Page 57 of Filthy Little Regrets (Princes of NYC #2)

thirty-five

MACE

Finding the contracts is only step one of taking care of my dad.

Agent Smith thinks she’ll be getting the dirt, but I have other plans.

I only have to confirm what I suspect to be true.

My heart slams against my rib cage, still worried about Cassia, even as I get a text from Tony that confirms she made it home.

I grip the steering wheel, scowling at the almost standstill traffic in front of me. “Fuck, come on.”

The Valiant’s Bluetooth picks up an incoming call. I glance at the console and answer when I see Mom flashing across the screen. “Hey, Mom. I was thinking about you. We should?—”

“Adalie is gone.”

My racing heart stops and air suspends in my lungs. What did she just say? “Sorry, Mom, did you say?—”

“Mace, she’s gone. I don’t know where she is and I, I—” Mom breaks off with a sob, and the muffled sound of the phone changing hands follows.

Apprehension twists my insides. This can’t be real .

“She was supposed to be home an hour ago,” Melody says, voice high and tight.

Only an hour. That’s typical for a nineteen-year-old, right? They’re careless with time. Not Adalie, though. My shoulders bunch. “Okay, well, did you call her friends? Maybe she stopped to hang out.”

“I did. She’s not there.” Melody’s words wobble, and the world tilts on its axis.

No. I can’t believe it. There has to be some explanation. I frown, squeezing the wheel. “She went to class, right? Maybe she’s on campus, stud?—”

“Mace!” Melody cries. “I checked everywhere! She’s not anywhere. Her friend said she wasn’t in class today. You have to find her!”

Dread courses through me like acid sent to dissolve skin and bone. With my jaw clenched so tight my head starts to hurt, I navigate to one of the apps that tracks their devices.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” I murmur, clicking on my youngest sister’s smiling face on the screen. “Tracking her right now. It’ll be okay. She’s probably just...” I trail off, blinking and looking at the device again.

Why would he . . .

There’s no way he’d . . . would he?

Melody sucks in a breath, filling in the blanks I left behind. “What is it? Mace? What?”

“What’s happening?” Mom asks through sobs that wrap around my chest and squeeze.

Her phone was last active at Rex Technologies. Fear skates down my spine. If he called her, sweet-talked her, she’d probably go see him, hoping for some type of reconciliation. She’s soft like that, always wishing for the best.

“I think I know where she is,” I tell them, sparing them the likely reality. I won’t destroy what’s left of Melody’s relationship with Darius until I know for certain that he has Adalie. “Where are you?”

Mom’s sobs carry down the line, relieved, shaken, terrified.

“At your penthouse,” Melody says. “You found her?”

Not exactly. “I’m going to get her and bring her home, okay? But I need you two to stay where you are. Got it?”

“Okay.” Melody’s voice is small, like she’s nine again and I’m ushering her back into her room, shielding her from anger she didn’t deserve.

“Good.” I blow out a breath. “I’ll call you in an hour.”

Disconnecting, I grind my teeth and call Darius.

The first ring that goes unanswered has my shoulders tightening.

The second and my blood starts to boil. My gut churns on the third, every terrible thing that could ever happen flashing through my mind.

Trilling, echoing around the interior of my car, the fourth is met with a fifth.

No answer. I wait, holding my breath, but when the call rolls to voicemail, I smash my finger into the red button on the console and bang my hand on the steering wheel.

“Fuck!”

Goddammit. I swear to god, if he hurt her—no.

I can’t think like that. She’s fine. He doesn’t want to hurt her; he wants to use her.

As much as I hate that, it’ll keep her mostly safe until I can get to her.

The traffic eases forward and stops again.

I check the tracking app, but he must have realized I linked our accounts and disconnected them.

Motherfucker. If Adalie is even missing a hair on her head, he’s fucking dead.

I navigate to another program, initiate it, and wait, shoulders rising and falling with every angry breath.

I think about all the visitors he had over not so long ago.

The fucking made men he wanted to marry my sisters off to.

Rage tears through me. My knuckles turn white as I grip the phone, waiting for the fucking report to come through.

Minutes tick by, and every second lost feels like I’m losing her.

I force a breath right as the program finishes.

“Fucking finally.” I tap into the report, an analysis of Darius’s locations over the last year, and zero in on the anomaly over the last month.

The lines in my forehead deepen. I don’t recognize the address or the name.

John Williams. Probably a front. Inputting it into the navigation system, I call Remy, wrench the wheel to the right, ignoring the blaring horns, and lay on the gas, flying up the shoulder.

The house is fifteen minutes in the opposite direction.

“Yeah?” Remy says.

“I need you to run an address, figure out who really lives there.”

“Okay, are you going to tell me why?”

“Not enough time.” I rattle off the address, glancing at my phone to confirm, hang up, and toss the device aside, gripping the steering wheel tight. A car shifts to the right. Pulse racing, I blare my horn, flying by them and narrowly missing clipping the Honda.

Taking the first exit, I run a light, cut the wheel to the left, the back of the car jerking around as I slam on the brake to make the turn and then accelerate, flying up the on-ramp.

A call from Cassia comes through. Taking a steadying breath, I answer. “Hey, baby.”

“Are you almost here?”

“Change of plans,” I tell her, zooming between cars, ignoring middle fingers and honks.

“What’s going on? A report came through...” She trails off, probably expecting me to be angry.

“I know about the spyware, and I don’t care.” I never disabled it, because I didn’t have anything to hide, and I was kind of impressed she managed to get the upper hand. “Adalie is missing.”

Cassia sucks in a breath.

“I’m going to find her.”

“How?”

“She went to see Darius.”

Silence follows my words, confirming that I’m not crazy for thinking the worst of him. She knows he was trying to marry Adalie off to the mafia.

The exit I’m meant to take comes up fast, and I cut across three lanes, dodging other vehicles as adrenaline rattles through my veins.

“Do you think?—”

“I don’t know,” I tell her, taking the first right and barreling down the road. If she’s not there...then I’ll figure out where else to look, but my instincts are telling me this is the place. “You’re home? Tony is there?”

“Tony’s here,” she murmurs. “Mace, you should call Dare.”

“Too late,” I tell her, reaching for the gun in the console. “I’ll be home soon.”

“Mace, I really think?—”

“Hang on,” I tell her, right as I come to a jolting stop at the guard station. Rolling the window down, I point the pistol at the guard. “Open it.”

The guy barely looks eighteen. “I can’t?—”

“Open it right fucking now or I’ll fucking shoot you.”

The guy blanches and presses the button, hands up and nowhere near his own weapon. A taser gun. Scoffing, I keep him at gunpoint until the gate is fully open, then creep through the neighborhood, eyeing the mansions with a stone in my stomach.

Fuck, Darius. What the fuck did you do?

“Mace,” Cassia begins, voice soft.

My chest clenches. “I love you.”

“Why are you saying that? Don’t say that.” Panic creeps into her voice. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I can’t leave her with him.”

She sighs. “I know you can’t.” Her voice pitches. “I’m just worried... I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t lose me. I’m with you, always.”

Her answering silence casts doubt all around me, but I can’t focus on that. I have to keep my head in the game, on saving Adalie. I park a few houses down from the address, confirm the magazine is full, and reach for the door, switching the call with Cassia to the phone.

I can’t hang up until I know she’s okay. “I’m going to have to go—” One foot hits the pavement when I get a text. “Hold on,” I tell Cassia, checking the message.

REMY

Grigory Morozov.

Morozov? The fucking bratva? Cassia was right, I need?—

“Put the gun down,” a guy with a thick Russian accent demands, the barrel of his gun pressing into the back of my head.

“Mace?” Cassia’s shout carries out of the phone clutched in my hand. The terror in her voice guts me.

“Easy, now,” I tell the guy, glancing at the side mirror to get a look at him, but all I see is the butt of the gun a millisecond before it smashes into the back of my head.