CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“T-that’s all,” Gerard stammered. “That’s everything.”

His hands set on his hips, Deke glared down at him. “You are fucking kidding me with this shit,” he growled, his cat raring to maul the bastard.

Gerard flinched, his shoulders tensing, sweat dotting his forehead. “I just wanted to come between you and Dayna; I never planned for anyone to get hurt. That was never supposed to happen.”

“But it did, and you did nothing.”

“That’s not true. When I realized it was Therese who was hiring extremists—which I didn’t find out until after the car crash—I made her promise not to do it again.”

“That makes it better, in your opinion?” fumed Havana, a vein pulsing in her temple. “Maybe you didn’t notice, asshole, but she broke that promise.”

“And still, you did jack,” Aspen spat, holding herself stiffly as if she’d otherwise pounce. Not even the hand Camden was sweeping up and down her back soothed her.

Grinding his teeth, Deke once more blasted Gerard with a glower that made the coward recoil. “Was anyone else in on this?”

The other male shook his head. “N-no, no one.”

“What about the person she used to hire extremists for her?” asked Deke.

“She just paid random guys off the street to go do it,” replied Gerard.

“Are you sure? Because the scrambler’s trail ended in the side alley, but Therese’s car is in the lot—I can see it from here. So either she had assistance or another mode of transport. Who would help her?”

“I-I don’t know. If she dragged anyone else into this, she didn’t tell me.”

“Maybe she rented a vehicle,” suggested Blair in an unnaturally flat tone, cracking her knuckles.

“At least we know she’s alive, Deke,” said Tate, his eyes flinty. “You might not have an imprinting bond, but you’d feel her death. It would reverberate through you.”

“I swear, I never meant for things to go this far,” Gerard vowed.

“And yet,” bit out Camden, “you didn’t do a damn thing to stop the runaway train.”

Gerard pulled his shoulders up to his ears, lifting shaking hands. “What could I do?”

Deke leaned toward him. “Warn us where the danger was coming from so I could protect my mate!”

“She wasn’t your mate back then,” Gerard pointed out in a defensive mumble. “Look, I fucked up, I know, but—”

“And youset up others to take the fall for the profiles,” Luke reminded him.

Gerard shrugged. “I knew they’d be able to prove they were innocent.”

As if that made it okay? Unreal. “What about Ginny?”

“Therese wanted you to suspect the loner, so to scare the woman into relocating fast she made up some bullshit story about how Bailey planned to have her killed.”

A low moan escaped the female sprawled on the sofa.

Gerard crept closer to her. “Dayna?”

Her eyelids flickered several times and then lifted. Her brows squished together. “Gerard, what are—” She stopped speaking, awareness flooding her eyes. “Where is she? Where’s Therese? Fucking bitch tranq’d me after I parked in the lot, started hitting my face with the butt of her gun and then tried to gut me.”

Gerard’s eyes fell closed. “God, I’m so sorry.”

Havana loomed over him. “Where is she? Where would she have taken Bailey, Gerard?”

Dayna stiffened. “Therese has Bailey?” She shot to an upright position. “What the hell is happening here?”

“Where, Gerard?” demanded Havana, ignoring the redhead’s question. “Think.”

He spluttered. “I’m not sure, okay? I mean, there’s one place she might have taken her, but it’s a long shot, really.”

Deke took a lurching step toward him. “Where?”

“A bar that extremists frequent called Liberty,” the male replied. “She once talked of selling Bailey to them, but she said it laughing. Like it was a joke. I don’t think she’d go that far.”

Deke shot him an incredulous look. “She almost killed her best friend, Gerard. I don’t think she has many limits at this point.” He made for the door, aware that several people were hot on his heels. Pulling out his phone, he looked up the bar and found its address. “I’m going to—” He stumbled as a hot flash of fury surged through him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Havana.

He put a hand to his chest. “I just felt her. A quick flare of anger.” He dashed outside and hurried toward his car, hearing Tate shouting out orders for some pride members to follow in other vehicles.

“Bailey’s no easy prey, Deke,” said Camden, keeping pace with him. “Therese made a mistake in taking her. She doesn’t know what Bailey is capable of. Your mamba will be alive when we find her. And we will find her.”

Deke nodded. Yes, they would. He’d accept nothing else.

Therese smiled down at the screen of her phone. “Ah, people are running to their vehicles now. They’re off to look for Dayna’s killer. You.”

Unfortunate, but Bailey wasn’t holding out hope of a rescue anyway. She didn’t need one. The knot binding her wrists was almost loose enough that she’d soon be able to free herself. She simply needed to be careful how she went about it, since she didn’t want to get tranq’d again.

Therese still held her gun securely in her lap. Any abrupt movement from Bailey would earn her nothing but a damn dart to her chest. Lucky for her, there was a great way to distract the little bitch to give Bailey time to get out of this freaking chair. But there was no sense in launching that part of her plan until her wrists were free, since she’d need a few moments to also untie her ankles before she could rise.

Intent on keeping Therese occupied, Bailey spoke again. “So, you’re not going to tell me who my ‘ride’ is?” She’d asked once already, but Therese had only responded with a smug grin. She did that same thing yet again. Bitch.

Choosing another subject that would hopefully keep Therese occupied, Bailey said, “All right. I don’t suppose you’re interested in telling me why you killed Dayna, are you? Sorry, almost killed her? I’m curious.”

“Her plan was to leave for Australia next week. She’d invited Gerard to go with her. He was so excited. He literally couldn’t wait to start a life with her.” Therese swiped her tongue between her teeth and lower lip. “But then, earlier, she had a change of heart. She broke it off with him.”

That wasn’t much of a shocker. It hadn’t seemed logical to Bailey that Dayna could have truly moved on in a matter of days.

“She told him she should never have hopped back in his bed; that it was a mistake; that she still had feelings for Deke. Gerard was devastated. I didn’t know until he texted me while I was in the car with her.” Therese stood, gun still in hand, and pocketed her phone. “I asked her why the hell she’d leave him behind. You know what she said?”

Well, obviously not.

“She’d changed her mind about going back to Australia so soon.” Sucking in her cheeks, Therese shook her head. “See, she thought she still had a shot of being with Deke. Yup, she believed that there was no chance you and him would imprint all the way; that it was only a matter of time before the process regressed and he was free of you.”

“She hoped to then slide in and ‘comfort’ him, I’m guessing.”

Therese’s hand clenched the butt of her gun. “I’ve been furious with her several times in my life. But hearing her say she wasn’t prepared to let him go, that he loved her but didn’t see it, that she wouldn’t leave until she’d made him see it …” Cheeks reddening with anger, Therese ground her teeth. “She intended to make him hers for good this time. Everything I’d done would have been for nothing if she’d succeeded. Well, now she can’t have him. And I’m not going to let you do it either.”

“Just how do you think you can ensure that?”

“Sell you to extremists. They’ll do with you what they will.” Therese smiled. “They’re scheduled to collect you later. I arranged it all this morning when I bought this delightful gun from them along with some nifty darts. They’re always happy to sell shift-suppressant drugs.”

This woman so needed to have her asshole stapled shut. “Do they know you’re a shifter?”

“Of course not. They think this building houses humans and that I discovered you’re a lone shifter in hiding.”

“And however will you manage to get me out of here without anyone seeing?”

“In that, of course.” She gestured to a plastic, wheeled waste container that was most certainly big enough for a person to fit in. “As soon as your buyer turns up, I’ll wheel you out, and then you’ll be on your way.”

Her fingers smarting from fiddling with the knot, Bailey took a moment to flex them. Just a little longer and it would be undone. “People will look for me.”

“Oh definitely, since they’ll want to make you pay for Dayna’s murder.” She smirked. “They won’t find you, though.”

“Deke won’t for one moment believe I did it. Neither will anyone else who knows me well.”

“Maybe not.” She shrugged one shoulder. “It won’t really matter, though. You’ll still be gone.”

“And you’ll be dead for what you did.”

Therese snorted. “No one will know I had anything to do with it.”

“Gerard will. It won’t be hard for him to figure it out.”

“He won’t care what happens to you. He hates you for hurting Dayna at the Tavern.”

“But he’ll care that you hurt her, so what makes you think he won’t give you up?”

Therese flicked her hand. “He can’t blab all without exposing his own part in our plan. He’ll never do that. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be that bothered to find her dead, considering she’d broken his heart all over again.”

Bailey cocked her head. “And you really think that Deke will just fall into your arms if I’m not in the picture?”

“Maybe not straight away, but eventually.”

God, the woman was literally delusional where Deke has concerned. Her insistence that she could have him might sound idiotic to others, but Therese truly believed every word she spoke. She so needed to believe he could one day be hers that she’d swallow anything anyone told her that would give her hope. It was almost sad.

“I’ll be there for him while he’s hurting from the reversal of the imprinting process, I’ll—”

“Achieve nothing,” Bailey finished. “He’s known you pretty much all his life. If he wanted you, he’d have done something about it by now.”

Therese’s cheeks went crimson. “Gerard heard him say—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure you can trust Gerard’s word. He told lies to Dayna to get his way,” Bailey reminded her. “You think he wouldn’t have done the same to you?”

“He didn’t lie to me. No way.”

Bailey’s pulse skipped as the rope around her wrists loosened enough that she’d be able to shake it off. Boom. “Whatever. Believe what you want. But I’m telling you, this whole thing was a waste of time. Nothing will come of it. Deke won’t be yours. Ever.”

“Maybe not,” said Therese. “But at least you’ll be dead. I’m assuming the extremists will kill you—they might have other plans, to be fair.”

“I won’t end up in their hands. I can assure you of that.”

Therese snickered. “Oh, you can? And how’s that?”

“Because I know something you don’t.” Bailey let out a distinctive hiss—a call that went answered. Dozens of snakes who were secretly nesting there zipped out of the shadows and lunged at Therese. She cursed and squealed and kicked out, but they were undeterred as they pounced and bit and lurched at her. Their venom wouldn’t kill a shifter, but it would sure hurt them.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Bailey shook off the rope loosely curled around her wrists and then worked on the knots binding her ankles to the chair. In the meantime, Therese shot at the snakes once, twice, three times. Only one dart hit home. She kept pulling the trigger even though she was clearly out of ammo.

Lovely.

Her ankles free, Bailey pushed to her feet and knocked down the chair. She snapped off one wooden leg as she let out another hiss—this one lower, calmer. The snakes melted away, and a panting Therese glared at her.

Bailey just smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. Not straight away, anyway. After the little attacks you arranged, I owe you some serious pain. And I have to be honest, Therese, I’m going to genuinely enjoy subjecting your ass to it.”

Deke clenched the steering wheel as battle-adrenaline fizzed through him—another emotion that wasn’t his own. But it didn’t surge through him like her anger had done. This was more like a gentle flutter of sensation.

“You all right?” asked Tate, riding shotgun. “You just went stiff as a board.”

Deke swallowed. “I felt her again. For the slightest moment, I felt pure battle adrenaline.”

“She’s likely fighting,” Havana piped up from the backseat. “Bailey will never roll over and take anyone’s shit. You know that.”

Cursing, Deke pressed his foot harder on the pedal. An electric sense of urgency seemed to run through each and every vein in his body and heat his blood to unbearable levels.

His cat was in a blind panic. Like Deke, he knew their mate was strong and fierce. Both man and animal were confident in her ability to take care of herself. But none of that dimmed their fear for her.

“You know,” began Aspen from beside her Alpha female, “I’m surprised Therese managed to get Bailey out of the building so easily all while covering her tracks so well. I mean, Gerard was the mastermind behind everything other than the extremist attacks—she didn’t even pass on suggestions for how they should scare Bailey; only advised them via who she sent to hire them to ‘be creative.’ Yet, she made her final move fluidly and quickly, outsmarting us all, and even squeezed in a lethal attack on Dayna.”

“I don’t think the attack on Dayna was planned,” said Camden, holding his mate’s hand. “But given that Therese had a tranq gun and a scrambler on her person, not to mention another mode of transport ready to roll, her abduction of Bailey was definitely top of her schedule.”

“Yup,” said Aspen. “And despite having such a small window of time to make everything happen, Therese achieved it. I wouldn’t have thought she …”

Deke didn’t hear the rest of what Aspen said, becoming lost in his own thoughts as his instincts stirred in unease. He and his cat froze as understanding slapped them. “Fuck.” He eased his foot of the pedal and, seeing his opportunity, did an about turn with a screech of tires.

Tate planted a palm on his window to brace himself. “What the hell are you doing?”

“She isn’t at the bar,” Deke told him, speeding back down the road. “Tell Luke and the others to stay en route there to be sure, but I’ll bet my ass she’s not.”

Havana leaned forward, frowning. “What? Why?”

“She’s still at our goddamn building somewhere.” It would explain every damn thing.

“How can that be possible?” asked Tate, texting someone—probably the others who were heading for Liberty.

“Because Aspen’s right,” said Deke. “It all went too smoothly, too quickly. It took precious moments out of what time Therese had to switch off the cameras and spritz a scrambler trail as well as disable Bailey, yet she pulled it all off and managed to get Bailey out of the building and drive off with her—all without being seen. How? Her car hasn’t moved, and Finley didn’t see an unfamiliar vehicle enter or exit the lot, let alone any car park in the alley where the scrambler’s scent-trail end.”

“Extremists could have snuck past our enforcers and collected them,” Tate suggested.

“Collected Bailey, sure. But Therese would have no reason to go with them, would she? She could have stayed behind. It would have made the most sense.” Knowing that Isaiah was still at the building, Deke contacted him using the car’s built-in Bluetooth system. “I want door-to-door searches to be done of the complex. I think Bailey’s still in there somewhere with Therese. Find her.”

The enforcer swore. “Got it.”

“And guard every exit,” Deke added. “Therese may try to smuggle her out while less people are around.”

“She’ll never succeed—I won’t allow it.” Isaiah then hung up.

“I told the others to keep driving to the bar,” said Tate, setting his phone down on his thigh. “They’ll check it out, just in case you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” Deke asserted.

The Alpha squinted. “How can you be sure?”

“I felt her earlier for a split second. It was a strong sensation. So strong it almost felt like my own emotion.” Seeing the green traffic lights turn amber, Deke accelerated fast and sped through them before they could turn red. “I sensed her again a few minutes ago. It was weaker, but I don’t think it means she’s weak.”

“You think distance dimmed the emotion’s vibrancy,” Tate correctly guessed.

“Yes. I think we were driving away from her rather than towards her, and I’m rectifying it right fucking now.”

Aspen scooted to the edge of her seat. “Where exactly in the building could Bailey be?”

“We know she’s not in the lobby, laundry room, or security office,” said Deke. “At the moment, that’s pretty much all we can be certain of.”

“It seems dumb to hide in the building rather than make a run for it,” began Havana, “but in actuality, it’s not that stupid at all. None of us considered it until now.”

“But we did consider it eventually,” muttered Tate. “So Therese’s plan isn’t what I’d callsmart, just cunning. Cunning doesn’t always pay off.” He looked at Deke. “Did you know she’s pretty much obsessed with you?”

Deke gave a quick shake of the head. “Don’t get me wrong, she made it non-verbally clear that she’d be willing to share my bed. But she was subtle enough about it that it didn’t make things awkward and it failed to set off my alarms. I didn’t suspect her of being behind the profiles.”

“Really, it was Gerard who was behind them,” Havana pointed out. “He told her what to do, and she did it. If he hadn’t pulled her into his little plot, I don’t think she’d have done anything like that off her own back.”

“She acted alone when hiring extremists, though,” said Camden.

“Because nothing was happening the way he said it would. She lost faith in him. Took the matter into her own hands.” Havana blew out an impatient breath. “How long before we’re back at our building?”

“About twenty minutes,” replied Deke.

“Hopefully, one of our pride will have found her before then,” said Tate.

“Yeah, hopefully,” said Havana. “It’d be a bummer if Bailey leveled the building or something.”

Tate twisted his neck to look at his mate. “What?”

Camden explained, “It was what Bailey did last time someone abducted her. Got free, snapped their neck, and destroyed the building. The time before that, she set the location on fire after kicking her captor’s ass. No ropes or cuffs or other binds can keep her where she doesn’t want to be.”

Deke studied him in the rearview mirror. “You’re not worried for her safety at all, are you?”

“No,” replied Camden. “Because I know exactly how lethal your mate is. She could deck someone in one move. One. She brawls for the fucking pleasure of it—nothing more. She can kill just as fast and efficiently. She simply prefers not to, because it isn’t as fun for her. And with Therese, she won’t make it quick and clean. Bailey will punish her in a brutal fashion. And by the time she’s done, Therese will rue the day your mate was born.”