Page 67 of Merciless Oath

Everyone agrees, and even though going home feels like giving up, I don’t have anything else to suggest. We pile back into our cars, driving slower this time, keeping an eye out for unmarked vehicles or anything else suspicious.

We troop inside the house, dejected, frozen to the core, and exhausted. Everyone finds a place to sit in the cozy, warm living room, but I still feel the bone-chilling terror of my daughter missing.

“Let me try a few things,” I mutter, pulling out my laptop.

As I try to hack into communication systems and traffic cameras, the others try to form a plan. I pull up a live feed of the interstate heading into the city from our direction and let it play on the wide-screen TV.

At least there’s that. At least it feels like I’m doing something.

“How did they even find us?” Lux wonders, looking exhausted.

“Maybe a tracker?” Jack suggests.

“Let me see,” I muse. My fingers fly across the keyboard, even as I hope I come up with nothing.If they managed to get a tracking device on us here, they’re more experienced than we thought.

I log into my tracker database, narrow down our location, and a serial number pops up.

“No way,” I breathe, as everyone gathers around me, jostling for space. “There’s a device in this house.”

“Inside?” Rafael clarifies. “Not outside on the car or something?”

“No, it’s in here,” I confirm, looking around. I enter the number into the system, programming my phone to track it, and follow it straight to Valentina.

Confused, I stare at her, and she stares back, open-mouthed and in shock.

“Me?” she squeaks. “It’sonme?”

I crouch down, inspecting every part of her, and then I see it—a tiny tracking device caught in the broken zipper of her jacket. I pry it out from between the metal teeth and hold it up. The room is silent, no one knowing how to react.

Suddenly, the silence is broken by a strange sound.Classical music? What the hell?

Everyone flies into motion, spreading out to find the source of the sound. But I only see Valentina.

Her face pales, and her hands rise to her mouth, open in horror.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Valentina

“Mussorgsky’sSongsand Dances of Death,” I whisper. Everything starts spinning, and I sway gently. Enzo grabs me, scooping me up and draping my body across the couch.

“What is that?” he demands, his voice rising as the somber tune grows louder. “What does it mean?”

“Found it,” Jack announces, jogging in from the kitchen. He’s holding a cell phone in his hand. The song stops, and everyone looks around, confused.

“Whose phone is this?” Enzo yells, but no one claims it. He snatches it from Jack’s hands and opens the message flashing on the screen.

A photo.

I pry it out of his grasp and open it. When I see Matilda’s small frame huddled in a dark room, I gasp, unable to do anything else.

Another message immediately comes in. A string of coordinates.

I look at the picture of Matilda one more time, confirming it’s actually her, and read the message.

Looking for something? Come and find me.

“This is madness,” I say, shaking my head.

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