Page 142 of Captivated

“Pay to make it faster, Lucian.”

“Don’t assume I wouldn’t, Joe.”

Yeah …

Damn.

“Any news on your end?” he thought to ask.

“No, but the mother was on the television tonight. Blaming us again,” Lucian grumbled.

Huh.

“Maybe I’ll start with her,” Joe said.

“Joe, that’s dangerous. She might not know your name like she does ours, but she will recognize your face if someone thought to put a goddamn picture in front of her. You’re going to force yourself into a worse position, and what might have been a short while away until the dust clears could be far longer.”

Worth it, he thought.

As long as he got Liliana back.

Nothing else mattered.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Joe swore he could feel the fucking watch on his wrist counting down time, and it was driving him fucking crazy. Each time that second hand moved, it felt like a jolt of electricity against his wrist. Had the watch not been a gift from his mother last Christmas, he probably would have ripped it off and thrown it in the fucking garbage.

Other shit to do, Joe. Focus on other shit.

Yeah, right.

Other shit.

He stood leaning under the street lamp, and despite knowing he should do literally anything else, he lifted his wrist up to stare at the watch. The second hand passed the twelve, and then the minute hand moved along with the hour hand.

Seventy-two hours.

Liliana had been gone for seventy-two hours.

And they were still no closer to finding her.

Fuck.

That pain was back in his chest—deep, aching, and thumping hard. He had at least been able to breathe through it the days before, but now it had turned into something else entirely, and even breathing didn’t help.

Nothing fucking helped.

Joe forced his gaze away from the watch, but only because something else had caught his eye. The woman stepped out on the front porch of her large, tucked away home. The quiet suburb just outside of the city limits was, for all purposes, as safe as it could possibly be.

Except when it came to people like him.

The woman fixed her jacket, and took a cursory glance around her front yard, but little else. She certainly didn’t look far enough down the street to see Joe standing under the lamp light. For the most part, he wasn’t even trying to hide.

He meant to be seen.

At least, by this particular woman.

The senator’s wife.