Chapter 54

“What doyou need us to do?” Cruz asked, after Ash finished filling his brothers in on the governor’s murder and Seb Grimball, the vandalism to Kayla’s vehicle, the blood spatter matching Mason Wade’s DNA and his link to Service, and Jillian Krowne’s disappearance.

Ash lifted his head from his hands and took in the various expressions on their faces.

Phin paced in front of the Annex’s kitchenette, a worried expression replacing the charismatic smile he normally wore. Rohan sat hunched over his laptop, working his hacker magic on the new information Ash just supplied. Cruz leaned back in his chair, hands locked behind his head and one booted foot anchored over a thick thigh. Zeke stood at the end of the table like a thundercloud hovering over a city, deciding which meteorological torture device it would unleash on the denizens below.

After Kayla’s devastating phone call with her mom’s assistant, she’d collapsed in his arms and nothing he said or did had soothed her anguish and fear. So, he proceeded the only way he knew how. Called in feminine reinforcements.

Liv and the other ladies had swept into the chapel, gathered up an inconsolable Kayla, and marshaled her back to the Friary. Ash, furious and feeling more helpless than he ever had in his life, had punched a hole in the pulpit.

A dry voice behind him had said, “You’re going to hell now, brother.” Zeke motioned for him to follow. “Come on. Let’s get you bandaged and put your mind to work, rather than your fists.”

That was thirty minutes and two fingers of Defiant ago, and Ash’s helpless rage still simmered in his gut like acid. “Hell if I know,” he said, flexing his bandaged hand. “Everything has hit a dead end, and I have zero leads.”

“We have leads,” Rohan corrected. “They’re just frayed.” He sent Ash a cocky smile.

The sight jolted him. Of all his brothers, Rohan never displayed what they all knew. He was a bits and bytes genius. Maybe his recent skirmish with the Collective had given him an extra boost of empowerment. Ash didn’t begrudge his brother a dash of arrogance. He’d earned it.

Rohan’s next words confirmed his suspicions. “I like frayed.”

Hope speared through his chest for the first time since he lost Wade to the wind. Yet he couldn’t just sit here and watch Rohan dig up something actionable.

Kayla’s tear-streaked face rocketed through his mind, and he surged to his feet. “I need to check on Kayla. She won’t be weak with grief for long.”

“Kayla is in good hands,” Zeke said, still thundering at the end of the table. “Six women who love her are pampering and listening and doing all the other things men suck at in these circumstances. We need you here and focused.”

“I am fucking focused!”

“Easy, buddy.” Phin appeared before him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “In this, I have to agree with Mr. Sensitive. Your mind is stuck in a loop of how you could have done things differently, how you could’ve prevented Jillian’s disappearance.” He nodded to the room at large. “We’ve all been there in the past couple years.” His voice lowered for Ash’s ears only. “It’s what happens when the woman you love is hurting.”

Ash raised his burning eyes and met each man’s gaze, ending with his youngest brother’s. Love for these turds filled the aching hollowness he’d been living with since the moment he announced accepting a position with the FBI. Today, for the first time in years, he felt like a Blackwell again. “When did you grow up, you little shit?”

Phin laughed and rumpled his hair like Ash used to do to him two-and-half decades ago. “Time to get to work, loverboy.”

Ash lifted a brow in Rohan’s direction. “Got a connection yet to any of those frayed ends?”

Rohan’s eyes gleamed their triumph. “Does Phin wear pressed T-shirts?”