Page 24 of Hold Me Before You Go

“You, Jake, Ash, Hayes, and I have a certain set of skills that allows us to do what we must to get the job done, including saving people. This isn’t the first kidnapping we’ve dealt with, correct?”

It wasn’t. Over the last three years, Red Snake had successfully brought back a handful of people involved in a kidnapping. Dominic was right: we had the skills.

Over the next half hour, he continued asking me certain questions, things about myself, how I got into this position, and finally, how Carrie was kidnapped. He made me go over the crime scene with him, reminding me of who I was. He was forcing the logic I’d lost to my emotions to return to the forefront of my mind.

“Your emotions, your demons, don’t control you, Grayson,” Dominic stressed, his dark eyes fierce, jaw tight. “You are not your trauma. You survived. You made it out. There’s no reason to go back there.”

“There’s no reason to go back there,” I repeated.

“Say it again,” he ordered.

I did, then two more times.

Suddenly, that voice I’d been hearing slowly faded into a whisper, and the voice of logic took over.

Carrie Hale would be in my arms soon, and the people who took her would be six feet in the ground.

“You’re a bounty hunter. You’re a veteran. You’re going to find Carrie Hale and bring her home. Correct?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, stroking his jaw.

I met his eyes, nodding once. “Correct.”

A slow smirk spread across his face as he pointed at me. “There’s the Joseph Grayson I know,” he declared. “There’s the man Red Snake needs, the man Carrie needs. Are you going to let him slip out of control again?”

“No.”

“Good,” he replied, pushing up from his seat. “Let’s get this fucking meeting started. We have a federal prison to break into, after all.” He shot me a wink and opened the door, shouting for the rest of the guys to come in.

A few seconds later, after Dominic had taken his seat once more, the boys filed in; Jake, Ash, and then Hayes, who took the seat to the right of me. Jake went directly to the front of the room, pulling up the projector as Ash took his seat beside Dominic.

It was time to get my sunshine back.

Chapter Six

Grayson

“First things first,” Jake began, looking at me through his glasses. “Carrie’s trust fund has been moved, just as a precaution. That money is most likely the motivator, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting whoever has her get to it.”

I nodded, leaning back in my seat, all business now. “Where is it?”

He pulled out his phone, typing something, and then a second later, my phone dinged. My eyes landed on it, noting it was in front of Hayes. Without a word, my right hand slid it over to me,keeping his eyes on Jake. I grabbed it and opened the message, detailing her new account information.

“I left just under a thousand in here for her, just in case,” Jake noted when I looked back up, leaving the rest of the words hanging in the air.Just in case she manages to escape.

I nodded and moved on. “Did you get the surveillance footage I sent you?”

“Pulling it up now,” Jake replied, tapping some keys on his laptop. A second later, the projector screen came alive, and the five of us were looking at the inside of the General Store in Astoria. We watched in silence as Carrie entered the store, looking at her phone. She was texting me at the time, and when she looked up, she pocketed her device, greeting Jimmy, the owner. They had small talk for a few moments before she made her way through the produce section, down the center aisle, towards the office supplies. While she was looking, a man entered the store wearing dark clothing.

“Larks has a partner, I see,” Ash said darkly.

“We knew she wouldn’t have been able to do this on her own,” Hayes noted.

My eyes remained on the screen as Jimmy greeted the man with a smile before going back into the office for a moment. The man looked around the front of the store, clearly searching for Carrie. He went down the first aisle, then the next, then the next, and when he got to the center aisle, he blocked Carrie’s path. My hand curled into a fist on the table, my jaw tightening.

Dominic turned his chair slightly, his eyes on me. “Gray,” he called softly.

My eyes sliced to him as I gave him a single nod. I was good. Truly, I was. Whatever the hell happened in my office wouldn’t be happening again. Carrie was what mattered, not my shit.

When I looked back to the screens, I saw Carrie moving past the man, heading down the aisle. She was nearly to the frontwhen he grabbed her from behind. He yanked her back against his body, stifling her scream of terror, the packets of paper falling from her arms onto the floor. I leaned forward as the man whispered something in her ear, causing her to flinch before he shoved her forward into the shelving, knocking canned goods to the ground.

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