Page 19

19

BOAZ

“I’m home.”

I flourished a bunch of flowers over my head, expecting Keane to fling his arms around me and say I was the best mate ever. And I was.

But the house was quiet. Not unusual, because he needed extra rest thanks to the little one growing in his belly.

I crept into the bedroom with the flowers behind my back. Poking my head around the door, my smile faded. The bed looked exactly as it had this morning when I made it before going to work.

What the…?

My heart constricted, and my wolf complained, telling me to cut it out and find Keane.

“Okay, stay calm. Nothing’s wrong. He’s fine. We’re all fine.”

Talking out loud to an empty room was supposed to convince me that was true. Damn, why had I listened to Keane when he insisted on getting rid of the damned cameras and tracking app. I slammed my fist on a nightstand, and it cracked and splintered, pieces of jagged wood scattering over the lush carpet my mate had bought.

This was what happened when I listened to other people. “Why?”

Slumping onto the couch with my head in my hands, I tried to piece together my scrambled thoughts. I could make this right because that was what I did for the pack. I was a fixer.

“Think, Boaz.”

Keane was working at home, so there were no bodyguards, but we had a security system on the gates and around the house. Keane had agreed to those because someone had snatched a parcel he had delivered.

“Okay, I can do this.” I logged into the system and scrolled back until my mate left the house around lunch time. Shit, he’d been gone for hours. He might have been kidnapped and flown across the country by now.

There was no one else in the feed, apart from me when I left for pack headquarters.

I screamed into a cushion, my frustrated tears wetting the expensive fabric. Oh no, Keane would be pissed at me. And I longed for him to be angry because he’d be here, safe and wagging his finger while pointing out the material needed to be dry cleaned.

Ezra. He was the tech guy of the family. He’d hack into the city’s CCTV network and find my mate.

“Help,” I barked into the phone without waiting for him to answer. “Keane’s missing. I need your skills.”

“I’ll bring the others.”

Ten minutes later two cars pulled up. Four brothers in one and Maynard in the other. They stormed in with glowering expressions and guns at the ready.

“Spill.” Ezra had his computer open, and the others roamed around the house, opening and closing doors.

I blurted out the details, and my brother paused his typing. “Did you try phoning him?”

His words hung in the air, but they were muddled and I couldn’t make sense of them. Had I called Keane? I checked my phone. Nope.

“And he didn’t message you.”

“Ummm…” My brain had stopped processing my thoughts the moment I exited the empty bedroom.

He had agreed he’d let me know if he was going out alone, and I flipped through the many apps on my phone. There was one, but I didn’t receive a notification.

“It says, ‘Going to the library and then grocery store.’”

“It’s a place to start.” Ezra typed furiously on the computer and told me to get something to eat. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

That had been happening a lot since I met Keane. I was consumed by him.

Lake had me sit at the kitchen island while he made sandwiches for everyone.

“He was at the library, but I can’t find any sign of him leaving.”

I leaped up. “Great, he’s still there.” That was why he wasn’t answering his phone. He had to mute it at the library.

“Where are you going?” Thiago asked.

I yelled over my shoulder I was going to the library.

“Wait!” That was Ezra, and I closed my eyes, wishing he hadn’t spoken. He was going to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. “The library closed early today because they have a private fundraiser this evening.”

“Okay, he stayed for that.” He was giving money to a worthy organization; the library.

“Nah, invitation only, black tie, super exclusive, the elite of the city.”

Not something a mafia’s mate would be invited to.

My stomach churned, and I rubbed a hand over it, reminding me of Keane doing the same over his pregnant belly.

“Why did I listen to him?” I tugged a fistful of hair and raged at my mate.

“Boaz!”

That was a tone that only an older brother could use, and I kinda stood at attention, waiting for Maynard to berate me.

“Keane needs the Boaz of old, the single-minded asshat who’d never met a problem he couldn’t solve.”

Had I lost my edge after meeting Keane? Maybe I wasn't the right candidate for Alpha or even as a mate.

“When Keane is safe, you can go back to whatever this lovesick version of you is.” My oldest sibling accompanied his putdown with a grin.

“Hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He cuffed my ear, and my wolf growled.

“Keane made you get rid of all your sneaky stalking technology but did he ever share his location on the family sharing group?”

“Huh? My mate isn’t on the brothers’ chat group.”

“Not that.” Ezra explained about the phone app. I had no clue what it was or if I had it. But my brother took my phone and held the display in front of my face. “You thought he’d gotten his way regarding keeping tabs on him, but he let you know you could find him if you looked.”

Tears blinded me. Keane had trusted that I wouldn’t abuse that privilege.

Ezra placed two fingers on the phone display and searched the map. “He’s not at the library.”

My belly performed flip-flops, and I begged the universe to tell me my mate was on the way home or about to walk in the door.

But when my brother glanced at me, his pale cheeks told me all I needed to know.

“Just tell me.”

“He’s on the far side of town.”

Okay. Maybe he had a friend there or he’d taken another job and not told me about it. Nope, we had a pact that he’d always disclose any new clients or jobs because of what happened with the club.

The room was silent as four of my brothers shared worried glances.

“Just tell me, Ezra.”

“It’s in or close to the office rented by what remains of the Ironclaw pack.”

“What? But I took out Cassian at the club, and you all killed his bodyguards and Betas.” With the top echelons destroyed, the pack was in disarray and would take years to recover.

“Seems like there’s someone with enough power and know-how to want to hurt you specifically.”

Cassian’s mate, Asher. It had to be him, because that was what I did when Cassian tried to kill Keane.

I removed the gun from the holster and checked the bullets. “I’m going to get him.”

“Of course you are.” Riggs stepped forward. “And we’ll be with you, but you can’t go in blind, Boaz.”

He made sense. I liked plans. They prevented people from getting killed, and these were my brothers. Alpha would be pissed if we caused another incident as we did at Moonbound. But mates came first, and as angry as he might be at us drawing attention to ourselves, he wouldn’t fault me for doing it. My methods maybe.

“Fine. I’ll give us fifteen minutes to plan, and after that, I’m in the car.”

We sat around the kitchen island, each of us researching. The roads surrounding the building and any dead ends. The location of the CCTV, how many pack members were likely at the headquarters, and how many of those were aware Keane had been kidnapped and on their premises.

My mind went back to the night Keane and I met, and I struggled to breathe. He was a cat. He didn’t have a ferocious wolf inside him. Cats had nine lives, and my mate was a wily one. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

But he had our baby in his belly, and he’d protect our little one until his last breath.

Maynard put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t think that. It will blunt your skills, and we need you to be on top of your game.”

Lake and Riggs went to the basement and got ammunition and more weapons. Thiago had his knives.

“We drive to here and cut the engines for the last fifty yards.” Ezra showed us a place two blocks from the Ironclaw building.

Four of us would surround the building, while I’d be the distraction by knocking on the front door. But while I knew few details of Asher, he’d been mated to Cassian for years according to what we’d discovered, and he would expect me to come with my brothers. But while our headquarters was on five floors, theirs was ground level.

And that gave my brothers the opportunity to do something unexpected.