Page 2 of Gambit
“This wasn’t planned. This was an opportunity. Someone saw her come in here and tracked her without any of us knowing. This guy knows what he’s doing.”
“Fuck!” Oliver growls and smashes his fist into a nearby tree trunk.
“Not helping,” I mutter.
The forest gives way to an abrupt edge with a dirt track running alongside it. My heart kicks rapidly when I halt, scanning the ground. The footprints we’ve been following end, but my eyes catch on something else—long grooves gouged into the dirt, stark and unnatural against the organic chaos.
“Look at this,” I call out, stepping nearer. It’s unmistakable now: fresh car tyre marks cutting through the dirt, leading away from the woods.
“Son of a bitch,” I hiss, the surge of raw rage mingling with an ice-cold dagger of fear straight to my gut. This is serious. Someone has dared to take what’s ours.
“Want to change your mind about this not being planned?” Oliver snarls, his pit bull side out to play now.
“How could it be? No one could’ve known she was going to run into the forest without us,” I point out, trying to keep my cool, but I’m rapidly losing it.
“Then how?” Tarq asks. “How did they get a car hereandtrack her in such a short space of time?”
“Easily,” James murmurs. “Thiswasplanned. This road leads up to the field at the back of the townhouse. He was always planning to snatch her, but the location of where changed when he was watching her.”
“A stalker. Great.” I rub my hand over my face and close my eyes as I think about the million people it could be.
“We’ll find them.” Tarq’s statement doesn’t need a response. It’s a given.
Oliver turns his back on the path and swears under his breath, but then he lunges forward towards a bush on the edge of the woods.
When I reach him, he has a scrap of fabric in his hand. It’s torn, with frayed edges, and made of the same black material as Eliza’s dress.
“That’s hers.”
“We’re on the right track, but we have no idea where that track leads.”
“Then we follow it.”
“It forks out, and it’s started raining,” Tarquin points out as I look up and feel the large splats on my face.
“Fuck! Will this nightmare give us a break?” I run full pelt up to the fork in the road, but the rain is bouncing off the mud now, and it’s impossible to tell which way the car could’ve gone.
“We need reinforcements,” I say, turning to Tarquin, who has joined me and placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Then let’s do that. The best thing we can do for Eliza is to do this properly. Running around half-assed in the rain isn’t accomplishing anything.” James’s voice is icy behind me.
Nodding, I turn back.
Hold on, little killer. We’re coming for you.
This is just the beginning. They’ve taken her from us, but they don’t know what they’ve unleashed. We will find her, and whoever is responsible for this will die painfully, slowly, and with no mercy.
2
TARQUIN
Wetthrough and severely pissed off, we reach the townhouse and barge through the door. The place feels colder, emptier without Eliza’s presence.
“Where the hell could she be?” Oliver’s frustration echoes off the living room walls as he kicks a chair out of his way.
“Calm your tits,” I shoot back. “You think I don’t know the stakes here? We need to be calm, or we’re going to lose her.”
Raphael runs a hand through his hair, the gesture betraying his worry. “We’ve already lost her.”
