Page 21 of Brutal Vows

“It isn’t Evaline in the video,” Kenzo points out. “She must have the same comb as someone else.”

Gia shakes her head, determination shining in her eyes.

“No, that comb is called a Medusa comb,” she explains, rolling her shoulders back as if she needs to sit straighter to give herself some confidence. “They’re uniquely designed. No two are alike in color or stones.”

Medusa.

What had Charity tried to tell us right before she was shot and killed? Her last two syllables had beenMe?—

“Where did she get the comb from?” Adrian pipes in, his brow creased as he takes in everything Gia just told us.

My little mafia princess bites her lower lip, her gaze dipping to the floor, all signs of her earlier confidence gone.

“Gia,” I warn her.

She lets out a small breath and stares Kenzo square in the eye.

“Your mother.”

Fuck it all to hell, she’s right. It all makes too much sense.

“Why though?” Kenzo finally asks the question that has been sitting on his mind since Gia dropped her small bomb of information on us. The three of us are currently gearing up in the armory one floor down from Kenzo’s penthouse for the storm to come.

Someone took Evaline and we need to find her. Several of Kenzo’s men reported that her driver’s transponder wentoffline not long after she left the penthouse. It hasn’t been caught because whoever is working with Megumi, Kenzo’s mother, managed to create a loop so the car appeared to be sitting outside his mother’s place.

“Why else,” I shrug, placing a few extra magazines on my belt. “Power. Resistance to change. Vengeance for a murdered child. All three of those things are strong motivators for your mother to want your father dead.”

Kenzo nods his head knowingly, agreeing with my assessment. I don’t have to be a mind reader to know that he is scouring every incident since his father’s death and connecting the dots back to his mother.

“How are we going to find her?” Hiro asks, adorning his own gear. “We’ve tracked her to the border of the National Park, but after that, the chip in her ring goes dead. That park is thousands of square miles. There is no way we’ll be able to find her in there.”

Kenzo curses, banging his fist against the weapons cage at his second’s words. He knows Hiro is just speaking out loud what we are all thinking, but the guy is lucky it isn’t his face that got punched.

“I can help with that,” a small voice speaks up from the doorway.

What the fuck?

“How the hell did you get down here?” A low growl rumbles in my chest at seeing Gia standing in the doorway—with my laptop—again.

Her upper teeth dig into her plump lower lip as she glances up at me through her thick eyelashes. The laptop is shaking in her arms, the weight still too much for her. Sighing, I stalk toward her. She takes a small step back, her eyes rounding at the no-doubt murderous expression on my face, but she doesn’t fully back down.

“Here.” I take the laptop from her and guide her over to the table where our weapons are laid. Clearing a spot, I set the laptop down and motion for her to take a seat on the stool. “Fucking sit before you fall over and break my shit.”

Kenzo and Adrian share an amused smile that irks me. I’m not being nice. If she doesn’t sit down, then I’ll end up having to replace my laptop because she’ll drop it.

“Shove off,” I hiss at them when they notice me glaring at them. They’re chuckling, the assholes.

“How do you think you can help?” Adrian asks, securing his gun.

“The comb,” Gia starts. “It doesn’t have the range that her wedding ring chip has, but that won’t matter since we know the area they took her. Once we get within range, I should be able to track the comb to her precise location.”

“Should?” Kenzo raises a skeptical brow. “We’re going off your what? Intuition?”

Gia shrugs. “I’ve never tracked a Medusa comb before,” is her snarky response. “Have you?”

Adrian laughs, quickly covering it with a cough.

Kenzo shakes his head and blows out a breath, turning to me.

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