Page 75 of Save Me

“Help us find Rhett and Tanner.” Jax’s voice cuts in sharply.

“You haven’t found them yet?” Bryce says, poorly hiding the surprise in his tone.

“No,” Jax says, “we’ve been working on it since everything happened. Rhett has been jumping from one location to the next faster than it takes you to blink; just when we think we’ve found him, he changes his location.”

“His family and friends have no shortage of properties around the world. What we know right now is he’s out of the country. Our guys spotted him in London recently and trailed him as he boarded a plane to Dubai. It’s like playing hide and seek if you have an unlimited bank account and connections globally,” Ryan says calmly.

“And Tanner,” Jax starts, the shift in his anger tangible, “has been laying so low we can’t seem to find him anywhere. He hasn’t made a phone call, hasn’t used a credit card, hasn’t evenbreathed for all we know since this went down. He clearly knows what’s coming for him, because we will find them, and when we do, they’ll be wishing for death.”

The table goes quiet at Jax’s declaration, and I don’t miss the smile on Ryan’s face, a smile that promises the sort of violence that even I don’t want to imagine.

“What do you need my help with? I don’t know much about where they could be. Besides the lake house, his apartment, and his parent’s estate in the south… I haven’t been to any of his family’s properties. In terms of Tanner, he could be anywhere. His family has money, not as much as Rhett’s family, but a flight out of the country wouldn’t ruffle any feathers. He could go anywhere.”

Jax nods, Bryce’s information is nothing new to him.

“I’ve been thinking of how we can find them,” Jax starts. “Our guys can only do so much without drawing unwanted attention to themselves. What makes it even more complicated is I want them brought to me alive—”

“I give them five minutes in your presence before that’s no longer the case.” Ryan snorts.

Jax just smiles before continuing, “But it’s like finding a needle in a haystack… So, how can we make the needle come to us?”

The whole table is quiet, looking to Jax in anticipation of what he’ll say next, of what he has seemingly already planned.

“I was thinking about finding them too literally, too old school, going after them out of anger. When the best way to find them is to get the whole world on our side looking for them—to find something to make themneedto come back to the country, find something that will ruin them and their families. Make it so people aren’t too distraught if they were to go…missing.”

Jax’s eyes are glimmering as he waits for us to all catch up.

I open my mouth. “You want us to—”

“I’m on it,” Ryan says, cutting me off. He pushes his chair out from the table before heading to the other side of the room, his phone in his hands as he starts texting furiously. It rings a second later and he picks it up, leaving the room.

“What are you looking for? What do you think you’ll find?” I ask.

“Bryce painted a pretty clear picture of what they can be like, and if they were brazen enough to hold you hostage for so long, I’d be surprised if it was the first time him and his friends acted like the filth they are. And I’m willing to bet that if they’ve done this before, with all of them in on it, there has got to be some sort of evidence somewhere. A text, a picture, or a video, perhaps.”

I cringe internally at the idea of any evidence of what was done to me, to others, being out there in the world, at being viewed by Rhett, Tanner, and their friends, maybe others, over and over again. I’m startled from my thoughts as Jax lays a hand on top of mine, and I look into his eyes, into the look he’s giving me, as though fury and sympathy have merged together. A look that says,I know, I know this is hard. I know this is the last thing you need right now, but I’ll find them, and they will pay.

I take a breath and nod for Jax to continue.

“From what we’ve found out about Rhett and Tanner so far, their families only maintain their social standing, their connections, and therefore their wealth, because they manage to keep their reputations clean. Manage to sweep generations of dirty secrets under the rug—”

I cut him off. “You’re not just going after them now, are you?” I ask in awe as everything catches up to me.

“I’m going to crumble their entire world,” he says menacingly, “and then kill them for what they did to you.”

The words are a promise on his lips, and the table is quiet as the gravity of what he said sinks in. Jax is going to leak something about them that will create such a scandal, so muchpublic outrage, that they’ll be forced out of hiding, forced home by their families, and lawyers, to clean up the mess they made, except—I look to Jax, who is nodding as if reading my thoughts.

“Except they won’t make it home. They’ll get as far as the airport parking lot where I’ll be waiting for them.”

I look at Jax, his mouth set in grim determination as if he knows exactly how this will play out. I try to summon my conscience, try to stir the feelings of guilt and worry I should be feeling, but that spot within me remains dark and empty, just like Rhett and Tanner left me feeling so many times.

I don’t say anything. Instead, I nod my approval to Jax as Ryan walks back into the room.

“Our tech team is on it. Any device that can be hacked remotely will be by tomorrow.”

Jax nods before looking at Bryce.

“Your role,” he says casually, “is to get me a list of every important person in Rhett and Tanner’s miserable lives. I want the names of anyone they have ever cared about and anyone they would want to maintain a good relationship with… family, bosses, the fucking president of the country club they belong to. All the names.”

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