Page 70 of Savage Guardian

All at once, memories of that morning rushed in. He threw himself to his feet, ignoring the pounding in his skull. “Fae! Where’s Fae?”

Trouble grit his teeth before answering, “Gone, man.”

“Banshee, Banshee has her! The fucker came up behind me, hit me—he took her! The fucker took her right from my arms!”

Hound raised his hands, gripping Hawk’s shoulders.

“Hold up, what are you talking about? You saw him? Here?”

“Nah, I didn’t see who clobbered me, but it had to be him.”

Grimm furrowed his brows, concern etched into his thick forehead.

“Why would Banshee come after Fae?” he asked.

Throwing his arms up, Hawk cursed. “Because Faeis Aoibheal. She’s been Aoibheal all along, and that motherfucker knew that. He’s been playing us the whole time, steering us away from Fae to focus us on Carrie, so he could get to Fae—and it fucking worked! She had no one here, man, no one to guard her. He walked right in here and took her—right from me!” he bellowed. He sucked in an unsteady breath, his chest aching with terror. “I couldn’t protect her. He took her right from my arms.” He dropped back onto the chair, his knees giving out. Cradling his aching head in his trembling hands, he croaked, “He took her right from my arms, brother.”

AFK hurried into the room, his face lit with excitement. His laptop in hand, he blurted, “I got something.”

Rushing to the music stand by the piano, he pushed it flat, put his laptop on it, then clicked through one screen after another.

“After Jenkins found you and called Grimm, Madden did a sweep of the building. He found three cameras hidden in the sound booth, this recording room, and in the foyer with a view of the door. I figured that whoever set up the cameras would want to access the footage, which meant digital storage. I hacked the system, retrieved the files from today, and look what I found.”

He clicked the play button, and a nightmare began to play on the screen.

In the video image, Fae was staring up at Hawk, her eyes wide and panicked. He reached out to her, and she tensed. When he pulled her into him, Teddy came into the room behind them, just out of Fae’s sight. Seconds later, he cold-cocked Hawk on the back of the head with the butt of a gun. Hawk collapsed, Fae screamed, and Teddy pointed the gun at her.

“Shut up, or I’ll shoot him,” Teddy snarled. Fae quieted but whimpered, wrapping her arms around her torso, curling in on herself. God, she looked terrified, her face pale, her eyes glittering with tears. She kept staring at Hawk’s prone body, her lips trembling. She was worried about him.

Fuck!

“Why did you do that, Teddy?” she asked, her voice choked.

He chuckled. “No questions, girly. Right now, you need to turn around—don’t try to run—and we’re going to go for a little ride.”

She sobbed. “What about him?”

Teddy sneered down at Hawk’s unconscious body. “Leave lover boy here. Let his brothers find him. Don’t worry about him, it isn’t like he gives a shit about you, anyway.”

Those words struck him harder than Teddy had with the gun.

He could feel the gazes of his brothers on him, as he continued watching the video until Teddy had forced Fae out of the building, through the back door, and out of sight.

AFK stopped the video, then cleared his throat awkwardly. “So, we know Theodore Beresford is Banshee, and he has Fae. What we don’t know is where he took her and why,” he supplied, pointedly ignoring the screaming elephant in the room.

The elephant that was Teddy viciously informing Fae that Hawk didn’t give a shit about her. The worst of it, though, was the look on Fae’s face. Yes, she was terrified of the guy with the gun, but at that moment, her face showed pain rather than fear. Teddy had hit her right where it hurt. Right where Hawk had already pierced her soft heart, leaving her vulnerable to Banshee’s lies.

“Anyone check his place?” Trouble asked.

“Sent Fang and Slick. They’ll report back if they find anything,” Grimm replied.

“This guy is Banshee. They probably won’t find anything. Heard from Benson yesterday. Banshee was smart; the headless perv crime scene was clean—well, as clean as it can be for a seedy motel room where hookers and blow are a common occurrence. Not a single thing of his was left behind on the body, nor in the box with the head. And the letter and pictures he sent to the hotel room were clean, too. Like he was a ghost,” Hawk said, grinding his teeth in frustration. Again and again, Banshee proved just a little smarter than the Raiders and the LVPD. But he fucked up in placing cameras in his own studio. And hereallyfucked up by fixating on Fae in the first place.

She belonged to Hawk. And he wasn’t big on sharing, especially with psychotic, murdering stalkers.

“Can you track his car using city cameras? Find out which direction he went, anyway?” Grimm inquired.

“Fucking right I can, but I need my rig setup back at the clubhouse. This laptop doesn’t have the speed and power to run the code I’d need.”

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