Page 99 of Silver Tears

If the house wasn’t already bursting at the seams. Emma, Mill’s older sister, turns up as well, and rushes over to Mills and sweeps her into a hug and fusses over her. I rear back in shock when she comes over to me and hugs me, telling me she’s so grateful that I was there to help Milly. But I’m not the hero in this story. I used Milly’s secret to better my situation, and that just makes me a lousy shit. It’s exactly what our elders would do, and it makes me sick to my stomach that maybe I am just like the people I claim I want to be different from. From now on, I am going to make a conscious effort to be a better person and focus more on what matters. Mills makes me want to be a better person.

Everyone refuses to leave when Adam suggests people go home and get some rest. Vee and Eliza insist they’ll stay and there is no way my brothers would ever leave me. Emma dozes in the armchair, and Peggy places a blanket over her. I hate not being able to control the situation. Mills rests her head on my shoulder. She’s exhausted and I wish she’d nap, but she refuses.

“Where would he take them, Seb?” she asks me. “If you were him and you needed somewhere secluded and off the grid, where would you go?”

I shake my head. The boys and I have had a similar conversation with Boyd and our P.I.

“I don’t know, Mills. Boyd is going to talk to the local press, and we’ll get his photo out there. Hopefully, someone, somewhere, will have seen him.”

“Oh, my god!” Mills sits up wide eyed and grabs my arm. “That’s it. Rafe, you put a tracker in his elephant!”

Rafe nods, frowning. “I did, but it’ll be back at the beach house.”

“No, it won’t.” I grin, looking at Mills and realising what she has figured out. “Today was show and tell day at school. He took the elephant in with him!”

Adam looks less enthused by this news. “That doesn’t mean to say that he took it with him when they picked him up.”

“It’s a possibility thought, right?” Mills says, her face filling with a look of hope for the first time in hours. Rafe is already pulling out his laptop and sitting down at the dining table. He powers it up and everyone jumps to their feet, crowding round him.

He pulls up the tracker software and inputs the code for the individual tracker placed in Chop’s elephant. A circle of doom loads on the screen as it searches for an up-to-date location.

Location detected flashes across the screen before a GPS location map appears. Rafe enlarges the screen.

“The harbour,” Boyd announces, leaning over Rafe and examining the map. “It’s coming from the harbour. It’s coming from the area where the boats are moored. Can you pin an exact location?”

Rafe nods his head, zooming in on the map. It gives us his exact position. “Bingo!”

Boyd springs into action, straight on his radio, arranging for a tactical aid unit to be approved.

“What are we waiting for?” Mills asks. “We need to leave now!”

Adam places a hand on her shoulder. “We need to let Boyd take charge here, love. This is a dangerous situation, and we don’t know what he might do if he’s cornered, or he gets wind that we’ve found his location. We need to let the police do their thing.”

Mills opens her mouth, wanting to protest but looking deflated, she nods her head in agreement. I share a look with Rafe and Archer. Usually, we’d already be in our cars and on our way there by now, but Adam’s right.

Boyd receives the call a short while later to advise that the tactical aid unit is ready, and he informs us he’s heading over there to meet them at the harbour.

“We’re coming!” Mills announces, standing to her feet.

“Miss Silver, I would ask that you all wait here, and we’ll update you as soon as we know anything,” he suggests, nodding at Adam as he leaves.

The minute his car has pulled away, Mills jumps to her feet and looks at me. “Well, let’s go.”

“Milly, you heard Boyd,” her dad says, gesturing for her to sit down.

“I will not sit here waiting! I’m going down there, and you can either come or stay here, but don’t try to stop me.”

I can’t help but smile at her. There she is. My strong and sexy girl!

“Archer?” He nods his head and I throw my keys to him. “Let’s go!”

Adam curses under his breath but he, Damon, and Luca all follow us out of the house and pile into his car. Peggy, Vee, and Eliza all huddle out the front of Milly’s mum’s house and watch us all leave. Throughout the drive to the harbour, Mills clings on tightly to my hand. Her legs jitter with nerves the closer we get to the harbour.

“We’ll need to park up here and stay back,” Archer advises. “We don’t want to get caught in any crossfire.”

We all pile out of the car, and I tuck Mills under my arm. The armed police are surrounding a small fishing boat docked in the harbour. The boat is in complete darkness with no sign of life on board.

“I feel sick.” Milly groans, leaning her face into the crook of my arm. “I don’t think I can watch.”

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