Page 18 of Shadow's Edge

Duke didn’t flinch, just exhaled sharply and dusted himself off. “She’s not there to intercept and retrieve,” he muttered, brushing dirt from his jeans. “She’s there tofindand pass the locations back to us. If she intervenes, her cover is blown. She’d be in danger, as would the innocents involved.” His voice dropped slightly on that last part, his meaning clear.

It made sense. Logically and tactically—it was actually a huge advantage to have someone on the inside. But logic didn’t mean shit when emotions were running this high.

Noah wasn’t buying it.

“She could be killed!” he snapped.

I snorted. If there was one person who didn’t need anyone worrying about her, it was Bo. She was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Duke smirked slightly, as if he’d been expecting that reaction from me. “You don’t actually believe that any more than I do,” he said, then nodded toward me. “That woman could give my beautiful niece a run for her money.”

I rolled my eyes, snorting again, but didn’t argue. Nofuckingway, not when he was telling the truth.

Noah wasn’t done. He stalked right up to Duke, practically vibrating with fury. “If anything happens to her, you son of a bitch,” he spat, his voice low and lethal, “I willfucking end youmyself.”

And just like that, he turned and stormed off, heading straight for the bikes.

I exhaled, watching the tension simmering in the air. I hadn’t driven my bike to this location. I’d taken an SUV instead, expecting to have Perry in it when we left. Instead, I had three kids, an unexpected bonus. And now, I was begging every higher power that Bo had Perry somewhere safe, because if she didn’t…Fuck.

I turned my attention back to Mace, who looked about two seconds from combusting. His anger wasn’t just a simmer, it was volcanic. His girlfriend and his sister were tangled in this mess, and his body was coiled tight, a raw nerve waiting to snap.

I stepped toward him, catching his attention before he could say something reckless.

“I won’t let you down,” I said, my voice firm. “You have me.”

Mace met my eyes, searching them, measuring. Slowly, I watched the shift, the emotion bleeding out, the rage dulling into something cold, something controlled. It was the art of war, the tactic we all learned early on—shut it down. Remove the emotion. Focus on facts. Strike with precision.

His expression settled into the same blank neutrality I was wearing. Good. He’d still swing between logic and emotion in the coming hours, but for now, he could focus on being a warrior. Not a brother. Not a lover.

I gave him a brief nod, then turned back toward the SUV. We had a job to do.

JAGGER

The kids were safe, dropped off with the authorities, and the necessary reports filed. One of Kyle and Hunter’s contacts had taken over from there. The whole time, the guy had referred to her asKai, though, and it was eating at me. I knew I had to get used to it, but to me, Kai was separate from the woman standing in front of me.

Kyle had always carried a masculine name. She owned it. She made it work. It had belonged to her grandfather—a man she idolized. Jagger had given it to her, and itfit.

But Kai? Kai felt… wrong. Like it didn’t belong to her. Like it was a shell, a shadow of who she really was. I doubted I’d ever call her that.

We were driving toward Mace’s town when she suddenly signaled for us to pull over. The second we did, she broke the news, Perry had been found in thesamepark where she’d been snatched. A fuckingnotehad been left with her, sayingthe kidnapper had suffered a moment of madness—grief-driven, fueled by the death of their own child. A bullshit apology.

But the real kicker? The authorities were covering it up. TheSenatorwas pushing for harsher penalties and demanding more power to fight trafficking. If the public knew just how out of control the situation really was, they’d panic, and the government would look weak. They knew this, so, they swept it under the rug.

We were still stewing over it when Hunter’s phone rang. It was his dad. And the news was the kind that made the blood in my veins go ice-cold. His woman—Piper—had been taken and a photo had already been sent, just like with Mace’s woman and sister.

A single message beneath it.

"Tick tock."

Hunter lost hisshit, and it took everything we had to bring him back.

Now, we were holed up in a run-down motel, the walls thin, the air thick with tension.

Mace, Hunter, and Preacher were in the middle of a heated discussion—or maybe a better word wasexplosion.They were shouting, strategizing, barely keeping it together.

I’d seen a lot in my life. I’d watched men die in front of me, their last breaths rattling in their lungs. I’d seen women brutalized, kids beaten, soldiers crack under pressure. But this? Seeingthemlose control? Seeing Preacher—the man who had always been our rock—looking like he had no answers? What I was feeling right now was a different kind of fear and anger.

One I didn’t ever want to feel again.

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