Page 97 of Need Him Like Oxygen

I had to share her secret.

I had to tell the boss.

“Miss me already?” Renzo answered, the sounds of the party in full swing behind him.

“Listen to me,” I said, voice tight enough to vibrate.

“Cut that shit off!” he barked at the party, making everything go silent in a beat. “What is it?”

“Someone has Cinna,” I told him.

“The fuck you mean someone has Cinna?”

“She’s been on the trail of someone who is fucking with her. Something felt off about her not being at the meeting, so I called her phone. Some street kid had it, told me the whole thing. Pulled her into a van, drugged her, and drove off.”

“Mother fuckers,” he snarled, snapping at those gathered around him, and I could practically see them all moving out of the apartment in unison.

“Who runs the area around Amboy?” I asked. “That’s where she was taken from while asking the kid about some guy who said his boss was taking over this area.”

“Amboy? Fuck, Rico, who runs Amboy?” he asked, sticking me on speaker.

“Amboy is those Strand brothers. But the older one was pulled in a few months back. Younger seems to be losing grip on the area.”

“Who would take it over? That’s who has Cinna. Maybe a woman,” I added.

“A woman?” Rico repeated as I heard them all moving out onto the street.

“Just… think. She had reason to believe a woman was running things.”

“Fuck, um…”

“What about that Miller bastard’s widow?” Saff asked. “Around that area. Cinna was the one who had him offed.”

“I can’t think of anyone else,” Rico admitted.

“You got a location for her?” Renzo asked Saff.

“No, but it’s gotta be around there somewhere, right?” she asked.

“We’re five minutes away,” Renzo said, and I heard the warning in his voice.

A warning I had no intentions of listening to.

“I’m not waiting,” I said, cutting off my phone.

With that, I scanned the street.

“What way did it go?” I asked the kid.

“That way,” he pointed, and I took off at a dead run, wishing I had more weapons on me. I had a gun. Some extra ammo. And a knife in my pocket.

It would have to do until backup arrived.

The area around Amboy had a lot of house complexes and none of them felt conducive to kidnapping, torture, and murder.

So I kept running, my gaze frantically searching the surroundings, trying to locate the van, or any building that seemed like it could be used to hide someone.

It had been hours since they took her.

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