Page 10 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune (The Wayward Sons #4)

I didn’t know what to do. Ryder had gotten himself arrested. He punched a goddamn cop. That was prison time. There was no coming back from that. How the hell was I supposed to protect him from a bunch of fucking vampires when he was sitting in a jail cell?

I couldn’t. I couldn’t blow my way through a police station and break him out of jail—well, I could , but it wouldn’t end real well. Especially not when we had vampires to worry about too.

I didn’t know how to save him.

Out of desperation, I called the kid in Chicago because I didn’t know what else to do.

Ryder trusted him as a resource, and I was out of ideas that didn’t involve utter chaos and destruction.

I was real damn close to outing the entire hunter world just to save Ryder.

Leveling a fucking city wasn’t off the table yet.

“ Riley Marx. ” The kid was straight to the point when he answered the phone.

“My name is Gray Harper,” I bit out, trying to hide the panic in my voice. “Please, help me. I ain’t got a clue how to save Ryder.”

“ I’m going to need more information than that. ”

“He got himself arrested.”

“ We’re not lawyers. Well, most of us aren’t lawyers. Either way, we don’t handle legal situations for hunters, ” Riley said.

“I don’t give a fuck about the arrested part. I could break his ass out of jail right now if I wanted to,” I told him. “I’m worried about the goddamn vampires.”

“ Vampires? ” The annoyed tone in his voice vanished. “ What vampires? ”

“The Vampires of Fortune are hunting him.”

The silence on the other end was deafening. Had he hung up? Given up? I wouldn’t blame him. I was asking a lot of a guy I didn’t know.

“ What’s his name? ”

“Ryder Josiah Collins.”

Again, more silence.

“ Ryder Collins is a fake name with barely enough history to be passable ,” he replied finally. Fuck. “ Save us both the trouble and tell me what his name is. I’ll find out one way or another. ”

“Josiah Hartford of the—”

“ Seattle Hartfords, ” he interjected. “ His family runs the Hunter House there. One sister, two brothers—one deceased. He— ”

“He didn’t mean to fuckin’ kill him,” I snapped quickly. No way was I letting some computer nerd from Chicago think that about Ryder. “It was an accident. He lost control of his power. He don’t deserve to be hunted like a goddamn animal.”

“ No, but it does help me understand what’s going on. I can’t help if I don’t know the whole picture. ”

“The whole picture?” I shot back, my temper flaring.

“The whole fuckin’ picture is his old man’s a goddamn dick—sendin’ vampires after his own kid and plannin’ to rip his soul from his body all over again to imprison him all because he can’t control his power.

Is that enough fuckin’ information for you? ”

“ It is. ”

“Can you help?” I retorted. “I ain’t got a whole lot of time to waste answerin’ questions if you ain’t goin’ to help me.”

Another round of infuriating silence. I was so damn close to hanging up the goddamn phone. I didn’t have time for this.

“ My team can help. Keep your phone on, and stay in your hotel. I’ll be in touch. ”

I glanced around the hotel room in surprise.

“How the fuck did you know—”

The phone went dead.