Page 10

Chapter

Ten

Q uin had been knocked out enough times that he knew exactly what was happening when he started to swim back to consciousness. He braced himself mentally against the headache, and he just let his body stay loose. Whoever or whatever had hit him, he wasn't home, he wasn't in the hospital, and he wasn't at the bar.

Which meant he was in trouble.

And the longer that whoever hit him thought he was unconscious, the better this was gonna go for him.

"What are we going to do now?"

"We make up our list of demands, and we get them to the person who can fulfill them. His one brother's a lawyer."

"I don't like this. I don't like this at all. I think that we should get rid of him—just slit his throat, dump him off, and let's get out of here. This is a stupid damn idea."

Okay, so he had Big and Growly who was the asshole who'd hit him, the polar bear. The second voice was equally big and equally growly, but different. He didn't dare open his eyes to peek, but the ‘let's slit his throat’ guy had to be small and, well, weasily.

In fact, Quin would bet that it was a weasel.

Possibly a rat.

Maybe a really mean little squirrel.

It was inevitable that squirrels were mean, because who wouldn't be when it was just a terrible situation. It was sort of like a Chihuahua—all the ferocity in the world and absolutely no way to deal with it.

Could it be a raccoon?

Nah.

Raccoons, while they tended to be morally flexible, were rarely murderers.

"We can't kill him until we get the money, and I want a list of all the safe houses. I've had enough of this shit." Oh, big and growly kidnapper number two, you are destined for disappointment.

"Don't you watch TV? None of this stuff ever goes well. It never, ever goes well, and you should know that." He could almost hear the little critter's whiskers twitching. "Ask for something reasonable, couple of million dollars, then kill him, then get out. They're not going to give up the damn safe houses."

"How exactly did you get into human trafficking if you were going to be such a coward?"

There was a grunt, then a scuffle, and then the polar bear roared.

This time, he did peek, and yep.

Weasel.

And weirdly, he looked just exactly like the ones in Who Framed Roger Rabbit , if he’d had a zoot suit on. How cool would that be?

Oh man, he was queasy.

The polar bear was bleeding, though. Not like oh I've stabbed you to death and you're bleeding or oh I've slit your throat and now you're dripping, but there’d definitely been a cut made. There was blood on the high cheekbone.

Impressive.

"Watch yourself, Fuzzy. You are not the brains behind this operation."

"No, that would be me."

Dude. Was that like a were-big horn sheep? Look at those curly horns. That was fascinating and creepy.

It kind of offended him on a deep personal level, honestly, that an herbivore would be running this whole thing. It just seemed like vegetarianism should breed better morality.

It was probably a stupid idea. In fact, it was absolutely dumb, but it was the only thing that was going through his brain. and right now, he was a little cracked to be honest.

Mate? Quin! CAN YOU HEAR ME?

His eyes rolled up in the back of his head, the sound like a chisel to his brain. EASY!

The entire universe had to have heard that.

Sorry. Sorry. Where are you?

Don't know. Somewhere big, echoy. Maybe a warehouse. There are three of them. There should be a ransom call ‘ere long.

We figured. We’ve got a partial plate, but if you hear names…

We being you and my brothers?

Yeah, the phone trick worked. He could hear Thiago’s proud smile, and it made him want to grin, but he kept his face still, slack, as if sleeping the sleep of the whacked on the head. Good. Good, now get me out of here.

What’s the code to open your phone, just in case? And we’re on it. If you get anything tell me, but I’ll shut up so they don’t know you’re awake.

Okay, love.

God, it was comforting to know that Thiago and his brothers knew what was going on. Now he just had to keep the weasel from slitting his throat.

But he also wanted to know why these fucks were looking for where all the safe houses lived. Did they really think they were going to snatch all these omegas? And where the hell were they selling them?

Hang on, mate. I’m coming.

I believe you. And he would wait as long as it took.

Or as long as he had, anyway.

“He’s awake. He says they’re going to send a ransom demand. He has no idea where he is, but he says they were talking about it.”

Thiago paced, and he was about to tear a hole in the floor of the bar with it. He needed to find his mate, dammit, and he hated this shit.

“Then we’re at the right place. Or, if they send it to one of us, Adrian or Eyre will call us right away. And we have your Graham and our head of security, Cyrus, on it too. They can work wonders sometimes.”

He snarled. “You two are far too calm.”

“What are we supposed to be doing?” Rian was sipping a Coke with a tiny bit of Jack in it. Not enough to even slow him down, but Thiago guessed it helped. He couldn’t do it. He needed all his faculties for when he knew where his mate was being held.

Rian’s phone rang, and they all jumped, then he and Symon stared.

“Hey, baby.” Rian sat up out of his slouch. “Did the cameras get anything? Are you okay? All right. And Forrest is still with you? Good. Okay. No, it’s good you called Cy first, but send me a picture of the note. Okay, baby. Thank you.” He hung up.

“They brought the letter to my house,” Rian told them. “Eyre has it. They caught it on camera because the assholes didn’t know we had a battery backup, even if they knocked out the power. They also had no idea that Adrian set up a closed system so no signal jammer could take it out.”

Thiago had to admire that shit. “That’s a damn good system.”

“We try. Anyway, one of Cy’s men is following the drop guy, and the other one stayed with my mate. He’ll take Eyre to Boulder now, Symon. We have the contact we need so that we’ll communicate by phone now. We need Adrian to patch in to track my calls before I dial it, though.”

Symon bared his teeth in a totally wolfy grin. “He’s already ready.” Symon pulled out his own phone, and his fingers flew as he texted someone. When there was an answering chime, Symon nodded. “Go for it.”

Rian pulled out his phone. “I’ll put it on speaker, but let me do the talking.”

Thiago growled again. He was used to being the one in charge.

“Down, kitty. We’ll let you lead the rescue mission, since Quin said you were ex-military. But this is my area of expertise. Talking and negotiating.”

Thiago just nodded, not sure he trusted himself not to shout. He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. He could do this.

Rian called the number, waiting for it to ring before putting it on speaker.

“What took you so long, asshole,” the man who answered said.

“Interesting conversation starter,” Rian drawled. “I was not at home. My mate had to send me the note via text. You say you want to make your demands. What are they?”

“We want two million. We want you to stop messing in our business. And we want all the safe house locations in the Denver area with a twenty-four-hour head start.”

“That all seems highly unlikely, I mean, I can arrange the money all right, no problem.” Rian’s expression was pure wolf, the tone cold and crisp. “I’m not sure what your business is, so it’s difficult to say that we’ll stop messing in it, and what was the other part? The safes and houses? Quin lives above the bar.”

“Safe houses, asshole.”

“What exactly is it that you think you want? I’m not following,” Ryan said, stalling beautifully.

“Don’t. I don’t wanna play with you, and you definitely won’t wanna play with me. We know your brother has safe houses. We want the locations.”

Thiago didn’t like this. Not even a little bit. They all knew no one was going to give up the safe houses, even if it meant Quin’s death. And didn’t that thought just horrify him? No. He would die first to bring Quin home.

“—what, is he running drugs now or something? Is this a thing?”

“Quit playing dumb!” someone who was not the original voice screeched.

“Shut up!”

“Look, I’m not my brother’s keeper. I’m not even one hundred percent sure that I’m much more than my brother’s lawyer who gets him out of jail periodically.”

“Do you want us to cut his balls off? Because we will. We castrate his ass and then see if you would don’t want to negotiate a little bit more.”

Thiago was going to lose his mind. Just absolutely lose it, but Rian held one hand up and shook his head.

“If you’re going to do all that, why don’t you just ask him where the houses are?”

Wow. You’ve really pissed them off, Quin told him.

Yeah? Rian seems to be extremely handy at that.

You have no idea. It’s literally his superpower.

Thiago rolled his eyes. Quin must be feeling better. Can you give me a sitrep?

There’s a weasel, a bighorn sheep, and the polar bear. Weasel is knife happy and a little insane. Polar bear is the muscle. Believe it or not, the big horn is the goddamn boss.

Your prejudices are showing. He’d known plenty of herbivores who were willing and capable of doing violence, just like he’d met apex predators who were kind and gentle, generous to a fault. It wasn’t all that uncommon even.

Right? The mental snort almost made him smile. The big news is I’ve just managed to get my hands free. Tell Rian to keep them talking. I’m gonna try to get at least out of range. The little one’s knife looks sharp, and I like my balls attached.

He did too. In fact, he had recently adored said balls with his tongue. Good deal. Be careful.

If not, don’t get caught, right?

Fuck him. He hurried over to where Rian was still talking in that dry, icy tone.

He grabbed an order pad and scribbled out a note.

Q is loose. Keep them talking.

“Look, you unctuous motherfucker. We want our money. Meet all of our demands by eight a.m. tomorrow, or we start carving him up.”

Rian’s eyes were like chunks of coal, just burning with rage. But he kept his tone light, amused. “Goodness, I would never have said you knew a word like unctuous, let alone how to use it in a sentence. Eight a.m. might be a bit much, considering the banks are now closed and they don’t open until eight. One can tell you’re not much for strategy.”

“Eight a.m., or you’re going to get your brother’s balls in a box by eight fifteen. Do you understand the words that are coming of my mouth?” The man slammed the phone down, and Symon swiped the phone before Rian could grab it.

“No throwing.”

“Dammit.” Rian growled. “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.”

“So if they can get the balls to you by eight fifteen, that means they’re not far from…whose house?” It made a difference, because that changed the radius.

“I think that means the bar,” Symon said.

Ha! Symon said. He loved that.

I’m heading up to the upper floors. I’ll let you know.

Relief flooded him. “He’s free and moving around so I don’t think it’s going to be eight. I think he’s going to be out of there soon. We just need to figure out where there is.”

Symon nodded. “Let me see if anybody figured anything out about the phones. These guys aren’t that bright.”

“I don’t guess you have to be when your job is to steal and ship.”

Rian frowned at him. “Steal and ship? Really? Tacky.”

“Sorry. Not a high-class type of guy.” He wasn’t ashamed of it, either.

“Bah, that just means you and Quin are well-suited. He likes to slum.” Rian waved one hand. “What did you mean about steal and ship?”

That seemed obvious to Thiago. “You don’t hear a lot about omega sex slaves here in the States, do you? They’ve got to ship them somewhere. I would think overseas is the best way to do it.”

“The important part is getting Quin out of there,” Symon pointed out. “And finding out where there is, so they don’t just torch the place and burn Quin inside it.”

He wanted to roar with that, but he kept it in. “Exactly.”

I can see stuff from the upstairs window.

His heart started racing even faster. Good. What do you see?

The civic center. And it’s totally where I would see it from the edge of the Capitol Hill area. So I’m close to Rian’s house, not the bar.

“Morons!” Thiago snapped. “He says he’s near your house, Rian. Not here.”

“Then we need to get there. What did he see?”

“The civic center.”

“So Capitol Hill for sure,” Rian agreed.

“Isn’t that kind of a dangerous area?” Thiago asked.

“Oh, I live in a pocket of tree-lined streets with old mansions. And I’m a wolf. Who bought up the three properties surrounding me.” Rian winked.

“Nice.” Thiago had to admire that. Create the life you want had always been his motto too. “Can we go get my mate now?”

“Yes. Symon will ride with you to get you to my house, and we’ll work out from there.”

“Got it.” They all hopped in a vehicle, and as they took off, Symon’s phone rang. “Cy. You’re on speaker. He can see Civic Center Park from the Capitol Hills side.”

“That confirms what I thought. Now we just have to narrow it down. I’ve been canvassing that area.”

“We’re on our way. We’ll start at Rian’s. We might be able to pick something up, and by then he might be able to tell us more.”

“Got it, boss. I’m on the job.”

“I know. Thank you, Cy.” They hung up, and Symon slapped the dashboard. “Goddamn it, I want him out of there.”

“You think I’m not losing my shit?” He glared sideways at Symon, his hands clenching on the wheel as he drove. He was going to start shouting any minute. He needed to see his mate. To hold him.

“I’m sure, but no offense, he’s been our brother for a long time.”

Now Thiago growled. “Would you allow anyone to say that to you about your damn mate?”

“Symon’s eyes flashed gold. “I would not.”

“Well, there you go.” He could follow Rian, as the hour was getting late, so he and Symon went without too much more chatter. They pulled into Rian’s house after what seemed like an age, though, and he kept asking where his mate was.

So far, Quin hadn’t gotten caught. But how much longer did he have.