Page 160 of The Alpha's Second Chance Mate

He hung up, and the phone slid from my fingers, clattering onto the carpet.

“What’s going on? You guys look like you saw a ghost.”

I whirled around to face Trent and Farrah.

“Fucker is smarter than we thought,” Zayde said, still typing on his phone.

“What do you mean?” Trent asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Kyle knew they were in town,” I said, my voice pitching higher with each syllable. “He had some chick named Sydney stop us from tracking his phone. Cole’s in trouble. This all backfired.”

Trent crossed the room in three quick steps and clasped my shoulders. “Calm down.”

“I need to warn Cole,” I said, the few tenuous threads of sanity I had left threatening to snap beneath the pressure of it all.

“Already on it,” Farrah said from behind him, her phone to her ear. A moment later, she winced in disgust. “Fuck! No answer.”

Trent pulled his own phone out and dialed. A second later, someone answered, and he started speaking.

“Porter? Is Cole near you?” He listened for a few moments and then closed his eyes in disappointment. “Well, get to him. This has all gone sideways. Kyle fucking knew we were in town. He may have reserved men on the way. You guys are all sitting fucking ducks. Find Cole and keep him safe. He’s the one Kyle is gonna target above all else.Move!”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, my knees going weak.

“Avery,” Stormy said, taking both my hands in hers, “it’s gonna be okay. Don’t think the worst. Not yet. Do you understand me?”

I understood, but believingwas impossible. Kyle was one step ahead of us. I didn’t know why we’d thought this would be any different. I wouldn’t be okay until Cole was back here where I knew he would be safe.

Collapsing into the chair beside Zayde, I did the only thing I could do—I watched his laptop screen. The tiny dots that had been still and structured a few minutes ago looked like cockroaches when the lights went on—groups of them moving in mad dashes across the screen.

“There’s our boys,” Zayde said, pointing at two dots farthest away from the others. “Cole and Langston.” Zayde tossed his phone on the table. “Langston isn’t answering my texts.”

As I watched, the two dots fled from the bank building, rushing west toward North Crest’s Main Street, rounding a corner toward the elementary school.

“Oh, good,” Zayde said with a sigh.

On screen, the other dots converged on Cole and Langston.

“That’s Porter and the others,” Zayde explained.

“They’ve met back up with Cole?” Trent asked, leaning over to get a better look. “Can you pull up some of the camera feeds around town? This shit tells me nothing. We need to know if they have Dallas with them.”

“I’ll try,” Zayde said, tapping away on his keyboard. The screen went black, and then the face of a pretty, young, red-headed woman appeared, her freckle-strewn face looking down into a smartphone camera. From the way the scenery behind her bobbed and moved, she was walking.

“Oh, hey there,” she said with a little giggle. “Name’s Sydney.” She winked. “You can say hi if you want, I hacked your webcam.” She leaned forward and licked her lips. “Oh, you’re hot, Mr. Computer Man,” she said, eyeing Zayde. “Too bad you aren’t as good as me. I locked you out of North Crest’s CCTV system. Don’t want you all watching the fun. Anyway, bye-bye now.” She made a kissing sound and puckered her lips before the screen went blank again.

“What a cunt,” Zayde said.

The young womandidhave an incredibly irritating quality to her, even in that short interaction. But something about her tickled at the back of my mind. She was almost too irritating. Too over the top. Almost like it was some sort of act to get a rise out of us.

“Are we really locked out?” Trent asked. For the first time, I could hear panic in his voice.

“She’s good,” Zayde said with a growl, “but I’m better.” He pulled a touchscreen tablet from his bag and booted it up. The operating system looked nothing like what I’d seen before,almost like it was home-designed. Knowing Zayde, it probably was.

“The bitch locked down my laptop access to the CCTV site,” Zayde snarled. “She must have skimmed my IP address when I was accessing stuff before. She won’t have the IP for this tablet. Give me a minute.”

The seconds while he worked dragged on, each one feeling like an entire hour. Farrah paced. Stormy continued to hold my hands tightly while we watched him work.

“Okay, I’m back in. Watch,” Zayde said, tilting his tablet so we could watch.

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