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The delivery van bounced over large potholes and uneven asphalt, the tires crunching in the iced-over brown slush that bunched on both sides of the pavement.
“Home sweet home,” Nassi said, in English this time, gri
The two men laughed as the driver put the van in park and cut the engine. Nassi came out of his seat and started to head back inside the van. Je
She inched into a stable position, preparing for the moment she knew was coming.
Nassi smiled broadly as he walked farther into the vehicle. “What do you have to offer us, hmm? Let me see.”
“No,” Je
He chuckled wolfishly. “I like a woman who will beg. A woman who knows her place.”
“Please, don’t,” Je
She knew he would grab her.
She counted on it, and could barely contain the answering jolt of triumph that surged through her veins as he snatched her by the wrist and hauled her up off the floor of the van.
She put her weight into the movement, using his own brute force to launch herself at him. With the heel of her free hand, she smashed him hard under the nose, driving soft cartilage up into his septum with a bone-crunching pop.
“Aaghh!” Nassi howled in agony. “Putanë! Bitch, you will pay for that!”
Blood gushed from his face and onto her as he thrust his hands out and roared toward her. Je
She didn’t have time to worry about him right now. Nassi was furious, and in order to get out of the van, she’d have to get through him first.
Je
“Puthje topa tuaj lamtumirë, ju copille skëmtuar!” she whispered to him tightly, a threat she made good on when she then brought her knee up between his legs and nailed him with a sharp blow to the groin.
Nassi went down like a ton of bricks.
Je
She didn’t see the gun in the other man’s hand until the flare of the shot burned as bright as lightning. The sudden crack of the bullet as it exploded toward her was deafening. She blinked, dazed and oddly detached, as the searing fire of its impact slammed into her.
“Have we got anything?”
Lucan strode into the tech lab where Brock, Kade, Alex, Renata, and Nikolai were all gathered around Gideon’s workstation.
Brock had his hands braced on the desk, staring over Gideon’s shoulder at the monitor. He gave Lucan a grim shake of his head. “Nothing solid yet. Still searching DMV records for possible matches.”
Je
At roughly the same time that Renata saw Je
Brock was sure that if they located that van, Je
“Whether we’ve got solid leads or not, as soon as the sun sets in the next hour and a half, we’re go
“And I can’t afford to let anything happen to my dearest friend,” Alex said, pointing out the emotional wrinkle in the whole situation with Je
“We’ll find her,” Brock said firmly. “I promise you, we will.”
Kade met his gaze and gave a solemn nod. After the stu
“Hang on, hang on,” Gideon murmured. “This could prove interesting. I just got a couple of new hits on the latest sequence. One of them is registered to an auto garage in Quincy.”
“The other one?” Brock asked, leaning in to get a closer look.
“Meat-packing plant in Southie,” Gideon said. “Outfit called Butcher’s Best. Says they specialize in personal cuts and catering.”
“No shit,” Renata said, her chin-length dark hair swinging as she pivoted her head to look at the others gathered in the lab. “The banking exec who lives a couple of miles up the road is hosting his Christmas house party next weekend. Makes sense that a catering van might be up this way.”
“Yeah, it does,” Lucan agreed. “Gideon, let’s get an address for this place.”
“Coming right up.” He hit a few keys and both the street listing and a satellite map appeared on-screen. “There it is, down in the underbelly of Southie.”
Brock’s eyes fixed on the location, burning as hot as laser beams. He pivoted around and stalked out of the tech lab, determination in every hard clip of his boot heels on the marble floor.
Behind him, Kade dashed out of the lab into the corridor. “What the fuck, man? The sun won’t be setting for a good while. Where are you going?”
Brock kept walking. “I’m go
CHAPTER
Five
The sun was just begi
He had no intention of frying his own bacon, but the thought of sitting at the compound waiting on twilight while an i
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, stalking through the frozen slush and street grime toward the vehicle.
He peeked inside the passenger window and his gaze snagged on a spent bullet casing on the floor between the seats. The coppery smell of hemoglobin was stronger here, nearly overpowering.
Being Breed, he couldn’t control his body’s reaction to the presence of fresh blood. Saliva surged into his mouth, his canine teeth ripping farther out of his gums until the fangs pressed into the flesh of his tongue.