“THAT’S IT?” I demanded as Julius’s last words rang in my ears. “What do they want? Did they even say for sure that he will be alive for twenty-four hours?”
Blaze got up from his chair. “No. They didn’t say anything else. But it’s obvious they want us to try to find him.”
“And if we don’t soon enough, they’ll definitely kill him,” Talon said flatly.
Nausea curdled in my stomach. “It’s a trap,” I said. “Obviously, right? They wouldn’t be sending us on a manhunt just for fun. They want to get us someplace vulnerable and take out the rest of us.”
Julius tipped his head in acknowledgment. “It looks that way. Whoever’s responsible, they must have realized we’re too strong all together for them to tackle us that way. So they’ve picked off one of us and are hoping it’ll set the rest of us off-balance.”
I rubbed my face, the images of what Garrison might be facing at the hands of his attackers rising up again. “We can’t just abandon him. We have to find a way around their stupid trap and get him back.”
“Of course,” Julius said, so firmly a tiny bit of my distress subsided. “We’re a family. We don’t leave each other behind, no matter the consequences. But we have to do this carefully, or we’re all dead meat. They’ve given us a timeline. We’ll figure out as much as we can so we can go into this trap prepared to destroy it.”
“The first part is who’s behind the operation in the first place,” Talon said, and paused.
My stomach sank. I already knew where that line of thinking was leading.
“The Maliks,” I said. “That’s where the evidence we found before pointed, even if it wasn’t much. And now this happens right after I broke into their secret room? Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe they realized someone had gotten in there, and they’re striking back.”
Blaze made a face. “Unfortunately, I have to agree. If I could just get this code worked out… I’ll see if I can track the van’s route too.” He gave a small growl under his breath and went back to his computer.
Julius folded his arms over his chest. “All right. Assuming Damien Malik is responsible, where can we think of that he might have taken Garrison to?”
“He could just keep him in the van,” Talon said.
“Possible, but risky. If they keep driving around, they’ll need gas soon, potentially exposing them to bystanders. And they must suspect Blaze will be able to search for matching vehicles. I think they’d want to stash him away somewhere more secure.” Julius glanced at me. “How about that secret room? That seems like a reasonable place to hide away someone you don’t want found.”
I thought back to the study-like space I’d crept into and balked at the suggestion. “It wasn’t like a dungeon. It was too cozy—like it’s used for family meetings and sitting around reading rather than their dirty business. I can’t imagine them bringing him there. Besides, it’d be awfully risky having him right there in the known family home. They’ve got to have other properties somewhere.”
Blaze shook his head without looking up from the computer. “I didn’t find anything under any of the Maliks’ names except the houses they’re currently living in. I guess they might have brought him to your grandparents’ house or one of the aunts and uncles’?”
I frowned. “That still has the problem of being too easily tied to the family—and I don’t know if the other houses have secret rooms too.” That seemed like a bit much, although I couldn’t dismiss the possibility entirely. But there was another option. “What about the house in the basement photograph? Have you run an image recognition search for it?”
Blaze sighed. “Yes, but nothing’s popped up based on that picture. It obviously isn’t in a high trafficked or photographed location. But that secluded location could be anywhere in the world for all we know right now.”
“Damn it,” Julius muttered, pacing the room in a rage that I’d never have thought I’d see from the controlled commander. Witnessing his unrestrained frustration made the situation feel more real. More terrifying.
Garrison was counting on us, but we had no solutions. No way to find him. No leads. I could tell from Blaze’s increasingly despondent expression that following the van wasn’t getting him very far either.
But I had to do something.
Just as I thought that, my phone vibrated in my pocket. The guys went still and silent as I pulled it out, other than the clacking of Blaze’s fingers on the keyboard. I studied the text message that had appeared on the screen, gritting my teeth as I processed it.
“It’s from the Hunter,” I said, glaring at the phone.
“What does he want?” Talon loomed next to me, and I knew that if he faced any opponent right now, he’d come out victorious. He’d kill anyone with his bare hands if it meant finding Garrison alive, and I couldn’t say I didn’t share the sentiment.
“He wants to meet,” I said. “He’s mentioned a place nearby that he wants me to go to.”
“Give me the spot, and I’ll give him a piece of my mind about how he’s put you through the wringer,” Julius grumbled, striding toward the door. I leapt forward and caught his arm, holding him back.
“He said he only wants to speak to me. That he’ll leave if anyone’s with me.” My chest constricted.
“Like hell,” Blaze said. “We can’t send you out there alone to meet a guy who’s essentially a stranger, especially not this Hunter who has been leading you in circles for weeks. We lost Garrison today, and we’re not losing you, too.”
“I’m going with you,” Talon insisted, walking to join Julius and me by the door.
I pushed both men back a step. “None of you are thinking straight. Get off your high horses and consider what this means. Of all the times the Hunter could have sought me out, he chose the moment when I needed answers the most—the day that Garrison was taken. If I don’t follow his demands, do you think he’ll tell me anything? I can’t risk losing whatever information he’s willing to share. It could make the difference between whether we find Garrison or not.”
Julius’s muscles flexed, but his mouth pressed into a flat line rather than arguing. He understood the stakes just as well as I did. “What if he’s the one who took Garrison?” he said finally.
“Then he’ll definitely know where to find him, won’t he?” I shot back, and let out a huff of frustration. “But most likely, he noticed something about the Maliks with his surveillance that tipped him off to what they’ve done. Look, so far every time we’ve been attacked here in DC, I’ve been ignored and even shoved out of the fray while they focus on you guys. I’m the one who’s the most safe out there. If I see anything remotely suspicious, I’ll leave. I won’t take any risks I don’t have to.”
Talon’s jaw worked. He marched away and returned seconds later with a pistol in his hand. “You’re not going out there unarmed,” he said, and I knew he’d accepted my plan.
I accepted the gun with a nod of thanks and tucked it into the back of my sweatpants. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Julius exhaled roughly. “For the record, I don’t like this at all. But you’re right. Just—don’t get too close to him and keep an eye out for anyone else suspicious nearby. And if you’re not back in ten minutes—or if we hear shots fired—we’re coming after you.”
I let out a humorless chuckle. “If he doesn’t manage to say anything useful in ten minutes, then I’ll already be leaving. Maybe after shooting him for wasting my time all over again.”
Confident that my self-appointed bodyguards wouldn’t stand in my way any longer, I tucked my knives back into their usual places and quickly donned a second gun in an under-shoulder holster that I hid beneath a lightweight hoodie. Plenty of options was always a good thing. And my bare hands were weapons all on their own. I couldn’t get much better armed than this.
Looking at the men around me, I gathered my resolve. The message said to come alone, but I wasn’t completely alone. They were with me in every way they could be.
The Hunter had probably known where I was staying from the moment I’d given the address to the Uber driver he’d conscripted. He’d asked me to come a few blocks down the street from the house to a parking lot beyond an old office building that was now boarded up.
As I approached, I heard the rumble of a motorcycle’s engine before I saw anything. Coming around the building, I found a tall, broad-shouldered man sitting on a thrumming chopper. A helmet covered his head, the visor reflecting the mid-morning sunlight back at me rather than revealing his face. I could only make out the vaguest shapes of his eyes and nose when a tuft of cloud briefly passed over the sun.
I walked closer, keeping my hands in easy reach of my weapons. There was no sign of any other figure around. It was just me and him.
When I was about ten feet away, he held up his hand. “That’s close enough,” he said, and his voice confirmed my suspicions. Even slightly muffled by the helmet and the drone of the engine, I knew it immediately.
This was the Hunter himself.
I stopped, setting my hands on my hips. “You called me out here, and now you’re acting like I’m a threat?”
A hint of amusement came into his tone as he pitched his words over the engine’s rumbling. “I have to be careful, you understand. I don’t know where your loyalties lie. You are a Malik, after all.”
I grimaced at him. “Just because I was born a Malik doesn’t mean I am one.”
If I’d expected him to lead with information about Garrison, he was just as disappointing as usual. “Have you done any more investigating to substantiate what I told you about them?” he asked.
Was that all this was again? Another excuse to badger me, at the worst possible time?
My teeth set on edge. “Are you here in person because that way I can’t just hang up on your shit?” I demanded. “I’m done with this game.”
As I spun on my heel, his voice stopped me in my tracks. “Then you haven’t found any concerning photographs?”
I froze, unable to decide whether I wanted to entertain this conversation after all. Whether I wanted to give away what I had found to this man.
But he must have already been able to guess. “You did, didn’t you? You’re sharp enough to have gotten that far. Then you saw a little blond girl along with the others.”
The memory of the photo smacked me with enough horror to make me glance back at him. “What about her?” I said, the question coming out raspy.
Even though I could barely make out his face, I felt his stare boring into me through the helmet’s visor.
“That was my daughter,” he said. He kept his voice even, but rage reverberated through it all the same. “The Maliks stole her from me and killed her as brutally as you saw. I’ve never been able to prove it definitively, but I know it was them. That’s why I’ve been investigating them, and it’s why I was worried about you coming into the fold.”
My stomach roiled with the urge to puke. He was confirming my worst nightmares about my family—but I still didn’t know for sure if I could trust him. It still didn’t make any sense. But then, how could he have known about the photographs if his story wasn’t true?
How could I focus on that right now when Garrison’s life hung in the balance this very second?
My back straightened as I realized that there was one answer that would help me solve both problems. “Do you know where the killings might have been carried out? Where they took the kids?” It’d have to be someplace they felt was secure. Someplace that’d work just as well to hide a kidnapped hitman.
The Hunter paused. “I think the family must have a property nearby—one under the radar and isolated. I’ve been searching, but I haven’t found it yet.”
Before he could say anything else, his phone chimed loudly in his pocket. He glanced at it and revved the engine on his motorcycle. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and tore out of the parking lot without giving me a chance to respond.
“Wait!” I hollered after him. “I have more questions.” But he was already roaring down the street. I couldn’t tell if he’d even heard me.
He’d told me nothing at all about Garrison. He didn’t have any more idea about where the Maliks might be hiding him than I did.
Actually, that wasn’t totally true. I pushed down my hopelessness as everything he’d said sank in. We hadn’t found any other properties the family owned, but the Hunter was sure they had another one—one in the area. All I had to do was figure out where.
But the only people who’d know were my birth family, and they hadn’t mentioned anything about it so far. If it was where they murdered children and stashed kidnapping victims, it wasn’t likely that they’d tell me in a casual conversation.
They were my family, though. They’d been talking about bringing me into the legacy, about me being one of them. Was there some way I could use that?
As I hurried back to the house in the hill, my mind whirled, and my thoughts centered on Garrison in a different way. He was the one in the group who got information out of people rather than computers. I didn’t have him to guide me, so I had to figure this out myself. How would he have convinced someone to cough up an address? I’d watched him in action before.
He’d get people talking. He’d catch them off-guard and set them up to reveal more than they meant to before they even realized how much they were spilling. He might act like he knew all about what he was fishing for already to put them at ease with confirming or correcting his suggestions.
What if I could do the same? If I wanted to save Garrison, I’d have to become him for one phone call.
I took out my phone and scanned through the limited numbers. Who would be the most likely to fall for this kind of gambit? Someone who didn’t already have decades of experience pretending not to be a mass murderer, presumably. But someone who was familiar with the family’s “rituals.”
After a moment’s debate, I tapped my brother’s number and raised the phone to my ear.
Carter answered after just a couple of rings, nothing in his tone giving any indication that he knew I had a reason to be upset. “Hey, Rachel. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.” He sounded mildly surprised but not concerned or shifty. Maybe he wasn’t in on this particular part of our parents’ plans. Or maybe he was a very good actor.
I’d just have to be better.
“Hey,” I said in a brisk but warm tone. “Dad wanted me to meet him out at the country house so he could show me around. I’m excited to find out more about everything the family’s involved in, but I seem to have misplaced the address. Can you remind me where I’m going?”
Calling Malik “dad” sent shivers down my spine, but I held up the ruse through my whole spiel.
Carter answered automatically, just as I hoped. “It’s just off Eckleberry Lane, if you’ve made it that—” He caught himself, and his tone turned abruptly wary. “Dad wanted you to meet him there? What did he say he wanted to show you?”
“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “You’ve told me enough.”
I hung up the phone and dashed back to the crew with the street name on my lips.
