Page 172 of Caution to the Wind

“Dad.” Her voice trembled and instantly my blood turned to ice in my veins. “Dad, the triad came to the house. M-Mei was outside, and I guess she made a deal with them. Her for our safety. They…they took her. They stabbed Boner and shot Ransom, but by the time we got outside, they’d driven off with Mei.”

When Cleo had disappeared with a serial killer on the loose, I’d gone mad with panic and fear. So mad, I’d wondered in an absent kinda way if I’d ever return to sanity. It’d seemed unlikely, even after Priest and Kodiak found her near dead in a fallow field, even after she’d come out the other side of seven surgeries, even when she was back at home but clearly flounderin’. I’d been frozen from the inside out, fear splinterin’ off in shards inside my blood stream so hurt it hurt just to live, just to breathe.

Hearin’ now that Kasper’d taken Mei when last we’d heard he’d fled the country to take refuge in China, wasn’t like that.

After losin’ Kate, after witnessin’ the horrors unleashed on Cleo, I’d never fully regained that stability I’d once prided myself on.

So there was nothin’ to stop me from goin’ berserk like my Vikin’ ancestors.

The wooden stool at the bar beside me was up in my hands before I could blink, then sailin’ into the wall with a crash that brought the entire fuckin’ room to a standstill.

“What the fuck, Axe-Man?” Buck groused.

But Zeus’s phone was ringin’, Nova’s, Priest’s, and King’s too.

Their women were callin’.

Callin’ to tell them the triad had takin’ my Rocky.

“Curtains,” I growled so rough the word tore up my throat comin’ out. “They took her.”

My brother stared at me for a long second before his mouth fell open and the colour leeched out his already pale skin. Without a word, he hightailed it outta the room, hopefully to get his gear to get a lock on where they took her.

“They got Mei,” Zeus was tellin’ Bat with his cell to his ear.

I couldn’t hear them properly over the rush of blood in my ears.

“They’ll kill her,” I said to myself, gut clenchin’ so fiercely I thought I’d vomit. “They’ll kill her in the car or soon after.”

“We got time, brother,” Bat tried to reassure me, movin’ close to clamp his hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t even feel the touch.

“No, this is the Seven Song. They’ll kill her, and they’ll do it brutal. They’ll film it or leave her for me to find.”

I knew how these fuckers worked.

They strung up Kate at a fuckin’ carnival as a message to me, to everyone who read the paper or watched the news that you didnotfuck with the Seven Song triad.

And Kasper had loved Kate. He’d given her a chance to “earn” his forgiveness by forcin’ her to work for him. He hadn’twantedto hurt her, but still, he had ’cause she’d betrayed him.

The man had killed his own brother’s lover for bein’ a man or white or just ’cause he was miserable without Kate and wanted Jiang to be miserable too.

He would work hard to give Mei the worst death imaginable.

Metal, wood, water, fire, or earth. Which one would they choose for my girl?

I shuddered so violently, Bat’s hand fell off me. Without thinkin’, I pulled the glass from the bar top and threw that into the wall too with a loud roar that ripped up my lungs.

“Brother,” Zeus shouted, gettin’ in my space. “Brother, hear me. Take a deep fuckin’ breath and let’s figure out how to get your woman back.”

I shoved him away, but Bat was there pullin’ my arms back. I shook him off, but Wrath was in his place, wrenchin’ me still with the help of Dane.

It was Smoke, our oldest member and one plagued with hideous asthma, who stepped up with his rollin’ oxygen tank and slapped me across the face. “Get it together, man.”

My body shook like a horse riddin’ itself of fleas as I fought for control.

It was the sight of Curtains comin’ back into the room that grounded me slightly.