Fourteen hours had passed since Trent took Tilly from me.

The sun was starting to rise.

Where was she? Was she cold, scared? Alone?

I hadn’t slept, and my eyes were gritty and sore. I was pretty sure I was slowly going out of my mind. Jude came and went. He hugged me, tried to reassure me, but we both knew every hour that passed, meant finding her got more difficult; trails grew cold, witnesses would be harder to find.

It also meant Trent may have taken her for reasons other than money, though I couldn’t think what those reasons could be.

People came and went, tried to talk to me. But unless it was about Tilly, about bringing her home safe, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything else.

Jude had come in and sat beside me earlier, his hand touching mine. I could feel him watching me. I knew he was trying to find the words to comfort me, but there weren’t any, they didn’t exist.

He’d leave again soon. He’d stopped in to check on me after searching for Tilly all night, with a determination that made me believe if anyone could find her and bring her home, it was him.

I turned away from the window and leaned into his side. He wrapped a strong arm around me, holding me so tight it hurt. I needed that. I was so numb, so damn numb.

He kissed the top of my head, his breath shaking from him on a rough exhale. “Beautiful…”

My phone started ringing.

We both froze for a second, as the shrill sound echoed through the living room. I pounced on my phone sitting on the coffee table.

Unknown number.

“It has to be him,” I said to Jude, who was now standing in front of me.

He dipped his chin, silently telling me to go ahead and answer. Neco had something set up, something that would trace Trent’s whereabouts if he called me, no matter where he was or what phone he was calling me from. I just had to keep him talking long enough.

I pressed the talk button and put it on speakerphone. “Hello.”

“How you doing, whore? You lonely yet?” Trent said, his voice filling the space between Jude and I.

“Let me talk to her, let me talk to Tilly,” I said, gripping the phone so tight my knuckles turned white.

He made a tutting sound. “She’s asleep right now.”

I stared up at Jude, his jaw was doing that clenching thing he did, and I knew if he got his hands on Trent, he’d make him hurt. Right then, I wanted that, I wanted him to hurt, to bleed. Jude nodded his encouragement.

“What do you want? I’ll give you anything, just give her back to me.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I know you will. Maybe you shouldn’t have kept ten grand of my money and we wouldn’t be in this situation. Blackmailing me to sign over my daughter to you, that’s not very nice, Willa, not at all.”

“I…I’m sorry for doing that. Just…just tell me what you want,” I said again, voice shaky.

“I want the money you owe me, and you can throw in another ten for the inconvenience you’ve put me through.”

“Fine, whatever you want,” I rushed out. “Please, just let me talk to her…”

“Remember what I said. If you tell the police about this call, you’ll never see Tilly again. Understand?”

“Trent, please…”

“Do you hear me?”

“I heard you. I promise, I won’t say anything, but Trent…”

“I’ll be in touch in two days with details for the exchange.”

“No! Not two days…Trent!”

The phone went dead.

Jude pulled me off the bed and into his arms. “You did so good, baby, so good. He won’t let anything happen to her, she’s his bargaining chip.”

I buried my face against his throat. “You think she’s okay?”

His hand cupped the back of my head and he pressed a kiss to my temple. “Yeah, I think she’s okay.”

I didn’t know if he was just saying that to make me feel better, but I wanted to believe it. So I chose to. If I thought she wasn’t okay… I shook my head against him. I couldn’t even let myself think it.

Jude’s phone rang. He quickly answered it, eyes locked on mine. He listened for a few seconds, then hung up. “Neco got a location.” he said.

I collapsed against him and burst out crying.

Jude would get her, I knew he would, and I loved him for it.

* * *

Jude

I tapped my earpiece. “We’re here. You still getting a signal?”

There was a crackle. “Yeah. Nice and strong. His phone’s definitely in that building.”

I turned to Zeke and Ruby, signaling them to go in through the rear, while Van and I took the front. The apartment building was a dump, in a shitty part of the city.

It also had zero security. We walked right in, and I charged up the stairs, Van right behind me. From the signal, we guessed we’d find them on the second floor. Zeke and Ruby were coming toward us from the opposite end of the hall by the time we hit our floor.

They were here somewhere. Christ, they had to be.

A woman walked out of her apartment two doors down from us, and Ruby jogged toward her, a friendly smile on her face. I watched her hold up her phone, showing her a photo of Trent. The woman pointed to one of the apartments.

As soon as the woman left, we moved silently to surround the door, Zeke, Van, and I standing either side and out of sight, letting Ruby take point.

A lot of men underestimated her. She was petite. Unthreatening. Trent would see her through the peephole and would never think she was capable of kicking his ass up and down this hallway any day of the week.

We all dipped our chins. Ready to go. She knocked, a wide, welcoming smile on her face. Nothing. She tried again. “Yoo-hoo? Anyone home? I just moved in across the hall and wanted to introduce myself.”

Still nothing.

She tried a few more times, then turned to us, eyes narrowed. “I’m ready to take this door down.”

He either wasn’t there or not answering. Either way, I was done waiting. “Do it,” I said.

She pulled her gun from her holster, double handing it, stepped back, and kicked the door open. We all filed in, rushing every room, checking the place from top to bottom.

Fucking empty.

Zeke cursed from the bedroom and walked out, holding the phone. “Wherever he’s taken her, it was without this.”

“Goddamn it.” I kicked the piece-of-shit couch in the middle of the room. “Where the fuck are they?”

Ruby touched my arm, fire blazing in her eyes. “We will find her.”

I fucking hoped so. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to Tilly. If Trent hurt her. If he decided to run.

Willa and Tilly, they’d become everything to me. Everything. I’d spent a lot of years believing I didn’t deserve happiness after what happened to Kate and Louis. But Kate had loved me, more than I’d deserved, and she would have loved Willa and Tilly as well. She’d want me to be happy. And Willa and Tilly made me happy. In a way I never thought I’d find again.

I couldn’t imagine my life without either of them in it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Zeke said, and they all filed out.

I didn’t move. Van came up beside me. “Zeke’s gonna take surveillance and Ruby’s scouring the apartment building, going door to door. If they come back, we’ll know.”

I nodded numbly, feeling fucking helpless. Hunter and Neco were out following a couple of other leads. We had informants out on the streets asking questions. We’d called in markers all over the city. Tomas was even talking to some of his “associates” to get us more intel. We were doing all we could at this point, but it wasn’t enough.

“Go home to Willa, she needs you,” Van said.

I held my friend’s gaze. “How can I go home to her and tell her we’ve got nothing. That the most important person in her world is still missing, and I can’t do shit about it?”

His expression was sympathetic. “None of this was your fault, you know that, right?”

I gritted my teeth. “Christ, Van. I don’t need a damned psych assessment. I’m not going rouge. But I shouldn’t have waited. I should have dug up every damn one of her secrets, but I didn’t. I let her go it alone. And I’ll have to live with that.”

Van said nothing, but I could see it in his eyes. I was already living with the biggest failure of my life, a bigger loss than anyone person could handle—one more, and fuck knew what would happen. What I’d do.

I strode out of that shitty apartment and headed for home.

I had to tell Willa I’d failed her.

Fuck.

Willa

I paced around the living room for the millionth time. I was losing my mind. Jude hadn’t been gone long, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to just sit around here waiting.

I just wanted Tilly back. I just wanted her to walk back though that front door with Jude, safe and sound.

The knock on the door was loud in the silence, startling me out of my thoughts. It had to be Jude. I rushed over and pulled the door open.

I froze.

A scary-looking guy, almost as big as Jude, stood there. I recognized him instantly. One of the goons from the poker game.

I tried to shove the door closed.

The guy put his shoulder to it and heaved, knocking me back. I stumbled and slammed into the wall. He advanced on me, followed by another thug.

I spun, wanting to make a break for the back of the house, but one of the henchmen was prepared for the move and blocked the way. With nowhere else to go, I grabbed the hall table and knocked it over, then dove in the opposite direction, hitting the stairs, taking them two at a time, up to the second floor.

I was cornered.

With nowhere else to go, I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door shut, throwing the lock, and backed away. There was no escape. I couldn’t fit through the window, and there was nothing to push in front of the door.

It flew open a second later, bouncing off the wall, hinges splintering. One of the big men strode in, a nasty grin on his face.

“What do you want? Why are you doing this?” I said, backing up until I was pressed against the wall.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he gagged me with a dirty rag he pulled from his back pocket to stop my screaming, and carried me out of my house, to a waiting car.

As soon as the door shut, the car sped off. I was in the back, pressed against the door, scared out of my mind. My pulse raced so fast I felt dizzy. I sucked breaths in through my nose, desperate for a decent lungful of oxygen, but I couldn’t seem to get enough.

I was pretty sure I was going to pass out.

The last thing I wanted to do was lose consciousness. Not when I had no idea where they were taking me, and not when I didn’t know who was at the other end.

The two assholes in the car with me had been guarding the door at the poker game, which meant I was on my way to meet one of the criminals who sat at that table, someone Trent had obviously pissed off.

I just didn’t know which one.

The black dots dancing across my vison grew bigger as I continued to struggle to get enough air. Then everything went black.

I heard a vicious curse, then…nothing.