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"This was a warning." He leaned forward and whispered in Marco's ear. "So remember that plan you had to kill Lily? You're going to abandon that plan, aren't you?" Marco fought to keep his eyes open and Tyler released a mirthless chuckle. "Oh yeah, you probably have a concussion. So try not to fall asleep." He slapped Marco's face, stood up, straightened himself and scowled at me. "Let's get the fuck out of here." He mumbled beneath his breath, storming off through the front door.

I should have apologized for putting us all at risk. Beating someone up to extract information was one thing. Murder was something else. I had no plans to murder him. I had no intentions, period. I'd snapped, but I didn't regret it.

"He didn't know anything," Tyler repeated.

"I know," I stepped past him.

Matt

Always so controlled and sensible, Ethan shocked the hell out of me. I thought that Tyler would be the scarier one today, but shit, Ethan became someone I didn't know. I'd say that the shock was the reason why I remained frozen and didn't jump in to stop him. But that would be a lie. I'd taken pleasure in watching Marco getting what he was owed. What was happening to us? We needed to get Lily back before we were driven insane, to the point of no return.

On the way over to the van, Ethan's breathing shortened, his shoulders began to shake and in the blink of an eye, he dropped to his knees, wrecked from sobs. My heart joined him on the pavement. Tyler swore, looking around.

"Get the fuck up," he bit.

But Ethan crumpled, his body melting into the sidewalk. I attempted to be strong for him, surprised at how well I was succeeding as I held his shaking shoulders.

"Come on. We have to go." My voice cracked.

It took both me and Tyler to get him up from off the ground. The weight of his grief rested like lead in his feet, dragging across the ground. It was like losing Lily all over again, damn it. My own shoulders weakened and I begged myself not to collapse.

In the van and in a trance, I barely registered the vibration in my pocket. Pulling out my phone, I held my breath when Ryan's name popped up.

'Please tell me you have her.' His message set me off and I broke down sobbing like a baby in the back of the van. We were hoping it would be either Marco or her father, but Ryan had had no luck either; we were back at square one. I couldn't bear this for another day.

"What is it?" Ethan turned to look at me.

I shook my head, while texting Ryan with tears dripping onto my screen. "Eric and Ryan haven't had any luck."

My whole body shook when I lifted my head to look out the window as if I expected her to start conveniently running down the street. My phone vibrated again, along with Ethan's and Tyler's. I couldn't bring myself to look at it, but Ethan sniffed beside me.

"The guys want us to meet them at Terry's workplace." His voice cracked with hoarseness.

Chapter 13

Eric

Ryan was driving me crazy with his pacing. We couldn't stay seated in the car, even if my ribs were on fire. We were hanging around outside the building, circling it. It was pretty scanty, so that was good. Still, every now and then we made eye contact with someone and we either looked away too fast or stared too long. "Let's just go in already," Ryan insisted, but I was less than able to chase anyone down at the moment. Just in case Terry decided to make a run for it, we needed more men.

We were all hoping that it was Marco, but I had my doubts. I was disappointed, but not surprised that he didn't have anything to do with Lily's kidnapping. I was almost certain it was her father, the stinking rat-faced man.

My body relaxed at the sight of Ethan, Matt and Tyler approaching from afar. Thank goodness, we could get the show on the road. There were only two people on this earth who would like to cause harm to Lily. Marco and her dad. At this point, it was a process of elimination and man, was I glad we had someone to do the dirty work for us. My parents would shit themselves if they knew that I was involved with a prior mob boss. But that's why I was shielding them from this as much as I could.

As Ethan got closer, my eyes almost flew out of my head. "What the hell happened to you?" I rushed forward, wincing with each step and as I reached up to move his short brownish-blond hair away from his forehead. There was a split in the skin, the blood caking on the scar.

"Fuck, dude. What happened to your hand?" Ryan remarked and I dropped my eyes to his bleeding knuckles, waiting for Ethan to say something.

Ethan's jaw tightened.

His eyes darkened.

"I wish you would've warned me that your friend's a fucking psycho," Tyler said, shaking his head and patting Ethan on the shoulder.

"Yeah. He kind of lost it," Matt added. "But the bitch had it coming." A short breathy laugh escaped.

"Kind of lost it? I thought I was in control there for a minute, knew my every move and strategy. Oh, la dee da, go with two kind enough gentlemen with gentle spirits, I told myself. Do what I need to do to extract information and leave. I knew Marco probably wouldn't call the cops with all the drugs he'd have up in there. I was right about the drugs. I was wrong about being in control." Tyler turned his silver gaze on Ethan.

"He almost strung our necks up for the cops there. And man, would they be delighted to catch me. All these years managing to stay out of jail and one day with this psycho and I'm off to prison?" He grinned. "Can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing for Anne, though. Or that I haven't done worse," he resigned. "But damn, just warn me next time."

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