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Rich pinched the bridge of his nose and propped his elbows on the table. "That's enough, Az. I'm not in the mood for anymore of this shit from you. Craig, did you find anything?"

"Not a damned thing." Craig responded. "Whoever looped the cameras was skilled enough to hack in and do it real time. I started looking at the data, trying to find a digital fingerprintthat can trace back to whoever it was, but that's going to take time."

"I think we should discuss the elephant in the room." Joey spoke up, causing us all to look over at him. "The Princess was right that we've been bulldozing over her. Even taking her out with one of us has been a fight, Rich. At first we weren't sure of her involvement, but if anyone is still questioning that, you're just being willfully ignorant or blind. Sheisa bright woman, and capable. We can't keep attempting to control her under the guise of protection. It's gotta go two ways, or she's going to keep running from us."

I started to protest, but Rich shot me a look and started speaking. "Fine. We can give her tonight to cool off and then we'll address that with her first thing in the morning. You're right. Any doubts I had about her involvement were cleared with the attack on her office at the center. She may be a lot of things, but she wouldn't do anything that could hurt that place."

"If we're done here, I'm going to the gym." I gritted out.

Rich gave me a curt nod, dismissing me from the room. He knew as well as I did that I needed to work out some aggression before I lost my shit. I quickly stopped in my room to change into gym shorts before heading back down to work out. Turning some death metal on the surround system, I went to work pummeling the punching bag.

I'd been at it for nearly an hour, stopping only long enough to down a bottle of water, when Leighton barreled into the gym. I was expecting him to take a cheap shot and initiate a sparring session, but the odd look on his face stopped me in my tracks.

"What's wrong?"

"She's gone. Slipped out and took your car. Not that I blame her for taking your car. You kind of deserve to have that thing stolen, but–"

"It's not like she could get too far. I'm not sure why you seem so unsettled, L. Just have Craig track my car and go get her."

"Sometimes I wonder if all that pent up anger fucked up your brain or something," Leighton snarked. "Craigdidtrack the Porsche. It's at her apartment complex."

"So," I shrugged. "Go get her."

"Are you even listening to me? She's. Not. There. Rich already called the complex, and some doorman named Arthur said she's stopped in and picked up her car."

That caused me to draw up short as some feeling squeezed my chest. "And we didn't LoJack her car, did we?"

"If we did, would I be here? Get your head out of your ass and get out here." Leighton snapped, losing his patience as he brought me up to speed and slammed the door to the gym. Not even pausing to turn off the music or clean up the gym, I hurried out after him to figure out what we would do.

I rounded the corner to the foyer to see Rich and Joey barking orders into their phones and Craig's eyes glued to his laptop.

"Where are we with the runaway princess?"

"Fucking nowhere, asshole." Craig snapped at me. The flickering light from his screens illuminated and highlighted the worried crease in his brow.

"I've got street guys looking for her car in their areas, but I don't have high hopes that she'll go anywhere near where my guys work. But it's better than nothing." Joey said, sighing irritatedly. His phone rang, and he answered it before the second ring sounded. "Mrs. McMillan… Yes, I know it's later on in the day… Yes… Well, I was wondering. Have you seen or heard from Victoria?"

"YOU LOST HER?!"The old woman screeched so loudly Joey had to hold the phone away from his ear.

"We didn't really… No, Mrs. McMillan. She ran from us… I know… Thank you." He said, hanging up and stuffing his phone in his pocket. Turning to his brother, Joey shook his head. "Mrs. McMillan hasn't seen her."

"She's a sharp girl. It's not likely she would go somewhere we'd think to look if she went out of her way to ditch the car where we could find it." I mused, my voice coming out tighter than I'd expected it to. Being angry at her was taking a back seat to worry as our leads from the house were running out.

"I've not found her again after I lost the car leaving the area of her apartment complex. There aren't enough live video cameras or security cameras to track her movements. So I'm at a dead end here," Craig said, slamming his laptop shut.

"Well, boys, we're doing this the old-fashioned way it looks like. Leighton, take your bike and head to the east end. You'll move faster than us, but stay sharp since you'll be on your own. Joey, Craig, take the west end. Az, you're with me. We'll check the north side. I want check ins. If you find her, I don't care if you have to carry her back here kicking and screaming."

By the time Rich was done talking, the sound of Leighton's bike was already roaring away from the manor. An amused thought crossed my mind as we headed to the garage. I wondered if the Princess knew just how much trouble she was in when we found her.

The minutes seemed to crawl by as we moved through the city. The boys texted their negative check-ins repeatedly, and I felt like a new stone settled in my stomach with every one. Rich was white-knuckling the steering wheel so hard I wondered whether or not he would break it.

We'd cleared a few diners, coffee shops, and a shopping center in the more affluent part of the city and turned up nothingourselves. Places to look were running low, and I didn't know what we'd do if we couldn't find her.

I was starting to picture the things that could have happened. Reasons why we weren't able to find her and hadn't had any check-ins from our street guys that were positive either. It was gnawing a fucking hole in my stomach. As much as we were at odds, I didn't want her in danger. She didn't deserve that. She didn't deserve what she was going through… And if we didn't find her, based on how the guys had been looking at me before we left, there were definitely some attempted beatdowns in my future. Rich probably wouldn't even stop them.

I might not stop them either if something happened to her.

The sound of Rich's phone pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts, and he pulled to a stop at a well-timed red light. Watching him scan his phone screen, I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding when his whole body seemed to sag with relief.