while he showered.
She was in the process of setting their plates in the sink when two conflicting noises went to war inside her brain. She registered them both simultaneously, but hesitated for one more second with her back to the room, willing herself to have imagined that the shower came on at the same time the door to the cabin opened.
She was still frozen in her spot, silently praying to a God she didn’t believe in when a cloth was pressed over her mouth and nose and her body was lifted off the ground. Two quick strides across the room was all it had taken to reach her.
She knew instantly who had his arm around her, dragging her across the room and out the front door. The distinct scent of some particular brand of cigarettes always wafted from her uncle’s entire body.
Finally, adrenaline poured into her system, and she kicked with her bare feet, her eyes wide. She grabbed his forearm and clawed at his grip, desperate to get free.
Jorge was twice her size and much stronger than her. He never spoke a word or made a single sound as he dragged her from the cabin and quietly shut the door behind him.
With one arm around her hips and his other hand still covering her mouth, he carried her down the gravel road. She could see an SUV looming yards away. He’d parked far enough away to come in silent.
No. In her mind she was screaming. No. No no no no no. This can’t be happening. She kicked and struggled and writhed in his grip, but the only sounds she could hear seemed to be in her head, far too muffled from whatever he held over her face.
And then she was fading. Her vision grew blurry and her arms would no longer obey commands. As he spun her around to yank open the back door of the SUV, she had one last glance at the cabin.
It was so peaceful and undisturbed. It had no idea its occupant had just been abducted. So silently that even the birds and the leaves around them weren’t agitated.
Gray…
Her mind was far more preoccupied with how much he was going to mourn her than her own personal fate. She would never see him again, but she would be at peace as soon as her uncle beat the life out of her.
Grayson would not recover from this. Not for a long time. Perhaps not ever. He loved her.
Someone loved her.
They hadn’t said the words, but she’d known. And now she regretted that she hadn’t found the will to utter them at some point in the last twelve hours.
Before she could truly grieve, the world went black.
The fine hairs on the back of Grayson’s neck stood on end the moment he opened the bathroom door. He’d been humming while he shaved and dressed and brushed his teeth, but the happiness that had filled him to the brim until that moment vanished in a heartbeat.
His heart thumped so hard as his gaze wandered the room that he thought it might pump out of his chest.
She was gone. He knew it without needing to move even an inch. She hadn’t gone outside to stare at the view. She wasn’t lying on the couch out of his view. She was gone. Her essence was no longer in the cabin.
Grayson processed all this in less than a second, and then he ran across the room and yanked open the front door, willing himself to be wrong. Willing her to be standing outside smiling while she inhaled the fresh air.
Nothing.
Silence.
Deafening silence that forced him into action. His hands were shaking as he raced back into the cabin, his gaze darting around until he spotted his phone on the counter. He swiped it into his grip and started dialing. He had to start over three times before he got the numbers entered correctly.
Dade answered on the second ring. Before he could speak, Grayson beat him. “He’s got Bianca.”
“Fuck,” Dade shouted.
Grayson was slamming his feet into his shoes, his gaze on Bianca’s sneakers as he did so. She was barefoot. He hated that for her. Why he focused on something so mundane, he had no idea, but he couldn’t stand the idea that her fucking uncle had taken her with no shoes.
Ignoring everything else in the cabin, Grayson grabbed the car keys and ran toward the car. Only then did he realize Dade had been speaking to him the entire time.
Grayson hit the speaker button on the phone, dropped it on the console, and blew gravel into the air as he spun out of the spot.
“Grayson,” Dade shouted. “Are you still there? Are you listening to me?”
“Haven’t heard a word you said,” Grayson admitted. “But I’m heading down the mountain now. Where would he go? Where the fuck is she, Dade?” His questions were rhetorical. All he knew was the need to hurry. To drive as fast as he could. To catch up with anything. But then what? He had no idea what sort of vehicle her uncle picked her up in.
“Grayson, slow the fuck down before you drive off a cliff. I’m working on it. Spencer is working on it. Pull over and talk to me before you get yourself killed.”
Grayson was crazed. His brain was firing too many messages at once. He never should have left her alone, not even to take a shower. Why hadn’t he argued with her that it was plenty big enough for both of them and joined her? Had Jorge Gonzales been watching for just the right moment to grab her when she was alone?
Fuck. He slammed his hand on the steering wheel.
As he took the next turn too wide and nearly swerved off the edge of the road, he finally sucked in a deep breath and realized how manic he was.
“Pull over, Grayson. Do it. Please. For the love of God, please pull over.”
Grayson scanned the area around him at the next intersection, realizing several things at once. He had no way of knowing which direction Jorge might have gone. He was in no state of mind to continue driving like a maniac. And there was a very good chance Jorge Gonzales had several minutes head start.
Why did I have to pick this morning to shave?
Why did I get dressed in the bathroom?
Why? Why why why why why?
He pulled into the small lot of a gas station, put the car in park, and slammed his head against the steering wheel. “Talk to me.”
Dade’s voice was calmer when he spoke again. “Doing everything we can. Six people are working on it, man. Spencer is hunched over the computer, fingers racing, shouting orders, gaze darting around the screen. If anyone can find a missing person, Spencer can.”
Fuck Spencer. Grayson wasn’t sure he even trusted the man at all, let alone with Bianca’s life.
“Listen,” Dade continued, “I know this is difficult, but I need you to listen to me.”
“Lucky for you, I have no other options right now,” Grayson stated sarcastically. He lifted his head and looked around. The entire world was moving along peacefully around him while Bianca was somewhere with the very man who abused her for eighteen years of her life.
A shuddered wracked his body. How long would Gonzales keep her alive? Or had he already killed her?
Grayson could hear the distinct click of tapping on a keyboard, indicating Dade was leaning close to a computer. Dade hadn’t spoken in several seconds. “What the fuck, Dade? I don’t see how anything Spencer can do is going to help. If Gonzales was paid to kill his niece, he’s probably already done so.”
“He didn’t. Those weren’t his orders. In fact, he was told to deliver her alive if he wanted to collect the second half of his windfall.”
Grayson sat up straighter. Hopeful. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“Hackers know all sorts of shit. Now, I’m texting you an address. Go straight there.”
“Why?” Grayson was shouting. Screaming. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel.
“Pull your shit together, Grayson,” Dade shouted in return. “I need you. Bianca needs you. You’re an hour away from me. I need you to be able to get her back. You’re closest.”
This is insane, Grayson thought as he transferred the incoming address to the GPS. He was shaking badly as he pulled back onto the road.
“Go directly to that address, Grayson. Do it now. Call me when you get there.”
Even if it was a wild goose chase just to calm him down, Grayson had no other option but to trust Dade. “Fine.” He ended the call and forced himself to focus on the directions and the road. “Where the fuck is he sending me?” he muttered as he took several turns and got on the highway.
Ten minutes after he hung up with Dade, he was off the highway and scanning the right side of a mountain road for the address. When he found it, he turned onto a dirt road and continued about fifty yards to find the remnants of a burned out home. Decimated to the ground. Nothing was left but the broken chimney. “What the fuck?”
His phone was ringing. “You there?” Dade asked as soon as Grayson connected.
“Who would know?” he replied sarcastically as a truck pulled in behind him, trapping him. His heart raced.
“You see a beat-up green Chevy truck?”
“Yes. It’s pulling in behind me.”
“Good. Don’t exchange names. He’s on our side.”
An older man in dirty coveralls who looked like he spent most of his time with his head under the hood of a car jumped down from the truck and approached carrying some sort of tool Grayson couldn’t identify. “Dade…”
“Trust me.”
Grayson set the phone down, leaving it on speaker. At least if he died right here, someone would be an auditory witness. Jesus.
The man’s expression was serious when Grayson climbed from the car. He didn’t make direct eye contact, however. Instead, he lifted the long wand and held it under the body of Grayson’s silver Corolla. “Just gonna check to see if you’ve got a tracker,” the guy stated. His long gray hair was pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck and it fell over his shoulder as he leaned down to reach under the car.
Grayson stood still, holding his breath. How the fuck could his car have a tracker on it?
The man continued, wandering slowly around the car until he came to the rear passenger wheel. His machine beeped louder and faster, and then the guy reached under, yanked something from under the frame, and held it up. “Here’s your culprit.”
“Fuck.” Grayson shivered.
The guy kept going, but he didn’t find any more devices. He set the first one on the ground, took a hammer from his tool belt, and slammed it down hard enough to shatter the device into dozens of pieces.
When the guy pulled a gun from his waist next, Grayson nearly shit himself. But, less than a second later, the man had it spun around and was holding it out to Grayson. “Heard you might need this.”
Grayson was shaking violently now, but he reached out and wrapped his palm around the weapon. He couldn’t even mutter a thank-you. Neither his lungs nor his voice were cooperating.
The older man spoke again. “Let’s get out of here.” He jogged back to his truck and backed out of the driveway.
Suddenly, Grayson understood why he’d met the man at an abandoned property. Someone was looking for them. Someone could show up here at any moment. Though the chances of that were slim considering whoever bugged Grayson’s car already accomplished what they wanted.
“Jesus, Dade,” Grayson stated as he pulled back onto the road and headed for the highway. “How the fuck did my car end up with a tracking device? I bought the damn thing from a random mechanic and parked it in my father’s barn.”
“Someone was probably staked out near your parents’ property and followed you. They took the first chance they had to attach the tracker.”
Grayson pursed his lips. Someone had followed them to the motel that night. He shuddered as he imagined someone outside their room while he’d given Bianca a chance to rest. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to kill Jorge Gonzales. And now he had a gun. “Tell me you know something. Where am I going?”
“Yep. We’re tracking Gonzales’s car now.”
“What? How the hell are you tracking his motherfucking car?” Grayson was shouting. He didn’t care that he sounded insane. He fucking was insane.
“Because Spencer’s been watching him for days. Gonzales may be a sleazeball who beats people to get his rocks off, but he’s not a seasoned felon. He’s sloppy. He went to a local rental shop in Mesa, rented a top-of-the-line SUV, and took off all cocky without considering the vehicle has LoJack.
“Spencer is so good he doesn’t even need the rental company to get him into their system. He broke into it himself. He’s following Gonzales now.”
Grayson blew out a long breath. Thank you, God. Now he just had to pray Gonzales had Bianca alive in that SUV.
“Texting you the latest location now, but he’s moving south on the highway, so we can’t know where he’s headed yet. One of our teams is headed that way as we speak. Go that direction. If we’re lucky, they will get Bianca back before you can even reach them.”
Grayson palmed the gun at his side as he drove. He’d met the minimum weapons’ training requirements every year, same as everyone else on his team. They’d all been military. But he’d never actually been in a combat situation, nor had he ever fired a weapon at someone.
Today he would not hesitate, however. Today may very well be the day he was forced to kill another human being. If it came down to Bianca or her fucking uncle, Gonzales didn’t stand a chance.