Page 64 of Reclaiming Adelaide

Great.

Nico Moreno stalked forward, his hand out for a shake. “Strange seeing you here.”

I threw my thumb over my shoulder. “Visiting the parents.” I turned to Becca. “Why don’t you go sit in the car?”

Becca nodded, making me miss Adelaide’s smart-ass mouth that would have accompanied my request, which was odd because it’d done nothing but made me want to put her over my knee this last week.

I glanced at the window she sat at and squinted, trying to see her through the heavily tinted glass.

“My condolences,” he said as Becca walked away.

“Is that your sister?” Charity, Nico’s girlfriend and enforcer, asked.

“What are you guys doing here?” I asked, ignoring her. The less information Charity knew about my family, the better. Even though we’d been around each other for years, I’d kept my sister far away from anything criminal.

“Visiting my brother,” she said.

We’d all shown up for her brother’s funeral. The circumstances of his death fucking sucked and softened me just a little towards her.

“Jake,” Becca said from the passenger’s side as the door swung wide open.

“What?”

“Wasn’t Adelaide supposed to stay in the car?”

I spun on my heel, my jaw clenched, as I yanked open her door and found the bench seat empty, her backpack gone.

No trace of her.

“Goddammit!” I slammed the door shut and pressed my steady fist against the glass, sucking in a lungful of air through my nose.

“Adelaide?” Nico paused and stepped toward me. “That wouldn’t be Adelaide Leaver, would it?”

I swung my gaze toward him. “Did you see her?”

“Not lately. The last I spoke to her was when I had her do a job for us.” Nico tucked his hand in his pantsuit pocket. “What areyoudoing with her?”

“Two hackers together, Nico. I think that’s obvious,” Charity said.

I glared at her, then turned back to Nico. “That’s one complicated story,” I said. “Becca, get in the car.”

If I had any chance of finding Adelaide before she made it to another bus or a fucking train this time, I’d need their knowledge of the area. It had changed too much since I was sixteen, and their connections would only make this faster.

“I see her disappearing act hasn’t changed much,” Nico said, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

“Well, the last time I had a job for her, she disappeared only to call me back with results ages later, then hung up. Are you having her look into your parents’ death or something?”

I shook my head. Where the hell had he drawn that conclusion?

“No. That case is closed. Why would I have her do that?”

“Well, I thought because you had her access your parents’ murder case at the police station.”

My ears rang, and my limbs grew heavy by my sides. That conniving little shit.

“When was this?”

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