Page 149 of Tempting Little Thief

“Why do you think they did it?” Delta grins, leaning into Ander while crossing her legs over Alto’s lap. “People are shredding clothes as they run.”

“And that is where the orgy shall be born.”

Everyone chuckles, but I’m hardly hearing them anymore.

We’re on the road with no lights behind us, and our phones have yet to ring. Granted, it’s been a total of five minutes, but that’s better than I’ve managed on my own.

What should be a two-hour drive is just a little over one with Dom behind the wheel, eager to get us there and back as fast as possible, yet to me, it feels like five, maybe even ten, long sets of sixty minutes.

At one point, I even closed my eyes to count them but grew distracted each time, and then suddenly, we were in Brayshaw.

As we pull up to the old warehouses Kenex had led us to last time though, the place is a graveyard, nothing but empty, busted bottles littering the ground and dried bloody dirt mid-ring.

I step up to it, gripping the rope as a wave of emotion rolls over me, causing me to shake.

Where the fuck is he?

I pull my phone out, but Delta plucks it from my fingertips, and I press my middle fingers to the corners of my eyes.

We’ve been out here for a good twenty minutes and have seen nothing but a cat jump across the busted crates lining the edges. I walk over to the large warehouse building, yanking on the locked chain, but there’s no light peeking through anywhere, and it’s not like anyone could be inside with the door bolted down.

The thought sends a shudder down my spine.

Oh my god, what if my daddoeshave him?

What if he’s locked in Dad’s soundproof “business,” a.k.a. torture room in our family home’s basement?

Panic flares and I whip around, eyes wide.

Damiano darts toward me, gaze flying from right to left in search of the threat, but then Bronx jumps off the crate she climbed up on in her four-inch platforms. “Found it!”

All heads snap to hers, but she says nothing as she moves toward Dom’s car, so we follow at a quickened pace, climbing in.

“What did you find exactly?” he asks as he puts the car in drive and looks to the navigation screen as she types in the location.

“His car. It’s been parked for about an hour at this address.” Her gaze locks with mine in warning. “It’s a house on the nicer side of town.”

My pulse leaps in my chest. A house.

Chloe’s house?

No. Stop.

I will literally burn it down.

Bronx smirks as if reading my thoughts and I check my bra for the Zippo I stuffed inside it, just in case, but as we pull onto the street, a second small stroke of … rightness, the mere possibility of going to him soothing part of me. I hold on to the feeling as we make the small trip to the house Bronx believes Bastian might be.

The street is semi-deserted as far as the homes go, most still under construction or with For Sale signs in the front yards, like the place he took us the night he met my friends.

Only this time, the court is filled with cars, most blocking each other in. The only vehicles with a clear path out are two identical black SUVs, the kind my father’s men barricade him between when he’s out on “business.”

“That’s … worrisome,” Delta notes what I just have.

“It’s probably just the Brayshaw heirs.”

“And all these other cars?” Alto edges, unloading, then reloading his Ruger.

Damiano pulls up behind the last black SUV right as a handful of people stumble out onto the lawn. A couple drunk frat-looking boys begin wrestling as the girls giggle and cheer. He turns to me. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

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