Page 3 of The Wayward Sons & the Seattle Sirens

“Mal is missing. And so is my husband.” Her… what? I said nothing as my dehydrated, hungover brain tried to comprehend that last part of her sentence. Tess had a husband? Tess was married? “Ryder?”

“You’re married?” I demanded. “To who?”

“That’s what matters?”

“Yes!” I snapped. “When? How? What the fuck happened?”

“It was a quick romance,” Tessa said.

“How quick?” I growled. “Don’t you dare tell me that fucker knocked you up. I’ll kill him.”

“Christ, you sound like Mal,” she replied. “It was six weeks.”

“Tess! You can’t marry a guy you just fucking met! What the hell were you thinking?”

“Jake’s a good guy!”

“Jake?” I scoffed. “I doubt that considering he asked you to marry him after six weeks!”

“Not everyone takes ten years to decide maybe they like someone, Ryder,” Tessa shot back. Okay, I deserved that one. But I loved Gray. It wasn’t the same thing. “Sorry, that was mean. We’ve been married for three years.”

Three years? Okay, maybe that made a difference.

“Fuck.” I blew out a breath of air as I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Are you happy?”

“In general, yes,” she told me. “Right now, no. My husband and my brother are missing, and my other brother is being an asshole.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Fuck, I’m sorry. What happened?”

“I don’t know. There have been a string of disappearances in Seattle. All men. Mal and Jake were looking into it when they went missing.”

“How long?”

“Two days.”

“And you’re sure they’re missing too?” I asked. Maybe it was a stupid thing to ask, but I had to be sure. Mal had no strings attached to him—ever. He was free-spirited. I had no clue if Jake was the same.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Tessa said. “No, Jake wouldn’t leave us like that.”

“Us?”

“We have a daughter, Ryder.” My heart sank. “She’s one, and he loves our little girl more than life itself. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave us. Please, I need help finding him, and I don’t know who else to ask.”

“Text me the address,” I replied, getting to my feet. “We’ll be on the road within the hour.”

CHAPTER 03

Why was I the first one awake?

Better question: why was Ryder still asleep at ten-thirty in the morning? In the nine years we’d been together, the man never slept past seven. It was disturbing really.

I took another long drag from my cigarette. Sprawled on the hood of our car, I stared up at the clouded sky. My body vibrated with anxious energy. We’d been so busy for fucking weeks that it didn’t feel right to just relax and do nothing. What was I supposed to do with myself?

Shouting made me sit upright just in time to watch Ryder drag Olivia out of the motel room and deposit her on the sidewalk. Her dress was backwards, her shoes were in her hand, and her hair was a mess. Ryder, on the other hand, looked sexy as hell with ruffled bedhead and his jeans sitting low on his hips. I approved.

But watching Ryder point at the disheveled, angry blonde thing and tell her to stay might’ve been the funniest shit I’d seen in a while. So much so that my tired ass folded over damn near giggling. Fuck, I needed more sleep.

Sliding off the car, I went back to our room.

---