Page 131 of Corpse Roads

“My men are waiting in London. You have one hour before I start cutting pieces off your pretty girlfriend.”

The video feed cuts. I shove the laptop back, twitching with the need to smash it to pieces. We cleaned that damn warehouse out during our latest raid. The cash was turned over to law enforcement.

It’s gone, and we’re out of time.

I’m going to break every single bone in this asshole’s body, grind his organs into a paste and gouge his eyeballs out with my bare fucking hands when I find him. Death would be too bloody kind.

“It’s been thirty hours.” Enzo blinks, his eyes sagging with exhaustion. “What is she thinking? Has she given up on us?”

“Don’t fucking say that. Harlow knows we would never leave her behind. We’re going to find her.”

“Hunter!” Theo shouts from across the room.

Surrounded by paperwork, wires, and countless computer screens, he signals me and Enzo over. Theo’s working almost head-to-head with Kade, taking three laptops each.

“What is it?” I sigh.

“This guy sent the video from a smartphone, using a burner app to anonymise his number. But it doesn’t encrypt the file itself.”

Kade turns his closest screen. “We’ve decoded the metadata to triangulate a rough GPS location. Two other phone signals have moved between the cellular towers in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Are they traceable?” Enzo demands.

“Already on it.”

Theo studies lines of complex computer script, twitching with adrenaline as he jumps over the code. We’re going to need a better lawyer. He’s hacking into the national prison system before my eyes.

“Jesus, Theo,” I curse.

“We don’t have time to issue a warrant for information,” he mutters, disabling their security software. “These pieces of shit have to be known to law enforcement.”

Enzo nods, watching over his shoulder. “Most of the cartel we dismantled was made up of old-timers.”

“I’m in.” Theo flicks between several screens, plugging the number into the system and searching.

We all lean closer.

“There.” I point a finger at the top search result. “Released from prison earlier this year, still open to the parole board.”

Theo clicks on the profile. “Diablo Ramirez.”

“Son of a bitch,” Enzo breathes. “This bastard was on our hit list for the raid. He was mid-level, responsible for funnelling cash up to the big guy.”

Loading the prison record, Theo magnifies the attached mugshot. We all study the face of the man that’s holding a gun to our heads.

“We found no trace of him last month.” I shake my head. “He’s a fucking foot soldier. A nobody.”

“That nobody is beating the shit out of Harlow.” Enzo glowers at me. “Take this seriously, Hunt. We brought this on her.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I growl at him.

Leighton rises from his seat at the table next to Brooklyn and her men. His face is whiter than the frosting of snow outside.

“I didn’t know who he worked for,” he whispers, unable to look at us. “I swear, I didn’t fucking know.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

When he refuses to look up from the mugshot on Theo’s screen, I roughly grab him. He’s wearing the same damned expression as the day he got convicted—a stupid, ashamed child, running from the responsibility.

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