Page 129 of Crave

Chapter Thirty-One

GABE

I still felt her.

Even now, standing outside in the cold, early morning air pressing against my skin, I still feel the way she burned against me.

The way she looked at me with those big, doe eyes screaming with desperation and those swollen lips, parted with the promise of a plea. The way she ached for me…the way she ached for more.

And I almost took it from her.

I raked a hand through my hair, my jaw tight, my pulse a slow, steady drumbeat of violence beneath my skin. Violence I almost turned on my brother.

Get a fucking grip here.

They’re your family.

But she was my family too, wasn’t she? And that was the issue. She was my family too and yet I didn’t see her like that—no—I saw her as something more.

My phone vibrated against my leg. I reached into my pocket, pressing the button instinctively and lifting it to my ear. Only one person would be calling me at this time of the night.

Before I could speak, Silas’s voice exploded through the speaker. “Where thefuckare they? Theo’s not answering his phone, and neither is Jude!”

I exhaled slowly, but it did nothing to cool the fire that rose inside me. Because I knew exactly what Jude had been doing the last time I saw him…our goddamn sister.

I closed my eyes as the image of that returned. The echoed sound of her grunting as she came apart against his fingers, the way she’d begged?—

I shoved the memory down violently. Now wasn’t the time.

“I have no idea where Theo is, asleep I imagine. His car’s still here, but Jude…you could say he’s been preoccupied.”

Silas let out a sharp, ragged breath, filled with rage and something darker underneath it. “The warehouse is gone. Fucking destroyed and so is Sloane. They fucking tortured him.”

An icy chill swept through me. “And you’re only just calling?” A low, guttural sound came through the speaker. One filled with pain. “Silas? Are you hurt?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, little brother,” he moaned. “I’m heading back now. But you need to lock that house the fuck down. Call who you have to. I want every inch of that place under guard. They aren’t done, Gabe. They aren’t anywhere near fucking done.”

That cold, realisation hit deeper. Because he wasn’t done telling me everything.

“What else?” I demanded.

My eldest brother didn’t answer right away. But it was the sound of his screeching tires and the sharp inhale through his nose. Then, finally, his voice came low, cold, and deadly. “They left us a fucking message.”

I felt it then.

That slow, creeping sickness curling into my gut. “What kind of message?”

His voice was sharper this time. “Sloane’s body hanging from the fucking rafters. Kieran and I walked right into an ambush.”

My stomach dropped.

For a second, the world around me tilted, the words not making sense. I knew Sloane. He was one of our best guys…had been one of our best guys. Dad’s right hand man, the only one he truly trusted. “Is he alive?”

Silence.

Too long.

Then—