Page 32 of Frosted Hearts

"I told you to stay inside!" he shouts back. "Why didn't you stay inside!"

"Because I wanted to help you! It was close to the three-hour mark when you said that you would be back," I answer, much calmer than I feel. Shouting at each other is going to get us nowhere. "There's nothing that can be changed now. Just tell mewhat you want Grace and me to do and we will do it." My tone is cold and detached as I watch him take several deep breaths and stare at me. I want to cower as his icy blue eyes watch my every move but I don't, instead holding my ground until he makes a decision. I won't regret last night, but I also will learn from it.

"What do I want you to do?" he chuckles. "I want you to stay in here, while I go outside and check the permitter. After that, we will talk." He turns and heads out of the room, slamming the bedroom door shut behind him. The sound makes me jump, but other than that I don't move. Not yet. I'm too furious that he would bring up what happened last night between us and use it against me. That was a low blow and I'll be sure to remind him of it when he's back.

Iasked her to do one simple thing. Stay inside. It really wasn't that hard of an order for her to follow. This is exactly why I had been debating bringing them with me or not, but I thought she would listen. If she had just listened, then everything would be fine. We wouldn't be in this mess, and we wouldn't have gotten into a fight. If she had just stayed inside, the men who showed up wouldn't have gotten a good look at her, and that's what I'm concerned about. If you pay attention to the news, then you will most likely recognize her. Senator Granger likes to put his daughters on display for the whole world to see for large events, forgetting that it puts them at risk. If the men who were here paid any attention to the news, then they would know exactly who they were speaking to and that worries me.

Earlier when Illeana was explaining what happened, she said they were looking for someone but never gave her a name, not that she asked for one. That's what has me on edge even more. My bet is they could have been here looking for her. Why they didn't do anything before, I'm not sure. They were probably just the scout team, sent to see if she was even here. Once confirmed, then they would bring more men with them. That leaves me ata disadvantage. It would already be a rough fight, one against four, but I could do it if prepared, but against who knows how many? Yeah, I'm fucked. Really fucked. Knox is going to lose his shit, not to mention what Trevor might do if they find out. Not looking forward to that conversation.

I spent a good twenty minutes outside after I stormed away from Illeana checking the perimeter for any and all leads I could find. I took some pictures of the tire tracks and already emailed them over to Sky and her team to begin looking them over. Now, I'm back inside and have been scouring through the security cameras in the office. I locked myself in here when I stormed back inside. The last thing I wanted was for the girls to come and try to talk to me. Grace was innocent and didn't deserve my wrath, not like her older sister. Damn girl was driving me insane. This is what I get for getting involved with a younger woman. A damn headache.

"We literally hung up just a little bit ago," Knox states as he answers the phone. "What do you need now? Did you call to apologize for hanging up on me?"

Fucker.Since when have I ever called to apologize for hanging up on his ass. I swear it's a weekly occurrence at this rate. And he does the same shit to me. It's our brotherly love language.

"Never gonna happen, Asshole," I snort, keeping my eyes locked on the camera footage I began sorting through. I need to get it all saved and emailed over to Sky as well. I told her to be on the lookout for a follow-up email after giving her the briefest of explanations with the first set of photos and told her to get me answers pronto.

"Then why the hell are you calling?" he grunts at the same time a loud bang sounds in the background of the call. I'm tempted to comment on the noise but figure we have more important stuff on our plate then me giving him shit right now.

Yeah, I know, who am I?

"While I was out shopping, an SUV stopped by the house asking questions," I begin. He doesn't give me any time to finish before he cuts me off with a string of curses and questions. I swear the man doesn't take a breath for a good minute or two. "You done?" I ask when I can finally talk. When he doesn't make a comment, I finally continue. "If you hadn't cut me off, I'd have saved you the trouble of asking most if not all of the damn questions." I take a quick breath before diving into the rest of the story. "Despite me telling Illeana to stay inside, the damn stubborn woman opened the door when she heard a car pull up and didn't check the window, though according to her, the SUV looked like mine. I've been going through the camera footage and confirmed whoever it is was driving a similar vehicle to what we brought. Four men got out of the vehicle, but only three approached her. The camera got a good look at the three who came close to the cabin, and the pictures matched the descriptions that Illeana provided me. I hate we didn't get a good look at the fourth man, but hopefully, these three will be a good start. I'm sending the pictures to Sky now for her to look over and identify who any of these fuckers are. Only one male spoke to Illeana, asking her questions and saying they were lost trying to find someone but never said who they were looking for. Thankfully, the woman has some brains and never left the porch, and when the man got closer, she backed up to the door to make a quick escape. I guess she has some sense of self-preservation. My bet is that they were looking for Illeana, which means we need a game plan. Damn woman is too recognizable thanks to her father."

Knowing I just tossed a bunch of information at Knox, I pause to give him a minute to catch up but not long enough that he's going to take over this whole conversation, the last thing I need is him spewing a bunch of shit at me and blaming me whenI'm already pissed enough at myself for letting this happen. I got sloppy and that's on me, I accept my fuck ups.

"We need somewhere to move the girls. They aren't going to like it but they also aren't going to have a choice if we are to keep them hidden and safe. I also need to figure out how the fuck we were tracked here. I told the girls to not use their phones and made them shut them off when we left Granger mansion." That's the part that is driving me insane even more. Which one of them went behind my back to use their electronics? If they didn't then what the fuck is tracking us. I've limited how much the girls can do on their laptops to only school work. I'm sure Sky could figure out if they were hacked somehow. Is that even possible to track someone's location through their computer? Fuck, I don't know enough about this tech shit, it was never my area of expertise.

"Steel," Knox almost shouts through the phone pulling me from my thoughts.

"What?" I grunt, trying to remember what the hell he just said.

"Get your head in the game," Knox scolds. "We have no idea how long it will be before those men come back with even more men to collect the girls. We need to move them. It's not going to be today, despite how much I wish it was."

"What do you mean not today?" I cut him off before he could continue. "Did you miss me saying that we need to move the girls?" Damnit. This is not how I expected this to go at all.

"No, Asshole, I didn't. But didn't you say that there was a snowstorm up there? You all are stuck, and you know it. It's going to take a day at least a for those men to return back to the cabin. It gives us time to figure out who they are. Keep the girls calm, but have them pack their bags. I'll call Shadow and tell him to expect you all late tomorrow afternoon depending on the weather. I didn't want to involve the Chaos Brotherhood, but it looks like we have no choice. They are the only ones we trustclosest to you. It'll take too long for any of us to get there." Knox explains.

I don't even have to ask why he didn't want to involve the Chaos Brotherhood anymore than we already have. If word spread that we were working with a one percenter motorcycle club, we would lose our reputation and no one would give us security contracts. I wish that wasn't the case but that's just how the world views things. All the guys I've met in the MC are some of the nicest ever, even if they are scary as fuck to look at and coming from a guy who was special forces in the military, that's saying something. I'm sure we'd be able to maintain some of our contracts, but if word got back to Senator Granger that we allowed both of his daughters near the MC, I'm sure he'd have all our heads on a spike outside his mansion doors in a heartbeat.

"Alright, just give me the word and I'll take the girls there. We can't stay there long though. We're going to need another spot to go and hide out at. No one can know the girls were ever at their compound." Honestly, I'd rather have taken them there to start with but it’s too late now.

"I'll keep you posted. Remind the girls to stay inside, and make sure you question them on their cell phones, or better yet take the cell phones from them and maybe their laptops too. Lock them in the Faraday bag so no service can even try to get through while we figure out how they were tracked," Knox instructs firmly. I'm not going to fuck around arguing with him. Not on this now. "Also, send me everything you sent to Sky. I'm going to ask the Senator if he recognizes any of the men. He probably won't and if he does he won't tell me but it's worth a shot. We need to use all our resources for this. Keep those girls safe!"

"Yes, Sir," I answer, already shooting off the emails he asked for. "We will be ready to move as soon as the snow is clear. You're right the roads are impassable. I could barely see any ofthe tire tracks from the other SUV when I had gone outside to look for them due to how much snow had already fallen. I'm sure by now they are completely gone."

"Be safe, Steel, and keep those girls safe. They are your responsibility." He doesn't give me a chance to answer before hanging up on me. See, Asshole, it's our brotherly language.

I love how he leaves me with the hard shit to do. Illeana and I are pissed at each other. Grace is going to be pissed I'm making them move, and I'm about to piss them off more by taking their electronics. Yeah, this is going to go over swimmingly. Fuck me. I guess there's no time like the present to go deal with the disaster I'm about to walk into. I suppose we should be thankful that we had almost a whole week out here before anyone found us and stirred up trouble. I'm thinking we need to find a new cabin to use as a safe house at this point.

Locking the computer, I rise out of my seat and head to the door. I think I'm going to start by talking to Grace. At least to get her packing. She should be easier to talk to than Illeana. Okay, and maybe I'm trying to avoid the fight that is bound to come from her. She has a damn temper on her, though you wouldn't know it upon first meeting.

Well,that definitely went better than I had planned. Grace easily agreed to pack when I promised there would be other kids to play with where we were going and it wouldn't just be the three of us. The way her eyes lit up when she found out she would get to socialize again, was something I hadn't expected to see. I thought she would be mad that she wasn't going home yet and back to school, but nope that barely came up inthe conversation. Whether it was because she knew the answer already or just didn't care I'm not sure.

Now, it's time to go face the music of the mess I made earlier. The anger that had settled earlier, upon speaking to Knox and then Grace, has completely returned with every step I take down the hallway to my room. Ii probably shouldn't expect to find Illeana waiting for me, but I'm really hoping she's where I left her.

I note the door to her room is shut, same as mine. That's really not looking good for me. Continuing past her room, I reach my door, turning the handle and pushing it open. The bed in the center of the room is made, no one would even suspect we had slept there last night. All the lights are off, the only light in the room coming in from the windows. The door to the bathroom ensuite is open and the light is off in there as well.

Well shit.Of course the Princess wouldn't make it that easy for me. Now here's to hoping that she doesn't have her bedroom door locked, or I'm about to have to grovel through a damn door.

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