Page 67 of Unhinged Cravings
“And you?”
“Need to make a phone call.”
He dragged the man out, and I paced the floor, feeling helpless again. They had kidnapped her right under my nose. Infiltrated my ranks. Arrogant enough to be seen by me. Playing a game that only I had ever mastered. A game that was coming to a head. Every part of me wanted to recklessly go after her, to burst into that warehouse and kill everyone in it. But that’s what they expected me to do, and I’d be dead, leaving Ava to suffer for my impulsiveness.
Then there was the fact that they were using an actual business as a front, which meant the people in that factory could be innocent. It was something they had learned from me. Blend in, hide in the obvious places, be a ghost in a crowd.
I needed to get to her, but for the first time in my life, I needed help in getting what I wanted. I pulled up my brother’s number, willing to be the one crawling and begging this time if it meant Ava was safe. Hitting his number, I waited, my throat constricting until he answered, and I said the three words I’d been dreading.
“I’m in trouble.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
GREYSON
Irose to my feet, walking to the large window of my office. People were walking the street below, enjoying the warm day, unaware a predator watched them from above.
“I’m listening,” I told my brother. He sounded sincere for the first time in the years we’d been apart, and that worried me more than it should have, considering the bad blood between us.
“They took her.” A distinctive crack in his voice had my brow furrowing.
“Who?” I asked, although my gut told me the answer.
“Ava. Stole her from me and I didn’t see it coming.” I could hear the thud of him punching something. “Grey, I need to get her back, and these assholes have me cornered.”
The nickname only he had ever called me until Riley had claimed it. An endearment when we were kids, a reminder of our rift when we got older.
“Slow down. Who has her, and how did they take her from you?” The suspicions that Mason and his girl had raised pawed at my thoughts, and as Emerson spilled the truth, he confirmed them.
I listened to the unraveling of a man who had once been mybrother and my partner, my best friend, and had become my adversary in a sequence of events that had spiraled from my one poorly choiced lesson.
“So, these guys have been masquerading as Omens, pissing everyone off, and now they have Ava. And you let them in right under your nose?” He was off his game, and I could only imagine it had started with the Randall incident, then spiraled from there. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was distracted. She…” He paused, and I didn’t have to see him to know he was searching for words.
“You fell for her. Damn it, Riley was right.” I heard a smug ‘hmm’ and looked up to see her leaning on the doorframe with just as smug a look. That door had been closed when I’d taken the call, and I shot her a scowl to remind her of what I thought about her sneaking up on me.
“Close the door,”I mouthed to her. Even if my secretary was part of the business, this was a conversation I didn’t want anyone hearing.
Emerson said nothing, but he didn’t need to. My brother had never asked for help. It was beneath him. Especially from me.
“So you took Ava, intending to take my wife…” A growl accentuated those two words. “To force my hand, giving me no choice but to listen to how your empire is in the tank and you want me to bail you out? Am I understanding that correctly, Emerson?”
“Yes,” he snarled, the man I knew returning with my curt summary of his actions.
“Idiot. You never did understand the art of subtlety or manipulation.”
“I don’t need manipulation or subtlety. People fear me because I act swiftly and with force.”
Two halves of the same coin our parents had called us. I used my brains. Emerson preferred his muscles. It was what made us the perfect team, one very similar to Brinks and Raines. Only when Emerson flexed his muscles, he had alreadycalculated every outcome and decided on the most lethal course. He was too smart for his own good, with a need to strike quick.
“You fucked up,” I told him. “And you almost fucked it up with me. You had no guarantees that I would help you, especially if you had taken Riley. A bullet would have been in your head before a word left your mouth.”
“And mine would have been in yours. And I didn’t fuck up. I cleaned house, and it went wrong.”
I turned from the window to see Riley perched on my desk, watching me with those sharp green eyes.
“Then how did you end up with Ava?” I snapped, frustrated that he was such a mess when he’d never been this way.
