Page 30 of Hunted Hearts (Black Heart Security #6)

T heo stood outside the country club, the cool mountain air pressing against his skin. He knew the sensation prickling across his senses for what it was.

A warning. It was quiet—too quiet. The after-party had started to wind down, but instead of a relief it vibrated with a dark undercurrent.

He tapped his earpiece. “Oaks, how’s that southwest perimeter?”

“All clear,” came his brother’s low response.

“Copy.” Theo moved around the side of the building, keeping to the shadows. There’d been reports of a purse thief. The cops were inside, trying to keep things low-key, but with everything else going here, Theo’s gut was tangled in knots.

He ducked into a side hallway and paused, pulling out his phone to check the live security feed from Juliette’s dressing room.

Emptiness stared back at him. Just an empty chair, scattered makeup, the black fabric of her gown she’d changed out of. Her heels lay by the door.

But no Juliette.

His pulse ticked faster.

He stared at the screen for several beats, willing her to come into view. She might be in the en suite bathroom.

He watched the seconds pass on the screen. Ten seconds…thirty…sixty. Still nothing but the intensifying throb of his own heart.

He switched camera angles and checked the hallway outside her room. The feed only recorded thirty minutes, so he couldn’t go back further.

The footage revealed nothing.

“Fucking hell,” he ground out.

“Theo? What’s wrong?” came the voice of Gray in his ear.

“Juliette. I can’t see her in the feed.”

“I’m coming.”

Theo started toward her room in a fast clip, each stride longer than the last. At that moment, a kitchen door opened, and several people pushing carts on their way to clear off the dinner tables spilled out.

Theo jerked to a stop before crashing into one. The young man’s eyes flew wide with alarm.

“Get out of the way!” Theo snarled, shoving through the group.

“Does anyone see her?” he barked to his brothers.

“Looking now. She could be in the bathroom.”

He didn’t believe that. Not when his sirens were blaring like the entire mountain was on fire.

He glanced at his phone again, thumb swiping to alternate views of the room—the north wall. The west.

Then he focused on the table where Juliette’s prized violin should be.

It wasn’t there.

No.

His chest tightened. He sprinted for the dressing room. The corridor blurred around him, and he nearly mowed down a couple of lingering guests catching a bit of private time.

He skidded to a stop in front of the dressing room and burst into the room.

“Juliette?” he bellowed, voice shredded as he slammed the door off the wall.

Empty.

He tore into the space. The bathroom was empty.

His gaze landed on the roses, a bouquet he’d picked out himself and had Aspen drop off while Juliette was onstage so she would return and see them.

A howl built inside him.

He slammed his hand against the wall. “Goddamn it!”

“Theo?” Gray was right behind him.

He turned, chest heaving. “She’s gone.”

“What?”

“She’s gone! Her violin’s missing.” Fury blazed through him, making him sway.

Denver strode to the purse dropped on the floor, the contents spilling out. He picked up something. “But her phone’s still here.”

Oaks barreled in. “I just swept the exit. None of the valets saw her.”

Theo was already moving. “Pull the feeds. Find out what vehicle she left in. If it’s even on the cameras.”

Denver peeled off toward the main office. Theo followed him, fingers itching to wrap around someone’s throat. Anyone’s. Whoever took her.

In the security office, Denver scanned the tapes. “Here.” He rewound the footage.

Theo leaned close to the screen, watching in horror as Juliette exited the building, her violin clutched to her chest.

Denver said what Theo already saw on the screen. “She came out the side. Alone. No struggle. Got into a black limo.”

Theo’s stomach dropped, bowels turning to water. “License plate?”

“Blurry. Looks like there was interference.”

“Of course there was.” Theo raked a hand down his face.

“They waited until she was alone,” Oaks said grimly. “When she’d let her guard down.”

When he had let her down.

Theo clenched his jaw so hard it ached. He should’ve known. Should’ve stayed at her side. Should’ve done everything differently.

The phone in Oaks’s hand rang.

Theo stared at it for a wild pulse. “That’s not Juliette’s phone. Give it to me!”

Oaks thrust it at him, and for a beat, he froze, then answered the unknown number. “Malone.”

A distorted voice crackled through. “We’ve got something you want.”

“What do you want in return?” he croaked.

“All the files. Every piece of evidence you’ve compiled on the charity.

Everything about the shell corporation. Names.

Transfers. If you want her back alive, you’re deleting all the information from your systems. No copies.

No turning it in to the authorities. And no coming after us.

You give us that, and you get your pretty girl back. ”

Theo’s blood ran cold.

“I want proof of life,” he snapped.

“Check the phone.”

An image flashed on the screen of Juliette in a car, hugging her violin case, her eyes wide with fear.

For a moment, he thought he’d lose his shit. Pass out or vomit. Tear down the rafters just to bellow at the sky.

Denver’s hand came down on his shoulder, grounding him.

“Where are you taking her?” Theo managed to ask.

“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you delete every bit of intel. No cops. No feds. No trail. I’ll be in touch.”

Why did they think in this digital age that they’d have only one copy?

“Deal.”

“You do what we say, or we’ll leave pieces of her in that lake you all seem to love so much.”

The line went dead.

Theo stared at the screen.

“Start deleting it. Everything ,” he whispered.

He’d do anything to get her back, even giving up the evidence they were willing to bleed for and the mission they’d pulled all their strings to expose.

Even if it meant trading justice for her life.

Because Juliette wasn’t just some woman he’d been assigned to protect—she was the one who’d unraveled all his edges, softened the steel he’d forged himself from. And now that she was gone, nothing else mattered.

He’d burn it all to the ground to bring her home.

Then Denver’s phone buzzed. He brought it to his ear. “Willow? Slow down. What—”

Theo saw his brother pale.

“What the hell’s going on?” Theo demanded.

Denver put her on speaker.

“A p-pizza delivery,” his sister stuttered. “We didn’t order it. I thought one of the vets did, and it smelled so good. I didn’t eat lunch—”

“Willow!” he snapped.

“When I opened the box, there was writing inside the lid in red marker.”

“What does it say, Willow?” he practically yelled.

“It said, ‘We know where you live.’”

Oh god.

Juliette was gone. And now they were threatening his home.

They knew where his family lived.

Theo’s knees nearly buckled.

“Willow, lock all the doors and windows,” Denver barked out.

“I did. And Decker’s with me. He’s got a rifle. No one’s getting past him.”

“Copy that. Stay safe.”

He met Denver’s gaze. A hundred things transmitted between them.

“I’ll track the call, Theo. We’ll get her back.”

Theo exhaled through his nose. His world was spiraling.

“We have to act fast. Fuck. ” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to stave off the emotions on the verge of erupting. “I can’t believe I let this happen.”

Gray strode in. “They’re trying to scare us. Make us back off. Cause mistakes.”

“It’s working,” Theo growled. “But we’re not going to make this easy on them.”

“We got this. We’ll get her back, brother.” Gray’s voice pitched low with the vow.

Denver met his stare. “It’s not over yet. I can get my guy on my SEAL team on a trace,” Denver said. “The phone’s a burner, but if we can get the signal again—”

“I need him back on the line,” Theo interrupted.

Seconds later, the phone rang again with a different number.

Theo snatched it out of Denver’s hand. “You want us to comply? Fine. Give me your terms.”

“Tonight. You bring everything, every file on a drive, to the coordinates I’ll send you.”

“How do you know we won’t copy it?”

“You think we don’t have ways of knowing? I’ve been watching you, Malone. You want her alive, you’ll do what we say.”

“I want her alive,” Theo said, deadly calm. “But you so much as fucking bruise her and you’ll see just how far I’ll go.”

He hung up.

Denver rubbed the back of his neck. “We need his coordinates faster. If my guy can’t track the number, we’re flying blind.”

Theo turned to Gray. “What if we make it look like we’re complying?”

“You’re thinking bait?”

“I’m thinking war.”

Gray’s lips thinned. “You know what that’ll take?”

“Every one of us,” Theo said. “And then some.”

His heart was pounding, but not in fear.

In rage.

Because they’d taken her.

Juliette.

The woman who played like he was the only person in the audience not even an hour before…who looked at him like he wasn’t broken from the things that kept him awake at night.

He loved her.

And if they thought they could take her from him…

They had no idea what they’d just started.

* * * * *

The doors locked with a quiet click .

Juliette sat stiffly in the back of the sleek black limo, her hands pressed flat against her thighs to keep them from shaking.

Her violin case lay on the seat beside her like the ghost of the mistake she’d just made.

The phone that had buzzed in her purse hours earlier might as well have detonated a bomb in her carefully constructed world.

She’d done this, walked right into a trap to save a child. After the threat had been made, how could she ignore it?

They wanted her to stop drawing attention to their charity. That was easy—she never wanted another thing to do with it other than see them all behind bars.

Fact was, she would have bartered more than her great-grandmother’s precious violin in order to keep the child safe.

But now, trapped in the plush, eerily quiet limo, doubt clawed at her chest.