Page 98 of Savage Promises

Shane

The cold wind and pelts of stinging rain whip harshly at my face, the phone pressed to my ear.

Rhys answers on the third ring. “Aye, Shane?”

“I need you. Right now,” I bark.

“What’s going on?” my cousin asks, already sounding alert.

“Just get to the brownstone. Bring the trackers.”

“Shane, are you serious? We’re staked out here.”

“Now,” I snap and hang up before he can keep arguing with me.

I pace up and down the sidewalk, my polished shoes getting soaked and my trousers ruined from the splash of puddles as cars race down the block. The umbrella does little to shield me from the deluge. The sky has darkened, and the damn streetlights don’t help much.

Rhys pulls up twenty minutes later and steps out of his Audi, followed by Blade and Jett, his dynamic duo. They’re the best when it comes to finding people who don’t want to be found.

Let’s hope that applies to cats.

Wearing a Yankee hat, Rhys frowns as he approaches me. “Who are we tracking down, Shane?”

“Hawk,” I say firmly and reach into my phone to find a picture of the furball.

“Do you mean Havok? The drug dealer?” Rhys shakes raindrops from his cap.

“Hawk. My cat.” I show him one of the dozen photos Lennox texted me of him acting cute when I’m not home. “My wife’scat.”

Blade glances at Jett and I catch the subtle twitch of a smirk.

Rhys crosses his arms, his eyebrows furrowed. “Shane, you dragged me and my trackers away from protecting our weapons for acat?”

“This isn’t a joke,” I growl, stepping closer. “You find our enemies hiding in sewers and dumpsters. I expect you to find one damn cat who’s probably shivering under one of these cars. Got it?”

“All right, all right.” Rhys raises his hands in mock surrender. “Where was he last seen?”

I gesture to the brownstone. “One of my guards let him out earlier.”

“And the dosser’s still breathing?”

“It was an accident,” I growl, wishing I can at least smack the crap out of the guard, but that will only make Lennox feel worse.

The three guys spread out, canvassing up and down the block. The rain has finally stopped and people are coming out of the woodwork. Jett questions a dog walker with two German Shepherds who look like they could have eaten Hawk. Blade checks under all the parked cars on the street with a mirror then rifles through all my neighbor’s trash cans.

No cat. But several rats.Great.

Rhys knocks on doors in case Hawk got confused and slipped into the wrong house. Or someone found him and claimed him. All while I’m calling out to him, hoping he recognizes my voice.

For the next hour, we continue the search. I’m freezing and my fingers are numb. Every second we don’t find him, my chest tightens. Lennox is in the house, probably crying, thinking the worst. And it guts me to have let her down.

Rhys comes back, shaking his head. “No luck. None of the neighbors have seen him.”

I rub my hands over my face, my frustration boilingover. “Damn it.”

Blade and Jett report the same grim response. “I can start looking on other blocks,” Blade adds.

Past my street, the city opens up. Hawk can be anywhere. That is a waste of my best trackers’ time to start tearing apart the entire Lower East Side.

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