Traded (Blood Ties Book 5)

I typed out a message:

Status update?

Then hit send.

I didn’t look up, didn’t focus on anything other than the screen as I waited. I didn’t have to wait long.

Beep.

London: Heading home now.

I typed again:

I’ll be back later. I have something I need to take care of.

I waited a second after the screen died before I moved, lifting my gaze to the darkened alley on the seedy west side of the city. The business card buckled in my fist as I clenched. I didn’t need to read the words because I’d engraved them into my mind.

We want the daughter.

I clenched my jaw, shoved open my door, and climbed out of the car. They could want all they wanted. I was here to give them an answer…son to son. I closed the door and locked the car behind me as I headed to the address printed on the card. It was some kind of cannery that’d long gone out of business and was now used for illegal rave parties the cops stayed far away from.

I headed along the alley to a steel door. Movement came from the corner of my eye as a big dude slid from the front of a black Mustang.

“Looking for something?” he inquired.

“Yeah.” I held up the card. “This. Know it?”

He barely glanced at my hand before he stepped toward the doorway, turned the handle and yanked. Hinges squealed as the door opened and the heavy thud of the music spilled out.

“Good luck,” he muttered as I stepped in, leaving him to close the door behind me.

I didn’t need fucking luck. I needed a goddamn shower and a solid eight hours of sleep—I scanned the darkened warehouse of packed partygoers, finding a DJ standing on a podium up front, waving his hand like a damn idiot as he blasted some heavy metal track through the speaker—I wouldn’t find either of those here.

I kept my focus on those around me as panicked thoughts tried to push in. How the fuck was I supposed to find some jackass in here? Some asshole shoved into me. I jerked my gaze toward him, finding a stoned-out stare before I shoved the bastard back, watching him topple and disappear amongst the head-banging bodies once more.

Think…

My pulse thundered, driving that frustration deeper. Fuck.

I couldn’t get a handle on this, not after the fucking night I’d had. My fingers were still bloody, my mind still dialed into the need to hunt.

Until the slamming bodies and the guttural screams faded away.

That’s it…

Hunt.

Instinct took over, dulling everything else around me. I didn’t care about the rave or the music. I didn’t care about anything but that honed hunger inside me. The one which wanted me to strangle, shatter…and gut every motherfucker around me. I stopped walking, staring at a point straight ahead as I sank into the darkness.

I wasn’t like them. I wasn’t like any of them. I was broken and rebuilt…different.

Not just a hunter…or a killer. I was a fucking machine. Cold. Empty…detached. My brother and London were the only two people in existence who made me flick the switch to human. Right now, I needed that emotionless part of my nature more than anything. It was that coldness I turned to…that cruel part of my nature that took over, leaving me to scan the blurred faces of the lambs all around me.

I was a hunter now…only it wasn’t them I hunted. It was my own kind—a son. I turned away and kept on walking. He wasn’t out here, not amongst the drugged idiots sweating and sleeping, oblivious to the war waging around them. I headed to the rear of the old warehouse.

The darkness called me.

Hidden.

Quiet.

That’s where I’d find him.

Because that’s where I’d be.

I pushed forward, sinking down into the dark depths. My strides lengthened. Shoulders hunched slightly. My eyes low, scanning those around me as I slipped along the side of the podium. The DJ turned his head, finding my gaze before he scowled and looked away.

He should…

His music was shit.

Another bouncer stepped out of the crowd as I neared the rear door. One glare and he gave a jerk of his head. I knew the drill by now. Not that it’d help them. I stopped in front of him and lifted my arms. The pat down was fast, finding nothing. The bouncer nodded, stepped aside, and opened a door behind him.

I stepped in and closed the door behind me, finding dark murky lighting and a makeshift bar filling the space. I sensed the son the moment I stepped in, cold, secretive, his gaze narrowing in on me like a laser.

Careful gazes cut my way. Silas Ares sat at a small round table in the middle of the room, eyefucking someone in the corner before he turned to me.

We weren’t friends. Fuck, we weren’t even allies, but he gave a slow, careful nod, acknowledging me. I returned the same before movement came in the corner of my eye and, what do you know…Nathaniel Wolf made his presence known.

He took one glaring look at Silas and chuckled.

Silas paled, and rage cut across his face before he winced. Then he rose, grabbed the bottle of Scotch, and pushed past, shouldering Wolf hard as he went. I stepped around them. Their bad blood was their bad blood. The last thing I needed was to get involved. I’d spilled enough of the shit just keeping my family safe.

My thoughts turned to her. The reason for all of this.

London should’ve never brought her into our home.

He should’ve never—

Carven! Her cry invaded my mind as I stepped around the table and made my way to the bar. CARVEN!

My damn pulse thundered with the sound as I pulled out my wallet, slipped a twenty on the bar and gave a nod to the grungy fucking asshole who grabbed a glass and poured.

I didn’t give a fuck about the drink. I was here for a different reason.

I turned and scanned the shadows that clung to the edges of the room, finding other familiar faces. Lazarus Rossi was there with some gorgeous redhead. He watched as I scanned her and moved on, feeling not even a flicker of interest. Instead, it was Wildcat that filled my head, remembering the way she’d covered my brother’s body with her own when I’d burst into that changing room when we’d come under attack.

It was always her…

Always fucking her.

I grabbed my glass and drained the Scotch as some asshole rose from the far end of the room. My senses came alive. Goosebumps rose, the hair standing on the nape of my neck. I scanned the rest of the room as the guy slowly made his way toward me.

My heart thundered, booming in my ears as he slid his empty glass along the bar in front of me, chewing a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.

“Carven,” he said carefully, and the panic grew until it was screaming inside me.

I searched the bastard’s face, trying to find a flicker of anything familiar. But there was none. He was older…older than us, hard jaw, the same cold, deadpan stare.

“The daughter,” he spoke quietly and casually as the bartender took his empty glass. “I want her.”

I clenched my jaw and waited for him to meet my gaze. “Not going to happen,” I answered.

All I could see was Colt as he’d fucked her. My brother was involved. Very…fucking…involved. That was the only reason I slowly rose from my seat, standing face-to-face with the motherfucker.

He leaned close to murmur against my ear. “It will if I say it will. She doesn’t belong to you.”

My heart punched against my ribs as that unmerciful need for blood rose. “You think she belongs to you?”

“She’s a daughter, isn’t she? They all belong to me.”

He straightened, meeting my stare as I answered. “Good fucking luck getting this one.”

A slow nod and he took a step backward. “Around you, or through you.” He gave a shrug. “Makes no difference to me. One way or another, the daughter will be mine.”

My breath caught as cold plunged through me. I wanted to stab the motherfucker. I wanted to stab and keep on stabbing until there was nothing left, but the moment he moved, so did another, stepping from the shadows behind me.

My pulse thundered as he followed the first asshole toward the door. Then another at my side moved, pushing off the wall. Jesus, I’d never even seen him. He was nothing but shadows…shadows with that bleak, vacant stare. One that fixed on mine before he turned and went to the door.

That chilling fear swept through me.

It wasn’t just one Son who was after Vivienne…it was three.

Three cold, fucking killers.

Around you or through you. Makes no difference to me.

We were in trouble…big fucking trouble. I knew that now. If we lost our daughter again, it would devastate Colt and London—a pang tore across my chest as her face filled my mind—yeah, they’d be fucking murderous.

I didn’t wait, just pushed forward and strode toward the door.

“Carven.” Someone called my name. “Hey!”

But I didn’t stop, I didn’t even slow. I just yanked open the door and plunged into the crowd and the music once more—desperate to find those who wanted to take what was ours.