CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Cam? We’ve got another dead girl that we think is connected to Archie,” said Hiro. “Outside Tuscaloosa last night. A waitress from a local diner left a note for the cook that she’d be back in thirty minutes. He said she’d been waiting on a man in a white pickup truck. Left with him and never returned, which wasn’t like her. He called the cops, and they started a search for her. Found her body this morning off a dirt road.”

“Fuck,” muttered Eric.

“She was raped, sodomized, beaten. He’s escalating and enjoying it.”

The other men in the room listened, all leaning forward on their elbows. Jonas shook his head, realizing how very dangerous Archie had become. There was no doubt that he really was crazy.

“Use me,” said the small voice at the door. All eyes turned to see Khloe standing in the doorway with Kate, Sophia Ann, and Ajei. “You have to use me. I’ve seen you do this stuff before. If I reach out to him, if I get him to meet me somewhere, you guys can be there and get him.”

“No,” said Jonas. “Absolutely not. I don’t give a shit if we chase this guy for the next ten years. We are not putting your life at risk. No.”

“Jonas,” she said, walking toward him, “we won’t have a life together unless we can catch him. He’s killed three women because he’s angry with me. If you can find him and stop him, allow me to draw him in, this will all be over with much quicker. Please. At least consider this.”

“Jonas, brother, she might be right,” said Eric.

Jonas just shook his head as Wade walked toward the young couple. He hugged Khloe, kissing her forehead.

“I’m with Jonas on this one, Khloe. It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s too dangerous not to do something about this,” she said. “He’s going to escalate. I heard what happened to that poor girl in Alabama. What will he do next? What is he capable of next? You will be there for me. We lure him into our territory. Our land or anywhere you tell me we should lure him in. We need to do this.”

“You know that she’s right,” said Ajei. “We’ve done this before. Successfully. There’s no reason you won’t succeed again.”

“Khloe, let us think about this. If you don’t mind waiting in the cafeteria with the others, let us talk about what this might look like,” said Luke. She nodded, then kissed Jonas on the cheek.

“I love you, Jonas. More than anything in this world. You know I’m right about this.”

He frowned as she left the room and then turned to the other men, a look of absolute terror on his face. Wade hugged the younger man, slapping his back.

“We wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“But you know she’ll do something stupid if we don’t agree to this,” said Jonas. “She’ll go rogue!”

“She might,” said Luke. Jonas snapped his head toward the older man. “You know I’m right, brother. She’s stubborn, and she knows better than anyone that he won’t just walk up to the gates. Hell, he can’t find the gates without our help.”

“You can’t draw him in here,” said Jonas.

“We wouldn’t. We’d find somewhere else to have them meet, and we’d all be there to greet him.”

“How? How are two hundred men going to hide? It’s not like you guys can hide behind poles. This is insane. We can’t let this happen!” he said in a panic.

“Jonas, you know that we have technology that others do not. All of our stealth technology and abilities extend to stealth covers for each of us. We could be hiding in plain sight, and he’d never see us.”

“We could use the hologram technology,” said Thomas. “We could make him think he’s seeing her.”

“It’s too dangerous, brother. If he somehow got away, we might never be able to find him again. I’d like to say shoot him between the eyes, but we want him to stand trial for Jonas’s family and those other women.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t need to stand trial. We all know he’s guilty. I just want Khloe safe.”

“She’ll be safe, son. I promise,” said Wade.

“I thought you said you agreed with me,” he said, scowling at the room.

“I do agree with you. But it doesn’t mean we’re right.”

“I can’t lose another person. I can’t lose another woman that I love,” he said, shaking his head. Wade hugged him to his big, wide body, gripping his shoulders in a fatherly gesture.

“You won’t lose her. I can’t promise anything else, Jonas, but I can promise that nothing will happen to that woman.”

Jonas took a seat in the front row, lowering his head in his hands. They heard the soft sniffs, and a dozen pairs of hands reached out, slapping his back. There was nothing to say, nothing that would change the pain he was feeling until he knew that Khloe was safe.

After several long minutes, he raised his head to look through red, swollen eyes at the men he now called family.

“What do we have to do?”