Page 13 of His Fury

He sucked in a sharp breath, his face tightening in pain. “Jesus, McCabe?—”

I leaned in. My voice was low, quiet, meant only for him. “Where is he?”

His eyes darted to Rye, looking for an escape. I applied more pressure. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. “I don’t know,” he rasped. “He could be?—”

“Be where?”

“Sometimes he takes shipments at an old warehouse in the old industrial yard, between here and Chicago, but,” he paused, meeting my eye. “You can’t tell him it was me that told you.”

I let him go.

“You can go back to your seat,” Rye told him with a nod towards the table he had been at.

On any other day, I would have laughed at how quickly he moved.

“It’s a big area to search,” Rye said softly as he watched Manny take his seat back at his table.

“It’s a start.”

I knew he was biting his tongue from telling me I was being rash. But this was Isla.

Isla.

I needed to find her. Get her back.

And burn the entire fucking town to the ground if I had to.

CHAPTER 4

ZAYN

We were in the SUV.Rye drove, and I was in the passenger seat. Fuming. Jayden had eyes on Manny and was watching him closely, ensuring he didn’t alert his boss that I was coming.

“Why didn’t we know Delaney uses the old industrial yard?” I asked Rye. “Isn’t that something we should know?”

Rye grunted. “Why the fuck would we know everything about him?” he countered. “We know his main areas, where he does his loan deals, and where his venues are for the games. We know he has sidelines, but did we need to know everything about them? No.” He glanced at me. “We don’t need this level of detail.”

I snorted, my contempt clear. “Until we do.”

He nodded. “Until we do,” he conceded. “And we got it pretty easily.” He saw my glare. “Man, you have got to cool your shit. Rein it in, brother, you’re going to get her. Hell, he’s probably waiting to hand her over. I can’t imagine she’s been easy.”

That almost made me laugh. But I knew Isla better thanshe thought I did. She would be scared, watching, waiting for an opportunity. She would be silent, not wanting to draw attention to herself, which was precisely what I needed her to be doing, staying small, out of his way, and unobtrusive.

“She’ll be quiet,” I told Rye, my voice low. “She’ll be scared shitless, and when she’s unsure, she goes still.” I looked out the window. “She’s only bold when she’s comfortable. When she’s certain.” I thought back to a night a long time ago when she was neither sure nor certain, but she’d definitely been bold…and drunk. “Or full of tequila.”

Rye huffed in amusement, but he didn’t say anything else as we drove, leaving me to my musings. I remembered the night well. Julian was in his second year of college, and he’d been bugging me about coming out to see him. We’d caught up a few times since I left Gracemont, but college life was definitely not for me. I had a fight scheduled near his campus though, so I’d agreed to attend some “rager” that was allegedly the highlight of the campus social calendar.

His college was pretentious. Stuck-up students with stuck-up attitudes. I couldn’t think of anything worse, but he was my friend. It wouldn’t have been a hardship to see what I was missing out on by not pursuing an academic life.

The party was tame. If these kids thought this was a rager, they were wrapped in cotton wool, and real life was going to slap them in the face so badly they’d still be spinning from the impact in their thirties. Julian knew I was unimpressed pretty quickly. The most shocking thing to me that night was that Isla was there. I hadn’t known she was at the same college, but when I thought about it, where else would she be? They were joined at the hip throughout high school. Of course, they would go to the same college.

She’d been less impressed to see me. I got a cool greetingand an even colder dismissal when she walked past me like I hadn’t been the guy she came to for her first kiss. Another stuck-up bitch with a superior attitude. Or so I thought. A few hours later, I was upstairs, having found the rich kids who had more money than sense, and I was talking up how profitable bets could be when it came to underground fighting. Some of them already knew of me, which had surprised me but not enough to let it show.

Isla stumbled into the games room, shit-faced, saw me, and then stumbled back the way she’d come. One or two comments about her being an easy target had me casually following her to make sure none of these entitled shits took liberties with her. I’d make sure she was stuck to Julian like she should have been, and then I’d blow this place. The thought of making these fuckers money, and myself money in the process, was no longer appealing.

I found her slumped against a wall, head down, seemingly zoned out.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked her, taking in the black jeans, the loose camisole, and the mountains of jewelry around her neck, which might be why she looked unbalanced. That amount of shit had to be weighing her down. “You sleeping, Wells?”

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