Page 12

Maddox

What was that woman doing here, working until three in the morning? Especially since she was working her other job yesterday.

Her eyes looked tired even with all the makeup she put on her face. You can’t hide that kind of exhaustion.

Makeup—at least that dark, smokey makeup—isn’t part of her normal attire.

Did she have a date last night?

Why do you even care if a woman in your employment had a date?

Because what man lets his woman work herself until she’s that exhausted? She’s better off without a guy like that.

There’s a knock at my office door.

That’ll have to wait for later. “Come in.”

Everett strides in without his usual swagger.

Something’s off. “What’s wrong?”

“Jordan is gone.” Everett stops moving.

Jordan? Who’s Jordan? “Not the little blond boy that moved onto The Street like six months ago?”

“Yeah, that Jordan.”

Not possible. One of my men would have noticed. Someone would have said something.

These kids are sneaky. If they want to disappear, they just vanish. “He’ll show up.” Usually when they run out of supplies that they’ve taken.

“He didn’t run away.”

I didn’t want to believe kids would run away either, but they do. We can’t help them all. But Everett seems so sure. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he didn’t take any of his stuff.”

Hmmm. That’s not unheard of, but it’s certainly rarer. “Is there anything else?”

“The other day, when we were talking, he seemed jumpy. Afraid of his own shadow. A week ago, Jordan wasn’t like that. Something happened. I know it.” Everett paces over to the snakes. “He’s afraid of someone, and we need to help him.”

Even if it pans out to nothing, I’ll have learned about Everett. “Let me pull up the security footage.”

“Already got it.” Everett pulls out a brand-new phone.

One we didn’t give him. “Where did you get that?”

“Huh?”

“The phone.” Though I should be asking about how he hacked into our security feeds, I don’t really want to know the answer. Everett needs an internship soon. Someone who will keep this kid on his toes.

Everett stares at the phone in his hand flummoxed for a moment. “I found it.”

Yeah right. I raise an eyebrow at him.

“Does that even matter right now? Jordan is missing.”

“Show me the footage.”

Everett hits play, just as Enzo walks in.

“We have a missing kid.”

At least my men weren’t that far behind Everett. “Did you bring me any footage?”

“Yeah. But not much.” Enzo opens up the security panel. “Just the terror on Jordan’s face when he left.”

I turn to Everett. “Does yours show anything different?”

“Just one person who looks like they’re related to Jordan.” Everett pulls up an image.

The man does resemble Jordan if he had a full suit of badly done tattoos and a drug problem. Relatives on drugs don’t bode well, especially since there aren’t many dealers in Urbium.

And none that sell anywhere near Willow Street.

We might need help. Who am I going to ask about drug dealers?

The Children of Chaos have had some problems with drugs. Their territory is just outside of Urbium. They would be a good one to touch base with if we can’t find anything quickly.

“Everett, you’re with me.” I head straight for Jordan’s apartment in The Dorms.

Each of the kids has the option to decorate their apartment any way they like, but Jordan left it exactly the way it came.

“What are we doing here?” Everett glances around the room.

“Finding clues.” Hopefully. I head straight to Jordan’s desk, not really expecting to find much. There isn’t a single receipt or shred of paper on his desk. He isn’t a pack rat, that’s for sure.

Everett rifles through Jordan’s clothes. “What’s this? I’ve seen a few guys wearing it around town. But they all seem to be a bit older.” He holds up a t-shirt.

Jordan wanted to join the Deathadders. “That’s a prospect shirt.”

“Prospect for what?” Everett stares at the shirt that just has the word ‘prospect’ and our gang emblem that Jacko drew all those years ago.

“To join the gang. But he’d need to be eighteen to wear it.” We don’t allow prospects to be underage. For a while, we thought about making them wait until twenty-one, but we were barely teenagers when we started it up, so that felt hypocritical.

“Wait. What? How did I not know that? You’re in a gang.” Everett lifts the shirt up.

“I’m the president of one.”

“Do you have motorcycles and vests?”

“We aren’t a biker gang.” Though I know a few of those. “It’s more of a holdout from when we were kids.”

“How do you recruit?”

“We don’t.” I can’t even imagine the nightmare that would be. “You have to know and request to be a prospect.”

Everett stares at the shirt. “He wouldn’t just leave if he wanted to join you guys.”

No. Jordan wouldn’t.

“How can you be so calm?”

What he wants to hear is, “Getting upset doesn’t help anyone. You need to find a way to remain calm.” But the real answer is, I’ve done this so many times with so many kids I’ve hit a point where I’m a bit jaded. Jordan walked away of his own accord, knowing that we would step in and protect him from any problem he might be experiencing.

But the fear on Jordan’s face means I can’t leave this alone either.

***

Jacko walks out of the snake room with Popcorn rolling around his fingers. “I hate bringing strangers into our business.”

Like anyone enjoys asking for help. “We haven’t been able to find a sign of him or his brother.” Which is irritating but not surprising since drug dealers don’t exactly have a great survival rate around us.

“Did you really need to call the bikers?” Jacko sits down on the edge of my desk.

“They have eyes everywhere. And they aren’t the only people I called.” If Jacko hates the bikers, he’s going to be livid that I also called Aleksei Kamenev ‘The Bratva King’.

“The Vincenti Family?”

What would be the point of that? “The only drug dealers the Vincentis know are dead.”

“The Cardenas Cartel.”

“They don’t really count.” To the world, they’re a drug cartel, but those who know them understand their job is to limit the flow of drugs and stop other cartels from coming in. I would have tagged them in, but their territory is way down south.

Not to mention, Carlos Cardenas went straight a few years back, leaving a hole that’s yet to be filled in their network.

“Then who did you call?”

My office door opens, and Canyon steps in, followed by Havoc and Rogue, the president and vice president of the Children of Chaos.

“Jacko, my man, nice to see you again. It’s been a while since we rode together.” Havoc is the quintessential biker with tattoos, a beard, and a cut on.

“Too long. I’ve been away on business a lot this year.” Jacko walks over to shake his hand.

“The kind with a brush or a gun?”

Jacko laughs. “A bit of both, but mostly a brush. I’m getting too old to jump out of planes.”

“You need to tell Ethan to leave that to the younger ones.” Havoc and his group are just a few years younger than us.

“They need to learn to shoot straight first.”

Jacko isn’t wrong about that.

Havoc turns to me. “To what do we owe this visit to your office of nightmares?”

I don’t bother shutting the curtains and insulting Havoc. “We’ve lost a kid.”

“Shouldn’t you be calling the cops, not me?”

Like the cops would be successful at finding a street kid who doesn’t want to be found. “They’re on my list to contact.”

Havoc tips his head to the side. “But well after me. Why?”

“Because we heard you’ve been having problems with drug dealers.”

“This kid is a drug dealer, and you want him back on Willow Street?”

Yeah, that sounds stupid. “As far as we know, Jordan hasn’t ever done drugs or sold them. But his older brother does both.” I hand two pictures over to Havoc. “Have you seen either of them?”

“They’re both young.”

You see all too much when you find homes for street kids.

“The older one looks familiar.” Rogue takes the card. “I can’t remember where I saw him, though.”

“What do you want done if we find them? Because we don’t appreciate drug dealers in our town.”

It would be easy to just ask for Jordan and let them do whatever they see fit with his drug-dealing brother. But if Jordan’s life has been this hard, what was his older brother’s like? Maybe we can get him into rehab. “Locate and contain if need be.”

“Gotcha. I’m sorry we haven’t seen any signs of that woman, Marlie.”

Vex said it wouldn’t be that easy, but I can’t help hoping that we find her.

***

“You’re insane.” Jacko paces the office. “You did not call Aleksei Kamenev about a missing kid. Aleksei kill-you-where-you’re-standing Kamenev.”

“He sponsors The Street.” Between the money he ‘donates’ and the stuff we bring in from missions, The Street has absolutely no financial issues.

“That’s because of his mother-in-law, not because he loves kids. A sane person avoids him and hopes he forgets they exist. Why in the world would you bring his attention to us?”

The answer is simple. “Because he knows every illegal deal going on in the world. Or he knows someone that can find out.”

Jacko stares at me for a moment and then continues pacing in silence.

The door opens, and Jacko freezes. It’s not like this is the first time he’s seen Aleksei Kamenev, though Jacko isn’t invited to Vincenti events like I am.

Only it isn’t Aleksei who walks in. His son Sasha follows behind Cord.

What? Why isn’t the Bratva King here?

Sasha doesn’t wait to be introduced. He strides up to me. “My father was otherwise occupied, so he sent me in his stead. What do you need?”

My mind can’t process the child… the man standing in front of me. I was there at the party the day Sasha and his twin were born. Sasha is only sixteen going on seventeen, but I’d swear he looks older. Maybe it’s the jaded look in his eyes. “We’re searching for a missing child.”

“And you’re asking us for help?” Sasha raises an eyebrow, and I could swear it was his father standing in front of me.

“We think he might be with his older brother, who is a drug dealer.” I hand over a set of the same pictures I just handed to Havoc.

Sasha takes a moment to look them over. “What’s the priority on finding this kid? Do you think he’s at extreme risk?”

Extreme? “No.”

Sasha nods. “Anything else.”

“No.”

He turns and stalks out.

“That kid is intense,” Jacko blurts out. “I swear he could kill without blinking.”

“Aleksei Kamenev killed his father and took his job at the same age.”

Jacko’s eyes bulge.

Hopefully, Sasha doesn’t do the same, but I can’t rule it out completely.

And this is the man I asked for help. What was I thinking?