Page 138 of Captivated

JOE WALKED FASTER.

They still talked.

He didn’t have any need or reason to open his mouth and verbalize the same thing the rest of them were—this was bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

“What’s the stats?” he heard his uncle, Theo, say. “After forty-eight hours, the survival rate drops in half, right? We’re approaching that, Damian.”

“Could you not right now?” his father growled.

“I’m just saying—”

Joe could practically feel his father’s eyes nailing to his back. “Well, don’t, Theo. Jesus Christ.”

“He wants her alive,” Joe muttered.

He didn’t even bother to turn around when he offered that statement. He really didn’t see the point in looking at them while he talked. Besides, he had better things to do, and he felt that them coming to New York and taking time away from his effort to find Liliana was nothing more than a waste of his time.

More men in the pit.

More ideas they couldn’t use.

More loud voices.

Except … maybe Joe was wrong about that, and his father and uncle would be of great help. He really didn’t know, but his mood was too fucking low to care about anything else except for his own goddamn agenda.

And his agenda was getting Liliana back.

“He didn’t go through whatever effort he went through,” Joe continued, “just to get her back, and then kill her within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. He wants her. He likely wants her so that they can pick up right where they left off.”

“Good point,” his uncle said.

“Joe—”

“Please, don’t.”

His father cleared his throat. “All right, son.”

A sweet, small sense of relief flooded Joe even as his father’s hand came up to pat him on his back. It was a traitorous feeling—he didn’t deserve to feel anything except rage and fear until he got Liliana back, and only then could he worry about the rest.

Yet, he felt it then.

Because his dad was there.

Damian understood Joe.

It mattered.

His father came into step with him while his uncle stayed a couple of paces behind. “Cory is working resources—pulling whatever he can to help. He’ll give us a call should he find something worth using, or that might take us to the Earl man. He said he could do that work here, too, but I know when it comes to you your brother can be a little …”

Distracting?

Intense?

Difficult?

All of the above, but Cory would also feel the need to get Joe’s mind into a better place just because of what was happening. It was his younger brother’s thing. He was wild, but he was also a fixer when it came to his family. And it would only make Cory feel like shit when he realized this couldn’t be fixed.