Page 76 of Merciless Obsession (The Bloodline #2)

EZRA

“ S o what do you think?” Wise questioned when I stepped out of the courtroom.

“Promising. A lot of what the prosecutor brought up was able to be debunked. I think the odds are good.”

His arms crossed and he nodded. “I know Felix didn’t make things easy for you, but I ’preciate you and your team.”

“His charges were light work.” I shrugged. “It’s all about the witnesses, honestly.”

Wise looked over shoulder to where his brother was leaning on the wall, texting on his phone. He looked unbothered, like his fate wasn’t in the hands of twelve strangers. The past eight weeks hadn’t been a walk in the park but there was nothing else we could do.

“Do you think they’ll come with a verdict soon?” Wise asked.

“Depends. Sometimes it barely takes an hour, other times it could take days.”

His jaw twitched. “I can’t wait to put this shit behind us.” Wise’s hand went over his head.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. “Give me a second, Wise,” I said, pulling it out and checking the screen. He nodded and walked over to his brother.

“Inaya?” I answered, confused at why she was calling me.

“Oh thank God! Ezra, have you spoken to Ziora?” My brows furrowed at the shakiness in her voice.

“Not since this morning before leaving home. What’s wrong?”

“I was supposed to come over and see the truck and ring you got for her, but when I called, she didn’t answer. I thought maybe she was sleeping and decided to just pop up.”

“Inaya, what’s the problem?” I questioned, feeling my muscles tighten.

“She’s not here! I tried calling, ringing the doorbell, and knocking on the door.”

My mouth turned upside down. I had been in court all day, but I didn’t have a message from River’s guys about Ziora leaving.

“Oh my God!” Inaya suddenly gasped before screaming.

“Inaya!” I called out, but her screaming drowned me out. “Inaya!” This time my tone was more firm and loud.

“They’re dead!” she trembled out.

“Dead? Who’s dead?” I opened my text thread and sent River a message.

“The guys in the truck! Ezra, oh my God!”

My blood ran cold. “The fuck you mean?”

People in passing glanced at me but I couldn’t care less. “Inaya! Inaya!”

“Where’s Ziora? They’re dead.”

“Fuck,” I muttered, sending an SOS to the group message.

River texted me back, letting me know he was en route to the house to check it out. “Listen. My brothers will be there soon! Go see if the door is unlocked, Inaya.”

“Ezra!”

“Go!”

“Okay. Okay.”

I waited and sent another text to my co-counsel.

“It’s locked.”

I went to my app that showed her phone and it said she was still at the house. “I’m on my way. Go to your car until one of my brothers gets there.”

I didn’t wait for her to answer. Hanging up, I bit down on my back teeth.

My co-counsel walked up to me. “Ezra, what’s going on?”

“I gotta go!”

My mind was running a mile a minute. My ears rang, my pulse throbbed through my veins, and fire built in my stomach.

My name was being called but it all seemed far away. Right now Ziora was missing and the guys who were supposed to be protecting her were dead. The only thing I was seeing was red. Not bothering to take the elevator, I rushed to the steps, taking them two at a time until I got to the main doors.

I attempted to call Ziora, each time I got the voicemail the storm inside me raged and my heart thundered.

My phone vibrated. “Nazai,” I answered.

“What the hell is going on, Ez?”

“Ziora’s missing,” I told him tightly, pulling my keys out and unlocking my car door.

“What do you mean missing?”

“Just what I fucking said! She’s not at the house and I don’t know where she is.”

I was good under pressure. My job depended on it, but right now, all that control was failing me. I wanted to make someone hurt. Someone had touched what’s mine again and this time I wasn’t letting it go.

“Where are you?”

“Leaving court.” A car blared its horn when I pulled out in front of it. Ignoring it, I floored the gas and headed toward my house.

“You going to your house?”

“Yeah.” My knuckles whitened from how hard I was gripping my steering wheel.

“We’re gonna meet you there. Go straight home, Ezra. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Ignoring my brother, I hung up the phone and rubbed the wheel. My body tensed and my back straightened. An ache passed through my clenched jaw and my eyes tightened with laser focus.

The drive to my house was a blur. My phone kept going off but I ignored each call. Ziora was the only person I was worried about right now.

By the time I pulled up to my house, River was there already along with Emmet.

Not bothering to turn the car off, I jumped up and rushed to the black truck.

“They were taken out execution style. One shot to the head,” River noted.

Both men were slouched over with a single wound with dried blood on their foreheads.

“Who the fuck!” I gritted.

“Ezra!” Inaya rushed out.

“Not now, Inaya.” I turned for my door. “Emmet, tell me you got something.”

“I pulled your security cameras. Looks like she willingly left with two guys.”

I paused. “What?”

He tapped his tablet. I unlocked my front door and pushed it open.

“Do you know these men?” Emmet asked.

I turned and looked at the tablet, squinting. “Those are the cops from the hospital.” At the same time Nazai pulled up with Lucas right behind him.

“The cops from the hospital?” Emmet said, refocusing me.

I nodded and turned toward the steps. “They showed up twice, once when Ziora was in surgery and again a couple days later. They wanted to question her about the accident.”

When I got upstairs, I went straight to the room I’d made her office. Her phone laid there on the desk along with files from Ryan.

“She was waiting for her systems to update when we were on the phone. She mentioned a hunch she had and wanted to do more research,” Inaya mentioned.

“What was the hunch?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Inaya shook her head. “She changed the subject and we started talking about you surprising her this morning.”

“Emmet.” But he was already ahead of me, going to her desk.

“What do we know?” Nazai asked as he stepped into the room.

“She left with those cops from the hospital.”

Nazai’s face stayed lax. “The ones that we spoke with.” I bobbed my head stiffly.

My hand ran down my face and I looked at River. “How the fuck did your guys let this happen?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No one can predict an ambush, especially from cops.”

“She had shown me the ring you got her and?—”

“The ring!” I cut Inaya off. I whipped around. “The ring has a tracker in it.”

I patted around until I remembered my phone was in the car. “Fuck, my phone’s in the car.”

“I got it,” Lucas mentioned, turning around.

My body was still raging with heat while I paced in place.

“So the cops were the last people to see her?” Nazai asked.

“Ziora doesn’t even trust cops. I’m shocked she went with them,” Inaya mentioned.

I stopped pacing. “I told her to act normal.” My hands balled tightly at my sides. “I didn’t want The Veil to realize we were on to them being behind her attack so I told her to play along as if it was random.”

“Here.” Lucas reappeared with my phone.

Clearing the notifications, I unlocked my phone and pulled up the tracking app.

“The guys made sure to stay off main streets where they knew cameras would be,” Emmet mentioned. He now had his laptop out and his hand moved rapidly across it.

“Got it,” I said and started to hurry out of the office but Nazai grabbed me.

“Let me go!” I gritted.

“Ez, we got to play this shit smart. We can’t just go in there guns blaring without knowing what we’re stepping into.”

“Fuck that! My wife is in trouble and who knows what is happening to her!”

We stood in a stare off. Normally I respected Nazai’s word as my older brother and the new leader of The Bloodline, but this wasn’t one of those times.

“I get where you’re coming from but we need a plan! We’re not reckless, you know that! And if these guys are really cops, we really got to play it smart. Chill out.”

My jaw clenched harder. The ringing in my ears grew.

“He’s right, Ezra, you know it” River tried to reason.

Flaring my nostrils, I pushed a heavy brush of air out and exhaled deeply.

“Let me see the phone, Ez,” Nazai encouraged.

Unblinking, I kept my eyes locked on my brother before slowly handing my phone over. “We got you,” he assured me. “E, we need to look into this address.” Nazai gave my arm a squeeze then walked to Emmet.

“Don’t worry, baby bro. You know if you fuck with one of us, then you fuck with all of us,” Lucas mentioned.

It took everything in me not to push past my brothers and rush out.

“Do you think she’s okay?” Inaya asked with tremors shooting through her voice.

My eyes zeroed in on her. “She better be,” I growled.

Pushing past Lucas, I went into my bedroom to my closet. I needed a moment to myself or else I was going to explode. I felt like an awakened volcano waiting to erupt.

My eyes went to Ziora’s side of the closet.

It was a mix of clothes I had gotten for her and ones she already owned.

Running my hands over them, the anger in me stirred hotter.

Stripping out of my suit, I didn’t even bother to put it in the dirty clothes.

I quickly threw on a black sweatsuit. The guys who had taken Ziora were about to wish they’d never even breathed in her direction.

____

“My guys said there’s been no movement in the house since they’ve been outside. They haven’t seen any sign of Ziora either,” River said into the earpiece.

My leg bounced as I sat in the front seat, eyes locked on the house in front of us.

Emmet looked up details on the house where Ziora was being held.

It was in The Sticks on an abandoned block.

Most of the homes looked to be in foreclosure or knocked down.

Only a couple still stood and looked to be lived in.

“I don’t know why we’re waiting outside when Ziora’s in there, probably waiting for me!”

“Chill, Ez,” Nazai coached. “Emmet, do you see anything?”