Page 37 of Hunted Innocence

“I’m Orion. I’m the VP of the club.”

“Why aren’t you the president?” I ask. He’s got at least fifteen years on Brody, so it would make sense as the obvious senior member that he would have taken over the reins. At least I assume that’s the way this works, like any other type of organization.

“Brody’s grandfather was a founding member. The seat was his. He had to prove worthy of it, but it was his.”

Well, that answers that. “His father?” I ask.

“Piece of shit,” Orion snorts. “Didn’t know Brody or Nadine as kids. She was gone before Brody came here looking for family, for answers. We gave him that, and the rest is history.”

“Now that we have that settled, where is Nadine?” I ask again, this time with a bit more force.

He watches me for a moment. “Found her out cold in the office. She lost a couple hours. No clue what happened to her. Between that and Brody being gone, I’m inclined to think that they’re related. And also, I’m inclined to believe that she’d be safer right here where she is.”

I almost laugh in his face. If I wanted a war, I might just do that. But we may need them, and the simple fact is that they have helped us and will continue to help us as long as we can keep our relationship positive. Plus, Brody is Nadine’s only family, and he’s missing.

“Can you track Brody at all?” I ask.

He shakes his head once. “We don’t do that.”

“His phone?”

Orion shakes his head.

I’m not sure where to go from here. “Have you asked Nadine?”

“Says she went to the yard to look for him.”

Why the fuck would she go looking for Brody? Then something hits me. She had to have a reason to go looking for him. “Let me talk to her. I’m not going to take her out of here yet, but I need to ask her some questions.”

“You can ask her questions in her holding room.”

“Sure, whatever.”

Orion must sense my urgency. He walks out of the office without saying another word, and I follow behind him, my mindspinning about a million miles a minute as I think about what the fuck all of this means.

He stops in front of a door, jingles some keys, then opens it. As soon as I step inside, my blood turns ice cold. There is some scattered food on the floor and a bed against the wall, but the room is empty.

Slowly, I turn around to look at Orion, who is also standing stock-still and staring wide-mouthed at the sight in front of him. He shakes his head.

“I’m the only one with a key,” he rasps. “I brought her dinner and locked that door. I even checked the handle to make sure the dead bolt was locked.”

“Where the fuck is she?” I demand.

He shakes his head.

Turning back around to the room, I walk inside and crouch down in front of her chair. What the actual fuck? Where is Landon Tate? And where is Brody? But most importantly, where the fuck is my woman?

NADINE

Sittingcross-legged on the small chair, I smile down at the food in my lap. Comfort food. Maybe Orion didn’t know, but maybe he did. This meal is exactly what Brody would buy me when we were younger and we’d had a particularly bad night with our parents.

A three-piece fried chicken tenderloin filet meal, which includes a biscuit, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a cinnamon twist with frosting. There’s no way Orion just knew my order off the top of his head. Brody had to have told him.

Tears prick the backs of my eyes at the thought of Brody remembering the meal. It’s such a simple thing, a meal from afast-food fried chicken place, but at the same time, it’s more than that.

It’s a comforting hug.

Because that’s what this meal is. It’s my brother’s arm around my shoulders telling me that everything is going to be okay, even when we both knew it wasn’t.

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