Page 45 of Bratva Wolf

THANE

I’ve been driving for five hours, lost in my own nightmare. Marco clears his throat. “How’d you meet her?”

I scoff. “You know damn well how I met her. You were surveilling her.”

“Honestly, I didn’t read the reports. I just asked my brother to make sure she wasn’t a risk to you.”

I can’t answer. My dark mind searches through all the scenarios she could be living, and my body quakes with anger. I’ll dismember anyone involved in this whole fucking nightmare.

“We’ll get to her. They’ll pick up more people to traffic. Based on the intel, they’ll end up in Mexico. The easiest thing for them to do is to use one of the ports in Florida to get over to Mexico. We’ve got time. She’s no use to them dead.”

I slam my fist against the steering wheel. “That doesn’t help.She’s pregnant, Marco. She carries my child. I need her back.”

He nods with the brother’s warmth he showed me during my time with their cartel in Mexico. “I’m aware how the trafficking works.”

I grit my teeth. “I know. You do it.”

He leans back in his seat. “We do. It brings in a lot of money, and there is money to be made by blackmailing the men who use our product.”

“She’s not a product.”

“I’m know, mi hermano.” My brother. How dare he call me that? He’s not my brother. My brother wouldn’t sell women and children to be used and abused. I steady my nerves. Blowing up at him won’t help Red. The Aguilar cartel knows our feelings about trafficking.

Time drags and every moment I’ve spent with Red replays in my mind. My old friend, dread, has surrounded my heart and soul. How do I live without her? I never wanted a soulmate. I appreciated what my parents had, but never thought I’d find it. What I have with Red looks different from what my parents or Cynric and Isabella created, but it’s real.

Marco’s phone rings. “My men are in Savannah.”

I sigh. “They made good time.”

“Not as far as you’ve driven us in the same amount of time.”

My phone rings, and I answer Anatoly’s call. “Fingers found footage of the truck that has Red. He’s got the plate, and he’s running it to go with the GPS of the cousin’s phone. It’s an eighteen-wheeler with Florida plates. They’re still in the Outer Banks. Must be stopping to sleep or picking up more women.”

I growl. “How many men in the truck?”

“Looks like two. Fingers is expecting them to show up at a rest stop, that’s what they’ve been doing. He’s searching through all the footage he can find around their GPS location.”

Marco nods. “Driving like a bat out of hell has gotten us close.We’ll find your woman.”

I nod. I can’t voice any words.

It takes us three hours to get to the Outer Banks from the interstate. By the time we get to the cheap motel where the truck is parked, I’m ready to explode. I’ve imagined killing both men in the most sadistic ways, settling on removing every appendage for as long as both breathes.

Wystan and I park our SUV’s and step out. I grab my pry bar out of the back of my SUV as the other men and my brothers scour the area for the truck. The cousin’s phone is pinging in the motel, three hundred feet away.

Anatoly points and my eyes dart to the three eighteen wheelers at the edge of the parking lot.

How are they keeping Red quiet in the back of the truck? I’m spiraling thinking about how bad this could be. She could be dead.

“Thane!” I whip my head to Wystan. “Steady.”

His eyes implore me to get my head in the game. “I’m steady. Which one is first?”

Marco speaks. “The white one has the Florida plates.”

We run to the truck, leaving the young soldier to watch for the two men. I jam the edge of the tire iron into the lock on the sliding door of the truck and force it open. I pop off the broken lock, and Anatoly lifts the sliding white door. It reeks of urine and death.

“Fuck. It’s empty.”

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