Page 5 of Guarding Grace

The line went silent. The little snot was too busy getting a blow job. He’d hung up without telling me what I needed to know. God, I hated that guy.

I scanned the room from the far left to the right—still no Grace in sight. Elliot hung out with the wrong crowd and wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but running with them had probably tuned his survival instinct. The fear in his voice was not a good sign.

It took me only seconds to run to my Hawk Security team—the three Hawk brothers, Lucas, Jordy, and Duke, as well as Winston and Zane March, our latest addition. “Have you seen Grace?” I asked.

“Which one? Kitty, Wildcat, Bobcat, or Cat Woman?” Duke joked.

I shook my head. I didn’t have time for this shit. “Fuck, I’ve gotta find her.”

Lucas grabbed my arm. “What’s wrong?”

“I just got a call saying she’s in danger.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “In danger from whom?”

I shrugged. “No idea. First her cousin called asking if I knew where she was, and then he called back and told me to look out for her because she was in danger. The little twerp was scared.”

“Last I saw, she was talking with Serena,” Zane said, pointing to the far side of the room.

I reached Serena quickly. “Where’s Grace?”

Serena startled at my shout. “She got a call. She seemed rattled and took off—something about her new cat, Elliot. It didn’t make any sense.”

“When?”

“Just now. What’s going on?”

I sprinted for the door.

Grace didn’t have a cat named Elliot. The calls instantly clicked. Somebody claiming to have Elliot had lured her out to a meeting. I had to get to her first. Grace excelled at being a royal pain in my ass, but I’d promised Pete I’d take care of her. He hadn’t returned from his deployment. I could not fucking fail on that promise.

Outside, I looked both ways but didn’t see Grace. I accosted the closest of the two valets. “I’m looking for a girl who just came out—green dress, bright-red hair. Which way did she go?”

He pulled an earbud out of his ear and held out his hand. “Ticket?”

I repeated myself.

The guy shrugged. “No idea.”

I grabbed him by the lapels, and his eyes went wide. “Time to concentrate.” I checked his nametag. “Will.”

CHAPTER 2

Grace

I hadn’t wantedto spend the money for the valet, and the only available parking tonight had been on side streets, so I’d turned left out of the restaurant when I exited and hurried down the block toward my car. I moved as fast as I could in these heels, retrieving my car keys from my purse as I went.

What kind of idiot would kidnap my cousin Elliot? Nobody cared whether he lived or died except me. Life was certainly cheap to these people. If they knew anything about me, they would have asked for the necklace Mom gave me. It was worth more than I had in my bank account.

The lighting and traffic had both dimmed considerably when I turned the corner onto the side street where I’d parked. I got the prickle at the back of my neck that any woman walking alone in the dark sometimes got.

Halfway down the block, a shadow detached from a building ahead of me. On any other night, I would have turned around and returned to the bright lights behind me, but Elliot needed me. I crossed to the other side of the street and palmed my key between my fingers as a weapon like Terry had taught me years ago.

Terry was a former SWAT officer with the LAPD, and as terrible as his personality was, he knew a shitload more than I did about self-defense.

Passing between the parked cars on the opposite side of the street, I lostsight of the guy. I assumed it was a man. Dread crept up my spine as I hurried along.

Then he came out from between two cars. “There you are.”