Chapter 3: Chapter 3

I know Theo and Ryland can sense my unease, but neither of them offers up much explanation as we thread our way through the quiet rows of warehouses, back toward the street.

When we reach Dominic’s car, Ryland hands me over to Theo before sliding into the front passenger seat. Theo helps me inside, keeping an arm wrapped around my shoulders as we settle next to each other on the seat. Ryland still has his gun in his hand, although he rests it on his thigh as Dominic starts the engine. It feels like some kind of insurance policy, but it hardly makes me feel any better.

Is this Luca D’Addario guy really that powerful? Powerful enough to both instigate a seventy-two-hour bloodbath and end it at the stroke of noon?

Theo and Ryland both appear to trust that Dominic won’t try to kill us, and it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that fact. Just a few hours ago, he was shooting at us. Hell, less than thirty minutes ago, he almost did shoot us.

I don’t fucking understand it—although maybe that has something to do with the fact that my brain is splintering apart inside my skull. Eventually, I give up trying to keep my gaze on the road and lean into Theo’s embrace, burying my head in his shoulder and concentrating on taking deep breaths through my nose.

Ryland mutters directions to Dominic in the front seat, but those are the only words anyone says. After an indeterminable amount of time, Ryland says, “Here is good. Pull in up there.”

The car rolls to a stop. It dawns on me that I’m still a bloody mess, and I have a second to hope I wrecked Dominic’s back seat before Theo is opening the door and pulling me out after him. Ryland’s door slams shut, and a second later, his large body is on my other side.

They sandwich me between them as we walk toward a heavy metal door, and I realize we’re in an alley. I don’t know where we are, but I’m guessing we’re back in Halston proper, no longer on the outskirts where the warehouse district was.

As we near the door, it opens from the inside, and a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed beard appears. He’s wearing a long white lab coat over a button-up shirt and slacks. A slight twitch of his eyebrows is the only outward reaction he gives at the sight of me, and he nods at Ryland as the three of us reach him.

“Mr. Bennett. I’ve got everything ready. If you’ll just follow me.”

We step inside the building, and the man who I’m sure is a doctor leads us down two intersecting hallways and then into a small exam room. Theo and Ryland stick close to my side, but as soon as I’m settled on the table, Ryland pulls his phone from his pocket and steps back outside of the room.

The man in the lab coat glances at Theo quickly before turning his gaze to me. I can still pick out just a hint of shock in his expression, but he’s doing a good job of schooling his features. Based on the carefully neutral way he’s looking at me, I could almost imagine that I don’t look like a horror movie come to life right now.

“I’m Doctor Adelman,” he tells me. His voice is gentle and mellow, but it doesn’t do much to relax me. “I’m going to take a quick look at you, okay…”

He trails off, waiting for me to supply my name.

My knee-jerk reaction is to not tell him anything, to refuse to hand over any information he asks for. But Theo and Ryland brought me here, which means they trust this guy—enough, at least. And despite everything, despite the secrets they kept from me and the lies they told, I trust them.

“Ayla,” I mutter.

“Ayla,” he repeats, dipping his head in a nod. “I’m just going to do some tests to make sure you didn’t cause too much damage to your head when you fell. Ryland told me you hit it, is that right?”

“Yes.” I start to nod, but stop when pain flares in my temple again.

“All right. We’ll take care of that.”

With Theo hovering protectively over my shoulder, Doctor Adelman asks me questions and does a series of tests, tracking the movement of my eyes and shining a light into them.

At some point, Ryland slips back into the room, and I glance over at him.

“Did you talk to your guy? Can he get the footage?”

He nods. “He’s working on it right now.”

“How long will it take?” I press as Doctor Adelman gently turns my head back toward him so he can continue his examination. I know the guys wanted me to get checked out, but now that I’m sitting here in this sterile, quiet office, it doesn’t seem nearly as important as figuring out what the hell happened to Marcus.

“Not long, hopefully.”

Ryland’s answer is clipped, and I can still see the same blank mask over his features that I noticed before. He’s always been good at controlling his emotions, keeping them locked down tight—it’s why I was so sure he hated me for so long—but now it’s almost like he’s shut them off entirely.

The room is quiet, but tension fills every inch of it as Doctor Adelman finishes up his exam. When he’s done, he steps back and leans against the small desk set along one wall.

“Well, Ayla, the good news is, I don’t think you’ve got more than a very mild concussion. I’m not seeing signs of a serious brain injury. I believe that some of the symptoms you’re experiencing are the effects of shock.” He shoots a quick look at Ryland and Theo before shifting his gaze back to me, speaking carefully as he continues. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, but I’m going to guess that it was… somewhat traumatic. Shock, on top of the concussion, accounts for all of your symptoms. I’ll write you a prescription for pain medication and an anti-inflammatory, and you’ll need to take it easy for the next few days. All right?”

I nod, although I barely heard everything he said. The gist of what I picked up was that we shouldn’t have come, that I’m not hurt badly enough to really need medical attention.

That we should be out there trying to find Marcus.

“Thanks, Doc,” Theo murmurs, and for the first time since they found me, he sounds relieved.

“No problem. I’ll just go get those for you.”

Doctor Adelman steps out of the room, and I move to slide off the exam table, but Theo stops me with a hand at my waist.

“Don’t get up until you have to. He said you need rest.”

The concern in his gaze is almost enough to quash my nervous impulse to pace around the room. He’s right, and I know it. But sitting still feels like doing nothing. And I can’t do nothing right now.

Ryland’s phone rings, and he swipes the screen quickly and lifts it to his ear. “Yeah? What do you have?”

I sit up straighter, staying on the exam table but leaning forward as if I’ll be able to pick up the other side of the phone call if I get close enough. I can hear the indistinct murmur of a deep voice talking on the other end, but I can’t understand the words. So I just watch Ryland’s face, trying to read the answers in the strong lines of his face and the curve of his lips.

He listens in silence for a moment. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and my stomach clenches.

“All of it?” There’s a pause as he listens again. When he speaks, there’s something in his voice I don’t recognize, something I’ve never heard before. “Yeah, okay. Keep looking. Call me if you find anything.”

He pulls the phone away from his ear and presses a button to end the call, then stares down at the screen for a moment. I realize I’ve stopped breathing, and although my head still pounds with an angry, throbbing pulse, I can barely feel it right now. I’m staring at the phone just like Ryland is, my gaze zeroed in on it like it possesses the answers to every question in the damn universe.

Then, suddenly, Ryland’s fingers curl around it, gripping it tight. With an inarticulate roar, he hurls it across the room.

It hits the wall so hard it dents the plaster, breaking into pieces and clattering to the floor. Chunks of black plastic, glass, and little electronic pieces scatter across the hardwood.

But it’s not enough.

In three long strides, Ryland crosses the room, slapping one palm against the wall before smashing his fist into the spot where his phone hit. Another ragged yell pours from his lips as he punches the wall over and over. He’s not even forming words. Just… sounds.

His fist breaks through the plaster, and he punches two more times, widening the hole. Then he braces both hands on the wall, dropping his head as he breathes heavily.

He looks like a wounded animal.

Feral.

Dangerous.

Broken.

The sounds of his breath fill the sudden quiet of the room, and as I stare at him in shock, my heart cracks open in my chest.

I was holding on to hope. All this time, despite the blood and the pain and the uncertainty, I was holding out hope that Marcus would be okay. But witnessing Ryland’s raw grief turns that hope to ash.

“What?” I croak. “What did he say?”

“The footage is gone.” Ryland’s voice is strained. “Everything from the warehouses and the surrounding area was wiped. There’s no footage left from today at all.”

“How?” There’s a note of desperation in my voice, and my fingers grip the edge of the exam table tightly.

“The same way we know it’s missing. Whoever is behind this has someone who knows their way around a computer, just like we do. Only they got to it first.”

“But then, Marcus could still be alive,” I blurt out. “We didn’t see the footage, so we don’t know. He might not be dead. I know he got shot, but maybe—he might still be alive.”

My heart pounds faster, as if it’s trying to pour more strength into my words, to bolster them somehow. But it’s true, isn’t it? The fact that we don’t know what happened between when I blacked out and when I woke up means that maybe, somehow, he’s still alive somewhere.

Maybe he was wearing a vest.

Maybe his wounds weren’t that bad.

But then why would he leave? If he was well enough to walk on his own, why would he just leave me unconscious on the ground next to a dead body?

A sudden vivid memory comes to mind: Marcus, walking into the bedroom at the safe house and asking me if things were okay between us. That was right before we left to head to a new, supposedly safer, location. I can picture every detail of him in my mind’s eye, and he wasn’t wearing a vest.

No, the bullets pierced his body.

I felt the blood.

I’m still covered in it.

Ryland doesn’t answer. His head is still bowed, as if he can’t physically lift it. His fingers curl into fists again, the heels of his hands pressing against the wall.

My chest aches. I want to slip off the table to go to him, to wrap my arms around him and rest my forehead against his back. To let my breath fall into sync with his as I let him know that he’s not alone.

But I’m pretty sure he feels the same way I did earlier. That it would hurt him more than help him to be touched tenderly right now.

I hate that he’s like that.

I hate that I’m like that.

A long moment passes before Theo speaks up. “You’re right. He could still be alive.” His voice is more subdued than I think I’ve ever heard it, as he steps closer to the exam table, resting his hand over mine. “We don’t know. And until we do, we’ll keep looking for him. We’ll keep searching.”

My fingers release their death grip on the table’s edge and interlace with Theo’s. “Okay.”

We’ll keep looking for him. We’ll keep searching.

Without meaning to, without even knowing he’s done it, Theo just echoed a promise I’ve been telling myself for years. I’ve spent more hours than I can count trying to dig up information on my little brother, searching relentlessly with nothing more to go on than an old picture and a story from a girl I knew in foster care.

Now there are two men I’m searching for.

Two men I’m desperate to find.

And I don’t have any idea if either of them are still alive.