Page 8 of My Pucking Family

Focus Leera.The battery is almost dead. As quickly as my fingers can move in their groggy state, I type up a text to Roman. Just as I hit send, my watch powers down, and I don't know if it sent my message before it shut down.

At that, I allow a few tears to escape.

I spend a few more minutes moving different parts of my body to find I've regained most of my control.

Using all this time and strength to regain function of myself has drained my body’s battery, and I find myself falling back into the darkness. At least this time it’s my choice, and not from a needle.

No sooner than the thought passes do I hear the descent of heavy footsteps again. I try to drag myself back to the light to beg them to leave me alone, but I used every ounce of stamina I had. “Sorry, Doll Face, can't have you waking up and ruining things,” Hired Help says as I feel the stick of yet another needle in my neck.

I'm so sorry, Roman. I tried.

7

Ithought coming up here and sitting under the simple twinkle lights she loved so much would help, but it's only causing the ache to intensify.

I considered tearing this all apart. Shredding it all to scraps of nothing, but that won't help either. And she loved it. She'll expect it to be here when she gets home. Because she’s coming home. She has to.

Sitting in the same place we sat the night I decorated it all for her, I allow my head to fall back against the cushions and let it all wash over me. The rage, the terror, the uselessness, the pain, the failure. This is all my fault. My wolf huffs in agreement.I deserve that.

I've been sitting here for hours, wallowing in my fear, allowing it to swallow me whole. The sun is starting to set, andit's dragging my hope below the horizon with it.

I force myself to my feet with the intention of going back inside to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen. I'll be even more pissed at myself if, because I fucked that off all day, Matilda ended up cleaning up after me. My phone pings with what I hope is an update from one of my men, but they don't really text me.

One look at the screen has me flying through the rooftop door and down the stairs to where Slate is still sitting in the exact same spot. The only change is the cord attached to his laptop to prevent its death and an additional laptop beside it.

“Leera just texted me from her number. I don't know how that's possible when we have her phone, though!” I’m yelling as I approach him. At the sound of my voice, Benny races into the kitchen area as well, with the twins hot on his heels.

Slate snatches the phone from my hands and starts typing like a madman on one of his laptops, with all of us hanging over his shoulder, like we’d understand anything on the screen anyway.

He shakes his head as he mumbles to himself, “I'm so fucking stupid. I should have thought about that. Goddammit, Boss, I should have thought about that. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Should have thought about what?! WHERE IS SHE?!” I roar, my chest rising and adrenaline pumping through me as I impatiently wait for an answer. “Doesn't she wear one of those smartwatches?” he asks as the realization dawns on all of us. We could have tracked her this whole time.

“Yes, she’s always using it for alarms and appointments and reminders. I didn't know those could be tracked.”

“Some of them can't, but the ones like hers that are connected to the networks can be. I'm not able to pull a signalfrom it now, but I can triangulate the general area from the towers her text pinged off of,” he says as he continues to type furiously on both laptop keyboards.

In only a few minutes, he locates a one-mile area for us to search. We crash around, grabbing our things on our way out of the townhouse to get our girl, as Matilda calls her. Fuck! I didn't clean the kitchen. I'm going to owe that little woman big time. But that can wait until we get my mate back.

We reach the garage, and my men turn to me for instruction.

“We take two cars in case shit hits the fan.”

They instinctively split into two groups. One group takes Benny's lifted, white truck, and the other group takes the black SUV with dark tinted windows.

Benny and the twins in his. Slate, Andrei, and I in the SUV.

I am hoping that driving will help channel some of the burning, electric intensity surging through my body, but nothing will help until she is safe in my arms.

According to the GPS directions Slate loaded to the SUV's navigation system, she's only been twenty fucking minutes away this entire gods-damn time!

I've never been so pissed and happy about something at the same time in my entire existence.

We approach a new neighborhood development area. There are what looks to be about fifty mid-construction homes scattered throughout the new subdivision. We initially drive by to ensure the area isn't crawling with whoever—or whatever—took Leera from me.

Seeing no signs of life in the extended area, we park on the outskirts of the neighborhood’s boundaries in the black of night.

She's in this neighborhood somewhere. I can't get a solid direction on her location because her scent is so faint on the light breeze.