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RHAIM

I left Lia’s messages unanswered—because the next time I talked to her, I wanted it to be in person—but I flew through the lobby, and up to Isabelle’s floor.

Once I got there though, I slowed.

Something smelled wrong here—like chloroform—a scent I was unfortunately familiar with, sickly sweet, like rot.

“No,” I growled, storming down the short hall to Isabelle’s place, where I let myself in—only to find Lia’s belongings, but no other sign of my little girl. “NO!” I shouted, not caring who else heard.

My normal phone rang—if someone was going to ask for ransom for her, they would get it—right before I shoved my arm down their throat. “What?” I demanded—and found Rio on the other end of the line.

“Nero sent me to tail you. He wants to be a part of this thing—to tell her he agrees.”

“Get the fuck up here, I’m texting you the codes—” I growled, and then paced in the hall, waiting for him.

He clocked me the second he got off the elevator. “What’s wrong?”

“She’s not here.”

“She…thought better of marrying a man twice her age, like an anchor?”

“Shut up you motherfucker and smell,” I said—and as he did, his eyes grew wide.

“Fuck—did they hurt her?”

“I don’t know,” I snarled—and then called Sable. She picked up on the first ring.

“Rhaim?”

“You’re back on payroll. Where the fuck is Lia?”

She snorted on the far end of the line. “Gimme a sec—she should be ten feet away from you?”

“How the fuck do you know where I am?”

“Oh come on, Rhaim. Of course I didn’t wipe everything—” she snarked, then realized why I was asking. “Is she all right?”

I walked back into Isabelle’s apartment, shadowed by Rio. “She’s not here,” I said. And I opened up Lia’s purse on the couch—it was closed, so she’d definitely been the last person to touch it, it wouldn’t have any clues—and found both her phones inside.

“Rhaim?” Sable pressed.

“We’re among friendly company,” I warned her, putting the phone on speakerphone before setting it down, giving Rio a grim look—same as the one he was giving to me.

“How did they find her?” Rio demanded.

Isabelle’s place hadn’t been tagged—I would’ve known if anyone else had entered, I had the same set-up here that I’d put in over at Lia’s.

Which meant the tag was on something Lia had brought over. I knelt down and started opening the zippers on her bag.

The girl had brought her three favorite books for safe-keeping—along with a lot of travel clothing, a minimal amount of toiletries, and, a black velvet box.

I opened it to find an emerald pendant hanging inside—along with St. Clair’s hideous engagement ring.

“Sable—you get a ping off of any of this?” I asked, taking my phone up to hold it above all of Lia’s belongings.

“Yeah— fuck ,” she hissed.

While the diamond was massive, the ring itself was too tiny to hide anything—and if they’d used that to tag her, they’d have already known she and I had fucked.

Whereas that emerald monstrosity…

“Gimme your gun,” I told Rio, snapping my fingers for it.

“What?” he protested—even as he handed it over.

I carefully took hold of the grip, and put it over the emerald, on the apartment’s nice hardwood floors, and beat it down, once.

The emerald shattered, revealing a flat tracker embedded in the back, the circumference of a pea.

“Take a picture of it for me,” Sable demanded, and I did so at once. “Fuckity-fuck—that’s military grade, Rhaim. A ghost tag with a micro-lithium cell—it’s using rotating IPs and encryption—I don’t know if I can crack it before its power runs out.”

“I’m sending someone with it to you,” I said, carefully using a shard of green glass to pop the tracker back into the velvet box.

“Uh—that shit is high heat, Rhaim—I don’t want anyone knowing my location, either. And, I don’t want to make any new friends.”

“Rio’s been on the payroll longer than you’ve been alive,” I told her, handing the velvet box over to him.

“Pick a neutral territory fast, meet him there. I’ll give him my burner phone, you can text it with directions,” I said, pulling out my second phone to hand over as well—with Lia’s last, unanswered texts on it.

“The code to get in is Lia’s birthday,” I told him, knowing he’d know what date that was.

“We good?” I asked my disembodied friend.

“Yeah. Fuck. Tell him to come uptown. I’ll text him deets on the way,” Sable said, and then hung up.

“Who am I meeting?” Rio asked.

“Just follow instructions—you won’t find her, she’ll be the one to find you,” I said, standing.

“And…you’re not going to come with?”

“No.”

I had some vengeance to do.

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