Page 59 of Savage King

Oh…something had definitely happened between them.

Grumbling, Trouble hit Odin with a wounded glare. “You called Liz? How did you even know she was in town? When did she get back?”

“Now’s not the time, brother,” Odin warned, silencing Trouble’s obvious litany of questions.

Trouble cursed under his breath and left the room, his big body moving without his usual cockiness. “I’ll be upstairs.”

Odin strode to the bed and helped Skathi to sit up against the headboard, a pile of pillows at her back.

“I’m fine. I just need some time for the meds to kick in.”

“I want to make you stay in this bed all night, me beside you, holding you, but not right now—”

“I know what’s at stake, Odin. Tessa was my friend, and I need your help to save her.” Her voice trembling, she pushed Odin out of the way and slowly got to her feet.

“The brothers are gathered upstairs in the conference room. They want to hear what happened with you, and AFK says he has something on what he thinks happened with the girls.”

It took ten minutes to get upstairs and in one of the chairs around the long conference table. Once she sat though, she took in the screens, the maps and photos strung across the table, and the men pacing or brooding or on their phones texting. From the outside it looked like nothing was being done, but Skathi knew that most of the work for any operation happened long before anyone ever picked up a gun.

“So, tell us what happened,” Trouble prodded, sitting in the chair across from her, his hands clasped together. Odin took the seat next to her, Fang stood in the corner, leaning against the wall, and a couple other men came and went with waters, coffee, and papers. AFK sat at the head of the table nearest the bank of monitors, his fingers flying.

“There were three of them. They took me by surprise, kicking in the back door and getting with the Taser before I could turn around. I hit my head on the way down, but I was still conscious enough to hear them.”

Trembling at the memory, she took a deep breath. Odin’s hand on her back centered her. And she continued. “Tessa put up a fight, but they were bigger than her, and she was probably surprised too. She’d already been drinking, so her reflexes weren’t as quick. I heard the struggle. I heard…I-I heard her screaming.” Skathi choked on a sob, Odin pulling her into him, her shoulder hitting his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head.

“I know it’s hard to talk about it, baby, but you need to. We need any information you can give us.”

She sucked in a breath, closed her eyes to draw on her strength, and replied, “They were speaking Spanish—thankfully I know it. It was clear from what they were saying about Tessa that they thought she was me.”

“The fuck!” Fang barked. “Why would they think that?”

“She was wearing one of my old Lock ‘n’ Load shirts.”

“Couldn’t they look up pictures of you online?”

She shook her head carefully. “I have no social media, and Jaegers are discouraged from having our pictures taken. Even when I was with Aaron, I never allowed paparazzi to get a photo of me.”

“Shit,” Trouble spat. He pinned Odin with a knowing look. “I have a suspicion about who this might be…but…last we heard he’d taken his jet and vamoosed. What’s he doin’ back in town, and why is he takin’ our girls? Why would he target Skathi?”

“He probably has something to do with the fire at the gun range, too, now that I think about it,” Odin said.

“Why would he set fire to the range? What purpose does that serve?” Skathi was at a loss; what did kidnapping prostitutes, setting fire to the range, and targeting Skathi have to do with one another.”

“Got it!” AFK shouted, shooting up from his chair.

“What?” Fang demanded, pushing away from the wall to storm toward AFK.

“I had the girls at the bordello check Janine, Charlene, and Maisey’s rooms for any clue about where their meeting with this so called casting person was meeting them. Laila found an address written on a napkin from a bar they frequent on the weekends. The address was to an upscale Italian restaurant. When I called them and asked them about seeing the girls, the hostess said she remembered women fitting those descriptions meeting with a man in the one of their private back rooms. She described the man as medium build, dark hair, dark eyes, and speaking with a Mexican accent.”

“Shit fuck!” Fang cursed. “What else?”

Skathi watched Fang get more and more agitated and, once again, she wondered what was going on with him and her best friend.

“The hostess said that the girls went back there, but the hostess left to go home before the girls left the room, so she didn’t see when they finally left.”

“So we have no idea when they left and who the guy was?” Trouble inquired.

“I’m getting to that. The restaurant has a camera in the entrance foyer pointed at the hostess stand. It keeps down on the rabble who try to push their way in without making a reservation. So, I was able to find the date and time the girls went in. I spun the clock back fifteen minutes, and there he was, walking in.”

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