I tried not to panic. Which is not so easy when you're running for your life. Every fiber of my being told me to get home - home was safety. But was it safe to lead these two men to my door? If it wasn't then where else could I go? Who could I ask for help? No matter how busy a city is - and New York famously never sleeps – it’s never quieter or the streets more empty than when you need help.

Running blindly on, not looking where I was going, not thinking about where I might be heading, I cannoned into someone.

"Sorry," I said, automatically.

"Miss Chaney?"

I looked up into the face of a strange man with the Emerald Isles in his voice, who apparently knew my name.

"We've been looking for you."

Now, there were three of them, and if I’d been scared before, I was downright terrified now. Maybe I really had lost my mind.

I hurled myself away from him and dashed back the way I had come, only to see my two pursuers. I was trapped between them, and all the panic that I had been doing my best to keep in check flooded its way through my body.

"If you come near me, I'll scream."

The man I had bumped into held up his hands. "Please, don't do that."

Could these people have chased Saorise out of Ireland and followed her here? Could they be the reason she had fled my apartment without even leaving a note?

"Who are you? What do you want?" I tried to bark out the words angrily but they emerged in a terrified squeal.

"My name is Connor," said the same man again, and I saw a pair of vivid green eyes flash at me through the darkness. "This is Patrick - Patch - and Declan. We believe you know our sister, Saorise. And we need to find her. She’s in trouble."

Whether or not I should have believed these three men as easily as I did was a question I asked myself repeatedly as I led them back to my apartment and let them in. Although, perhaps the question should have been why did I believe them so easily?

I think the safest answer was; there was something of Saorise about them. It was not the way they looked, although, they all shared the same green eyes, and Declan, the youngest, had the same red hair and looked as if he could be Saorise's hyper-masculine twin. But there was something about them, the way they held themselves, the way they spoke, an aura they carried. I've never been one to go in for 'auras' and all that new age jazz - mentioning chakras is a sure way to get me to leave the room - but I couldn't come up with any other way to describe it. I had always remembered Saorise as someone who carried her soul before her, and that impression had been confirmed when we met again.

Somehow, these men did the same, consciously or not.

Beyond that even, something from within me told me to trust them. So I did, and hoped that I would not come to regret it. There was something familiar about them that I attributed to their unquantifiable similarity to Saorise. I was sure I had not met them before, but I felt as if I had.

On a less ethereal note, and one than I wasn't proud to admit, even to myself, I probably trusted them more because they were almost painfully good-looking. I always pride myself in not being one of those girls who puts a lot of stock in appearance but looks for the beautiful soul beneath - and then I date a man like Benny, because I am basically full of crap.

More truthfully, I'm just like everyone else - a slave to some weird evolutionary impulse that makes me more trusting to handsome men than ugly ones. I think a lot of bad shit has gone down on account of that, and I would be quick to add that appearance is not my sole criteria for trusting someone, but there it is.

I wasn't trusting Connor because his dark, rugged good looks made me a little weak in the knees.

I wasn't trusting Patch because his eyes twinkled and his smile sparkled.

I wasn't trusting Declan because he was boyishly beautiful, smooth skinned and exquisitely handsome.

I wasn't trusting them as a group because the rolled up sleeves of their shirts revealed muscular forearms or because the fronts of those shirts were straining to conceal three broad chests. And I definitely wasn't trusting them because their jeans hugged their backsides in a way that made watching them walk an R-rated experience.

But if pressed, I’d have to admit, none of that hurt, either.

For the record, I also wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with the fact that I was mentally undressing the brothers of my missing friend, but sometimes your mind does things you can't control, and all you can do is go with it.

"Make yourselves comfortable," I said as I entered and went straight to the kitchen - I still had not eaten, and after walking here with these three I also needed a glass of ice water.

I saw Declan make straight for the couch and, instead of sitting on it, run a hand over the bed clothes neatly folded at one end, waiting for their vanished owner.

"She was here this morning?" asked Connor, the eldest brother, who seemed to have appointed himself leader, as older brothers will.

"How about I ask some questions first?" I suggested. Just because my gut told me to trust them didn’t mean that I wasn’t still feeling totally confused and rather terrified.

"If you care about our sister, then I suggest you answer ours," said Connor, sharply.

"Connor," Patch shot back, his face thunderous. "She has a right."

Connor didn't look happy. "Any delay in looking..."

"Will likely make no difference at all," continued Patch in his lilting brogue. "Sienna, here, has obviously been out looking for Saorise. Which means she doesn't know where she's gone."

"You don't know either?" I had held out some slim hope they might have news of my friend.

"We'd hardly have chased you down if we did," said Connor. He sighed, making an effort to control what was clearly a quick temper. "If you have questions then go ahead and ask them. But be quick. We're wasting time."

"How did you know Saorise was with me?" I asked, determined not to be cowed by Connor's attitude but also determined not to judge him for it - he was probably just worried about his sister and I got that. I was worried, too.

"We tracked her," said Connor. Which was not an answer that gave me much information.

"From where? How?"

The brothers looked at each other. It seemed as if members of this family could find my home without any trouble and yet I still did not know how. But while Saorise had seemed unable to explain how she tracked me to my door, I got the impression that her brothers just weren't saying.

"We have ways of finding each other," said Declan, with unhelpful vagueness amplified by his sudden unwillingness to meet my gaze. "It's a twin thing."

"If that's the case then why can't you find her now?" I followed up pointedly.

Again, the looks between them.

"Sometimes twin things don't work," Declan finally replied.

"We're on the same side," I said. "We all want Saorise to be safe. How am I supposed to trust you - how am I supposed to trust that you want to help Saorise - when you won't trust me?"

"Help her with what?" Connor jumped on my words.

I took a deep breath. Though they hadn't given me any answers, I still felt the need to help them as much as I could. For reasons I couldn't understand, let alone explain, I did feel very strongly that they were trying to help Saorise.

As briefly as possible, I recounted the last few days, starting with Saorise turning up unannounced at my door and ending with her going missing.

"You said she was looking for something when you were by the river," said Connor, eyes narrowed. "Any idea what?"

I shook my head. "Whatever it was that was bothering her, she couldn't tell me about it any more than she could tell me what brought her to my door. I'm sure she was running from something, she seemed unwell and fearful when she first came to me. I’m hoping you could tell me what that something was."

The way the brothers looked at each other told me that they couldn't. Or wouldn’t?

I shoved aside the niggling of mistrust and reminded myself that these were her brothers. If they thought there was something they could share that might help us find her, they’d have done it already.

"We haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks," Patch began. "I wasn’t too concerned. She has a habit of going off on her own exploring, meeting people. She loved - that is; she loves getting to know strangers and seeing new places."

He talked with such affection and I remembered the way Saorise had come up to me out of nowhere on that beach. I was just another new face, it was sheer chance that we had hit it off the way we did.

"Because she was always doing it," Patch continued, "we didn't notice that anything was wrong until we didn’t hear from her."

"She's always taking such foolish risks." Connor banged his fist down on the arm of my couch, his worry for his sister manifesting as anger.

“Maybe she decided she’d had enough of the city and headed back to Ireland?” But even as I said the words, I knew in my heart they were false. Something was very wrong.

And her brothers clearly thought so, too. Declan’s brow caved into a worried frown as he sucked in a breath.

“She didn’t go home, Sienna. She’s missing. And we think someone took her.”

“Why would someone take her? She’s the kindest, warmest soul I’ve ever met,” I asked, bewildered and afraid for my friend. “And where would they even take her? I don’t understand any of this.”

"We can’t be sure of the whys and we have no leads. It was hard enough to find that she was in New York," Declan took up the story. "We still don't know why she didn’t contact us once she got here, or at least to check in.”

"Well, there was no sign of any break-in here," I wanted to help any way I could, "so chances are, if someone had taken her, she knew them and had let them in or she was taken when she was out of the apartment. Does she have an ex-boyfriend who might have--”

“No, it’s nothing like that,” Patch muttered, shaking his head.

Then what was it like? I found myself wondering. Instead of pressing them, though, I ran through my time with Saorise in my mind.

“I can give you a list of places we went together - places she liked?"

"That would be helpful, thank you," said Patch.

"If she is just out somewhere exploring, I’m going to kill her," grunted Connor morosely.

The others grunted their agreement and I swallowed hard, feeling useless and hating it.

"Is there anything else I can do to help?" I asked.

Connor shook his head. "No. But thank you."

I think it went against the grain for him to say it but he clearly meant it.

"And thank you for looking after her."

"I'd do anything for Saorise."

"I mean, I don't know if... But on the off-chance she comes back here - and if you think of anything else that might be helpful - can you let us know?"

I nodded, grabbing my phone. "Sure, just put your number in--"

"We don't have phones," said Connor, in a way that made questioning it impossible.

"You can find us by the Hudson," smiled Patch. "Where Upper Bay meets the East River, on the west side near Battery Park."

"In a hotel?"

"If you stroll around the area, you’ll see us."

I nodded slowly and rubbed at my aching temples. “Uh, yeah, okay.”

It hardly seemed like the most foolproof method of getting in touch with a person, but I wasn’t about to argue. They were distraught and stressed and if Saorise did come back, she’d surely know how to find them.

But even still, I didn't want to leave things like this. I was afraid that when they walked out of my door, that would be the end of my story with Saorise. And the thought of not knowing if she was all right or if I would ever see her again made me ill.

“I’d really like to help--”

"You can't," said Connor plainly. "I'm not trying to be hurtful but if we can't find her, then I promise, you can't either." He walked for the door. "Thanks again."

"Sorry," said Patch as he went. "He's worried. We all are."

"So am I."

Declan nodded a quick goodbye. He had the same smile as his twin, but seemed to lack her ease with other people.

As the door shut behind them, I ran to the window and watched them leave the building and head off together. It wasn’t until they were out of sight that tears began to stream down my face.

What sort of trouble had my childhood friend gotten herself into?