Page 60 of Pack Favero

I’m almost at them, jumping over brush and a felled tree, darting around thick trunks and tripping over a tangle of thorns, when the bastard who hurt my omega manages to wrangle his door open. The kidnapper pauses to look over at me as I sprint toward them, offering me a wave before they climb into the car and rev the engine.

I reach the trunk of the car just as the driver spits gravel at me, spinning out his wheels before screeching out of where he’d parked in order to kidnap the love of my life.

“Mac? Zira?” I hear called from the house, but I’m busy chasing after the car that contains my whole world, pumping my arms and legs as fast as they can go and pushing even further as I follow after the car with gritted teeth.

It’s no good, though, because as fast as the adrenaline is making me, I have no chance of outrunning a car. I still try, though, chasing after it with cramping legs and an ache in my stomach as I bolt after the car that puts more and more distance between Zira and me.

The only thing that stops me is a rogue rock in the middle of the road, the tip of my sneaker catching on it a split second before it sends me sailing across the gravel road and scraping up my hands and legs in the process.

I don’t give a shit about that. I don’t give a shit about any of it, because I’m absolutely helpless and distraught as I watch the lights of the car I still can’t make out fade into the distance as whoever abducted my omega disappears into the night, taking my fucking heart with them.

“Yo, hey, Mac! What the hell?” Ford yells as he finally reaches me in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a pair of sneakers, pale-blue eyes as wide and as frantic as mine. “What the fuck is going on?”

Choking back a haggard sob of terror, guilt, and disbelief, I swallow hard as I try to catch my breath and rasp, “Someone took her. He broke into the house and took her. I was too far away to get to her before she was stuffed into the fucking car and driven off to wherever the hell he’s going to take her.”

“Zira? Our Zira was just abducted?” he snarls, needing clarification that I offer with a sharp nod and a low, agonized growl that burns through my chest. “Did you see the car or anything?”

I shake my head, feeling sick to my stomach, my chest so tight that it’s a miracle I can still breathe at all. I choke my words out, though, because I know I can’t hold them back. “I know it was a guy, though. I know who fucking took her.”

Ford frowns down at me from where I’m still kneeling on the ground, bloody, bruised, and cradling a broken heart beneath my ribcage. I peer up at him with wild, terrified eyes, and I don’t have to utter his name before Ford knows who I’m talking about. “Gasoline. That’s what Zira said, wasn’t it? He smelt of burnt rubber and gas.”

I nod sharply, remembering the faint traces of gas I couldsmell as I passed through the kitchen, and Ford snarls as he comes to the conclusion I’d already gotten to before him. “The biology professor. That fucking creep.”

Nodding again, I slowly haul myself off the ground, feeling the warm trickle of blood as it slides down my legs and beneath my hoodie sleeves as it glides down my arms with the scent of copper. “Henry took Zira.”

“That motherfucker,” Ford seethes, the same fury now coursing through his veins as it is mine.

With a harsh swallow, trying to clear away the roughness of my voice, I instruct my brother, “We need to call the guys and the police. Then we need to go looking for all the places he could be taking her. And we need to do it now, before I lose my fucking mind completely.”

Ford nods, jaw clenched tightly, before he wraps an arm around my back and we make our way back to the house, the journey taking longer now that I’m not running fueled on adrenaline. As soon as we locate Ford’s phone, we both make the phone calls that leave me sick to my stomach, relaying what happened and any other information I can hand over to whoever needs to hear it.

By the time we’re done and the rest of our pack promises to be here in under an hour, my nerves are frayed and my patience nonexistent, the only thing on my mind is where Zira is, what he’s doing to her, and how the fuck I’m going to find her.

As soon as the rest of our pack screeches into a parking spot at the lake house, Ford and I are done speaking with the police, and the guys all tear us into hard hugs and back claps, looking as stressed as I feel.

“Any news?” Barnes asks sharply, voice strained as he pulls back.

I shake my head, swallowing. “Nothing yet. They said they’d keep us updated on the search for her.”

He nods, though he doesn’t look happy about it, and steps back with the rest of our pack. “Do they have any idea who it was?”

Ford and I share a look before Ford nods. “They think it’s that biology professor, based on what we were able to tell them. Apparently, Hunter Gary Johnson has a record that was hidden when you looked into him. His father is a very wealthy and powerful man, so it was nothing to pay the right people to keep his son’s past failings on the down low.”

“What records?” Alek asks, unusually serious and angry, and rightfully so.

“There was a case two years ago of an abduction. An omega was walking home from work late one night. She was nabbed right off the street, only to be found the following day, chained in a house Hunter had bought three months prior. That was several states away, though. The omega was fine, but she had a lot to share about the guy. He’s fucking crazy, guys,” Ford explains. “Like, batshit crazy. Delusional as they come. He kept claiming she was his omega, that they were in love and destined to be together. She had no idea who he was other than an occasional customer who stopped by the diner she worked in every couple of nights.”

“Fuck,” Alek growls, dropping his hands onto his head before he starts pacing, tense with pent-up energy. “So, he has her?”

I nod. “I think so. I could smell rubber and gas in the kitchen when I went looking for her when I woke and she wasn’t in bed with Ford and me. It’s him.”

Laz nods before taking a deep breath, jaw clenching for a moment until his eyes narrow and he asks, “Is Zira’s mobile here?”

I pause, frowning, before shaking my head and then stopping when I realize I don’t actually have the answer to that.Looking over at Ford, I ask, “Did you see her phone?”

Ford thinks about it for a moment before he shakes his head. “No. She usually keeps it in the waistband of her pants if she doesn’t have pockets on the clothes she’s wearing. I have no idea what she’s wearing, though.”

“But she might have her mobile on her?” Laz pushes, pulling his own cellphone from his pocket.

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