When Day Breaks

“Because I thought you’d keep doing your goddamn job,” Hancock snapped. “I came straight here after taking out the son and his security. It was there I found correspondence from his sister and him begging her not to go after Eden. To stop the cycle of revenge and retribution. In all of this, it appears the son is the only halfway intelligent one. I didn’t discover this until after I’d taken him out. I f**ked up. I admit that. I should have made him talk because he didn’t deserve to die. He tried to talk his sister down, but she’s batshit crazy and is obsessed with making Eden and Eddie suffer and taking Eden out. She wants Eddie to know, to see his daughter suffering, and that may be the only goddamn thing that gives us time to find her before she kills Eden.”

The blood in Swanny’s veins froze. Dread clutched him by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Oh God, please let Eden be in the hotel room where she’s supposed to be. No matter what, he wasn’t leaving her side until the crazed lunatic trying to kill her was taken out for good. He cursed himself for relaxing his guard even for a moment. No matter how prettily Eden had asked for a few minutes to dress and meet them in the lobby, he should have insisted on remaining with her the entire time. He hoped to hell his f**kup didn’t cost Eden her life. He could never live with himself. He could never live without her.

They rushed off the elevator, guns drawn, and when they got to her suite, Swanny went cold with dread.

The door wasn’t completely closed, a maid’s cart partially obstructing the entrance. He shoved it inside, gun up, his team flanking him as he burst into the room.

“Eden!” Swanny bellowed. “Eden, are you here?”

They rushed in, spreading out quickly. Swanny ran into her bedroom only to find it empty. A quick check of the bathroom turned up nothing, and he began to sweat as panic gripped him by the balls.

“She’s not here,” Hancock yelled. “Fan out. We have to search the hotel from top to bottom. Go, go, go!”

Somehow Hancock got paired with Swanny and they hit the stairway, running full tilt down each floor. Nathan, Joe and the others would do a floor-by-floor sweep, but Swanny knew if Eden had been abducted, her kidnapper wouldn’t have stuck around.

They ran to the basement floor and used the access key provided by hotel security to open the door leading to the stairwell. As they rounded the corner where the elevator stood, Hancock let out a vicious curse.

Swanny saw the maid lying on the floor, eyes glassy with death, a bullet hole low on her forehead, directly between the eyes. Blood had already congealed and she was cold, and rigor was starting to set in.

Son of a bitch. The crazy-ass daughter had gotten into Eden’s room by posing as a maid and used the key card from the cleaning lady she’d shot and killed.

Swanny bolted up and ran toward the exit, throwing open the door, ducking out, hoping against hope that he wasn’t too late and could get a bead on the crazy bitch who’d taken Eden from her hotel room.

What bothered him the most and filled him with overwhelming panic was how she got Eden out with no issue.Eden was trained in self-defense. She could handle herself in a bad situation. So the only way someone would get her out of a hotel with no one knowing and without one hell of a fight was if Eden had been drugged.

Thinking back on the hotel room, there was no sign of a struggle. Nothing had been out of place. Just the maid’s cart, and the door had been left ajar. She had to have been drugged. It was the only explanation.

With a maid coming in, Eden being Eden would have been nice and welcoming, never suspecting a maid could be a danger to her. Especially since Swanny had assured her the threat to her had been taken care of.

Stupid f**king idiot.

This was his goddamn fault. He’d never get over his complete idiocy. Never would be able to make it up to her even if he got the chance, and he prayed he’d have that chance. That he’d find her before it was too late. He couldn’t entertain any other option or he’d lose his mind.

“Quit beating yourself up,” Hancock said gruffly. “This is as much my fault as it is yours. There’s nothing to be accomplished by either of us going over the woulda, coulda, shouldas at this point. We have to get it together and find her.”

“We need the video surveillance stat,” Swanny said grimly as he and Hancock completed their sweep of the alley and parking lot.

“Leave that to me,” Hancock said. “I may not be the geek your Donovan is, but I know my way around computers and electronics. You can be the heavy and I’ll pull up what we need.”

They both hurried inside and went straight to the security desk. Confronted by two very large, very pissed-off men, the head of security didn’t even protest. He brought them into the surveillance room and let Hancock take over.

“There was a blip earlier,” the security guy said in impeccable English, his expression grim as he related the information. “It blinked and went out for a few minutes, which is likely when Miss Sinclair was taken. But we have a camera in the alleyway, so if they went out that way, and it’s likely given the location of the murdered maid that they did, you may pick up footage of the vehicle and get a plate at least.”

Hancock typed furiously, skimming through footage before the blackout and then homing in on the alleyway when the cameras had gone back online.

“Son of a bitch,” Hancock breathed.

Swanny leaned forward to see a woman shoving Eden into the back of a maroon Peugeot and then leaning over her for several seconds. When she backed away they could see Eden lying in the back, the shiny glint of handcuffs on her wrists.