Max
In a skid at too-high speed, Maddock brought the mountain rescue car to a shuddering halt in the middle of the loch road, angled to stop any other vehicles from leaving the area. I scanned the horizon in both directions.
Nothing.
On the open comms line, Lochie spoke. “In position. Zero sighting, repeat zero sighting.”
The mountain rescue leader had already been driving over the mountain when he’d joined in our hunt. One of my cousins had blocked off the track that led from the hangar out into the hills.
We were covering the exits but so far with nothing to show for it.
I swore and leapt out of the car, digging my fingers into my scalp. Thundering overhead, Gabe and Gordain watched from the skies.
My pulse sped, and I couldn’t catch a breath. Someone had her, my Evie. My wee girl. She’d be scared, and even the thought of her being in danger…
I bent double, my hands on my knees. My head swam with a rush of fear.
A palm landed on my back, and my brother’s boots appeared at the edge of my vision. “Hey now, just breathe, aye?”
“Can’t,” I choked.
Maddock swore then grappled me to sit on the tarmac. Not that long ago, I’d been chasing Lia down this road. I’d bled for her on this ground. In such a short space of time, my whole existence had rotated to be about her and our daughter. Now Evie had been kidnapped, and I couldn’t comprehend a world without both of them in it.
Even if I still had no idea where Lia was.
My heart beat out of time, and my head swam again.
Cross-legged in front of me, my brother took my face in his hands. “Listen, we’ll get her back. Ye have the best team of search and rescue experts, who are right now crawling the area looking for her. We have every entrance and exit to the estate blocked off. We responded fast enough to know they can’t have got off our land.”
I knew all of this, yet still I couldn’t catch my breath. “What if they hurt her?”
“Think about it. They’ve taken her for a reason. A bargaining chip, aye? If she knows the man, she might not even be scared.”
Forcing away every other thought, I held on to my twin’s words. He was right. Evie hadn’t been taken for random reasons. This was specific and targeted. Which meant a demand would follow.
If we didn’t find her first.
From my shirt pocket, a voice came over my phone. I had an open line to Gordain, and Maddock to Lochie. Neither of us had a mountain rescue radio, forgotten in our haste to take action. Neither of us had been on duty, and I felt naked without the device.
“Negative on a visual from here,” my uncle reported, the background noise making it difficult to hear him.
I sucked in a breath. “Talk me through a strategy.”
Gordain replied, but the helicopter sound obscured his words.
“Fuck.” I pushed Maddock away, then let him draw me to my feet. “This is hopeless. How the hell are we going to coordinate?”
“Car,” he suddenly warned.
We both spun in the direction of the approaching vehicle, but I instantly recognised it. The driver halted then leapt out. My cousin, Cameron, approached us, two radios in his hand.
The dark-haired man handed them over. “They’re powered up, tuned in, ready to go. I’ll stick with ye for now, and we’ll decide what to do.”
I could’ve hugged him. Instead, I snapped my attention to the radio. “Gordain,” I said.
“Thank fuck,” my uncle replied by the radio. “Did ye catch anything of what I said?”
I answered in the negative.
“Okay, Lochie and I were just agreeing on the mindset of the perpetrator.”
Both Gordain and Lochinvar had been in the military, and I trusted their judgement more than I trusted my own.
“Effectively,” Gordain continued, “they’re in enemy territory. They’ve no stronghold, and not enough time to enact an effective escape. In that scenario, you’d go to ground and wait for an opportunity. That would be if they planned escape. Talk me through why ye think they have her.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, Maddock and Cameron watching me intently. “It’s Lia’s da. Has to be. I had a second of thinking it could be Struan’s keeper, but the description Cait gave was all wrong.”
“Tell us about the man,” Gordain urged.
“Lia’s close with him, but they don’t agree on her being with me. We know her father tried to keep us apart in the past.”
Cameron crinkled his brow. “Where’s Lia? Have they taken her, too?”
“I don’t think so. She left the estate earlier. She’s meant to meet her da but didn’t expect him until later.”
“Have you contacted her?”
I had, but she hadn’t replied, and since then, my phone had been engaged on the call to Gordain. Even now, it sat three feet away, a dull buzzing sound coming from the still-open line.
My sense came back to me like a smack to my face, and I snatched up the phone. Killing the ongoing call, I received multiple missed calls from her.
I hit to dial, and a man’s voice answered immediately.
“Max,” he sputtered.
My gut crunched, but then recognition followed. “Lincoln?”
“We’re on our way back,” the nanny said. “Please say you have her.”
“Not yet. Where’s Lia?”
“They don’t have her,” he repeated.
Lia’s voice sounded in the background, anxious and with fright in her words.
“She’s driving,” Lincoln returned. “I don’t want to put you on loudspeaker or she’ll crash. We’re ten minutes away, I think. That’s what the map said before your call came in.”
“Why would they take her?” I half yelled down the line. “Ask Lia that. Why would her father’s people take our daughter? If we know that, that might help us in the hunt.”
Commotion sounded, then Lia came onto the line. “Max, oh Max. We think they have her to use as collateral. Maybe against Dad, but we don’t know why other than it’s probably related to his job. We just found out that both Felix and Stephen were saved by Dad years ago.”
She swore, then Lincoln’s voice replaced hers. I set the call to loudspeaker so the people around me could hear.
“See?” Lincoln continued. “You barely missed that car. I’ll do the talking. We can’t help Evie if we’re dead. Max, listen, a decade and a half ago, Lia’s father was sent in to a boarding school where a man had taken a group of teenagers hostage. The bad guy was delusional and threatening to kill them all. Lia’s father saved most of them, but the boys witnessed atrocities. Two of the survivors were Felix and Stephen. Their education was paid for after by the Rothschild Foundation, a charity operated by Lia’s father.”
Rapidly, Cameron relayed this into his radio, clueing in our crew.
“Rothchild’s the da, aye? His people are working against him, trying to force his hand,” Gordain decided.
“Exactly what I was going to say,” Cameron agreed. “They’ve taken the one thing most precious to him. Suggests there’s a sense of urgency around it, too. Max, ask Lia if her father was about to make any big life changes.”
I did, and Lincoln played back my words. A pause came, then muttering from Lia.
“She isn’t sure. She wanted her dad to settle down, but he was unwilling. He was coming to her today with news. Something he seemed stressed over.”
“We need to find her father,” I demanded.
“He’s not answering her calls,” Lincoln added.
I gestured to Maddock and Cameron and spoke into my radio. “If we’re right, the man who has Evie is going to hide her. She’s the asset, aye? Without her, they have no power. We need to track down Lia’s dad and be ready when they make their demands on him. Find him, find the arseholes who have my lass.”
“Smart lad. Exactly that,” Gordain concurred.
“He’s meant to be coming here,” I added. “Therefore, he must be around somewhere. Maybe hiding if he’s alert to what’s happening.”
With swift decision-making, Lochie assigned the crew their teams and ordered a full-estate search. With my group, we abandoned our road block and took a quadrant.
But as we set out, I had one last message for Lia. “Linc? Hold the phone to Lia’s ear.”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Go to the apartment and lock yourself in. Stay safe. We’ll get her,” I swore. “If it takes the last breath in my body, we’ll have our bairn back.”
