Rob heard the phone click and lost his fucking mind.

“Fuck!” He whirled and put his fist through the wall of the chief’s office. It made a satisfying crunch as it pierced through the sheetrock. “Fuck!” He yelled again and probably would have made another hole if not for his phone ringing a second time.

“Melissa?” he answered, not looking at the caller ID.

“No,” came a male voice. “This is Dr. Johnson. Sam. The vet.”

Rob was blinking slowly, trying to settle his heart rate and listen to the fucking man who’d flirted with his wife.

He assumed there was a reason the jerkwad was calling and it had better be good.

It was.

“Is there a reason I just saw your wife get pulled out of the trunk of a car on the old McKinney property?”

Rob’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you saying?”

“I’m at the Sinclair Ranch checking on some injured cattle. I just saw your wife being pulled from the trunk of a car on McKinney land. There’s an old barn just off route seventeen. It’s maybe two miles beyond the last marker.”

For a second, Rob couldn’t say anything. Then he got his shit together. He glanced at the chief who hadn’t said a word about him punching holes in the office wall but nodded at him now.

“Whatever you need,” he said.

Rob nodded back. “Okay. Can you call Justin and have his security team meet us at the Sinclair Ranch? We’ll proceed to the McKinney property on foot from there.”

“Done,” Sam said and hung up.

Everything that Melissa had told him in her rapid-fire recitation flashed through his mind. Celeste was her sister. Sonya involved. Drugs. And—

“Wasn’t the lead FBI investigator who took over the case named Cal?” he asked the chief.

Rob parked his police car behind the Sinclair barn as the chief, Hayden, and McMann—the only officers, friends he’d trust with his wife’s life—tore into spaces beside him, kicking up dust and rocks. Justin, Danny, and the security team had beaten them to the location and were working on a plan to infiltrate the McKinney property where Melissa was being held.

Danny came over as Rob got out of the car. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking Rob’s hand. “We should have waited until the new team came in before we left.”

“They were watching. They knew they had to pull us out to get to her. And if Celeste is in this like I think she might be . . .” Rob shook his head and took the camouflage jacket and hat Danny handed him, along with an earpiece.

They’d rolled up to where Celeste had supposedly been held, the location she’d texted earlier in supposed panic, only to find the warehouse had been abandoned for some time. They’d known immediately something was wrong, but it had been too late, and by the time they’d gotten ahold of the security at the house, Melissa had been long gone.

She’d been smart, though, and thanks to her sign in the tack room they’d trailed her to an old outbuilding on the property. But aside from a large amount of blood on the floor, there had been no sign of his wife.

“It’s beyond inexcusable—”

Rob cut him off. There would be plenty of time for the blame game later. “They would have waited for any moment she was unprotected.”

He and Danny both ignored the way Rob’s voice wobbled on the last word.

Because the last damn thing a man wanted to do was leave his woman unprotected, and he’d done just exactly that.

“We’ve got eyes on her. She’s alive, and we’re ready to move in an instant.” Danny pointed at the cell Rob held in his hand. “Have they made contact yet?”

Rob tried not to notice how Danny had seemed to deliberately avoid the and well portion of alive and well. “No contact yet.”

But the words had barely emerged from his mouth when his phone rang.

And not the one in his hand.

It was the other one.

Celeste’s phone. Which had been returned to the chief by the FBI’s lead investigator.

Who was named Cal.

This whole thing stank more than a barrel of week-old fish.

“Hold on,” Danny said when Rob pulled the cell from his pocket and went to answer it. He gestured quickly to one of the men who handed him a device that he plugged into Rob’s phone. “Location set?” he asked.

The man—Rob thought his name was Anthony—nodded. “Set to Justin’s place.”

“Go ahead,” Danny said to Rob. “But you’re not here. You’re at Justin’s. Quiet everyone!” he shouted.

“Got it.” Rob swiped and put the phone on speaker. “Hello?”

“Robbie!” Celeste chirped. “Have you seen your wife? Because I have when I put a bullet in her.”

Rob opened his mouth, ready to threaten her within an inch of her life, but Danny squeezed his shoulder, giving him a hand signal to calm down.

“Where are you?” he asked instead.

She laughed. “That is classified information.” A tsk, and Rob heard typing in the background. “Ah good. You’re where you’re supposed to be. And you’ll stay at your brother-in-law’s ranch until I give you some directions.” Her voice went hard. “No investigating on your own, that’s how you got your wife into trouble in the first place.”

A boulder settled in his gut. “What do you want?”

“You.” Celeste cackled. “Just kidding. I want some of your brother in law’s money. Five million. Cash.”

Cold slid down his spine. “Celeste. I can’t—”

“Oh, you will, Robbie,” Celeste said cheerfully. “You will. Twenties and untraceable. I’m assuming you can do that by . . . oh, let’s say midnight.” She sighed, the air crackling through the phone’s speakers. “Or perhaps sooner if you don’t want Melissa to lose too much blood.”

“Celeste—”

But she’d already hung up.