Page 45 of After All The Wreckage

Instead, I did the only thing that would really help. I picked up my computer and tried to find street cameras or store footage from the same time as the kidnapping. I needed a better look at the vehicle, its driver, and the two thugs. Maybe they would haveremoved their masks and we’d get an I.D. It was the only hope I had left.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Gage

SAFE & SOUND

Performed by Taylor Swift, with Joy Williams and John Paul White

My chest feltlike it was cracked open and bleeding out. I was trying, and failing, to get my emotions in check. I was fearful Ivy would sense them as she usually did. It was never the good stuff she felt. Never the joy or love. She always latched on to the dark emotions. And right now, I was feeling so many it was hard to keep up. Anger at myself. Frustration with Monte for coming by himself. Hatred for the men who’d taken him. I wanted to destroy them. I wanted to pull them apart limb by limb for taking a sweet kid off the street just because they saw an opening.

It had been over forty hours since they’d taken him. Forty. Fucking. Hours. The trail had gone cold already. No one had believed me, and now my brother was gone.

My lungs compressed so tightly it was hard to inhale. I forced myself to take a ragged gasp of air. The last thing I needed to do was pass out and crash the car. Then, no one would ever know what Rory had found.

Rory. We never would have gotten this without her.

Gratitude wormed through the agony.

“Thank you,” I said. It didn’t sound like I was grateful. It sounded like I felt—angry and raw and broken.

“We’re going to find him, Gage.”

Her voice was full of confidence, but I wasn’t sure I could believe it.

All I felt was pure panic and fury.

I parked along the curb outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters and stormed through the doors. As I stalked toward the elevator, Rory tugged my arm as if to slow me down, and I looked at her, confused.

“Gage. Listen to me. You’re pissed off and scared and I get it. But you’ve got to calm down or you’ll alienate them. Or worse, they’ll put you in cuffs because you’re tossing one of them around.”

My jaw clenched tightly as her words settled in my chest. She was right. The way I felt… I wanted to slam every cop I’d talked to against a wall for not believing me. I wanted to take my anger—and yes, fear—out on someone. Anyone.

My nails bit into my hands as waves of emotions moved through my body. The only way to help Monte now was by getting my shit together. I took another deep breath, and then opened my eyes to find her watching me. It was a strange comfort. Her being there. Helping.

Unable to respond over the lump in my throat, I simply nodded.

When the elevator opened, there was a different officer at the front desk than the one who’d taken River and me to the Youthand Preventive Services Division last night. As I approached, I struggled to get the words out, “My brother has been kidnapped. I filed a report with Detective Bradshaw last night. I need to talk to him.”

“Monte Palmer?” the officer asked, her eyes going wide, gaze drifting between me and Rory and then toward the back.

“Yes.”

“Wait right here,” she said, and then headed back into the warren of desks.

I gripped the edge of the counter so tightly I thought I might break it or my fingers in the process. Rory’s soft palm settled over my hand, slowly pulling it away from the desk and squeezing.

“Breathe,” she said.

I kept forgetting to do that. The simple action of inhaling and exhaling.

Every nerve. Every muscle. Every organ was wound tight.

Full of terror.

What were they doing to him? Was he hurting? Right now?

God. Please let him be okay.