Page 29 of My Temptation

“Kyle said Striker hasn’t called her, but he’s taking care of it.”

My head snapped toward Ethan. “Kyle’s taking care of it? What the hell does that mean?”

“No idea.” Ethan snorted. “But I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah, me too,” I agreed.

“Wonder what the plan will be if Skinner doesn’t make a move soon?” Ethan asked, turning the conversation back to the case.

“That’s a good question,” I acknowledged. “Patience isn’t exactly in any of our DNA.”

He snorted and glanced my way before focusing on the road again. “That’s true.”

Silence filled the cab of the truck, and I think we were lost in our thoughts about what could possibly turn this case in the direction we needed it to go. Nothing was working. We were doing everything we could think of, but Skinner just wasn’t making a move, causing a lot of anxiety for everyone. We were almost at Rick Skinner’s house when my cell phone rang. Pulling it from my pocket, I frowned but hit accept just as Ethan spoke. “Who is it?”

“Brody.”

Putting the phone to my ear, I never even said hello before Brody spoke. “You with Ethan?”

“Yeah.”

“Put me on speaker.”

I looked at Ethan with wide eyes and did what he asked. “What’s going on?”

“He has Beth.” Brody growled.

“What the fuck happened?” Ethan slammed on the brakes and did a U-turn in the middle of the road to head back toward New Hope. “We were with them less than an hour ago.”

“Fucker was in the apartment, from what we can tell. At some point, Beth called Sydney for help, and Syd called Cam. Striker was shot. They just loaded him in the ambulance.”

I closed my eyes. This was exactly what we’d been trying to avoid. “How bad?”

“Not sure yet. He was unconscious when Kyle got there.”

“Where do you want us?” Ethan asked.

“Elite,” he ordered. “I’m driving to the hospital now, but everyone else is meeting at Elite. Mila, I need you to start digging into Max Skinner online until Kyle arrives. Ethan, pull the damn security footage from the apartment building. We need to know how the fucker got past our system.”

“Got it,” he replied immediately.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I know more.”

And then he hung up.

To say I was in shock would be a bit of an understatement. I stared out the side window questioning every choice we made in the past few weeks and how we screwed up badly enough that we lost Beth and possibly Striker.

“We’re gonna find her,” Ethan said, but I wasn’t sure if it was for my benefit or his.

“I just didn’t think it could happen,” I admitted, shock filling my tone. “We took every precaution. How did he get past us?”

“That’s what we need to figure out.”

I looked at my watch. “We don’t even know how long he’s had her.”

“Look, if he wanted her dead, she would be,” Ethan pointed out. “He wants something else from her.”

“Yeah. But what?” I wondered aloud.

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